Tractor Trailer

I have a love-hate relationship with tractors and trailers.  I love my tractors, the trailers not so much.  The gigantic flatbed trailer that is about a block long, makes a lot of banging noises when you drive it and is impossible to see as you drive it (‘that’s what your mirrors are for’ per My Loving Spouse) is the worst of all of our trailers to drive…and that is just forward.  The thought of having to possibly back that trailer up or drive it in populated areas makes me rather ill.

There are two types of trailer drivers, those who drive forward and backward and those of us Who Do Not Back Up.  We Who Do Not Back Up are sort of like a special club…almost a support group.  We don’t try to fix each other.  We understand and attempt to plan a route that includes no backing up.

We had a problem.  The herd needed more hay.  The best way to buy it is from a big hay company that sells ‘kick out’ hay.  Hay not good enough for exporting, but good enough for the herd.  Except…we have to pick it up…between the hours of 9 am-noon…and My Loving Spouse The Trailer Driver Forward and Backwards Guy is busy…all week…and we needed it now…which is why we ended up in an empty parking lot over the weekend for ‘trailer backing up lessons’ and honestly I’d have to say…I hated it.

Love of the herd found me calling the hay company early yesterday morning.

‘I want to make sure I go the right way’  (which is sort of code to those who belong to We Who Do Not Back Up to really mean ‘Lord have mercy do NOT make me back this trailer up’), I said to the gal who is in charge of telling ‘kick out hay buyers’ where to go what to do, when to weigh the truck, where to go with the truck and possibly making them back up!

‘Oh, I don’t back up my trailer either’, she said on the phone.  Oh, thank goodness, I thought, she belongs to the group (We Who Do Not Back Up)!  I managed to go to the hay company, get the hay, drive through their yard, not get in the way of about 5 gigantic fork lifts, and 3 hay trucks, get home without side swiping anything or anyone.  I did not need to back up until home and then it was only for me and I will say, I did a fairly impressive job.

I stacked the bails in the barn, fed the starving animals (who are all a bunch of liars, claiming to be starving every time they see me) and needed to put the trailer away.  5 back up tries later and I decided to leave the trailer out in the North 4 to be dealt with by My Loving Spouse.  I had to go to town and needed that darn trailer off of the truck, if I was going to do it safely for all of us, except that the trailer didn’t want to let go of the truck.  I could not get the trailer hitch to let go of the ball thing.  I needed more power…in came Blue to the rescue.  I used the front end loader to pick up the trailer, which I had to do twice before the trailer let go of the ball, but it worked…and that is just one of the many reasons why I love tractors so much better than trailers.

It still amazes me that part of my answer to a problem includes driving a tractor and actually knowing how the front end loader even works!  Life is good…as long as I do not need to back up.