Oceana’s garden and new trailers

This week Oceana gave her garden an overhaul. Most of the remaining items in the garden had finished producing and were just taking up space – like the volunteer tomato plants. They took over nearly the whole garden and she didn’t even plant them! Some seeds dropped from a previous growing season and well, they just did their thing. She also harvested her sunflowers. Some of them were huge.

Tilling the soil

We got a bit of nice black soil and she spread it throughout the garden beds. Along with that, she got some sandy/dirt material from the inside of the chicken coup which should have plenty of good stuff in it to help the garden grow. With all the good stuff in the beds, she got out the hand tiller and mixed it in the soil. Watch her run this tiller like a boss!

More hauling

For me, not much happened with the house this week. I’m still pushing hard with the business – both keeping up with orders and then working hard on building/refining items to make the business more efficient. This weeks after hours activities have got to another new-to-me trailer. The old trailer works fine. However, as my business becomes more efficient, I’m processing more material in a shorter amount of time. That means I either need to make more trips to haul more material, or I need to be able to haul more material per load. I’d rather haul more material per load.

New old trailer

With my current trailer, the only way to haul more is to go higher. The higher you go, the more top heavy and unsafe it becomes. My solution is a flatbed trailer where the deck of the trailer is over the wheels. This will allow me to put two loads of lumber side by side rather than stacked. I found a great deal on a used equipment trailer and Oceana, Teak, and I went to pick it up during that hail storm a few weeks back. Every else is dodging hail and I’m like, “this trailer just listed 30 minutes ago – we’ve got to go buy it before someone else does!”

Rebuilding the trailer

Before putting the trailer into service, I’m giving it a full overhaul. That means new brakes, hubs, bearings, tires, wiring, lights, and paint. It’ll need a new deck at some point but that can wait for now. I’ve gotten the new brakes wired and installed, two new hubs on (amazon sent me two incorrect hubs), the wiring is ran, and the main areas have been wire brushed and primed. I painted the areas that the lights go in so that I can install the lights and finish painting later.

Tilt deck trailer

One neat thing about this trailer is that it’s a tilt deck trailer. That means the whole deck tilts for ease in driving a car, tractor, forklift, or other equipment up on there. It’s a pretty neat setup. It’s a homemade trailer and I’m really impressed with the level of detail that the builder put into this. The tilt is so perfectly balanced it’s amazing. I’m expecting to make the maiden voyage this coming week so I’ll be looking to finish it up over the weekend.

Odds and ends

Teak is doing well. Oceana got the scale out and we weighed him. 65 pounds! His parents were both 40lbs so we’re not sure what happened there.

I’ve got a few leads on a commercial warehouse for moving my business into. That’s a good start. I got something in my eye yesterday. I think it’s sawdust and it’s embedded in my cornea. After trying my normal techniques to get it out, I resorted to making a toothpick and trying to pry it out. No luck. So I went to an eye doctor and they weren’t able to remove it either! They’ll be referring me to an ophthalmologist today so hopefully they’ll be able to help me out. The good news is that it’s not completely through the cornea. I don’t even know when it happened.

I got to visit Tom’s farm this week and check in on Oceana (the cow) to see how she’s doing. She’s getting big! That’s all for this week. Thanks for following along!