Tank Troubles

I had received several unwarranted reviews on my last piece of writing. Maybe unwarranted is the wrong term. Unasked for is the word I’m looking for, because they are certainly warranted.

Anyway, certain someones held the opinion that 36 pages was far too long for a blog post, and that I should write shorter pieces, but upload them more frequently.

I will file this opinion with other life advice in a folder marked, “Useful Truths that I am Unwilling to Accept at the Present Time.”

(One particular critic is a frequent contributor to that file, because he is Brother. No matter how reasonable his advice is, its first stop is this file until I can become more receptive to it. I can’t imagine I’m the only one with this proverbial folder, nor can I be the only one with family members who fill it.)

Anyway, I apologize for the inconvenient length, but I’m not going to make any promises not to do it in future, because that’s not how this writing thing works here. How it works is that any time I get a spare few minutes, I open the notes on my iPod and type for a spell. Sometimes I just make a list of stories to jog my memory. Currently, the list looks like this...

Blog stories:

• tank fiasco:
  

  • Dad afraid of DOT

  • Dad looking up all the rules the day after to find out what he’d all done wrong.

  • Concluding that he’s reaaaalllyy glad he wasn’t caught.

• running after quad

• Barb being a turd again... x 2... 3... 4
  

At the moment, Dad and I have got the cows checked, and I have just ponied his horse back to the trailer while he stayed out with the quad and .22 to do some pest control on the gophers that have proliferated in one of the pastures. So now that I have one of those few-minute moments, let me begin to slowly pick away at my short list...

First on the roster, as you can see, is the tank fiasco. A few months ago, we were looking on Kijiji and various auction sites for a large tank that could be used to hold water. We are planning to use one as a water reservoir in one of the pastures that has a well, but not many sloughs. Cattle usually prefer well water (or at least, water they can drink from a trough), and it’s generally healthier for them, so it’s nice to water things out of a water bowl. However, it’s also best if there is some sort of reserve water source, so that if something goes wrong with the water system (not if, but when), they can still get water somewhere. At the aforementioned pasture, there are many sections of it that don’t have any good sloughs, and the well that’s there is shallow; it could go dry or not produce much in a dry summer. So the potential plan is to set up a tank that would hold enough water to supply approximately 175 steers or perhaps 100 cow/calf pairs for a couple of days. That way, they wouldn’t have to be checked every single day, as they would if we relied on only a water bowl and the well. Also, since cattle usually move as a herd and all decide to drink at once, the tank could fill the bowl quickly while the well slowly filled the tank.

Anyway, these are some of the reasons we had behind purchasing a tank.

A big tank.

A really big tank.

It’s a 10,000 gallon tank, 12 feet in diameter and 16 feet long.

When Dad contemplated those specs, he did some calculating and figured he could plop that sucker on the 18-foot bumper-pull car trailer.

We had to wait to pick it up, as the seller had a muddy yard and wanted to wait until it dried. It was also about a 4-hour drive away, in the next province over, so we had to commit a day to the endeavour.

In the months leading up to inevitably having to pick it up, Dad remained confident in his car trailer plans.

In the week before, he continued to shun any thoughts of doubt.

“It has to fit. The car trailer is almost as wide as the semi’s trailer.”

It seemed that every day, he was telling me or someone else how it was going to fit on the car trailer. How he would put blocks under it. How secure it would be.

On the evening before he and Mom were to make the trip, we loaded the truck with any sort of tools that might come in handy. We hooked on to the car trailer and loaded a few large railroad ties. We fuelled it up and packed a spare tire. Dad reiterated some of his confident plans for load securement and looked up a route map.

I went home that evening, and Mom and Dad presumably went to bed early, so that they could get an early start.

When I came back in the morning, I was surprised to find that the truck was where we had parked it the previous evening. When I went inside, however, I discovered no parents; only a note telling me when the heifers were last checked. I looked out the window and noted that the semi truck was gone.

The rest of my day was filled with doing things that I could manage alone with relative safety. I checked some fences, trimmed some horse's feet, and stayed close to home to check the heifers frequently. It was a peaceful day for me. When I came in for a late lunch in the afternoon, I got a small glimpse into the very not peaceful day that Mom and Dad were having. I got a phone call from Mom, who told me to get to the computer, go to their email account, find the permit for over dimension hauling that was recently emailed to them, and forward the permit to another email address. Things sounded a little hectic on her end, but our short conversation didn’t yield much information for me. I had to wait until they got back in the evening to get the whole story...

Mom and Dad had woken early that morning to get a head start on the long trip. To be more precise, Mom woke up early. Dad had probably not gotten much sleep at all, because by the time they were up and about, his months of being adamant that the tank would fit on the car trailer were at an end. He then resolved that he couldn’t risk going all that way with the car trailer, as it might not work, so they’d better take the semi.

I imagine this invited a round of early-morning panic from Mom, who then had to figure out how to fill out an online form to get plates activated for the semi and trailer, as we only activate the plates on them in the season that we use it (usually only fall for hauling bales). They managed to get that done and be on their way.

I’m not sure at what point they realized they would be an over-dimension load, or how they managed to get the right phone numbers to call for a permit, but that was where I came in. They managed to call and get a permit emailed to themselves, but with only two flip-phones between them, they needed me to forward the permit to the guy they bought the tank from, who had a printer in his house.

I think it was during the permit-obtaining phone call that they realized they were an over-over-dimension load. The lady they talked to on the phone explained that they would need city approval to take a non-truck-route through the city, as they couldn’t go on the normal truck route. Mom and Dad were a little miffed about not being allowed on the normal truck route, until it was explained to them that they would physically not fit under the overpasses. They asked what they needed for the city permit, and it was then that they discovered it was a long weekend, by way of the lady on the phone telling them they’d have to wait until tomorrow, due to it being the long weekend.

Dad wasn’t stumped for long. He did some calculations, got the over-dimension permit, and went out to the tank. He had the seller turn the tank onto its side, which sounds like something pretty ineffectual to do on a round tank, but the tank was up on 4” skids and had about a 4” lid on top. By turning it a little way, they were able to be about 3” under the over-over-dimension specs, which also made them 3” under the overpasses. Oodles of room.

Onward they travelled.

On the way up, they had had to go through a city, so they'd followed the truck route signs. The route had led them through narrow roads and a tight traffic circle full of vehicles that not only didn’t know how to use traffic circles, but also didn’t seem understand that where a semi’s steering tires go and where a semi’s trailer tires go are very different when maneuvering a tight circle. Dad had been trying to weave in the circle to fully take up both lanes, to try to impede traffic from driving beside him, but someone still managed to veer around him and squeeze into his off track lane. If your life is so rushed that you have to risk your neck to shave fractions off of a maximum 8 seconds spent in a traffic circle, then I’m here to tell you that you need to rethink some things.

Anyway, they made it through that with no load, but were resolved to find an alternate route on the way back.

I believe they did find an alternate route, and aside from holding their breath under the overpasses that they barely cleared, their way home was rather uneventful.

To that old couple’s infinite credit, they had managed to work through all these issues with some paper roadmaps, a pre-compiled list of phone numbers, a couple of pay-per-use flip-phones, and the printer and computer of the guy they bought the tank from.

It wasn’t until Dad got home from the trip that he started looking at the rule book for hauling an over-dimension load. This may have been inspired by the way his telltale heart had pounded when, on the way home, they had passed some poor soul that was pulled over by the Department of Transport. Dad was looking over his shoulder for miles, expecting to see flashing lights tearing after him. The DOT are notorious for throwing the rule book at you once they’ve got you pulled over. One of my driving instructors had gotten a fine for forgetting to sign one of the lines on her logbook. Another had been fined for the safety sticker on his trailer being damaged. Another had been notified (but not fined) that his homemade wide-load banner was supposed to be red-white-red striped, not white-red-white.

Yes indeed, the DOT cruisers put the fear of the Lord into truckers.

Dad found out later that he was very fortunate indeed to have made it home with no fines. For starters, it was a long weekend, and you’re not allowed to haul big loads on weekends, holidays, or past sundown. We’re not quite sure how he got a hold of anyone in order to even get a permit for that long-weekend Monday. For another thing, he was supposed to get a permit for each of the two provinces he was in. He only had one.

When I got my license, I had brought home a new log book just for such an occasion. Not surprisingly, Dad did not fill it out (a very fine-able offence). I imagine that if he had been pulled over, he would have tossed the book to Mom and told her to fill it out, and fast. The books are simple enough, but look very complicated, and I can just imagine a frantic Mom not even knowing where to begin. Once, Dad asked her to pass the milk and she passed him water, and when he reiterated, she looked to be in shock, and took a few seconds to recover. It was like when you hit the restart button on an old computer. Everything goes blank, then it starts clunking and whirring back to life.

She would not have coped well a DOT interaction.

Their load-securement was adequate (judging by the fact that the tank made it home), but I’m sure they could have been further fined for the worn out straps and blocks of wood holding the tank from turning.

All’s well that ends well, they say, and the truck, tank, and super-truckers all made it home fine and unfined.

For many moons, the tank sat undisturbed on the semi trailer. Every once in a while, a visitor would come into the yard and remark, “wow, that is a big tank,” but apart from being a tourist attraction, its only other purpose seemed to be to cause us anxiety when we considered how we would unload it. For a very long time, the 10,000 gallon tank was tomorrow’s problem.

Until September, when we ran out of tomorrows.

In September, we decided to sell the yearlings. That meant we had to haul the loading chute up to the yearling pasture so that we could load the steers onto cattle liners. We would also be needing the loading chute back at home to load up the yearling heifers into a liner. There would be minimal time to get from the steer pasture to home with the loading chute, but working cattle while not under pressure probably doesn’t even work (I wouldn’t know; haven’t tried it). Anyway, regardless of the hectic purposes we intended to put the semi trailer to, the crux of the matter was that the tank had to come off.

We began by taking the straps off and the blocks of wood out. Dad was letting the truck warm up as we did this, as he intended to pull the truck over to a good unloading zone. I asked if I should leave the blocks in or a strap on until he got where he wanted to, but Dad didn’t think it would move, so I took it all away. When he made that initial lurch forward, however, it did indeed move.

Since the tank had to be loaded on its side to slip under bridges, and since we had removed the blocks and straps holding it in place, the tank was resting on its circular side, free to roll up to the railing on the semi trailer. The four-inch skids along one side, which were inclined to travel towards the ground due to gravity, turning the tank with a lot of leverage-enhanced force, were something we hadn’t accounted for. The tank heaved against the railing, arms were waved, the truck was abruptly stopped, and breaths were held... but the railing didn’t fail, and the tank stayed on.

After that, Dad decided not to move the truck.

Only, we ended up having to move it more after our first attempt at unloading.

Our first attempt had two John Deeres on the skid side of the tank, chains attached and lifting with all their might. The payloader was on the other side, lifted just enough to make the chains tight until we could see how things would pan out. The tractors were on either end of the tank, so we could all see each other in our respective vehicles.

We only had to lift it high enough to get it off the deck of the trailer so that the trailer could be driven out from under it, but our tractor’s loaders were pretty well as high as they could go, which is not a great position to be lifting a heavy thing in. I was in the lighter tractor, so I was the arm-flapper this time. There are no wheel weights on the lighter tractor, so it was the first to start lifting up in the back. That’s not a good feeling.

We used to have an old John Deere that, if you geared up a little too fast, you’d pop up a bit on the front end. It was fairly harmless and somewhat entertaining.

Popping up a little on the back end is nether harmless nor entertaining.

Well actually, Dad looked a little entertained at my expense, as my face was probably pretty scared-looking.

He recently started a garbage pit on fire by climbing into the pit, pouring gasoline on a heap of twines, and starting up a little self-striking bottle torch right in the ball of gasoline-twines. He was downwind, so when it click-click-click-click-FWOOMPED! into fire, I watched my father get engulfed in flames. I also got a face full of the fire, but was at the top of the pit, so could easily back away. All I did in the moment of panic was act as advisory for my father as I said,

“Oh! Sh!t! Dad! Run!” (Apologies for the language, but there was a fire).

Dad didn’t do either of the things I had shouted towards him (I did a bit of both), but rather, I kid you not, turned to look at me with an amused expression before climbing precariously out.

Anyway, it was with this same amused expression that Dad looked at me when we were lifting the tank up and my tractor’s back tires were coming off the ground. In fact, I do believe he instructed me to let it down, then slowly lift on it a bit again solely for the purpose of seeing my face when I felt the tractor lift off again.

Since it was clear that plan was not going to work, so we moved on to another. We put blocks around the tank again, so it wouldn’t roll, then slowly pulled the truck into a more open space. Then, the payloader fit on the side with the skids, which was apparently a lot heavier, and we were able to hook the chains onto the tractors with their loaders a lot lower, which was safer.

The downside to our new system was that Dad was on one side of the tank with the payloader, and Mom and I were on the other side with the two tractors, so it was hard to communicate via arm-flapping. Somehow, we managed to lift at approximately the same rate until the tank was off the deck of the trailer. Then, the truck was driven away and we were left with three machines holding a very large tank quite high in the air. Effectively, it was same as when the trailer was there, but it looked a lot scarier when it was five feet off the ground than when it was one foot off the trailer.

Anyway, we were all out of our machines and scratching our heads a bit over how the heck we were going to put the thing down safely. It wasn’t quite as simple as letting it down gently, as the more we put our loaders down, the closer they would get to the tank. We didn’t want to get the whole process this far, and then puncture the tank on the homestretch.

The only plan we came up with was to lower it very slowly and at the same time, and if we needed to stop, to honk the horn. Mom and I were on the same side with the tractors, and were able to exchange wide-eyed looks of extreme nervousness as this plan was set in motion.

Slowly, slowly, we began lowering the tank. After a few feet, I could see that the teeth of our loaders were going to hit the tank, and neither of us were going to be quick enough to do a fancy reverse-a-tiny-bit-while-tilting-and-lowering-the-loader maneuver.

I honked the horn. Mom stopped, of course, but as I had suspected would happen, Dad could not hear.

I threw the tractor into park while still beeping the sad little horn, then jumped out and ran around to the other side to flap my arms again. We had stopped before anything hit, so all was well. We got the tractors repositioned a bit, then continued lowering the tank.

Slowly but surely, we got the big thing lowered to the ground. Then, we had to precariously turn the thing back onto its skids. We repositioned some things again, then lifted on one side with the tractors while the payloader pulled on the other side. Somehow, and I’m not really sure how, we managed to turn it back onto its skids without any major crashes, without any puncture wounds, and without being able to see each other.

Someday we will have to load that darn thing back up and get it set up in a pasture, but that’s a problem for tomorrow.

For the sake of concluding in a timely manner, I'll have to continue on my list in another post. Maybe by this time next year, I'll have the stories from 2022 all logged and blogged... another 36-page post should just about cover it.