August 5, 2022
Horses are eaters. Then horses are also poopers. A 1000 pound horse can produce 30+ pounds of poop a day. We've already covered the stall cleaning activity, now what happens?
The poop wagons are wheeled outside to the temporary poop storage area and dumped. Then what happens?
I must digress a little here. I've avoided this story because just thinking about it makes me hot. When we took over the ranch Winter told me, Mr. Jeff we need to move the poop. She always calls me Mr Jeff. As it turns out a friend of hers is very good with tractors and likes to help. Beth and I made a quick trip and when we returned we found the poop dump trailer had been loaded by Winter's tractor loving friend. But, when it was loaded and I mean fully loaded a tire popped. Not popped actually, more like exploded Winter recalled to us. Plus in our short absence we had a little rain. As mentioned 2022 Texas was in a drought so a little rain was a blessing.
However, a little rain on top of a packed poop trailer makes the trailer HEAVY and packs the poop down. So upon our return we found a very heavy poop trailer with a blown out tire right beside the poop pile. Obviously the poop pile had not been moved in some time because the poop in the trailer had not made a dent in the poop pile.
I have a lot of tools. Of course they are spread all over heck and back due to the hurried move. But, I didn't have a hydraulic jack that would budge that trailer. Off to the store for a twelve ton jack. If you know jacks you know the higher tonnage jacks don't lift a long distance. They are made for strength not distance. Good news the jack lifted the trailer but not enough to get the tire off. I stacked strong boards under the frame and lowered the trailer onto the boards. Then more boards under the jack and lifted the trailer up more. Did I mention it was the hottest day of that summer- like 104? Got the tire off and replaced, hooked my truck to the trailer and pulled it across the field to the long term poop storage pile. To get to the long term storage one must go through two gates that are kept closed. One of those gates was not a gate but two horse panels tied together that are physically difficult to move wide enough for a truck and trailer. Note to self put in a proper gate. By the way, there is a proper hinged gate at that location now.
Backed the trailer into a good dump spot, opened the tail gate and actuated the hydraulic lift on the trailer. Up it went, about one third of the way. Today, in hind sight, I know anyone with an ounce of sense would have towed the trailer back to the garage and fixed it. I didn't have an ounce of sense that day. Sometimes you just have to prove you can do it. It is a macho, no sense in my head kind of thing.
Determined to bring an empty trailer back I stared shoveling, and shoveling and sweating and using unkind words. I left the trailer partially up so gravity could help me unload. But gravity also works on humans, specially standing on top of a rain slick poop pile. It took me almost three hours to get the trailer empty. I must restate it was hot outside in the sun on top of a maturing poop pile that was 20 or 30 degrees hotter than the air. In hind sight, well hindsight is 20/20, it was not my best day. I got the trailer empty, staggered back into the truck, pulled the trailer back for repair and got smart. I went to the house took a shower and drank (water and Gatorade) and wife cut up a cold watermelon and I ate a bunch of that all while listening to wife say ‘why did you do such a foolish thing?” She said a lot more I'm sure but I'd made it to my easy chair and was asleep.
Epilogue, next day I charged the trailer battery and kept it charged during loading and filled the hydraulic reservoir and made eight more loads. Yes, 8 loads but the temporary poop pile is clean and I figure I'll clean it about every two weeks from now on. Except why did the hydraulic reservoir need refilling? Future episode- replacing the hydraulic cylinder from underneath a poop trailer.
