Trailer Troubles

April 24, 2024

A trailer is standard equipment for a busy cottager, and my SnowBear served me well. Whether it was hauling building materials, garden soil, rocks, gravel, shingles to the Sno-Drifter dump or firewood, it never let me down. It also served me well doing duty for the Kiwanis Club of Nepean, supporting the garage and pumpkin sales, cleanup of our adopted roadway and the Christmas tree lot. Over the years, I only had two mishaps, both of my own doing.

The first was when I lost the tailgate along Woodroffe Ave when returning from a Kiwanis project. I went back to look for it immediately, but someone had already picked it up. It was a $300 lesson to remember to put the pins in when I install the gate.

The second mishap, or shall I say series of mishaps, was when I needed a ton of crushed gravel for my driveway at the cottage. Ralph Selle, down Douglas way, had a great deal on gravel. Twenty dollars a ton if you load it yourself. Just shovel it in, drive over his weigh scale (before and after loading), and leave your twenty bucks on the counter. Easy-Peasy.

The drive home was the problem. No trouble on the paved road, but Ruby Road was a different story with its many potholes. Driving very slowly I still could not stop the trailer from bucking and suddenly realized the tongue was dragging on the road. Luckily, Ellard Hass was busy at his lumberyard maintaining his mulch pile, so I pulled in through the open gate. The tongue of the trailer had buckled and was now acting like a plow. I laid down a tarp and started off-loading the gravel.

Ellard came over with his front-end loader to investigate. He took charge and, wrapping a chain around the front end of the trailer, he lifted it with the loader and we were able to block it up with end pieces of lumber that were lying nearby.

He had the tools and after removing the failed trailer tongue, advised me that I could get a new one made at the North American Welding Shop at Ben Hokum’s Sawmill on the other side of the lake.

Next stop was to borrow a trailer from Joe Foran, a Sleepy Hollow neighbour, to salvage my gravel. His was an older model trailer with a plywood bottom and I managed to get about three quarters of my load transferred. Driving carefully along Ruby Road, I was almost home, when I was flagged down by another neighbour, Roy Rutland. He asked me why I was gravelling the road. The trailer was empty and on investigation we found that the plywood bottom had separated making a gap of about an inch and a half wide, just enough for all the gravel to sift out. I returned the empty trailer to Joe and the next day he and Don O’Bireck were busy installing a new floor.

North American Welding came through with a new tongue that was sturdier than the factory supplied unit and at a reasonable cost of only $90. I called Ellard up to arrange for him to open his gate and went back for my trailer and what was left of my gravel. We installed the new tongue, hooked up the trailer and I limped home.

Neighbours in the valley can be counted on to help other neighbours in need and won’t accept payment but adhere to the pay it forward principle. I gave Ellard a couple of bottles of wine for his assistance and gave another to Joe.

So, in the end, my $20 load of gravel cost me an additional $90 for a new trailer tongue, three bottles of wine and a couple of days of extra work for me and my friends – and most of the gravel was lost along the way.

Oh, and I still owe Ralph a couple of bucks, but that’s another story.