This is how our lives work...opportunity knocks on the door and says "this is going to be great!". We go for it and then opportunity adds all the conditions and problems. This iteration of opportunity knocking went something like this:
Our sawmiller in Colorado, Joel, wanted a semi load of insulated garage door sections from where I work. Conveniently enough, he also had all of the logs milled that we had dropped off when we went to Colorado last. Hmmm....opportunity said, "You could load the lumber on the trailer and just pay for the back haul and save all that time driving to Colorado!" Given that there were at least 3 trips worth of lumber waiting for us, this sounded like a great deal, so we made the necessary arrangements.
The semi was originally scheduled to arrive Friday afternoon and we prepared accordingly. Then we got word on Thursday that the unload and reload in Colorado had taken longer than planned by quite a bit (I have no details about that end of the story, but given what happened on our end I think I can piece it together). The delivery was moved to Saturday morning between 8:00-9:00AM. Perfect. We got an extra day to plan, the weather was predicted to be better and more people were able to come help out. We start thinking that this is all working out pretty well!
On Thursday afternoon, Jeremy and I scavenged some long pallets from work to stack the wood on. Friday afternoon, Jeremy and some friends set them up and leveled them behind our shed.
Saturday, we're at the farm about 7:30AM cutting stickers to be able to stack the wood up as we unload it by the house site so that we don't have to touch it again until we're ready to build with it. We also utilized our volunteers (aka Amazing friends that we wouldn't know what to do without) to move a piece of the old greenhouse plastic up to the top of the hill so that we could cover up the stacks of lumber for the winter. We were ready to go at 9:00 when the truck arrived.
Semi making its way up the drive
Everything is ready to go at the top of the hill
All is well with the world as the truck makes its way slowly up the driveway. Then it gets to the bend, the icy bend, and the trailer slips off the road and the tires start spinning. Crap.
Semi is off the driveway
The driver explains how he doesn't think chains would be helpful and that he thinks he can back it back down the drive for another try. He starts up, gets going and slides farther off the road. He also managed to back the back of the trailer into the ditch on the passenger side. At this point, he can't go anywhere because the trailer foot is high centered on our (frozen) driveway. Double crap.
Semi is farther off the drive. Note the location of the back trailer wheels, the high point under the trailer foot and the general air of "oh crap" felt by all.
After much debate and some miscellaneous efforts to get traction for the semi, we start unloading the wood. The theory is that with the trailer being lighter, it will be easier to unstick the trailer foot. We moved 3 pallets down from the top of the hill that we hadn't used and set them up on the high side of the ditch. About this time, the sun had come out and started melting the remaining snow and ice. This made our ditch a mud pit that was wicked slippery. First, we unloaded a stack of 1.75" thick boards into our trailer. This wasn't as bad since our truck and trailer were on the drive and we could pull boards from the driveway side of the semi.
Jeremy, Daniel, Doug and I carry boards from the big trailer to our trailer. The kids and Robyn hand boards out to us from inside the trailer.
Then we unloaded a BUNCH of 1" boards onto the first pallet on the uphill side of the ditch (in case the semi needed the grassy downhill side to get out). Then came the first round of timbers. Getting these out of the trailer was the amazing work of our friend Daniel. He drug them to the back of the trailer and pushed them out as Jeremy, Robyn, I and Doug positioned ourselves under it so that it would rest on our shoulders to be carried to the waiting pallet. Here is where another friend (Doug) saved the day. He brought a pile of pit fines (which is a very find gravel mixed with limestone powder). After the first timber, Jeremy slipped and fell in the mud. No good. So we shoveled some steps in the ditch bank and spread the pit fines on it. Woot! Traction! The rest of the timbers were unloaded with nothing more eventful that exhausted people.
2 stacks of wood unloaded by the side of our ditch. Note the white pit fines next to the pile for traction.
Unfortunately, this left us with 2 stacks of wood in the trailer and a still stuck semi. Thinking that the lighter trailer might be more amenable to moving, we made another attempt to pull the trailer out of the ditch with the semi. No dice. Time to call for help! We paid a visit to our amazing neighbors, the Jameson's, who happen to own a very large tractor. I pleaded our case and they very graciously came to our rescue. With their tractor chained to the semi in front, we were able to pull the trailer out of the ditch. Then it was just a matter of pulling the whole rig down the drive until the semi wheels were also on gravel (instead of the newly created mud pit that was our north field).
Jeremy holding the chains for the tractor.
With that accomplished, the driver was able to back the trailer all the way down to the bottom of the drive where we unloaded the last of the wood. Our neighbor's son, Landon was incredible - he not only brought the tractor and expertly operated it, he helped with the unload! We'd have been sunk without him. We can't say enough good things about our neighbors!
The other 2 stacks. Note the deep ruts - that was the mostly unloaded trailer. It was lovely to slog around it.
Now for the moment of truth - could the semi pull out through the mud and back onto the road?
Jeremy, Chris (the semi driver) and Landon (our neighbor) in front of the semi after it successfully pulled out onto the road (note the tractor waiting to assist if needed).
Victory! Kinda. Now we come back to the moral of the opportunity story. We did manage to get all the lumber to Kansas for about the same as what we would have paid in gas (even including the extra time we have to pay for because the semi was at our place an extra 4 hours). However, we now have several tons of wood scattered around the property and none of it is a)where its supposed to be nor b)stickered appropriately to be able to stay where it is. We will be moving all of this wood again and stacking it correctly over the next week or two. Why move something once when 3 times will do?
On the upside, this should be enough to complete the house and a potential future addition (or another outbuilding). In the course of moving every board, I can also say with certainty that there is beautiful lumber here. We shouldn't need to haul any more for a very long time. At least until opportunity knocks again...
