Muck Boots 'n' Slickers - Life of a Livestock Hauler

Early on in my truckin experience the 8820 was thee John Deere combine. It wasn’t uncommon on big farms to see 4 or 5 of em cutting in a line together and hoppers stacked around the field like cord wood.
Last time I done any harvest trucking 6 or 7 years ago the 680R was the machine. I’ve never seen more than 2 in same field at same time. I was literally amazed at that one putting out a 1000 bushel of corn every few minutes in good corn. I kinda giggled that first day all these trucks for 1 #### machine. Combines come a fair piece. Elevators why the hell are we not getting them the same way.

 

That’s pretty accurate.

 

I set my first field on fire in a c70 Chevy. Grampa was running the 7700 and hadn't latched the unloading auger proper. I jumped out to tell him bout it and by the time I got to the truck again the manifold had a fire going already.

 

Regular cab short bed F150, 20’ gooseneck cattle trailer…. Load capacity???

 

Major Lewis at the Conway Arkansas Sale barn told me a universal secret. Works on any size or shape trailer. He had my load card drawed out and I had poked at em a bit but they wasn’t having it. So I went and told him wasn’t no way we could put 125 head on that 51 ft tandem. He grabs his cigar in the ash tray and his bull whip off his rifle barrel as he went out the door. I unpiled what I had and he said “ Son you gotta learn to pack em on till the hides a hangin out. Any thing stumbles or looks bad goes on the top and tail. Them #### state scales is optional don’t worry with em they say anything tell em I said it be ok. Get ya bologna sammich and a Dr Pepper for the ride you gotta be in Raton NM at daylight no way around it.

 

Central South Dakota has always had terrible groundwater. Up until they started piping water from the Missouri River to everyone most people had a water softening system. Back in the 80’s it was non-stop running to Utah. Shoemaker Grain (pictured) and Cobb Trucking were out of Belle Fourche, and there was my dad and couple others from the central part of the state. They’d take grain to Utah and then floor load bags of softener salt in Ogden coming back.



Back in my flatbed days we carried soft sides for loading wheat out of central and eastern Montana going to Lewiston ID to get back to the lumber. The sides came in about 18” and the weight of the grain basically held the sides on. The center of our trailers were so polished up from the wheat you could hardly walk on the deck if it was wet.

 

My very first single wide mobile home was out in the country a little area known as Battle Ax. Had a horse shed and small pasture not on city water at that time. That water was harder than a honey moon weiner. You could smell it would not make any suds with soap. The water softener was junk. Even the horse wouldn’t drink the ####. I hadda leave there in sorta a hurry though. The neighbors was home growing out there on their side of the fence but too close. That ol yella horse lit in on them buds and tried to finish them off. Demolished 8 or 10 what thought to be huge plants growing on a sewer line. Palomino’s can be a little hard to handle any way but that high m’fer wasn’t having the wagon. One of em lived in a bald eagle barn in his mama’s front yard. I guess had been a marine he’d get out there bout daylight with an M1 Grand and do the drills kickin it around and carrying on. The cousin to him across the street was ####ed eyed with a crazy stare that made me sorta nervous. And the 3rd what still lived in the house with his mother was only known as Caveman “cavey” after several bush lights and a couple hooters. Now I’m not saying I couldn’t have took them ol boys when they discovered they wasn’t gonna get high that day. But if you can avoid trouble ya know lmfao. Imagine layin in the tongue side bedroom with you future baby mama and said child my oldest boy was a twinkling in my eye and caveman run through the yard and nailed that tongue with a power blue 78 T bird. I was never so glad to give up and move back to my parents house in my life.. not that it was a common occurrence but I will admit I was a repeat offender lol

 

Ah, living life to the fullest, nearly to the edge.