![\"IMG_6834\"](\"http:\/\/bearpenfarm.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/IMG_6834.jpg\")
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About 30 years ago I repaired a saddle for Robert Linville, a local rancher.\u00a0 When I delivered the saddle to the shed where Robert kept his tack, I saw this little home-made 4X6 wooden trailer lying unused in the weeds, and thought that it would be just the thing to pull behind my newly-acquired 1937 John Deere Model \u201cB\u201d tractor.\u00a0 Robert was only too happy to trade me the trailer for the saddle repair.<\/p>\n
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The trailer was at that time probably 30 years old, built of oak on the front axle of an old truck, probably a 20\u2019s or 30\u2019s model.\u00a0 The wood was weathered but still fairly sound, but the tongue was in pretty bad shape.\u00a0 I hooked it to the bumper of my \u201951 Chevy truck and pulled it home.\u00a0 At this time we were preparing to start on our log home\u2014the one we live in now.\u00a0 As I was planning on building my own foundation I needed rocks\u2014lots of them.\u00a0 The trailer was put to work right away, groaning under huge loads of field stone, some rocks weighing in excess of 200 lbs.\u00a0 The rocks came from all over the farm, but mostly from the area I called The Park, which is the watershed of our spring, and involved a pretty steep climb over very rough ground.\u00a0 The trailer hauled many, many tons of rock, which I piled up around the footing of what would be our new home.\u00a0 After a few months of this abuse, the rotten tongue finally gave way, and it was time for a rebuild.<\/p>\n
About this time I hauled a load of trash to the landfill near Mountain View.\u00a0 I always enjoyed a visit to the dump.\u00a0 Being a true scavenger at heart, I often came home with a bigger load than I left with, and this day was no exception.\u00a0 In the dump I found a pile of interesting boards\u20142X6\u2019s about 10 feet long, very worn and chewed\u00a0 up on one side, the other side weathered but still showing a coat of old yellow paint.\u00a0 They looked to be some sort of hardwood, so I loaded them and took them home, figuring that as long as I was replacing the tongue I might as well use this lumber for the bed of the trailer.<\/p>\n
For the tongue I used a full-size 2-1\/2 by 6 piece of heart-cut white oak.\u00a0 When I made the first cut in my new-found dump lumber I was surprised by how red the wood was\u2014even redder than red oak.\u00a0 I took a chunk of it down to my shop and started peeling off the yellow-painted side with a hand plane.\u00a0 Imagine my amazement when I found that I was working with Philippine Mahogany!\u00a0 It took some thought before I realized where the boards had come from.\u00a0 At this time the Sylamore ferry was still in operation, ferrying traffic on Highway 9 across the White River north of Mnt. View.\u00a0 When the ferry was built they apparently used mahogany lumber for the deck boards, as it is impervious to water and rot.\u00a0 Since then I\u2019ve always said that I\u2019ll bet I have the only mahogany rock trailer in Stone County, Arkansas.<\/p>\n
When the John Deere tractor was replaced by a 1939 Allis-Chalmers\u201cB\u201d model I continued to use the old trailer for hauling rock, firewood, fenceposts, whatever.\u00a0 Ten or twelve years ago I bought a Belarus tractor with a front-end loader.\u00a0 I no longer needed a trailer, so most of the time it has been parked out behind the barn.\u00a0 Yesterday, in a rare fit of farm cleanup, I decided it was time to scrap my old friend out.\u00a0 Tonight we are burning fresh-split mahogany in the cookstove, and the axle and wheels of my old trailer are in the iron pile, ready for a trip to Sol Alman\u2019s scrap yard the next time we go to Little Rock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
January 26, 2013\u00a0 Yesterday, when I was about halfway through tearing apart my old rock trailer, I got to thinking that the story of it\u2019s last 30 years might be of some interest, and if I didn\u2019t write it … Continue reading