The Story Behind the Trailer

This Summer's workload has been voluminous... and inexhaustible, unlike me.  I've threatened to take some time off and it never quite materializes.  It WILL happen this weekend.  From Friday night to Monday morning, I shall not set foot off the farm, nor change out of my PJ's.  Clarification: one set of pyjamas per 12 hours... 52 hours in the same pair would be gross -- even for a cow kissing fiend!

I  haven't narrowed down which projects I want to work on, there are so many and the forecasted temperatures are for 100'F highs.  Decisions, decisions.

The last time I had the whole weekend off was almost a couple of months ago and I had fun:  I finished my horse trailer's rejuvenation.  It had started off as a mere rust treatment on the roof a few weeks earlier and ended up being a total repainting job.

I repainted it exactly as it was before.

Not precisely as before... we have new graphics.  Tommy's having difficulties reading the second word.

The design is my homage to the Craftman movement, the dragonflies will forever be my symbols, O'Neill is my family name and a crofter is an old Scottish term for a tenant farmer.  That is what I am:  a tenant.  
O'Neill Crofters has a nicer ring to it than O'Neill Hobos or O'Neill Squatters.
Before I rechristened this outfit as Crofters, we were once O'Neill Dairy.

My ode to the Art Deco era, ominously echoing the roaring 20's before the Great Depression.  O'Neill Dairy's glory days were ended by the Great Recession. It had all begun as a dream aided by the impulse purchase of a dilapidated trailer.  Correction:  a 1960's school bus converted into a trailer.
I vaguely remember how I had announced my idea to my husband on a Friday night: "Honey, I found a big, inexpensive trailer online... in Virginia, I want to go 'look' at it.  I'll be back in 20 hours or so.  Don't wait up for supper."  Like I was going to drive half way to Canada and not come back with something!
I'd never hauled anything larger than a two horse bumper pull trailer.

 Myself and my poor F-250 were unprepared for the 38 foot, 16,000 lb behemoth we pulled out of the hollers of the Smokey Mountains.

This depicts it cleaned up and with four new wheels and tires on.  
It was worse when I bought it -- way worse.  It had no brakes, so by the time I returned to Alabama, my F-250 had burnished brakes, a ruined rear suspension and a gimpy transmission.  A concerned trucker in Georgia had alerted me that I had a concrete block on the roof.  It could have killed someone, had it fallen off, but it was well anchored by the tree sapling that was growing through it.  

Somewhere in its history, someone had toiled to convert it into a 6 horse centerload trailer.  A very uncommon rig nowadays, the three front horses rode facing backwards. Can horses get nauseated?  The original creator had used oak boards for the floors and the half walls. The next owner added a living quarter where the front three horses had been.  It was a great camper, unlike RV's that have light, flimsy fittings, this one had solid oak cupboards and stout 2x4 walls.  My own Hillbilly Deluxe!
Unless I planned to haul miniature ponies, the living quarter had to go.  I tore out my camper's guts, then put an entirely new, lighter pressure treated floor in and tore out the bad windows.

The restoration ceased for a year due to a divorce and the funneling of my time and money into building a house.  As Murphy's Law would have it, the camper portion had been gutted and I now needed a place to live while I was building.

Six months, I lived in that thing.  The roof leaked like a sieve when it rained, the bugs almost ate me alive and it was hot as the Dickens in there in July.

It was primitive.  Yet, those 6 months of roughing it and building my dream house will evermore be some of the best times of my life.  I eschew sentimentality over material things -- except where this trailer is concerned.  
It has housed me, safely ferried all my sick animals to the vet school (and forced me to buy a bigger F-350).  It allowed me to start Hudson Transport,a not for profit company, to rescue abused or neglected horses and transfer them to safe havens.  It taught me the joy of seeing a restoration project through to the end. So, I built a shed/temple for it out of recycled lumber.  I wuv my trailer.

I devoted half a year to redoing the whole thing:  new windows, I learned how to install and calibrate electromagnetic brakes, rewired it front to back, scoured every bit of rust and smeared it with 17 gallons of Rustoleum.

Inside,outside and underneath!

The past few years of unsheltered parking has marred its finish.  The animals have helped with the ageing process over the years too.  Mack attempted to tear a hole in the roof with his horn (the picture below is the view from the outside).

I peeled and recaulked my seams with this amazing automotive sealant.  Slight sticker shock though:  $16 per tube.

Any semblance of rust was ground down and treated with Rust Inhibitor, primed and the whole shebang repainted.

Some see it as an obscenely ugly moving violation, but I cherish that 50 year old hunk of steel.

The whole O'Neill Gypsy clan love it too!