April 26th - Getting Homer Out of Storage Shed and New Trailer

It is bright sunny day and the rent is up so we going to get Homer out of the storage shed this morning. Each season it is always interesting to see what is not working or needs fixing after de-winterizing. The backup camera was not working a few weeks ago when I moved Homer. Hopefully it is just a connection issue.

We decided that we are getting too old to push mow the lake lot, particularly during the hot weather. I was going to buy a used riding mower to leave out there but to do that I would need to borrow a trailer to get it and borrow a trailer every time it needed to be hauled to town for maintenance, repair, etc. Additionally, you never know what you are getting in a used rider. We decided instead to purchase a trailer to haul our home riding mower out there as needed. We had looked at several used trailers, even driving to St. Louis, and found them all to be junk. We borrowed a 5 foot x 8 foot trailer a couple of weeks ago to haul the lawn mower and it only fit on the trailer by tying the discharge chute up and backing the mower on with part of the back of the mower hanging over the rail. We need a 6 foot x 10 or 12 foot trailer. They just don't seem to be available used in any kind of decent condition so we decided to buy a new trailer.  I wanted one big enough that John could haul his Polaris side by side if he needed to so we bought a 6 foot x 12 foot trailer. Here is a picture of Kelly with the trailer when we brought it home in the rain.

My one ton 4 x 4 truck sits very high so when hitched the front of the trailer was really high. I wanted to get it close to level so I needed a drop hitch on the truck. They are expensive, about $100.00. I remembered that I had a drop hitch I used when towing a car with the diesel pusher motorhome ten years ago. I hunted it up in the garage to put it to use once again.

Here is a picture of the hitch setup. The white arrow on the right points to the drop hitch itself. The left white arrow points to the chain I installed to keep the hitch lock pin, which is above the left green arrow, from getting lost.

Now with the drop hitch installed I have three pins, all marked with the green arrows above. To keep the trailer from being stolen when hooked up I ordered three locking pins. I will only use these when the trailer is hooked up to the truck and I have left it for some period of time. I will leave the hitch pin lock on all the time so the trailer doesn't "walk away" even sitting here at the house. When it quits raining we will load the mower and make a run to the lake.