Backstory

Even after a massive garage sale and some serious purging, I still had a ton of stuff to move out before the end of the year. However, there wasn’t really anyplace to put it all at the farm – the only structure of any significant size was the old travel trailer we’ll be calling home starting in March … but it has no locks, and there isn’t a ton of space in there anyway (especially if we want room to actually live in there come spring!)

We scoured the Craigslist “Free” listings, but nothing very useful came through – sheds too large to move, or in terrible shape, barely keeping out the elements, let alone mice and thieves. Once there was a “van box” – essentially a cargo truck’s box, but we just missed it, calling after someone had already claimed it.

December loomed, and time was running short – so we reluctantly started looking at non-free possibilities.

After pricing out options, we determined that our best bet would be a shipping container – one of the massive metal locking boxes that are used to transport goods overseas and cross country, on freighters and freight trains. These were a wonderful option … but spendy.

If we were going to have a massive metal box on the land, we wanted it to look decent – even our junk pile is being arranged with some kind of aesthetics in mind. For this reason, I really wanted a green one – not only is that my favorite color, but it would blend in with the foliage & match the travel trailer.

So when we found a huge 40-foot green one for relatively cheap, I thought we’d found The One.

But when we went to check it out, it was too rusted out and damaged- we couldn’t even get the doors to close, contrary to the claim in the ad copy. So we reluctantly passed, knowing we were running out of time to get something before the snow came in earnest and made it impossible to move a container onto the land. And we had to be all moved out by January 1st …

 

S.S.S.S. #1

On November 20th, we finally found a good deal on a nice newish blue one – fresh off the boat, still loaded on a flatbed for easy transport.

It wasn’t green and it had a dude’s name in giant letters … but the price and quality were right and time was running out.  and hey, at least it wasn’t red, yellow, or orange … blue would have to be my second choice.

So we paid the guy his cash, and drove an hour out to the farm to prepare the spot for him to deliver it – he had a dentist appointment he had forgotten to take care of first, so we had time to stop at the hardware store to pick up some 6×6 timbers for it to rest upon.  On the drive out, we discussed painting the thing green, and checked Craigslist for free green exterior paint without luck.

As we finished preparing a place for it to go, level and square with the trailer, the seller called, saying “bad news” as a greeting. Uh oh.

He’d just gotten a phone call from the railyard – the shipping container we’d just bought and paid for had been released to him in error – and he had to return it. So we were’t going to get it, after all.

BUT he had been given a different one – which was not only 2 years newer & in two grades better condition – it was green.

And it said so, too, in no uncertain terms:

 

 

S.S.S.S. #2

Two days later, it was Friday night, and Kristin and I were hanging out at home, waiting for our friend Bob to come over.

While we were waiting, I decided to check the Free listings on the local Craigslist.

Although we’d just scored an awesome shipping container, we still had need for storage down by the field, for tools, a dry & secure place for winter caching of our irrigation equipment, electric fence storage, etc.

So when I refreshed the list, the top item made me sit up straight and shout to Kristin – a free semi truck trailer!! At forty feet long by 8×10, it would be slightly larger than the shipping container – and perfect for our field storage needs.

It would be an amazing free score … but only if I could just get it before any of the other vultures out there did. And I knew from experience these kinds of things lasted mere minutes on the Free list.

So I sprang into action – taking my phone into the kitchen and calling Duane, the owner. The ringback tone while I waited eagerly for him to pick up was a country song about being free – the repetition of the word “free” in the chorus combined with the “too good to be true” nature of the free item I was calling about made me wonder if it was a prank, as the ring went on and on …

But suddenly it ended and a accented, mumbly, strange man came on the line. I scribbled notes furiously, although I only understood 1 in 3 words he spoke – he didn’t know the address where the trailer was parked – he could only give me directions on how to get to it. And his directions involved things like “go left at the big pile of dirt.”

I had no idea how we could move a semi trailer, but I wasn’t going to let it go without trying -so I wrote down pieces of the bizarre directions, and tried to make sense of his rambling, mumbled explanations for what he’d been using it for for 18 years, what condition it was in, etc.

While we were talking, Bob came in the front door with his girlfriend Sam. I waved when they peeked into the kitchen, but couldn’t really talk to them as I struggled to make sense of everything Duane was saying.

After five long minutes I got off the phone – not sure if he was going to hold it for me since I was the first person that had called after he posted the ad, not sure where this thing was located, not sure how we could move it even if we found it – and honestly, not really expecting I was going to be able to make it work out. So close … but it didn’t seem meant to be; too many questions, too much uncertainty.

So I went into the living room, where Bob and Sam were chatting with Kristin, and explained what was happening. I read them the disjointed directions from my notes.

As I read through them, Bob perked up, smiling larger and larger.

“I KNOW THAT TRAILER!” he laughed. “It’s literally right across the fence from my grandpa’s shop. If you climbed our fence you could jump on top of it.”

For years and years, Bob has worked at his grandfather’s auto body shop – I’ve hung out with him there a couple of times.

And the truck trailer that I’d been on the phone about when Bob walked into my house was had been parked literally inches from his property for almost twenty years, the entire time Bob had worked there.

He told us that he’d always wondered about it – who owned it, why it was there – it seemed to have nothing to do with the nearby businesses – just an isolated, unrelated semi trailer filled with & surrounded by a constantly changing pile of used car tires.

And it was awesome beyond the weird coincidence  – because through his work at the auto body shop, Bob knew a guy with a semi truck who proved to be more than happy to help us pick it up and drive it to the Farm for a reasonable fee … despite the lack of registration, trustworthy tires, or working lights.

So on the heels of luckily seeing the ad and being the first to call, I was immediately provided with the exact location, and the means to move it.

The seemingly impossible logistics resolved into a piece of cake.

(A few days later, we met the truck driver at the semi and helped him get it hooked up. Kristin’s Dad rode with him while we followed behind, trying to prevent anyone else from getting behind him, as we took a route over the river and through the woods calculated to give us the best odds of avoiding nosy police – with “Eastbound & Down” on repeat on the stereo.

We made it unmolested, and convinced the driver to take his rig across the field to drop the trailer right where we wanted it on the edge of the field … a second 40-foot steel reminder, impossible to ignore, that serendipitous synchronicity happens.