We ordered the bare minimum number of pitchers from the factory in Massachusetts, but that still turns out to be an awfully big order.  We estimate those seven pallets will keep our chicken waterer business going for two or three years.

Of course, getting the pallets off the tractor trailer was just the first part of the delivery expedition.  Bradley brought his wife, trailer, and stepson, and the stepson brought his truck, so we were able to ferry the pallets of pitchers back to our parking area from the main road.  The only tricky part was keeping Lucy out of harm's way --- it's a good thing Mark wears a belt, since that turned into an emergency leash.

Next step was moving the boxes into our barn.  Bradley's barn floor and Mark's hard work organizing made it possible to drive the golf cart through the doors, which sped things up considerably.  Add in the front and rear carrying boxes on the golf cart, the heavy hauler pulled behind, and the passenger seat area, and I could haul about fifty boxes per trip.

(We don't usually use the heavy hauler because it tends to bog down in the mud, but it's dry enough, and the pitchers are light enough, that the trailer made a good addition to this project.)

Despite these time savings, though, we only got about a third of the chicken waterer parts under roof before we called it quits yesterday.  Let's hope the other four pallets make it in before the 50% chance of rain for today saturates the floodplain.

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.

Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.