Show Quality German Shepherds for Family Protection, Personal Security, Schutzhund, Search & Rescue, Guard Dogs, Seeing Eye Dogs, Professional Dog Training, Stud Service and Pet Quality K-9 friends from Montana at affordable prices.

OMEGA SHEPHERDS
Adventures on the Ranch

 

 

 

 

 

-----Over much of the winter I was looking for a horse trailer with living quarters - which is about the only way you can really show horses in a serious way - you have Air Conditioning, heat, fridge, stove, microwave, music, a bathroom and shower and a place to sleep with no motel rental.
-----So finally about a month ago I found what I thought was the perfect trailer for us. The people that have the trailer live out of a town called Lewistown - about 4 hours away from us. So after checking everything out we could through photos and phone calls we went to look at it. We left at 8:00, just after finishing chores, we had to pick up a few things in Helena before leaving but arrived at their place at 12:30. The trailer looked good and we went ahead and bought it. When we went to hook the trailer lights up to the truck they didn't work - the blinkers were backwards (if you put your left blinker on the right one blinked on the trailer) and most of the other lights didn't work at all. GREAT! So the guy we bought the trailer from got in there and tried to switch the trailer lights to match the truck --- but after several hours NOTHING worked on the trailer. It was nearing 4:30, we wanted to get home that day ! So we asked if there was someone in town that knew what they were doing that could fix it, there was a construction crew there because the people we bought the trailer from were having a log home built. One of them knew of a guy - he said he was very good - a bit pricey but very good. So he called him to see if he could even get us in - he said he had an opening now and if he could do the job in 1 1/2 hours he would do it. So off we went - we left the trailer and the construction crew brought it into town later on. But then we got stuck in road construction for about 15 minutes - AHHH. This is not going well, finally we got to "The Pickup Guy" and his wife came out and met us - said they would fix us up and not to worry they weren't going to just leave us at 5:30 -- I must say I was relieved to hear that.
-----So we pull the truck into his shop and he gets under and starts looking around. There was no hot wire, which meant a fuse was blown. Which is what I was suspicious of since all of a sudden nothing worked on the trailer but we had checked the fuses and they were ok. But this guy knew of a fuse box under the hood that I didn't even know what there!! Part of the trucks trailer tow package I think. Sure enough about 5 fuses were blown. Bad news is -- they were Ford Special fuses and Ford closed pretty soon. So off his wife went and in two different trips to two different stores she got all the fuses we needed. "The Pickup Guy" figured he would have us up and running in about an hour and sent us off to get dinner. So we walked to Pizza Hut - ate dinner and came back. 7:00 rolls around -- then 8:00 finally he got the truck fixed but then had to do the trailer. We are working on the trailer and 9:00 rolls around and he thought it was fixed - we plugged it in and - OH NO!! It was a light show - every light on the truck AND trailer blinked. This is NOT FUNNY at 9:00 PM! So back to work and 10:00 rolls around -- finally by 10:30 it WAS fixed and both truck and trailer matched. I go to start the truck to hook the trailer up and it was dead - we had turned on the key so much to try the lights without turning the truck on we had drained the battery. So he got his little battery jumper box and got us running easy enough. I let the truck run quite awhile hoping the batteries would charge enough to start in the morning (we decided to spend the night in the trailer - since it has living quarters!). We wanted to leave early morning but told "The Pickup Guy" if the truck won't start we will just wait till he comes into work at 8:00 to jump us again. Later on just before he left to go home he gave us his home number and said to give him a call if it won't start and he will come down and jump it. We said we were going to leave early - around 6:00 but he said that didn't matter just give him a call when ever!!! Wow! This guy and his wife were amazing - they both worked non-stop for 51/2 hours - after store hours! We offered to go get them at pizza half way through but he said NO! We are focused and we are going to get this done!! All I can say is Thanks to "The Pickup Guy" and if your ever going thru Lewistown, Montana - a town so small is has one main road - and you need help - stop by "The Pickup Guy" just behind the Super 8!
-----Ok, so we left around 6:00 AM and had a great trip home. The only problem with the trailer is it was too big to fit up our little mountain road which we knew before we bought it. So we stored it at a wonderful storage place in Helena while we got the road widened. The trailer is 35 feet long.
-----So we had Menth Excavation up to give us an estimate on the road - they did work for us before and we were very satisfied with it. After working out a price with them they said they would do the work in 1 week - which I think was pretty lucky we didn't have to wait longer this time of year! Getting the road widened was no small task though and had it's scary moments if it could be done at all because there are several big, tight switch backs that looked like solid rock. We also had to get most of the work approved by the forest service because a lot of the road is forest service road that we have the rights to but it still had to be approved. The work we wanted done was ok and it's a good thing because when you just buy a trailer like that it would be BAD if we couldn't even bring it home!
-----Anyway, Scott came up here with his crawler tractor and after I show him the work we want done he starts digging into those rock switchbacks. The first one only took about 2 hours - not bad! The second one took longer and he couldn't get it back as far as he or we wanted because he ran into rock he couldn't move with that crawler. So he widened the off side of the road and we figured it would work and hoped for the best. There were many other places that needed work over the 2 miles of road but those were the worst sections. He worked on it for 2 days - Monday and Tuesday. He was almost done when on Wednesday we had about 10 inches of snow. No way he could finish up the job with the snow so we just hoped it would warm up enough for him to finish it this week other wise he couldn't get to it for 3 weeks ! Luckily Friday he could do most of the work. We left Saturday afternoon to go get the trailer - we spent over an hour picking up rocks on the way down. So, we got the trailer and Scott met us at the bottom of the road with the crawler - he did some more work on our way up but stayed ahead of us the whole way just in case it wouldn't fit in some place he could open it up - plus if we got stuck in the mud from all the fresh work he could pull us out -- not something we wanted - but when it's a one way road and you have a 35 foot trailer blocking it - there is only one way to go and that's forward! One way or the other the trailer was going up. But there was plenty of room and with a great driver (that's me) we made it around all the corners just fine!
-----I must say I was very happy to pull up in front of the arena and know it worked! Our road is still pretty narrow compared to a normal road but if you take the corners right you can get a big trailer with a long wheelbase up it.
----So THANKS THANKS THANKS to my dad for buying me this trailer, to my mom for going with me, to the Pick Up Guy in Lewistown Montana and to Scott and Menth Excavation for doing just what we wanted and needed! Thank you all - now if I just had the money to go to shows after all of this it would be ok (just joking).
-----Now you see why I have been away from the phone and slow to answer e-mails - I was either whelping out dogs, foaling horses, running up and down the road checking on the construction or doing chores!
-----Scotts comment after it was all over summed it up "You bought a trailer you couldn't even get up your road"! Yep, pretty crazy but it worked out !
-----Till Next Time,
-----Leah and Everyone at Omega Shepherds.

 

A little of the crawler work

 

Finally! Bringing the trailer home

 

 

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