Wowwww!Part one is moving ds to where his first job after graduating from college. When the trailer started fishtailing, dh didn't want to stop to fix it. He tried a couple of times to slow down enough to straighten it. And many times of wiggling the trailer to "show it wasn't too bad." But as soon as he sped up, it started fishtailing again. He finally pulled over. I moved one 5 gallon bucket of rice from the very back of the trailer to the very front.
Problem solved (ds didn't have much stuff). But after we got going again, dh insisted on wiggling the trailer to try it. Repeatedly. It was very irritating but between the two sets of wiggling, I learned what a slightly unstable trailer feels like and what a stable trailer feels like.
Part two happened a few years later. I had just bought my 40 acres; I still lived about a thousand miles from the 40. I discovered osage orange trees make the best fence posts (least maintenance) by far- if you don't mind that they look funny to those of us who live where they aren't used. They were used quite a bit where I lived at that time.
Anyway. I found a pile of osage orange logs and poles for sale on craigslist. I took a couple of young men to help me load them and we learned first hand that reports of how extremely dense they are are no exaggeration. Read "dense" as "heavy as all get out".
Even the smallest were barely manageable and most of them were pretty massive - great for end posts.
The farmer really wanted them gone so he offered to load them with his tractor front end loader. That lifted them but the trailer was an enclosed uhaul - he had a lot of trouble reaching into the trailer.
I did ask about 60% of the weight in front and he pushed them in as far as he could by literally pushing them with the front end loader. Mostly, he pushed the trailer and my truck (I hated that part too; I like my truck) but he moved the logs some. It got harder to push them as more went in. He said he was pretty sure they were distributed well enough.
I'd never pulled such a heavy load. I was afraid it was too heavy to be legal maybe too heavy to safely pull so I crept home very slowly. Then looked up the weight limits on the roads of all the states I'd be driving that load in. And found out how to get the trailer weighed. And weighed it. It was a couple of hundred pounds over weight.
so we took 4-6 out and made the weight, barely. And discovered the posts had been stacked on the ground for so long that insects had chewed into them. It much have been a very, very, very long time indeed because they are soooo rot resistent.
Anyway, I didn't want to leave the extras by our house and maybe introduce termites or carpenter ants and whatever to our house. And I didn't want to transport themto the woods on my 40. So set off a can of fumigating chemicals and closed up the trailer.
In the morning, most of the insects weren't moving anymore. A few were still moving. We took off the few (again). I set several cans of fumigated chemicals - this time in the front, middle, and back. And closed up the trailer and left for the trip to the farm.
Oh, and I had a dozen or so five gallon buckets of paint in the back of the truck, too.
I got as far as the on ramp. That was the first turn at any kind of speed. The trailer savagely pulled the truck around. Not far and no damage done because I still wasn't going very fast but the power of it was horrifying.
I managed to start breathing again and get off the road to the first parking lot I came to.
I wanted to quit then but I couldn't think of anything else I could do with the load even if I had a tractor available to unload it. We lived in a HOA at the time.
I first tried adding some five gallon buckets to the front of the trailer. And wiggle tested in the parking lot. It didn't help a noticeable amount.
Next, I tried moving some of the posts toward the front. By myself and while holding my breath because of the fumigating chemicals. One or two of the kids were with me but I wouldn't let them in the trailer.
I couldn't lift many of them. Osage orange is very twisty so many that I could have lifted were partly under ones I couldn't move.
I wiggle tested in the parking lit, moved more posts, wiggle tested, moved more pails, wiggle tested, moved posts to the truck.
Eventually, I got it to feel stable at speeds I could get to without getting on the highway. We got on the highway. And it wasn't stable. That was as scary as the first realization. It didn't pull as much and again there was no actual accident but I was going so much faster and there were other cars around so it was also horrifying.
I "fixed" it again. Well enough to get to more hills and wind.
I "fixed" it again at least twice. I don't know if the load shifted or the conditions changed again but each time it got harder to find anything I could move. And I worried more about how much I had breathed. And whether all the insects would be dead. And whether the trailer would be damaged by any of it.
In the end, no obvious harm was done to anything or anyone except to the insects, spiders, and such.
Edit to fix some of the typos - phone typing is.
Thank you for taking the time to type that all out. I was breathless while reading it and so glad to get to the end and read that all turned out okay for you, your kids and your vehicle! I was afraid you were going to roll the vehicle or lose your load somehow. Man! Were you able to use those osage orange logs for their intended purpose or did you end up having a bonfire with the cursed things?
