Weekend Mucking About at the Trailer

Along with trailer ownership comes trailer maintenance. On Friday night there were severe thunderstorms for about 2 hours, and when I went outside in the morning I could hear a steady drip drip drip.

I found that water was dripping over the edge of the eavestrough at the lower end. That can't be good I said to myself. Who knows how long its been since the eavestrough had been cleaned out but I was up for the job, so to speak, at least once I got out the stepladder.

I had no rubber gloves and the only tool that would fit into the narrow trough was a garden trowel. Up the ladder I went, trowel in hand. Wow, you can see all around the park from the top of my ladder - cool.

However, the black sludge in the trough, years old accumulation of maple leaves and maple keys, wasn't so cool. It smelled. Bad. Like manure. But being raised by a man who could stick his bare hand into the entrails of a dead chicken I am no wuss, but I do admit to wrinkling my nose. I scooped with the trowel and bravely dug down with my left hand to lift masses of oozing black guck out of the trough and then tried to toss it onto the same spot on the lawn, over and over again.

Oh, and did I mention that all this goo (I think a few more years and I would have had my own source of petroleum) was lying under several inches of brackish water? No? Well it was, and as I gradually worked my way down the front of my porch the water slowly started to trickle down the spout out onto the lawn. By the time I reached the downspout most of the water had successfully escaped but looking back I could still see small bits of sludge here and there that I had missed when it was still underwater.

Not one to leave a job partially done I pulled the hose over and started at the other end again spraying water down the trough till it was totally clear of yucky stuff.

I was a little smarter when bagging the goo I had tossed down. Not really yearning to immerse my hands once again in black slime but lacking gloves I put my hand inside a plastic bag and then cleared up the manure pile. Farmer Hazelnut!

I was able to sleep much better that night knowing my troughs were clear.