My1934 Ford 1-ton truck has carried a wide variety of goods during
my tenure as its owner (1971-present), when its doors bore the "Demon
Hauling" business name and a variety of painted-over phone number
testifying to my frequent changes of residence). Before I acquired the
truck in 1971 I think it spent most of its life
hauling boxed prunes and apricots around one of the many orchards
around Almaden California (in the then lush Santa Clara Valley). All the
stuff I hauled and all the places I went in this truck is another tale
altogether. In this post, I'm focusing on a specific type of cargo:
water storage tanks.
From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, I
lived in Mariposa, California with Edna and our kids (Aischa, Gabriel,
Nicolas). As part of my "Carpentry Etc." business I did
occasional work for Sylvia Schaefer (not sure of the spelling of her
last name) who owned a local and free "penny-saver" paper (with her
husband
Jim) that competed for a while with the historic Mariposa Gazette. The
Schaefers lived on a hilltop near town and their land had water
problems;
that is, they had drilled several wells over time to find a reliable
water source and none of them produced much water. This lack was
complicated
by the fact that Sylvia liked to garden. So I created for them a
complicated plumbing and
electrical system that linked all the wells and turned each one on when
there
was water available. The system worked well enough that the Schaefers
decided they wanted a larger storage
tank to capture the output. They found a used one that was for sale in
Catheys Valley by Rita
and Tony Kidd. My job was to haul it and install it. Thus, the photo
below, taken by Sylvia as I struggled to get the heavy steel tank off my
truck and avoid any loss of control could have sent that tank charging
downhill uncontrollably - to the detriment of the tank and my
reputation. So, I used a lot of ropes and proceeded with extreme
caution. And, eventually the tank was landed safely on its bed of gravel
and railroad ties.
Fast
forward to 2015 (!) and the place Melina and I live on Triangle Road in
Mariposa. Last year we installed a 2500 gallon tank as a
water/fire-fighting reserve. This tank draws from our main well and,
through a booster pump, feeds the house and Melina's gardens. Because of
the drought we have experienced here for the last couple of years, we
both have thought a lot about ways to save rain water, reuse gray water,
and possibly pump water from an old, shallow well on the property. We
haven't gotten very far on the plans and details, but when I saw a 1500
gallon tank for sale over in Ponderosa Basin (on the fb SWAP Mariposa
page) we knew we had to get it. As you might guess in this dry region,
tanks are in big demand these days and used ones don't come up for sale
very often. So I immediately agreed to the selling price and committed
to pick it up ASAP. Saturday morning (3/21/15) found us rambling down
Triangle Road in the very same Demon Hauling truck. At the place, a
young man came out of the house to watch us load it. He volunteered that
we might want to turn it on its side and roll it onto the truck bed.
But, I wanted to load it right side up (and have it sitting flat on its
bottom for more stable travel) and so we pushed and winched it up three
4x4 skids on the back of the bed, only to find, with the tank half on
and half off, that the tank's diameter was a few inches larger that the
distance between the stake sides of the truck. Just a bit embarrassed, I
volunteered that he was right. And so,we let it slide back down, tipped
it on its side, and rolled it up and onto the bed. We then spent about a
half and hour strapping it down. The photo below shows it at our place,
near the house and gardens. FYI, unloading a plastic tank is a lot
easier than unloading a big steel tank; Melina and I handled it easily.
Just where it will eventually be installed and how we will use it and
supply it remain to be discovered. The adventure has just begun!
