Narrowly Avoiding Disaster Thursday April 8, 2021

 Narrowly Avoiding Disaster

My wife’s youngest son works at a medical instrument facility in The Cities (Minnesota reference to Minneapolis & St. Paul). He frequently has the opportunity to acquire used wooden shipping crates for free, which he does on occasion. He hauls them up here to me to make deer stands of them, Easter weekend being no exception.

Due to Covid restrictions and his highly cautious mother, it had been five months since we had seen any of our family beyond the rural township where we live in northwest Minnesota, so he took a few extra days off from his job and rented a trailer to haul this crate to us. I don’t think he had planned using his weekend up here helping me assemble this stand, but I think we had a fun time doing something totally different (him moreso than me). The last deer stand I built was in October of last year; the last deer stand he had built was . . . Well, you’ll have to ask him.

I usually build stands in the fall before season, but I hadn’t planned doing any such thing until he asked to come north with this crate -- and spend an extra few days up here visiting us. Hmmmm... I think it was then, that I decided to buy four ten-foot long, 4” by 4” green-treated posts, and a set of four ‘risers,’ that connect the posts to the body of a deer stand using lag screws, or nuts and bolts.

The wife and I had gotten our Stimulus checks that week. Instant wealth does that to a weak minded person such as myself, as deer season ranks very high in our familial social activities right up there with a weekend at the lake, Christmas -- and in this case, Easter.

We were impressed that whomever built shipping crates for this business apparently spared no expense, as the plywood used in its construction was three-quarters of an inch thick and its framing all made of sturdy 2 x 4s. There were at least six butterfly surface latches, three on each side that locked the door of the crate closed during shipment. The door was also built as a ramp to move the wheeled machine from the crate when received at the medical equipment testing facility. We had to remove all the latches but one, that we used as designed; replacing all four of the latches on one side with two heavy-duty hinges so we could open and close the door from a ladder, to be added later. 

The son had rented a U-Haul trailer that we had to empty of the deer stand and replace with my snowmobile trailer. We added temporary vertical legs onto the stand legs so we could raise the body clear of either trailer bed,  and made the switch within just a few minutes.

 

 

I think we worked pretty well together; an old guy and a young guy. I admit I’m not much of a carpenter, as I’ve written before in these posts; I tend to build using scraps I have on-hand from other projects, so the older deer stands reflect this. Each one has its particular history, and the last one I built gendered positive comments from the hunters last year, however facetious they seemed to be. The son had done some building construction and cabling work earlier in his life, so he had that experience to draw on to greatly aid the project.

In our (my) defense I must point out we do all our (my) work outdoors and not in, say, a pole barn or nicely equipped lighted shop with a concrete floor, four walls and a roof. That would be too easy. For this deer stand, we built it laying down on a single axle snowmobile trailer, its four ten-foot long legs protruding off the back; the crate/body of the deer stand resting on the bed of the trailer. After the weight of the legs were added, I estimated its total weight to be around a thousand pounds. A thousand pounds that we (I) would have to later pull off the trailer onto its legs and stand up and tower over our (my) head.

 

 

 

We worked Friday and Saturday on the project; sleeping in until 9:00, then after visiting over breakfast, etc, we managed to get going just after noon, quitting both days about 5:00. Thinking he had graciously sacrificed those two days of his vacation, to work on a deer stand as enough hardship, we decided to call it good and just laze about the third day -- target shooting. Even his mother got into the act, a feat that both she and her daughter have great fun doing, showing off their marksman skills with bow or rifle, but sadly so rare now under these Covid travel/visitation restrictions. She told us of her preference for smaller caliber firearms and quickly used up a dozen shells having fun with ‘us boys’.

The son left Monday morning after coffee and before sunrise, backing his vehicle around the deer stand on the trailer hitched to the truck. The house seemed emptier after he and all his gear, and clean laundry left.

But there was still work to do on the deer stand; it needed to be caulked and painted for its life in the elements. It was perfect weather for it. No bugs. The temps were just warm enough for the caulk to set and the paint to dry. Everything was in reach except for the side laying against the trailer. Perfect. So I decided to paint it ‘spruce’ green; a color that looked similar to its environment, and found such a color at Lee’s Store as “Farm Fresh.”

 

 I had sealed the seams around the whole thing using a flexible paintable sealant, then painted it after the sealant had turned clear, as per instructions. I installed an exterior panel we had made, top of the wall to the peak, while the stand was on the trailer knowing what I might face, weather and wind-wise, should I have to do it standing on an extension ladder in the field. Those kinds of acrobatics are best left to people younger than me, so I had to use a jack and lift the body of the deer stand clear of the bed of the trailer, to get at it; raising it a little at a time, one side, then the other with blocking to a height of twelve or so inches.

It was doing this little bit of the project that I noticed a separation of the sealant between the base of the crate and the pallet it was attached, and upon closer examination realized the one item that the builder skimped on was the nails holding the two assemblies together. They were roughly the diameter of a wooden toothpick! Nails from a nail-gun; merely tacks in some respect! Had I not seen this flaw in its construction, and tried to set it up in the field using my tractor, the box would have surely separated from the pallet and legs, and fallen to the ground! I had avoided disaster -- and humiliation. I rushed to Lee’s Store before they closed (a convenient fives miles away), and purchased a dozen five-inch long lag screws to re-attach the body to the pallet.

 

 “It ain’t going anywhere now.”