Brakes, Trespassers, and Gophers

Brakes

Today I finally got around to working on my stock trailer brakes. I plan to let the cattle into the yard in a few days. Cattle use their weight to push things around and I didn't want my trailer to be on a jack with the wheel off.

I took the brake drum off looking for rust and found none. I found cobwebs instead. Well, that isn't the reason the brakes stick.

I'm no expert so I tried to figure out how the brakes work. Next door Lyle was mowing his lawn so I asked him for more advice. When I returned to the brake assembly I realized I hadn't described the brakes right. I searched the internet for tips on fixing stuck brakes but didn't find much. I went to talk with Bob and he steered me to looking for an electrical problem, perhaps the ground is not working.

Just when I was putting the brake drum back on I stumbled on the adjustment for the width when not in braking mode. I wonder if that may cause or contribute to the braking problems? When braking I remember the brakes grabbing hard right away with the slightest touch. Perhaps the clearance was so slight that once they heated up they couldn't release correctly. I adjusted the brakes to provide more clearance.

The axle was lubed nicely, but I still added more grease.

I have other things to do right now so I didn't take the trailer for a test drive to see how it works now. It is on my list of things to do.


Trespassers

Early this nice evening, as I was putting in temporary steel posts to fence off a few areas of my yard from the cattle, I heard, then saw, my southern neighbors crawl through my fence and onto my property. Last year the people who hunt on my land told me they saw the neighbors on my land with fish.

I walked out and headed them off before they reached the river. It was the neighbor, his wife, their two daughters, and two other adults. They were set for serious fishing as the men had fishing poles and fishing gear.

As I approached I heard the wife tell the other woman, "This is ___. He lives in the white house."

I have spoken with the husband once, this Spring. That's it. Now if he had asked permission I would have considered it, but treating my land as his and not asking rubs me the wrong way.

I cut to the chase right away and told them I would not allow them to use my property to fish in the river. I told them why - because they hadn't asked first. I also brought up I was unhappy they fished last Fall when I had people hunting on my land and felt that was dangerous.

"You had people hunting on your land?"

Proves my point.

Also the river is near its peak flow and I don't want people, and especially young kids, on the river banks. The river erodes here and there and some banks are unstable.

I told them, "Sorry, but you should have asked first."

"I'll ask first next time."

He missed the point. Ask before the first time. There is such a thing as 'one strike and you're out.' Especially as I don't know them personally.

These people are renters and are not appreciative of property ownership. Besides, I heard stories about them from other neighbors. I get the impression they aren't too bright. The story I heard today was the mother sent one of the young daughters over with a teaspoon as she needed a teaspoon of vanilla. Now do you think a young girl, pre-school or just in school (I'm not sure), can carry a teaspoon of liquid a fair distance across the road without spilling it?

After I told them they had to leave, the woman mentioned they may access the river via my southern neighbor's property. I told them I had spoken to Wyatt since their trespassing episode last Fall and he didn't know anything about it and hadn't given permission.

"You can ask him, but don't get your hopes up. And you need to ask Lorraine also as there are two property owners between you and the river."

"Maybe we'll drive up the road and fish there."

And they left, crawling through my barb wire fence. I'll have to check the fence tomorrow to make sure they didn't stretch or break a wire.


Gophers

I caught 5 pocket gophers today for a total of 7 for the year. The sixth trap was triggerred without a pocket gopher. This is my old and bad trap.

No regular gophers caught today. One trap was triggered with nothing caught. The rest of the traps were ignored. Between the holes being re-dug and a few sentries chirping warnings, I know those gophers are out there.