Today I drove two and a half hours (five hours round trip) to the Norfolk, Virginia area to pick up a 20 foot shipping container I purchased earlier this week. This shipping container, which is weather sealed and can be securely padlocked, will be used to store many of the smaller tools and equipment I use on the ranch.
Until I was able to test the tractor front-end loader's ability to lift the container, I wasn't exactly sure how I would unload the container from the trailer. I had found a variety possible methods for doing this on YouTube (including the below video), which I reserved in my mind as possible solutions, but, because the tractor was able to partially lift the container, I instead came up with my own dangerous method of unloading the container.
On a trip like this one in which a somewhat costly and
larger-than-normal cargo is picked up from an unfamiliar depot and
hauled home on unfamiliar roads, there is always a higher-than-normal
stress level. My usual method for combating such stress is to do as
much as I can beforehand to reduce the likelihood of something going
wrong (e.g. giving the engine a tuneup, familiarizing myself the
regulations for transporting large items, etc.). However, you can only
do so much to prepare, and, in the end you simply have to hope it goes
well and do your best to deal with any problems that happen.
Fortunately, this trip was completed with a minimum of hiccups and the
cargo container is now firmly planted on the ground at the ranch.
Lifting one end of the cargo container up a small amount with the front end loader, I carefully placed a series of log rollers under the container. Initially I use short lengths of wood on each side of the container, but this was a bad idea. The short pieces of wood allowed the container to twist dangerously to the left or right each time I started to pull it. After several tries with the short log pieces, I replaced them with a single ten-foot-long log roller, which enabled me to use the front end loader to roll the container off the trailer and down the ramp fairly easily. I would definitely not recommend anyone try using this method of unloading a container as there was quite a bit of skill involved in using the front end loader, which I haven't outlined in this post.
The cargo container in its new location. I plan to put blocks under it to keep it off the ground and level it.
