NFTNIF Volume 3 Episode 11  A Trailer, not a Thriller (WE ARE NOT IN DANGER FROM FIRE)

Let's roll back the clock, while we can still recall the events.  Last report, we were impatiently awaiting the delivery of our trailer.  In conversation with Grady, the seller.  No,let's take it back even further.

We searched extensively for a trailer, and met: scams, no-replies, someone else got it first, and offerings we could not use.  We scrambled and appealed for funding and we collected the money for one trailer, an 18' Prowler from Craig's List.  I had been in periodic commuication with Grady, and we worked out an agreement for him to bring it to Vacaville from the Sacramento area.  When, on our end, we lost the chance to tow it from Vacaville or anywhere else, Grady became somewhat irate.  Eventually we agreed to pay him an additional $200.00 to bring it to Mendocino county.  He declared he would leave around noon which would bring him to us sometime in the early evening.  We made arrangements for a reception and berth on our end.  Everything seemed to be coming together.
Grady made one last attempt to have u take delivery somewhere closer to him, but it was simply not ossible.  He demanded an additional $400, which was also not possible.  I texted to check on his progress around 4 pm, and he informed me he had not left.  He had to rent a U-Haul, despite his repeated insistence that he would have no difficulty pulling the traier with his Suburban.  He again tried to get more money, or meet us elsewhere.  Indeed, his now much later than agreed upon arrival time meant we could NOT take delivery where we had expected, and we had to have it taken to a campground as his arrival time slipped again and again - past 8, 9, 11, and then midnight.  All of our volunteers to help move it faded and went to bed.

Indeed, when Grady let us know how late i t would be I tried to move the delivery to a later date, but he replied that it was too late he was now on the road, had spent money on a rental truck, had  a court date at 8:30 am the next day, and we should be grateful to meet him any time.  We arrived, tired but excited at our meeting place, and still he was late.

I should say in simple fairness that the drive is tricky under the best of conditions.  At night, pulling a trailer, it is a very spooky business.  Grady went through it because his planning left him no choice.  We also had little choice except to call it off at that hour.

When  he arrived, he tried to ditch the trailer in the loading dock of the local supermarket.  After some warm discussion, he oh so reluctantly agreed to take it to the campground, which was not our choice, it ws simpy the only other option.  Or so we thought.
Partway (most of the way!) to the campground Grady pulled off the road into a field dirt road.  A we turned around and drove back, he was hurriedly unshackling the trailer.  When we got there he rased every possible objection to continuing; he had lredy come much farther than he wanted to, he was out of gas, he had no crd to get gas from stations closed for the night, he had court in a few hours, and so on.
He had no keys, handed me the paperwork, asked us for favors, then sped off.  We clambered inside to discover. . . .
Both skylights were open to the sky, one had scattered its fragments on the bed - obviously smashed sometime in transit.  The electrical system did not work.  The furnace had been removed.  It was hard to tell in the light of our handflashes, but it looked, er, gutted.
We made such preparations for the rest of the night as could be made around 2 am in the dark on the side of the road.  No question that this was the coldest night yet, ditched on who knows whose property on the side of the road, only 4 miles or so from the campground.
In the morning, without phone service, we made arrangements for the owner of the campground to tow us to a spot at his place.  His comment on the trailer was, that if the seller was local, we should dump it on his property and get or mmoney back.  His next comment was that we should have come to him - he knew of at least one perfectly goodd trailer for sale.  But how could we have known to come to him?  I had never heard of him until the plan to take a late delivery.
On the day we assessed the condition, we were at a campgrond with NO phone or internet service.  We scraped together our remaining money, made a short ist of things we had to have, then set to work rehabilitating our new home.
4 solid days of duct tape, Gorilla tape, silicone caulk, shrink wrap, cardboard and bits of wood later, we have it mostly sealed up, although it also took both sleeping bags, most of our clothes, towels, baggage etc.  We have a small electric heater (inadequate by itself but as part of a multipart system, effective enough),  a small propane heater (used to get us up to temperature, then turned off, as we discovered that the little cylinders it uses do not last a night if we left it on), and a hot plate used for cooking, and a tiny Mr. Coffee to warm water for coffee or tea.  The last is not a uxury, it is cold when we wake up in the mornings, but much warmer than when we started fixing up the Prowler.
We did not get [aid work during those days, a pause after the  harvest before the main processing begins, and the campground fee each day devoured what funds the renovation or food did not take.
We discovered that the propane system is working, but the firnace had been ripped out.  The water is also working but for one flaw - when we pressurized the system the i[ing at the back of the toilet sprayed water, and there are no shut off valves aywhere in the pi[ing so we had to turn that off, clean up, and work on moving somewhere else.
We have finally arrived at the locale we originally meant to occupy.  In exchange for some light duties around the farm, we get to stay here free and are provided electricity and water.  We are once more safe behind gates, surrounded by dogs and people with guns, and with a Porta-Potty close by, have returned to a sustainabe situation.  Paid work has resumed, and we have some groceries sotred up.  The refrigerator works, and we have installed a parallel electrical system, which gives us light, heat and cooking.
Sadly, in the process of moving the trailer, we lost the one phone that "had service"; it was crushed.  My phone loses service in 4 days and has the wrong hardware to be switched to local service.
The hardest part of this has been the complete blackout enforced by our isolation and the fact there was no form of communiction we could use.  I fear for the relationships abruptly interrupted, and don't even know when I will get this narrative posted.
I hear the lively voices of the farm animals - dogs, turkeys, cattle, donkey, chickens, pigs, a llama.  The cats are mostly silent, the birds are mostly loud, the people friendly and sociable now that we are the nwest part of their househd.
Today we get the orientation and introduction to our chores.
From the men of the EarthMission, apologies for the long, long silence.