You Haul

 

One of the biggest drawbacks to going with an SUV versus another minivan is that I can't haul as much on the inside. Actually, Toyota made that decision easier for me when they did away with removable middle row seats in their last generation of minivans. My solution to their poor decision was to add a bumper hitch to the minivan which worked okay though I struggled with the wiring harness portion of it. So when the time came for another vehicle, I decided that I wanted a professional to install the hitch and wiring harness and I'm happy with that decision. It looks professional where as my previous attempt... well didn't. 

My first project for said hitch was to head down to the farm to retrieve the wire panels we used in our trellis for growing vining crops at our old garden. We salvaged them before giving up the land and they have been waiting for me to get them up to my house ever since. I would like a trailer of my own but I really have no place to store one inside out of the weather. I have a few sources who do have trailers but that requires timing things to when they aren't using it, paying a small gift tax for the use of it and having to ask them if it is available to start with. 

As an alternative, I looked into the rental trailer business and was frankly, kind of shocked at the prices. For the above trailer, it cost me a whopping $30 and that included purchasing an $8 insurance policy in case I somehow damaged the thing and sales tax. A cheap trailer of the same size would run me probably a minimum of $1000 and perhaps closer to $1500. I'm pretty good at math and that means I would have to rent a trailer for fifty times to start saving money. Of course there is some cost of fuel and time to pick up said trailer and return it each time but conversely, there is a cost to purchasing a trailer, leaving it sit outside and having a rusted mess of a trailer without working lights because the mice chewed all the wires versus renting a trailer basically in the same shape every single time. So I'll probably not be buying a trailer anytime soon.

I was able to get the wire panels folded up into the trailer and tied down, more difficult than I anticipated and required me to use a ratches to start bending them in the correct direction so I could push them into the final shape seen above. I can attest, it was much easier unloading them because I simple removed the pins from the rear gate and let it flop down with the panels extending rather violently out the back. 

Below is the panels installed in our garden and ready to go for next spring when we decide what to plant underneath them.