Brother Red

While Mark was assisting our newly formed friend butcher a sheep last fall, they started talking about an Old Ford F150 our friend had.  He had been trying to sell it. There were some things wrong with the truck and Mark offered to fix what they thought was wrong.  After working on the truck, Mark got it running.  Not everything was running perfect,  but it was drivable.  Mark asked what our friend wanted for the truck and a deal was struck.  Mark drove home our new old red Ford F150 4×4 truck.  We were stoked because this truck would be able to drive all over our property and would be a great wood gathering truck.

Over spring break we decided to start gathering some of our firewood for next year.  This is a miracle because typically we still have snow on the ground in Northern Idaho and are in the middle of what we call “mud season”.  This is the earliest we have started gathering wood, since we have lived here. But before we could start cutting firewood and use “Old Red” Mark had to repair an engine part and we wanted to make some side rails for the truck.  So, while Mark was fixing the engine, I made the side rails for “Old Red“.

Old Red getting fitted with side rails

Old Red’s side rails are almost complete.

This was a fun project that took two days to complete, due to the fact that I painted the rails a beautiful green that oh so complimented the faded red paint.  You have to love using left over paint.  I found that building them in place was the easiest way to build the rails.  As I was finishing up the rails, Mark was finishing his work on the engine.  We were now ready to cut and gather firewood.

Old Red’s beautiful green side rails are complete!

As we were cutting and loading the wood, I kept referring to our truck as “Old Red“.  I asked Mark what year the truck was and he told me that it was built in 1976 and was therefore 39 years old.  I was shocked!  I was older than the truck and if I referred to it as “old” then I would have to say I was “old“ too.  I told Mark that I couldn’t call our truck “Old Red” any longer and so from that moment on our truck had a new name, “Brother Red”.

Brother Red you shall now be called!

End Note:  How did those side rails work you might have asked yourself?  They did awesome holding all the limbs from the trees we cut up and hauling the limbs to the dump was a breeze with the rails.  Also, they held all the cut rounds we piled into the truck bed. And  “Brother Red” looks great sporting those green side rails.

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