CowboySpirit.TV - To be frank with you, I had a hard time deciding how to approach my commentary this week. It was truly a week of highs and lows for our nation and for our Cowboy Spirit community.
It is tempting to go on a rant about the senselessness and evil that were visitied upon Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT on Friday. Believe me, I can rant with best of them.
As long time supporters of pediatric cancer research, we at Cowboy Spirit have always said that perhaps the greatest tragedy of all is when a parent has to bury their child. Sadly, this horrific act magnifies that tragedy to almost unspeakable depths. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the events of this past Friday.
In addition to the tragedy in Newtown, CT this week, it was also the last week of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, NV. It's the Superbowl of the sport of rodeo and although there are always many triumphant stories that always come out of the WNFR each year, one stands out above all others to me.
What do these two events have in common? What comes to my mind after the triumphs and tragedies of the week? Unlikely heroes - heroines actually.
First, and she is but one of the heroes to emerge this week from CT is Victoria Soto, the teacher who literally put her body between the gunman and the kids in her class, giving her life to save them. If this had been a military engagement, her actions would certainly be worthy of a Congressional Medal of Honor. Vickie didn't go to work on Friday expecting to be a hero, but that is indeed what she was that day.
The other woman I want to highlight is Mary Walker, a first time qualifier to the WNFR in the Women's Barrel Racing at the young age of 53. Mary's story going into the WNFR is inspirational enough. In April 2011, Reagon Walker was killed in a car wreck. In June of that year, she and her horse, Latte, fell during a race; Mary Walker shattered her pelvis, broke her hip in three places, had two fractured vertebrae and suffered two broken toes, ultimately spending over four months confined to a wheelchair. Battling back from a broken heart and a broken body, Mary not only qualified for the Finals in 2012, but won four of ten go rounds, placed in four others, and set a single season earnings record, in the process earnings her first World Title at the age of 53. In my mind Mary's performance this week is every bit as inspirational a story as the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey Team, so to borrow Al Michaels' classic line, "Do you believe in miracles?" Mary sure did.
I mention these two amazing women, because when we talk about "Cowboy Spirit", they both very much embody that which we hold out as that ideal: to stand up and do the right thing, even when the price for doing so is immeasurably high; and also to never, ever give up - to persevere in the face of overwhelming odds, because the battle is worth it, no matter what.
As we approach the Christmas Holiday, we will be keeping those affected by the tragic events in CT in our prayers. I'll also be thinking of Mary Walker, whose "Can do - Never quit" attitude inspires us and spurs us on to do our very best, no matter the odds.
Please help us build the Cowboy Spirit community by "Liking" this blog post on Facebook, tweeting it, emailing to friends, or otherwise sharing it with those you think might enjoy reading this or other posts from the Cowboy Spirit Blog. In the coming weeks, you'll be hearing more about our theatrical plans for the Cowboy Spirit Movie, and how you can help us get the word out about the film and continue to grow our Cowboy Spirit community.
-Mike Allison
CowboySpirit.TV - Cowboy Spirit TV wants to help you and your horse stay safe in your journeys. So we’ve teamed with Trisha Killion and the folks at Transwest Trailers to put together a series of trailering safety videos.
Trisha grew up in New Mexico where she showed & judged horses in 4-H and was also an active member of FFA showing replacement heifers. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics at Eastern New Mexico University in 2004 and then lunged at the chance to work for Transwest when the opportunity became available. She has been taking care of the horse trailer department at the Kansas City location for over 2 years. It is her goal to help educate customers about safety, structure & general trailer maintenance. She is a self defined “Trailer Snob”; only carrying the best of the best brands within the trailer industry. She resides in Liberty MO with her 2 little boys Roy & Kade who are 3 ½ & 1 ½. Trisha owns 2 quarter horses that are currently earning their keep at a feedlot in Granada, CO.
Trailer Tips with Trisha Killion #4: Inspection
Hi, all. It's Trisha with Transwest Trailers. And today we're going do a safety walk around on your goose-neck horse trailer before you take it out on a trip.
So we're going to start at the front of the trailer. First thing first, we're going to look at your coupler. You want this to at least be free moving, so that way the pin will latch all the way down in there whenever you get it attached to the ball in your chuck.
Also, I want to make sure you check this pin, that it's tight in here, and you have your safety latch on there. You also want to check the nuts on this for the proper torque. You want it to be torqued at about 115 to 125 pounds of pressure. So check all that. Make sure it's good.
Make sure you do have a breakaway battery cable. This, once it gets jerked out, will actually lock up your brakes for about five minutes on your trailer, so that way it doesn't pass you going down the road.
Make sure you've got your safety chains, that they are attached in usable order.
I want to make sure that you've got your seven-pin or six-pin plug. I want to make sure that this doesn't have a lot of dirt and crud in it. Be sure you clean it out good because this is your power connection for your trailer. This is for lights. This is for brakes. This is for charging your breakaway battery. So you want to make sure you've got a good, clean connection on both the track and on the trailer. Extremely important.
Next thing you want to inspect is going to be your spare. Want to make sure you've got air in this tire. And you want to make sure that there's no weather rot on this. Even though you've got plenty of tread, if you've got weather rot, it doesn't mean it's an actual viable tire. Typically anything that's actually over five years old you want to replace anyways.
Next thing you're going to want to inspect is going to be the tires on your trailer. Make sure you've got proper inflation on these. You want to check your tread. Make sure that they're not wearing unevenly. If these tires are wearing unevenly, it can mean several different things. I mean we could be talking bent axle, improper inflation of the tire, even just uneven wear from road trash. So be sure you check that.
Also, always want to check your lugs before any trip. I mean, shoot, if you lose one lug off of there, it doesn't take long, and you'll lose the rest of them just like that. Be sure to get a guide from your tire and wheel guy because it'll show you what the proper torque should be. It could be anywhere from 90 to 120 pounds on these.
Also just general safety features, look to make sure your fender isn't all dinged up because you go to tire your horse to that. They can get into a little bit of trouble if they go to pawing and take a little bit of hide off.
OK, so at the back of the trailer-- this particular Cimarron trailer is equipped with a ramp. You're going to want to check springs. Also, I want you to go back here and check welds as you're looking at this trailer.
And that's something I should have mentioned to you before, too. Do a general walk around on your trailer. Check for any broken welds, bolts coming out, rivets popping out-- just a general walk around to make sure the trailer is safe in overall condition.
So we check that. Springs look good. Welds look good.
Drop our ramp down. This one is spring loaded. Come back here. Go ahead and check all your hinges. Again, don't want these to have any cracks in them. If they're bolt-on hinges, go in there. Check and make sure that they're on there properly.
This particular trailer has can latches, which I absolutely love. Make sure that they're all in working order and that there aren't any cracks and that everything latches in just right. These look good.
One of the next things that you're going to want to check are going to be the lights on this trailer. This particular trailer has LEDs. So once you get it plugged in, you're going to make sure you've got left blinker working, right blinker working. Turn on your running lights. Make sure that all your marker lights are working.
And then turn on your stall lights. Make sure that they're working. If for some reason all the lights are working except for the stall lights, check the fuse in your pick-up. You've probably blown a 30-amp fuse.
So the next safety check we're going to do is going to check the floor. This is extremely important. Even on new trailers, this is stuff that we need to check.
You're going to come underneath here. You want to lift your mat. And now, granted, this one does have foam cell cushions, so that's what this secondary mat is. You're going to come in here. Pull mats. If you have a wood floor, I want you to check and make sure you don't have any sagging in that wood, any rot, any cracks, or pieces actually coming unbolted from the floor joints there.
Now this aluminum floor, this is a brand new trailer, so we're good to go. On your other aluminum floors, though, you want to check for pitting, for holes. Another reason why you really want to keep those floors clean because that urine will actually go in there and start eating away at that floor. So check your floors before you take off. You don't want some crazy accident.
Next thing you want to check is just going to be the dividers. This is just for general stall safety. You want to make sure that they will latch in here nice and tight and proper and that you don't have anything coming out here that's going to catch or cut or hurt your horse.
And that's just our general walk around safety tips for you guys when you're getting ready to hit the road. If you need more information or more help, be sure to check out my other videos. Again, it's Trisha with Transwest. Thank you very much. And have fun with your trailer.
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CowboySpirit.TV - Cowboy Spirit TV wants to help you and your horse stay safe in your journeys. So we’ve teamed with Trisha Killion and the folks at Transwest Trailers to put together a series of trailering safety videos.
Trisha grew up in New Mexico where she showed & judged horses in 4-H and was also an active member of FFA showing replacement heifers. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics at Eastern New Mexico University in 2004 and then lunged at the chance to work for Transwest when the opportunity became available. She has been taking care of the horse trailer department at the Kansas City location for over 2 years. It is her goal to help educate customers about safety, structure & general trailer maintenance. She is a self defined “Trailer Snob”; only carrying the best of the best brands within the trailer industry. She resides in Liberty MO with her 2 little boys Roy & Kade who are 3 ½ & 1 ½. Trisha owns 2 quarter horses that are currently earning their keep at a feedlot in Granada, CO.
Trailer Tips with Trisha Killion #3: Icy Ramps
Hi. It's Trisha Killion of Transwest Trailers bringing you another trailer tip to keep you rolling safely down the road, for all of our friends out there at Cowboy Spirit TV.
Today I'm going to bring you a word of caution. Traveling during the winter months and if you've got a ramp on your trailer, always, always, always check that ramp before you unload your horse. If you've been travelling, and there's ice and sleet and snow, moisture and condensation can build up on this ramp. And it can be like a skating rink.
So always check it, just like I know you always do when you're unloading your horse. Make sure that when that horse is backing out that it's not going to be a skating rink for him, and he goes flying off of there-- or you. Remember safety first.
I hope this tip has helped. Remember, if the tip isn't enough, give me a call. Thanks. Trisha Killion with Transwest.
If you haven't already, please subscribe to the Cowboy Spirit Blog so you won't miss a thing!
Or...
CowboySpirit.TV - Cowboy Spirit TV wants to help you and your horse stay safe in your journeys. So we’ve teamed with Trisha Killion and the folks at Transwest Trailers to put together a series of trailering safety videos.
Trisha grew up in New Mexico where she showed & judged horses in 4-H and was also an active member of FFA showing replacement heifers. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics at Eastern New Mexico University in 2004 and then lunged at the chance to work for Transwest when the opportunity became available. She has been taking care of the horse trailer department at the Kansas City location for over 2 years. It is her goal to help educate customers about safety, structure & general trailer maintenance. She is a self defined “Trailer Snob”; only carrying the best of the best brands within the trailer industry. She resides in Liberty MO with her 2 little boys Roy & Kade who are 3 ½ & 1 ½. Trisha owns 2 quarter horses that are currently earning their keep at a feedlot in Granada, CO.
Trailer Tips with Trisha Killion #2: Electrical
Hi. It's Trisha Killion of Transwest Trailers bringing you another trailer tip to keep you rolling safely down the road for all of our friends out there at Cowboy Spirit TV.
Today I'm going to show you how to operate your living-quarter horse trailer. Now we're going to do a couple different segments on this one. We're going to do your propane systems, your water systems, and electrical systems. So today we're going to cover full electrical systems.
One the first things you need to do to get power in your trailer is come out and find where your battery kill switch is. This particular trailer's battery kill switch is located inside the battery box. So you can see that this trailer's been stored. And we have this to off. The reason we have this off is so there's not going to be draw on your batteries. So say you leave a stall light on or a living quarter light on, you turn this off. It's not going to kill these.
So we're going to go ahead and flip this to on. So now we're going to go ahead and hook up our shoreline power, really simple and easy to do. Go ahead and locate your cord. This one is a 30 foot cord. And I do you recommend that you at least have a 30 foot. It's really going to make it easier for you whenever you're parked far away from your power source.
So we're going to take and line up our prongs here. So this is where our source is going to be. We're going to plug this in. We're going to line this up and then tighten this neck on here. There we go. So that's on there. That's tight.
Make sure your cord is straight, completely, whenever you're getting this plugged in. The reason you want to do that, and this one's not straight. We'll straighten it here in a second. But the reason you want to do that is to keep that electricity from having to travel around corners and angles. That way you just get a better flow and faster supply.
So our cord is completely straight here. We're going to take and plug this in. Do make sure that you're getting plugged in to 30 amp power. The reason this is so important is if you plug into 15 amp power, you actually have too much draw from your trailer on that. And you can't get near enough power. So if you're trying to run your air conditioner, your microwave, your TV, your breakers are going to keep tripping, your main breaker in your trailer. So make sure it's 30 amp.
So we're going to take and just line this up. And now we're plugged in. Simple, easy. Do make sure that you have got the on/off battery switch that we talked about earlier to on. So that way it's going to charge your batteries.
And then, also, if you get somewhere and you don't have this same type of outlet that matches your trailer, your trailer should have come with an adapter. So go ahead and plug it into that. And then plug it into your power source. Do remember this will limit the draw, though, that you're getting on your trailer. So it won't supply near as much power as is required.
So here is our generator panel. This particular trailer has Onan 4,000 micro quiet. We've got our battery switch on out there. So we're going to go ahead and turn this on. Make sure we've got fuel. We've got just enough fuel.
You'll also notice it's going to show you how many hours are on the generator. This one has 12.7 hours on it. So new trailer, hasn't run very much.
So what we're going to do is we're going to hold down this button for approximately five to 10 seconds. And we're going to let this prime. The reason we want this to prime is so that way we can get fuel circulating up to our generator.
Lights on. Let's go ahead and fire her up. Hold this down. And you'll hear her fire up. And now you're set.
So a way to cheat to make sure you do have 110 power is to look over at your microwave and see if you've got full power to it. You can see, obviously, light comes on. It's asking me to set the clock here. So we do have 110 volts power. So now we're ready to operate a few systems.
So one thing I'd recommend is making sure that everything's working in your trailer before you leave. So you just come up here, make sure that everything is going to turn on. So we've got power here. So we're set there for the DVD player. Turn our TV on.
Next thing we're going to check will be the air conditioner. So we've got a wall unit here. And I'm going to go ahead and turn it on to cool, even though, granted, it's about 48 degrees outside. You're going to want to let that run and get cold for a while to make sure it is working completely. So leave that running. I'm going to say that 10 minutes or so just to make sure it's working properly.
You're also going to want to come over here. This is your control panel for all your systems and test everything. You hit this test button. And batteries right now are charging. This is actually going to show us where it's at level-wise-- low, fair, good. So, remember, at the end of winter when you're pulling this trailer out, early spring, pulling it out, getting it ready to go, that your batteries, if you hadn't stored them, could possibly be really low or dead. And you never want to leave your trailer just plugged in all the time because that will actually kill the batteries on your trailer.
So we're going to test everything. Our systems look good as far as water goes. We have de-winterized this trailer. And so everything is completely empty, showing you fresh, holding, and grey, and then the levels-- a third, 3/4, or 2/3 and then full.
This is going to be our pump. At the pump, I can hear it running. And then this is for the hot water heater, which we'll cover in our next episode.
Air conditioner is completely working. I feel it getting cool right now. I'll go ahead and turn this bad boy off. There we go.
So those systems are working. 12 volt, actually, will operate your radio system here, which is kind of nice. So you can just run that off of your batteries. And we'll go ahead and test this TV, make sure everything's working.
Another system that operates off of 110 volt will actually be your refrigerator here. So you'll notice we have temp set, mode, on/off. So I'm going to his this on/off button. And you see where it's saying LP. That's the mode. That stands for liquid propane.
AU for automatic. You'll notice it's flashing AU, AC, AU, AC. The reason it's doing that, if you choose automatic, it will always, always, always go to 110, which is AC. It stands for alternating current.
So go ahead and put that on for AC, so it's going to operate off 110. Now, the nice thing is once this gets cold, I mean you can go ahead and switch it over to LP and have your propane actually run this and keep it cold going down the road. So another nice feature on these fridges here.
And what I do recommend is having your fridge turned on for approximately 42 hours and then come out and check it. Make sure it's getting nice and cold before you go on your first road trip. That's the main thing when you're first firing up your trailer. Make sure everything's working before you take off because you don't want to find out 400 miles away from home that, oops, fridge is out in the trailer. So be sure to check that.
And those are your main 110-volt systems that I wanted to cover today. If you have any questions, let me now. We'll be doing more videos that are actually in depth for each application-- your fridge, as far as your convection ovens, your generators. So check back for more video. And remember, if just the tip isn't enough, to give me a call.
If you haven't already, please subscribe to the Cowboy Spirit Blog so you won't miss a thing!
Or...
CowboySpirit.TV - Cowboy Spirit TV wants to help you and your horse stay safe in your journeys. So we’ve teamed with Trisha Killion and the folks at Transwest Trailers to put together a series of trailering safety videos.
Trisha grew up in New Mexico where she showed & judged horses in 4-H and was also an active member of FFA showing replacement heifers. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics at Eastern New Mexico University in 2004 and then lunged at the chance to work for Transwest when the opportunity became available. She has been taking care of the horse trailer department at the Kansas City location for over 2 years. It is her goal to help educate customers about safety, structure & general trailer maintenance. She is a self defined “Trailer Snob”; only carrying the best of the best brands within the trailer industry. She resides in Liberty MO with her 2 little boys Roy & Kade who are 3 ½ & 1 ½. Trisha owns 2 quarter horses that are currently earning their keep at a feedlot in Granada, CO.
Trailer Tips with Trisha Killion #1: Baking Soda
Hi. It's Trisha Killion of Transwest Trailers bringing you another trailer tip to keep you rolling safely down the road for all of our friends out there at Cowboy Spirit TV.
To save that aluminum floor, every time you clean it out and after it's dry, go ahead. Take a little bit of baking soda, and sprinkle it down on that floor. Now the reason that we want to do this is because it will actually neutralize the alkaline in the urine and horse manure. That alkaline's like an acid and actually eats away at that aluminum floor.
So we really want to maintain these floors for safety, number one, and cost, number two. So go ahead. Sprinkle a little bit down every time. Three bucks a box versus three grand on a new floor-- that's an easy decision right there.
So I hope this tip has helped. And remember, if just the tip isn't enough, be sure to give me a call. It's Trisha Killion with Transwest Trailers.
If you haven't already, please subscribe to the Cowboy Spirit Blog so you won't miss a thing!
Or...