Big Red - the yellow wagon

Father's Day 2014 - Jessica and Sarah take Dad for a ride

Many of you know that my brother Brad runs a nursery, Deseret Nursery and as part of it, has a lot of garden carts for customers use while they purchase plants.  One particular time, Brad purchased a very large cart, yellow in color, but named it Big Red.  While he decided early that it was too big, some of his customers were drawn to the name because if you know my brother, the fact that a yellow cart was named Big Red, is not an unusual thing for him to do!  Well Cathy and I decided to purchase the cart from him and keep it at our home.

In our initial year of use, I was drawn to the size of it, and having been decades since being pulled in a wagon, asked my girls to take me for a ride around the neighborhood for Father's Day.   It was a lovely experience.  Later, for our Stake Youth Conference, we used it to haul food and other items, since the distance to the parking lot at the camp site was a little longer than most would want to carry.

In the years that would follow, we used it to haul wood around the yard, leaf bags for recycling and other uses as they came along.  It worked well, with one exception in that it seemed like one of the tires was always going flat on me.  I did purchase replacement tires from the original seller, Growers Supply.  They were $30 a pop, and would work fine until another would go flat on me.  I tried the green slime, even tried to pull the tube out once but always a pain and a tire would be flat when I really needed it.  This year after a service project at my Church's recreation property, it picked up some goat-heads and alas one of the tires went flat on me again.  I was about to order a new tire, when the thought of going with a flat free tire resonated.  I knew I would most likely have to replace at least a pair at a time, and looked everywhere for them, including from the original seller.  

Then a few weeks ago, I came across a web site, ZORO.com. After many measurements, thought I had the nearly perfect match, they were 2" smaller in diameter, but same width. This created the need to replace all four wheels, but in the end a good investment.  They came very timely, looked great and when I went to put them on, realized the axial width I measured was for the width of wheel, leaving no room at the end for a cotter pin to secure the wheel.

I called the company to explore options and was set to call back the next day to talk with their product reps, when an idea came that since the axial was fixed, could I weld something on the end to hold the wheel on.  Since they were flat free, I didn't really need to take them off again.  I'm not a welder, but in exploring the option with friends, even briefly thinking of purchasing a welder, I went to "the top of the mountain" to ask the genius of our neighborhood, Martin Baker.  Martin knows everything, has fixed items I could never imagine being repaired and has tools that even I don't own.  I was going to an evening community meeting and he agreed to solve my dilemma. Martin drilled a hole in the center of the axial, tapped it for threads and then put in a bolt with washers.  It worked perfectly!  By the end of my community meeting, Martin had all four wheels connected.  He even fixed a cotter pin issue in the handle for me.  No finer man exists, I'm always indebted to Martin Baker!

I brought Big Red home last night and the yellow wagon is ready for the next job around Christensen Acres.  I sometimes demonstrate my pride in my projects at completion by assimilating myself to Sparticus, but alas, even Sparticus has limits and everyone needs a Martin Baker in their life.