My Trailer was Bartered for Oranges!

My Snowbear trailer

I have a handy little 4x8' Snowbear trailer in my backyard for whenever I need to haul something.  I've been a little amazed at how often it gets loaned out. Everyone should own a pickup truck, if possible, but not everyone does.  Like me, I sold my Toyota pickup a few years back after burning through three motors.

So I bought a trailer. Now any time I need to haul something, I can hookup to my trailer with both my Jeep or my Suburban.  I haven't used it very much but it is reassuring to know it is ready and waiting.

6 qts of OJ, fresh squeezed

I've used it so little, in fact, that I think my friends and neighbors have used it more than I have!  A neighbor borrowed it about a year ago when he needed to move out of his house a few doors down.  He had it for a full week.  When it was all said and done, he brought it back...with several plastic bags full of tangelo oranges from his backyard.

I had no intentions on charging him anything so the free fruit was a welcomed surprise.  We broke out the juicer and went to town that day.  There's nothing better than fresh squeezed juice!

So when my friend from work asked to borrow my trailer a few weeks ago, I quickly agreed.  It just sits in my backyard...begging to be useful.  When he asked me what he could pay me for it, I jokingly said payments are accepted in oranges.  Turns out he has 52 orange trees at his place!

Gasp!  So far he's had the trailer for two weeks and I've already netted several bags of oranges.  I think I may just have to start pimping out my trailer for goods.  I mean, this is just too easy!

It's interesting to me how many orange trees there are here in Arizona.  It has been my experience that most people that have them are somewhat bothered by them.  I've been told you have to pick the fruit off every year for the health of the tree.  Another man told me he has to trim out any dead branches or it affects the tree.  At this point, I've heard "please, help yourself to the oranges" so much that if I ever did lose my job I'm pretty sure I could keep the family stocked in free orange juice until I found another job.

My 14 year old daughter came home from a sleep-over last weekend with a huge dog food bag full.  Her friend's family has numerous orange trees on their property.  They build their house in the middle of an old orange orchard. That particular Dad told me they had to clear 40 trees to make room to build his house. So he has an overabundance of oranges on his property, as do all his neighbors in that area.

We have friends in our daughters' Job's Daughters group that have orange trees on rental property.  They told me that if we didn't go pick the fruit, he'd have to pay pickers to go clear them off the trees. PAY to get rid of oranges? Wow. We took home oodles of oranges last time we were over there.

Now if we could only find someone with a cattle abundance problem...we'd be set!