A New Use For The Perfect Bed

When I first bought the "B's Nest" truck in April, 2001, it was black with a flatbed off of a 2 ton truck on it. The flatbed was 10' long and almost 8 foot wide. I put new sides on it and kept my eye out for a flatbed that was made for a one ton truck. I bought the truck from a guy in Shell Knob. On the way home the clutch shattered and the pressure plate lost half its springs. I drove it the rest of the way home without a clutch, shifting ala diesel truck and starting it in gear at red lights. My Dad made the trip with me. (I bought a similar truck in Purdy --1948 GMC one ton that I drove home without brakes. That was an exciting trip on 60 highway. This one had a clutch and an erratic emergency brake, we made it home.)

I sold that truck to Coon Roofing and bought this 1956 Red Ford F600 with a Y block motor, five speed with two speed rear axle and a 14 dump bed. It was fun and I hauled a lot of gravel down to the lake cabin with it.

I painted this truck with a brush, just like trucks were painted back in the 1930s, using a fine brush and paint thinned with varnish--I got a nice shiny finish on the truck.

At the time I owned this truck, I was buying and selling old International Cub tractors. I hauled a lot of tractors in this truck. One memorable trip the PvtRn and drove up north of Camdenton to pick up on probably the hottest day of the year. This truck was awful big and I was looking for something smaller to haul the Cubs in.

I kept this truck at My mother-in-laws house. One day her septic tank acted up and she called the guys to pump it out. The men asked if that red Ford in the back was for sale, she said yes and sold it for a lot more than I would have asked. (I recently saw this red Ford truck out west and north of Halltown sitting in a barnyard. It looked like it had been worked hard.)

I had spotted the "B's Nest" truck earlier, but I had told the PvtRN I wouldn't buy anything else until I sold something. With the red Ford sold, I got the green light to buy the "B's Nest" truck.

The truck was originaly blue so I repainted it and kept up the search for the perfect bed.I found it in Joplin, MO at Pepper's Truck Body. I brought it home on my brother-in-law's flat bed trailer and painted it up to complement the now blue "B's Nest" truck. Here are some photos of the transition:

Right after I put this bed on the truck, I sold all my Cub tractors and implements and bought a John Deere Lawn Tractor. I was cutting my lawn, my mother-in-law's acreage and, until her husband bought a Kubota mower, my sister's acreage.

My Dad bought me a set of aluminum ramps from the MFA store in Republic and I was set to go! Then the motor went south. I bought another 1954 Chevrolet one ton for the dump bed hoist mechanism and the motor. Like so many of my ventures, the motor turned out to be not as described. So I found a performance 235 on Craigslist outside of St. Louis for a reasonable price, I went up and got it, the private mechanic put it in,and that brings us up to date on the "B's Nest" truck.

Only now I wasn't mowing any acreages, just my corner lot. My son (who lives next door) used the truck to haul away the ice storm debris in 2007. His sister-in-law and I used the truck to haul away junk from a rental house the renters trashed after they got an eviction notice. I took two rolls of film in case I had to go to court but I can't find them now. Just as well, I'd probably get mad all over again. I just hope the nurse who rented my house took better care of her patients than she did my house.

I used to have a 1953 Chevrolet 3/4 ton pickup we used to haul clippings to the leaf dump. Here's a picture of Trey and Austin playing in the back of the truck. I was hauling sand for a brick sidewalk I was building.I sold this truck to a guy who wanted the rust free cab and motor. I didn't know he was going to part it out when I sold it, but, hey, he gave me my asking price. The truck looked like this when I bought it out of Columbia, MO:With the pickup sold, we thought we'd use the "B's Nest" truck to haul grass clippings. But, with the canvas top, we'd have to climb up into the truck with the mower bags and empty them. Unloading was a major chore also. Have you ever heard of "spontaneous combustion"? Then you will know how hot grass clippings can get. Oh yeah, they smell will knock your socks off, too!

Because it was far easier to empty the mower bags into the back of a pickup, Jim and I started using his army Dodge for the leaf dump haul.The grass clippings ate the paint off the inside of his truck's bed. His truck was too nice to be a grass clippings truck so we decided to put the smaller, dump bed on the "B's Nest" truck after I sold the "perfect bed".

I listed the bed on Craigslist and got narry a nibble. Meanwhile, daughter Sara and I were talking about how the hay she gets for her horses pulls up moisture from the ground even when she had it on pallets. I asked if she wanted to use 'the perfect bed' to store her hay in.

Well, it took some convincing, but she finally agreed to it. This morning I drove out to the 5 Acre Dream and, well, I'll let the photos speak for themselves as Sara's husband, Daniel, and I move the perfect bed to its new resting spot:





Stay tuned for photos of the new perfect bed on the "B's Nest" truck! Granted, it needs some work, but we'll get there! (Well, it's interesting to me!)