Well, this diary comes bit late, as these events took place after the Easter this year (week 13). I wrote the text and took pictures, but I was so lazy to convert the pictures I didn’t get it posted here before 
But back to the story: In the university I study there was examination week and because of Easter the examination week lasted two calendar weeks. I had no exams and was asked to do some sick leave covering which I agreed. I also remembered to charge camera batteries to get some pictures to get some diary done. As the job actually is quite boring to tell after you catch the idea, there are more pictures and less of this useless text (who actually has any interest to read this in the first place?) 
Sunday
The lorry I’m driving has a same weekly route with roughly same farms to visit, and you have to go to the every place every week so there’s always some problems during the holidays or when someones sick. Anyhow, Sunday was easy day with about 4.5 hours drive, filling the lorry up and having a short coffee break to stretch one’s legs. Apart from easy driving something turned up for next day as I was hailed via CB. The driver calling informed me about my trailer indicators to be connected crosswise. There was a new socket on the trailer light cord and I had just assumed that the grease monkey had checked the lights after changing it so I didn’t bother to actually check the trailer indicators. Apparently that was a wrong decision. Anyhow, now lights would have to wait for the next day as fixing the wires in the socket is quite nasty thing to do in the dark.
At the company yard with weather being nice, dry and about +3C.
Filling her up.
While filling up I saw also couple other lorries, and very clean DHL trailer behind the old FH.
After filling up it was time to hit the road again.
Monday
At Monday morning I woke up about half an hour before the alarm went on and it was a bit cold in the cab. Hmm… Fans are trying to blow air into the cab and light on the Webasto’s switch is on the sound of Webasto, or the lack of it, reveals that it isn’t working. After playing with the switch few times Webasto tried to fire up but didn’t stay burning so I gave up and dressed up to get day started. After turning ignition on, the dashboard computer told that the temperature was only -9C so it can’t be the reason why Webasto ceased working (chill point for summer flavor of diesel is -15C).
My not-so-warm hotel room at the morning.
When I was warm again, I uncoupled the trailer and headed to the first collection about 15 minutes drive away. There was three roller cages of eggs which I took with me after leaving three empty roller cages in exchange. After that I drove back to the trailer, coupled it and headed towards morning coffee.
Heading towards first collection.
Trailer says: You’re not going to get get your morning coffee.
Oh joy. Where’s my [zb] hammer?. After finding it, I tried some hammering to the offending drum but it didn’t help. I only got my clothes snowy after crawling under the trailer but brake shoes were still frozen onto the drum surface. Then I played a bit with a suspension and hammer and eventually got the tyre rolling again.
Heading towards my morning coffee.
Not much of a rush at the Shell this time. Only a “stump logger” parked for the Easter.
After getting breakfast (huge soup plate of oatmeal and milk, coffee and Karelian pasty) with very reasonable three euros I hit the road again. After about ten kilometers I left trailer to a roadside bus stop and headed to second collection. Road to there consist 9 km of reasonably wide, but very bumpy gravel road which, obviously, was covered with snow and ice. From there I got four full roller cages and dropped the same amount of empty cages.
At the second collection.
Now, after coupling trailer again, I had a bit longer bit of driving as next collection was about 60 km away. I like this bit of a road quite much as it has nice scenery and you actually have to do some driving on it and not only hold the steering wheel. If someone is really interested it’s road number nine between Hankasalmi and Suonenjoki 
A frozen lake. This scenery is very nice at summer.
Then I again left trailer to a roadside bus stop, only that this time to the wrong side of the road (left side). Thats because that way I’m able to turn left immediately after the trailer to head to third collection and when coming back I can just block that junction and reverse straigth to the trailer. This is just to avoid the need to turn rigid around in some other much more awkward place. After getting eight roller cages from this collection I had 40 km’s to drive to the fourth collection. There I once again left trailer somewhere, if you didn’t already guess it by now, and drove six or seven kilometers to get three roller cages of eggs.
Heading back to the trailer after third collection.
Road between third and fourth collection wasn’t ploughed yet…
…so I couldn’t but to drag a small cloud of a snow behind me.
My lonesome trailer waiting for me after the fourth collection.
Now, after fourth collection I had a longer drive to the fifth collection, or to be more precise, to the place where I change load from rigid to trailer. Before that I still had to fix those crosswired indicators on the trailer before it’s dark. I had postponed the fixing and hoped for the temperature to raise near zero. As it hadn’t, and some snow clouds had began to gather to the sky, I had to froze my hands and fix the wires despite the wind and about -5C temperature.
“Hey, lets all drive 60 km/h as it might be slippery!” Speed limit was 80 km/h and the grip was very good…
Is it a plane? Is it a bird? No… it’s… a lorry!
A logger parked next to me on the truck stop where I fixed the wiring.
Snow is melting on the asphalt due to spring sun despite temperature still being way below freezing.
Driving on the road like in the previous picture, on freezing temperature gives you a pimped front tyre
After about 200 km drive after the fourth collection it was time to transfer full roller cages from rigid to trailer and get empties from trailer to rigid. By this time I had collected 18 cages and I transferred all but three of them to the trailer on a lay-by. Now I had totally 19 cages on the rigid which makes next collection a bit of a hassle as I don’t have enough room to get the three pallets I’m collection easily to the headboard. Luckily there is much of a space on that farm to temporarily drop off some empty cages to make the space needed. After changing the load I once again couple the trailer and pull it about 5 km further where I once again uncouple and head now to the fifth collection. Of course there were some unexpected problems as the fridge on the trailer didn’t start and air temperature was already -7C. Fridge showed inside of trailer being 0C. When looking at the fridges fuel tank it was of course empty. Boss hadn’t bothered to fill it up despite he was last who has used the fridge… Apparently firing up the fridge had to wait until the next appropriate fuel station.
Fifth collection is to be done from the building visible in the far left on the picture.
Heading south in the vicinity of Russian border after the fifth collection.
After the collection I pulled the trailer to the next appropriate fuel station. The “red” pump is in a bit awkward place here and of course there was a car parked in the forbidden zone which makes it impossible to fill the trailer from there. Well, I just have to put winter flavor diesel onto tank (chill point -25C). Then I was fearing that tank was so empty that I’d have to manually get the air out of the fridges fuel system (what’s the correct term in english?). Luckily after about 10 to 15 startings fridge stays running for more than few seconds and I’m happy to hit the road again. I still did one collection this evening and because of that I once again dropped the trailer to a road side bus stop. As it was dark by now I now noticed that not a single one of extra reversing lights were working. It aint most cheering moments to reverse practically blind into uphill when it’s dark. From this collection I got four cages and then I once again coupled to the trailer and headed to a truck stop few kilometers away to have a sauna.
Tuesday
I woke up at 2.45 as it was freezing cold in the cab and immediately noticed Webasto wasn’t running. After hitting the switch Webasto didn’t even give any promising sounds of starting so I had to fire up the “big Webasto” (engine) and hope to get some sleep despite engine moaning directly beneath me. Temperature wasn’t more than -13C so not even a summer flavor diesel should yet freeze on that temperature. I didn’t sleep well after that, but technically I was well rested at the morning, at least according to the tachos. After getting breakfast and getting back to the road I started to ring through every Volvo dealers through the route I was going today if they could repair my Webasto and possibly check whats wrong with the extra reversing lights. There were five possible dealers and on the fourth call I was lucky and they had free time gap at such time which was quite good for me. I only had to wait about 30 minutes until they were able to take my lorry under repair. Before that I did one collection only about 5 km from the Volvo dealer so there wasn’t even a big detour to the repair.
This had parked here during the last evening while I was at the sauna.
Steering towards the days first collection.
At the first collection.
After spending some time at the Volvo they got the Webasto fixed but not the reversing lights. As they hadn’t any ideas left what could be wrong I decided that reversing ligths aren’t that important and left from the Volvo. After about one and half hours drive I was near the days second collection and dropped trailer once again. From this farm I got nine cages and as this was last collection now I only had to drive to packaging facility, which took about 1 hour and 30 minutes, unload the eggs and load empty cages and few pallets for the next day. Changing the load took bit less than two hours, a bit more than usual, as packaging facility was quite full after the Easter. After unloading and loading the empties it was about one and half hours drive to the nearest 24/7 cafe of next mornings collections to make sure I get some breakfast at the morning.
I spotted couple loggers when I stopped for a coffee.
I also spotted this B-train after the coffee when departing truck stop.
Not much of a snow left in Turku in southwest Finland.
Empties loaded for the next day.
Wednesday
As sun was raising Wednesday morning temperature was -6C and snow clouds were blocking the sun. Those clouds obviously were overloaded as their load (snow) was falling all over the places. The snow was trying to fall down but it got caugth by the wind on its way down and was mostly moving sideways in a great hurry. Few snowflakes had been able to escape the wind as there were few centimeters of a packed snow here and there. Apparently few snowflakes had also landed to the nearby main road making it icy as an artic leaving the cafe just as I got out of the cab, sounded to have some wheel spin after getting to the main road.
After getting my morning java I headed to a smallish town called Punkalaidun about 20 km away and left the trailer to the back of unused fuel station for the morning. There wasn’t yet much of snow on the ground but snowfall seemed to be thickening which was promising a nasty day as snow makes tail lift, shoes and the plastic wheels under the roller cages slippery. The first three collections were hastly done totalling to about 40 km drive and 12 cages after which it was time to transfer those cages to the trailer and get rest of the empties to the rigid. I had 30 cages with me and as 28 cages fit into the rigid’s box the only reason to tow the trailer into this town was two cages. Brigth side of trailer being here is that it makes collections much easier as I now have plenty of space on the rigids box to play around with. Snow fall had been thickened all the time and during the cage transfer it seemed that wind made all that snow to fall onto my taillift. 
Not much of snow on a places where wind blows.
I hate snow when it’s on my taillift.
I had the mornings second coffee at a small cafe and spotted this FM440 with nowdays somewhat rare superstructure: a wire lift.
After the coffee I had four more collections in vicinity of this town before coupling to the trailer. On the first of those collections I almost lost my faith to get all the full cages with me as snow was making everything slippery and at that place you have to pull (or push) cages over 15 cm high step and you have only 30 cm (or 10 if pushing) of free space for accelerating before ramp over the step start to raise. Somehow I managed to get all the cages to the taillift without injuries and headed to do next two collections, which both are small places. Also the frozen and hence raisen ground makes things a bit difficult on the another of these farms as you cant get taillift as low as you can at the summer. After these comes one of the good places where the farmer himself is usually helping with the cages. I got nine cages from there and then I headed back to the trailer. After coupling up I drove a bit over 5 km to the next collection. There my intention was to drop the trailer to a roadside bus stop. As it’s a bit small the trailer have to reversed a bit to get it aligned properly for a easy coupling. Now, as it had been snowing that reversing part didn’t went that smooth as rigids back shooted towards the deep ditch immediately when I lifted the clutch. [zb]. After lifting the tag axle and pulling a fair amount forward I then reversed almost to the bus stop (at least half of the trailer was on it 
). Luckily that bit of the road doesn’t have much of a traffic. After collecting two cages I coupled trailer again and even managed to do it without any big hassle .
This is the place where I almost left few cages to wait the next week.
This gravel road wasn’t as smooth ride as it may seem from the smoothnes of the snow. 40 km/h max because of countles potholes.
Nine cages waiting for me at the end of the road.
After the hassle with trailer I ended up here where snow had fallen only on places where I needed to walk in order to get tail lift open 
Now I had all cages with me and the last collection was about 20 km away. From there I would collect 13 or 14 pallets. Small roads I had been driving whole morning had had good grip but main road was a bit slippery and wheels were spinning nicely until somewhere around 70 km/h. At that speed there was enough traction for a full throttle.
There wasn’t that much of a snow at the morning 
After pulling into a smallish cafe near last collection I uncoupled the trailer and reversed backs together to get the cages onto the trailer and pile of empty pallets and few pallets of egg trays to the rigid. I then went on to the farm where 13 loosely wrapped pallets were waiting for me. After getting four of those on board the tail lift decided that it’s good time to start playing I’m-almost-not-working-game. The sound of the hydraulic pump was normal, so there weren’t air in the hydraulics, but raise (and lowering) buttons only worked occasionally. After getting two more pallets on symptoms were so severe that I didn’t dare to lower tail lift anymore, so it was time to start looking for the fault. First I thought that fault was on the “remote”, but tail lift didn’t work properly even from the control box fixed to the chassis. This week started to seem very [zb] promising . Next though was that another of the wires giving signals to the control valves at the bottom of lift cylinders was nearly cut off, but I couldn’t find any clear indication of that so it was a call to the boss. Boss told me to call a nearby superstructure builder if they’d got time to look the tail lift. They didn’t got time, but they told that the Volvo dealer of the same town has authorized tail lift service so time to call them. They said they have time but I’d have to wait a bit. I couldn’t but agree, and left the rest of the pallets waiting to the farm and headed to the Volvo.
Not much of a snow to plough on the places wind is blowing.
When I arrived at the Volvo, I was told that they are now having their monthly review meeting with their staff, but that shouldn’t last more than a half hour or so. After ONE and half hour they finally conluded their meeting and the mechanic began to wonder whats wrong with my tail lift. First he did bit of rewiring which first seemed to help, but didn’t fix the problem. The fault was at the relay controlling the another of the raise/lower-cylinders of the tail lift. The mechanic replaced all the four relays and then I was good to go again. I spent almost about three hours there which very much ruined my schedule but thats pretty much normal in this industry (you’re always late I mean ).
Where am I?
After getting taillift fixed I drove back to the last collection, lifted rest of the pallets onboard, coupled to the trailer and drove about hour and 20 minutes to the packaging facility. There I unloaded the load and pulled some empty cages and few pallets for the next mornings collections.
Some snow on at a truck stop.
Main roads were also bit snowy. Heading to the packaging facility.
For a comparison, same junction as in second last picture of Tuesday.
Thursday
At the morning temperature was about -4C and weather looked much better than at the previous morning. After the obligatory morning coffee, and some solid food to fill the space left by the coffee, it was time to do visit five nearby farm to collect totally 13 cages and 8 pallets. This totalled to about 40 km of driving and 3.5 hours of work. Then I pulled the trailer about 20 km towards the packaging facility and left that to a roadside bus stop to collect 8 more cages from two farms.
I had had company during the night and even the weather was looking quite nice.
The first collection
The second collection
Heading towards fifth collection.
Transferring load to the trailer.
Last collection of the day. Weather was very nice.
After doing these collections it was about hours drive to the packaging facility where I once again pulled the full cages and the pallets out of the rigid and the trailer. After pulling some empty pallets and egg trays on board the only task left for the day was 5.5 hours of driving to the next mornings collection. It was really easy journey as my load was only two empty cages and few ligth pallets headed to the farms. Usually I would’ve had some more pallets to drop to a shops during the journey, but this time, for my good luck, there weren’t anything. At some point at the evening I stopped to a service station to have a sauna, which was out of order, so it was only shower this time. There was also some snow falling down at the evening, but nothing too severe. I also weren’t that late from the schedule I had supposed because of passing those shops drops greatly improved my schedule.
Heading towards next days collection. 15 km from packaging facility.
100 km further down the route.
And 170 km from the packaging facility, where the illumination begun to be too much for my camera.
Parked for a night.
Friday
At the morning snow wasn’t falling down anymore and temperature was -5C meaning nice weather for work. I had left my trailer last evening about 20 km away to the farm from where I’m doing my last collection for this day. I was now parked few kilometers from the mornings first collection where I got five pallets of eggs. The collection didn’t take much of a time but made the lorry quite front heavy.
Days first collection.
At local service station I spotted this. Anyone willing to make a guess what the snowmobile is towing?
Heading reas of the farms and wheels are again spinning because of front heavy load.
After about 20 km drive there was three collections from a small village, so not much of a driving during the morning. First of those three was a small place where I got two small roller cages and the two other collections were from one farm but from different buildings. That place has a huge yard so loading the trailer is really easy as you reverse backs together so that the pallets can be lifted up with the tail lift and then pulled directly to the trailer. Nice and easy work. I got almost full load from these four collections, 28 pallets and 2 small roller cages. It would’ve been possible to get two more pallets onboard, but that means much more precision when aligning the 1.2+ metres wide pallets side by side to the trailer. Rigids box has more insulate so it’s impossible to load these pallets to the rigid that way.
Days second collection is at the of this motorway.
Days third collection is just done.
Fourth collection is on the way.
Egg pallet.
Days collections are done and I’m ready to roll.
Loading took about three hours, including a bit of driving and the next task was, surprisingly, to drive to the packaging facility to unload the eggs. The little over five hours drive was as uneventfull as was the unloading. The only noticeable difference was the +6C temperature at 16.00, which had stopped to a freezing by 17.00. Unloading also meant loading the empty cages for the next week after which I was more than ready to call it a week and drive home.
Sun has allready melting the snow down on the main roads.
And snow is melting even without the salt on the roads
Do I imagine or has wind blown only from one direction?
For a comparinson, the same junction that was on Tuesdays and Wednesdays pictures.
Unloading at the packaging facility.
Load in the rigid waiting to be unloaded.
I’m not entirely sure about the total mileage of the week, but if someone is interested it was something around 2900 km.
Apart from summer, I’ve only done some sick leave or holiday etc. coverings. And because of being only a part timer and also a quite young lad I feel a bit embarrassed that my diary got this much of attention 