klines environmental services - a day spent sucking up egg water, sludge and stink

One day recently our son was at our house and he asked me if I would consider going with him to his part time job some Saturday and take pictures and put them on my blog. He reads my blog and knows what I like to put out there and he thought it would be something to add. I didn't even have to think about it, I said I would love to but was curious if his boss would be okay with me riding along and taking pictures. He called Nelson, his part time boss, and asked him and got the "go-ahead" and so we decided that yesterday was the day I would tag-along. 

Let me just tell you, it was an adventure. Firstly, it wasn't what I expected that we would be doing and my eyes really opened up as to what all this kind of business can really do. Secondly, my son can make all things into an adventure. I had so much fun riding along with him and listening to him talking about the job and what he loves about it. I didn't hear him say one negative thing about this job and you would think that the kind of job it is, it would hold a bit of "negative" just because of what it is they do. 

Let's get right to it! As always, click on the pictures and they will come up in a gallery and you can see things a bit more up close and personal. If you like anyway. I took hundreds of pictures and am only sharing a fraction of them here.

Hold your nose and ENJOY!

Saturday afternoon, soon after 1 PM my ride comes driving up our driveway. A tanker truck, cleans out septic tanks to be specific! We didn't clean out septic tanks yesterday, though, we cleaned out other things. 

I liked this picture because of the sky overhead and how they colors of the truck and the sky were color coordinated. 

There he is, our son, Aaron, smiling and ready to go. 

The first thing I noticed was the big...YIKES, very big steps leading up to my seat. 

I had the worst time getting in and out of that truck! I felt like a clutz going in and out of there. My son can just scurry up the steps like no man's business! Whew, park one of them their semi tractors in my front yard and it will be a work out getting in and out of the cab for awhile!  

Aaron had gone into our house to get something so I quick took a couple pictures because why? Because I'm picture taking happy all day long, of course! 

Stick shift is the only way to go.  "Automatic trucks take the fun out of trucking", so says Aaron. 

As we were going up some hills he explained it, how the motor speed has to catch up with the road speed or something or other and I got completely lost and if you are a truck driver and you're reading this, here is where you can chuckle. I couldn't explain it to you to save my life. 

But, I will tell you I was so impressed with how Aaron was telling me in details how things work and I was thinking, "That's my boy, and he knows stuff!" 

I felt like I was sitting "upstairs" in this thing. 

That is our little barn and the neighbor's red barn in the background. 

I got a bunch of pictures in the time he was in the house getting whatever he was getting. 

Backing up ready to leave. 

We are now out on the road going past our house. 

We had to use the "jake brake" here. 

rraaraarraaaaa

Trucks have to stop at red lights too and you should always give them much space when they have to make a turn at a light. This is a public service announcement. 

Flyin' down the Amish Country Highway. 

I kind of liked the "view" from upstairs in the cab. 

Railroad crossings at the bottom of a big long hill? 

More jake brake in action.

rrraaarrraaarrraaaa

We have arrived at our first location. We had to back the truck into this place and not hit the trailer beside us. We were hauling "water" they used to wash eggs with here at this facility so they can send the eggs out to the stores for us to purchase them then. (I won't use the term consumer here, because the term consumer is so sterile for me...I hate "consumer" reports..you all know that is you and me, right? I'm not a consumer, I'ma human being and I hate that they refer to us as consumers.)  Sorry, that was a bunny trail. Anyway, the water gets stored in a large underground tank and then someone has to come pump it out and haul it to a waste treatment plant. That is what we were doing yesterday. 

Here are their connections to their water tank. 

Aaron hooks up two very big and heavy hoses to the truck.

One

Two

He makes sure everything is secure. 

These are little "glass" gauges so they can see how full the tank is. There is one low on the tank, one in the middle of the tank and, you guessed it, one near the top of the tank. We watched those gauges carefully to know how full we were getting. 

Nelson has been in this business for a long time. When Aaron first worked for him his tanker was a big, red monstrosity, but today he has a souped up tanker and Aaron is in love with this thing. 

Those very long hoses go all the way around the tanker, and on the sides you can see there is a sort of bed for the hoses to rest. I noticed that everything the job needed; this truck was nice and geared toward functionality. Whoever put this truck together knew what they were doing. It actually has a dump bed on here and so if Nelson is hauling something like thick sludge, he can put his tank at an angle and rinse out the sludge and clean the tank out really well. I was impressed with how clean the whole outfit really was. I was prepared to see remnants of toilet paper somewhere on the equipment, but everything was so clean. I've actually worked in a couple restaurants in my life and this thing is cleaner than any restaurant I've ever worked in. 

Just sayin...folks! 

See the big blue round thing in the middle of the tanker? That is a cap that comes off and so when Nelson washes out sludge he can open that cap and the sludge comes out though there. 

I nice blue ladder leading to the top of the tank. I was glad we didn't need to go there yesterday. 

This is the motor that runs the tanker. It sits between the cab on the driver's side and the tanker. 

It is very loud when it is working. There is a vacuum system involved in all this. I didn't get it completely how it worked, but Aaron could tell you if you asked him! 

After we had filled up the tanker with egg water we then brought it to this waste water treatment plant to unload. The plant sits in an otherwise quiet neighborhood. Do you see the walker's path sectioned off beside the road? That is part of Ohio's "Rails to Trails" walking and biking path. It is not the path we use when we go on Rails to Trails, but it is nice knowing where this one is. 

Inside the waste water treatment plant.

Notice Aaron isn't using his green hoses, but rather the treatment plant's red hoses. There is a basin we had to pump the egg water into and then a sump pump kind of pump actually pumps the water from there into one of those big blue silos you see in the background. 

Let me just tell you. The stink that came from the bowels of this hole and the stink we poured into it....was incredibly pungent! 

We had about 15 minutes of unload time here and so we talked about stink. Aaron says that this is nothing. Human waste stinks, but if you have to suck up dog kennels holding tanks, THAT is where the real stink is at. 

"But," said Aaron as he spit out some of his "chew", "you get used to it after awhile and it all smells the same." 

(I hate that he chews.)

But I love him muchly.

A view of all three holding tanks on the property. They are pretty massive. Notice the tall ladders leading up to each one. 

Aaron stays on the job, making sure every part is working right. If he lets the water out too fast, then the holding tank will fill up too fast. 

I walked over to a lower holding tank. It was gross. There was a blue metal bridge over the grossness. 

I got a pretty good picture of the whole truck here. Aaron loves the colors.

Actually. He. Loves. The. Whole. Truck.

But he loves the jake brake the most. 

rrrraaaarrrrraaaaaarrrraaaaa

The waste water treatment provided Nelson with a door opener for the gate. Aaron is closing it as we go back to get our second load of egg water. 

On the way I got a few more pictures inside the cab. 

Almost looks like a car except for the extra gadgets on the left of what we normally see in a car. 

Those gadgets have to do with the beloved jake brake. wink wink

Back for a second load. 

This was after he had loaded the truck, see it is all clean. No residue, no egg shells or poopy toilet paper from prior usages. 

This was me going down the steps. I felt so high up there and the steps are so far apart. I figured out how out of shape I really am trying to scramble up and down those steps! 

Here is a water tank tucked in on the passenger side. Sometimes they need to add water or use it for clean up. They always have some here. There is a pressure washer system on the tanker as well, so the water is used with it. 

It takes about ten minutes to fill up the tanker with the egg water so while it was filling up I was walking around the truck taking pictures. They thought of everything.

Sometimes when I am driving and I look in my rear view mirror I see a truck on my back door and he looks mean, like a bull dog or worse and I feel like I should get out of his way just for the way the truck looks. I stood there in front of this truck and tried to see if this one looked mean or not. 

I took a closer shot just to see if closer up he might look mean. Somehow I felt like the truck smiled at me. 

I didn't see the "mean bull dog" in this one. 

Lights and a very loud horn standing at attention on top of the cab, ready to do their duty when duty calls. 

I found a shovel nestled in among the hoses. I wondered where all that shovel has been. I probably don't wanna know! 

Aaron got a phone call from Nelson, the motor is so loud Aaron had to walk out a bit so he could here what Nelson had to say. 

A better shot of what that actually looked like from where he was working. 

See the little black mail box beside the door? Aaron had to fill out a paper telling the egg business owner how many loads of egg water he took from the holding tank. 

Watching the gauges fill up.

It was coming out slower toward the end so Aaron went over and was checking to see how much was left in the tank. 

Closing up shop for a second time. 

Draining out any excess egg water back into the holding tank in the ground.

After we had unloaded the second load back at the waste water treatment plant we then headed out onto the highway and went a little further to another business, this time it was a potato chip factory. On the way over to the potato chip factory I played around with the "air ride seat controls." I let the seat go all the way up and my toes were only touching the floor at this point and I was up so high my head was close to the top of the cab. Aaron and I had a big discussion about this. He was telling me that some truck drivers like their seat all the way up because their ride is more smooth and it was, when I was up there in the air there was much less bouncing around, but I have to agree with Aaron, it just feels more relaxed sitting lower to the ground even if you feel a few more of the bumps in the road. 

Jake brake usage....rrrraaaarrrraaaarrrraaaa

As we pulled in to the potato chip factory this is what we saw, a van trailer sitting up in the air on an angle. Aaron told me there were potatoes in that trailer and they were dumping the potatoes out. 

We parked where he normally parks to haul out their sludge but everything was locked up really tight. That is Aaron on the phone with Nelson trying to figure out where to go and what to do. 

For those of you who do not know, I work in the trucking industry, in the office. I do the billing and I assist our dispatcher and the brokers. When I saw this fellow and the hood of his truck was up I knew he was likely doing a pre or post trip inspection. I watched him for a few minutes and he was doing everything carefully. The signs of a very good truck driver there. 

Long story short, we were not at the correct spot, we had to move over to this spot across the parking lot. As we were backing into this place Aaron said to me, "This is not going to be fun." He got all serious and I knew we were in for something different. 

Different it was from the egg water!

Aaron is getting his very heavy hoses together for the next stage.

That little bobcat is there for a reason.

To lift Aaron up with his hose and a water hose from the potato chip factory..

There they go....

He had to bend over and by using water he had to fluff up the crap in this trailer enough so that it would go through the hose and into the tanker.

See the man up there watching directing Aaron?

I asked him if I could come up too, he said I could and so I did. I was not prepared for what I saw next. 

Very, very incredibly thick sludge. They told me it is the end of the potato chips, there is grease and whatever is not good of the potatoes in this mess. Normally this goes out to farms for farmers to use as feed but, because it got too wet it will spoil...ha ha...spoil...doesn't it already look spoiled to you? Anyway, for whatever reason, it had to be suctioned out of there so they could put fresh sludge in there. 

The smell you ask? 

Don't ask. 

From my vantage point atop the potato chip factory waste treatment plant.

Manager Mark and Derek the bobcat operator stood there and directed Aaron and chatted with me. Mark told me a lot about how things work here, but I didn't understand it all and since I wasn't here to talk about their company, I didn't really take notes, but he was so nice to make me feel at home and comfortable. Aaron worked this for an hour and twenty minutes! They moved the bobcat a couple times so he was able to get out all they needed him to get out. 

Down the steps I went. 

Aaron pointed to these lug nut covers at one point and told me they are "sweet." 

I bet they stick out 4 inches! 

During that hour and twenty minutes I had a lot of time to play with my camera. I took a shot of myself in one of the trucks mirrors. My hair was a total mess, it was so windy yesterday and I didn't have my hair pulled back.

After we were finished with the sludge up in the trailer, we had to actually come back to the place we first went to and it was all locked up tightly and had to top off the tanker with sludge from this part of the company. We were right beside that trailer that was being dumped. 

I watched it from high in the air all the way to....

half way in the air....

to down on a flat surface again.

This what Aaron was doing inside the building. Another holding tank in the ground. 

This trucker backed his trailer in with potatoes and once he was out of his truck his little dog was in the window and knew to look in the rear view mirror to watch for his trucker to return! How smart is he????

Inside this waste treatment plant there was this ancient looking thing and the wheel was going round and round and that brownish stuff you see will eventually end up feeding some one's animals. 

Aaron actually rinsed out the hoses here before putting them back on the truck.

Nelson had told Aaron not to unload this load that he would unload it Monday morning. Some of the loads, like this particular load, Nelson actually spreads on to a farmer's field. 

And then we turned our nose towards home and chit chatted the whole way home. Aaron got to use the jake brake a couple more times.

rrrrraaaaarrrraaaarrrrrraaaaa

When we came to our house our daughter and grandson were there and so they explored the cab a little bit. 

The neighbors all found out when Little Guy found the cord for the horn! 

WAAAAAaaaAAAAA

And there he goes.

That tank is full of very heavy sludge. Not sure how heavy it is, but you could tell it was heavy. 

What a wonderful afternoon spent with my son. He used to be a truck driver and one Saturday morning a couple years ago I had gone with him to Virginia and back on his truck. That had been a long day, but fun day too. I did enjoy this a little bit more, though, because there was more to do and experience.  

I did learn one thing about him, he loves the sound of a good jake brake and if I can come up with a jake brake ring tone I am gonna be purchasing that for him. I had no idea one could love something like a specific sound like he does! I know I will be listening for the jake brakes when I'm out and about from now on and I will always think of my afternoon spent with my son. 

I wanted to publicly thank Nelson for allowing me to ride along and to take pictures of his truck. It was a pleasure and so fun. 

And to you, my reader, if you need a good septic tank cleaning, Nelson can help you out...or if you have any kind of egg water or sludge of all kinds. You know he is able to do it all. 

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