"Smith, Smythe... or however you call me, just don't call me late for supper..." I appreciate a person who speaks precisely and uses correct terms, but, on balance, we know what the OP was referring to. After over 45 years around heavy construction on powerplant projects and working in running plants, it was common to refer to the hydraulic cylinder on a "Porta Power" as the "ram". The whole works- pump, hose and jack cylinder was called a "Porta Power" regardless of which manufacturer's name was on it. To further confuse matter, on construction sites, when rock excavation or concrete demolition was done, a hydraulically driven chisel mounted on a backhoe or excavator was always called a "hoe ram". I am sure you can have plenty of fun with that for double meanings.
As far as "leaving the livestock alone", I did not know the sheep had reason to be nervous in Arizona.
I worked 24 years at a pumped storage hydroelectric plant in the Schoharie Valley of NY State. The Schoharie Valley is an interesting place, kind of unexpected as it is not far from the state capital at Albany. The Schoharie Valley is rural, and the people used to be quite clannish, with roots going back to before the American Revolution. Jokes and tall tales by one old family or another (the Slaughters vs the Clappers is the NY answer to the Hatfields and McCoys) about the rival family making out that incest, inbreeding and relations with livestock went on were a regular feature. At the powerplant, over 24 years, not much surprised me nor seemed out of line when this sort of thing was spoken of. As an example: a buddy of mine and I purchased an ex USAF diesel generating set from a character in Central Bridge, NY. This guy had a machine shop in the midst of a junkyard, and he had some good stuff in his junkyard- including the ex USAF diesel genset. My buddy had a trailer which had once had a large engine driven welder on it. He had not registered it for the road, nor did it have brake, turn, or running lights on it. We drove up to Central Bridge to get the diesel generator with him towing this trailer.
We arrived to pick up the generator, and the seller had a beat-to-hell skid steer loader with pallet forks (aka "Barn cleaner"). He attempted to pick up the generator to get it onto the trailer deck. As the skid steer loader took more load, the rear wheels came up off the ground. OK, my buddy and I got on the ass end of the skid steer, and finally had to grab some of the heavier junk like cast iron cylinder heads and chunks of old rail and pile that on as well. The skid steer just managed to get the generator onto the trailer deck with us plus assorted junk riding on the ass end of it. Not an approved method for using a skid steer loader by any means, and all of us knew better... but.... we had to get that generator loaded right then and there. We did not see any immediate danger to us or anything else, though on our regular jobs, we'd have been fired for a stunt like that. In the backwoods, you do what you have to do.
Once the generator was on the trailer deck, I started looking in my buddy's truck for some chains and binders. My buddy announced he was going to weld the frame of the generator to the trailer (he had his gas driven welder on his truck). As he explained, in NY State, if a trailer is used solely as part of a piece of equipment, it need not be registered and if the lighting on the towing vehicle is visible, no lighting is required. With that pronouncement, the seller of the generator chimed in: "Yeah: the only way you get in trouble with a trailer in Schoharie County is if it is a stock trailer full of sheep..." We asked why that was, and the seller hollered: "They bust ya for pimping !".
Having loaded the generator, the seller took us to a cafe he ran across the road for some breakfast. We were sitting in a booth, and I had my arm on the back of the booth. I felt something like a heavy piece of round stock sticking up between the booth and the wall and asked the seller about it. "Go ahead, grab it and pull it on out..." I found the "round stock" was considerably heavier than I bargained on. It turned out to be a .50 caliber machine gun barrel. The seller of the generator told us he was building .50 caliber "varmint rifles" using ex US Government 50 caliber barrels in his shop, making receivers and bolts from scratch. As I said, the Schoharie Valley had a reputation for being a different sort of place. My buddy and I are used to all sorts of people and situations, so took it all in stride.
