2021 Fare-Thee-Wells and Thanks

 I said a year ago that for me, 2021 began with hope. I end it the same way, with hope and gratitude.

This blog soldiers along at a slow pace these days, as I've many obligations--writerly and otherwise--to fill my hours. But it would be remiss if I did not pause in the final hours of a gone year to give thanks. It makes a lot of sense, instead of drinking too much and then sounding a noise-maker at the stroke of midnight.  

So what am I thankful for, in the Tractorpunk scheme of things?

First, that my wife and I have the health to continue our DIY lives. In spite of a fall for her and arthritis for me, we still remain flexible, strong, and active. Today I moved 600 pounds of chicken feed into storage, after we made a trip to the factory where it is made in the Shenandoah Valley. I'm thankful we found that factory, to cut our operating costs for non-GMO chicken feed. Yes, we must raise egg prices in 2022, but not by the margin we feared, once inflation reared its ugly head.

I'm also thankful that my DIY skills continue to ramp up. I replaced the wire harnesses on our old John Deere M tractor and rebuilt the carburetor for the second time in a decade. With electronic ignition and all that includes, the 70-year-old beast still can mow the grass as well as when it was new. The work left the machine down for months and that delay had its frustrations, but in the end, I learned a lot. That's the satisfaction of much mechanical work. 

Beyond that, I'm finishing the year by putting old-fashioned wood weatherboard siding to replace some of the vinyl on our house. I planed it myself, from wood my brother-in-law sawed, from logs of trees my late father-in-law felled. From tree to board, in one family. We are not Amish (lots of power tools got employed) but there are few manual joys to rival making your own building materials. Eventually all the vinyl siding will be gone: cement board will replace some in hard-to-paint places, but where I have wood available, that will go up instead.

Third, I'm thankful that my wife could retire. So many of my friends cannot contemplate retiring, but our rather frugal lives and my day job, plus the miracle of compounded interest, let Nancy leave full-time teaching July 1. It has been a rough semester for her colleagues with COVID and a return to school of children not accustomed to sitting in a classroom for a few semesters. Now Nan can focus on her tasks with our LLC and do some part-time work for the school system, as I drift toward retirement in a few years. I'm planning to get a first-year writing textbook published, which is no easy task in this publishing market, but at the same time, I've published pieces in Style Weekly, back from the grave thanks to a purchase by Virginia Public Media. I've also written for Hemmings Daily and Modeling Madness (plastic models, not insane fashionistas).

Finally, I'm thankful for the locally owned businesses that have weathered the pandemic. Good Foods Grocery expanded and diversified its selection of foods, and it offers a quieter alternative to Ellwood Thompson's, another favorite. Several restaurants we love hung in despite the virus and labor shortages, and most of our favorites have been recently crowded, including the Athens Tavern, where we held our rehearsal dinner in 1992. We have a new local hardware store, too, to compete with Pleasants. Then we discovered a fabric store just down the street for projects, too. At Virginia Beach, we found The Barclay Cottage B&B where we found gracious hosts for a short getaway. We met a second farm-sitter, too, to help with the animals when we are away.

Not everything we love endured, of course. Our favorite wine store, Sonnys, shut its doors a few months ago, but that was more due to a greedy out-of-state landlord than anything else.Drive through Richmond, and you'd find more than few old businesses shuttered.

So we should count the losses, but at the same time, I'd start by counting what endures. There's a lot to fix, but we start where we can: locally.

Maybe that process can begin in 2022.  

Sunset image from Wikipedia

Aluminum Ladders and "The Elements"

 This short post, as a tough year nears its end, may be a valuable one for anyone with an aluminum ladder.

The two examples pictured will soon go to the metal recycler, though they look fine. Why? They've been exposed too long to heat and cold, and for aluminum ladders, as we recently learned, that can mean failure. The shorter of the two began flexing dangerously where it folds.

I began to get paranoid after a 3' step ladder we'd kept outside in our hen yard broke, resulting in my wife getting a fracture. Careful inspection showed the front legs failed where a pin went through the metal, precisely where the ladder folds.

Now we are keeping all our ladders in buildings and not in the sun or exposed to freezing weather. Yet a cursory Google search reveals web sites that say storing metal ladders outdoors is fine, while others advise against it. No one in their right mind would store a wooden ladder outside, and I suppose fiberglass will degrade under UV light, too.

I took enough Physics and Chemistry classes to understand how metal expands with heat and contracts with cold. Over time, hairline cracks form in aluminum ladders, at joints of folding ladders in particular. I'm now going to inspect our folding ladders annually with a magnifying glass at each joint, and the extension ladders where the clamps lock or pivot.

You know those click-bait ads that talk about "Learn this one simple trick for..."? Well, here is one for ladders, DIYers. Get them out of the elements. I'd not leave extension ladders out, either.

Since Canada is infinitely more sensible than the US, advice from Canadian agencies on ladder inspection proved easy to find and far clearer than OSHA's legalese. Check here for Canadian basics when checking both extension and folding ladders. Werner Ladder has a YouTube video here.

Life is short enough as it is. No need to hasten the process. Get your ladders into a building.

Here's to a better 2022!