Old-School Tools: My Favorite Stick-Um

Contact cement is nothing new; many cyclists have mended an inner tube with one. After airplane glue and white glue, it was my first encounter with the magic of adhesives. The superpower of contact adhesives, to me, is precisely the  relatively long working time before the glue sets up. The repairer has the freedom to make certain the bond is solid before going back to work. Rubber cement does set up quickly, at least for bicycle repairs.  Super glue, in its many forms, works great for many applications, but it sets up nearly instantly.

For Barge Cement, however, the miracle occurs long after the DIYer walks off, leaving items in a clamp.

I found this glue highly recommended online, especially for shoe soles and other nonporous uses, but local stores didn't carry it and the big-boxes would have to order it. So I went online and did that, getting free shipping. My original plan, one to be carried out this holiday, was to glue think leather over plastic seatbelt-retractor covers on a 1974 Buick Apollo I am restoring.

Then my expensive Wellingtons, a must for muddy time, blew out a sole, right at the toe. After cleaning up both sides of the rubber, I put a thin layer of Barge All Purpose on both surfaces, waited about 10 minutes, then stuck them together, using furniture clamps to hold the bond overnight. A month later, the boot works good as new, as does a pair of shorter Cabelas slip-ons that lost a sole. I had forgotten them and went to another chore. An hour later I came back, saw the boots, cussed a bit, then decided to clamp them overnight, as I had done with the first pair. They are holding up well after a week, in wet and dry conditions.

I don't know that shoes worn daily would hold up; I'm willing to try as long as I have a spare pair at work.

Give Barge a go, whenever everyone associated with Black Friday wants you to buy something new; it's not expensive and may save many hundreds of dollars lost when an item gets discarded. Let me know how it works for you.

All Things Must...

Why a skylight? What on earth does that have to do with rural life and DIY projects?

Last month, I learned that Om On, a little Yoga studio near my job, will close in December. It's a sweet space, and Kelly the owner has made us all feel welcome for the better part of a decade. My time on the mat there helps ease the aches and pains of both my physical work on the farm and the sedentary life in the office. I don't know the reasons for the closure, but the studio lacks space to expand, rents high, and competition fierce. I do know that I'll miss the skylights.

The skylight shows the changing late afternoon sky when one is doing reclined poses. At times the view is such a deep, clear blue beyond the skylight that it makes my heart break. There's something spiritual there, a letting go of the sort I suppose we all have to face (or ignore, at our peril).  Given those feelings, I selected a spot so dear to me for a skylight view that I get to the studio early to set up and stake my claim. My usual teacher on Friday, Twyla, knows about my crazy ways and I've explained to her that I just don't like change all that much, at least when it comes to physical space. I hate it when old buildings I've known vanish; every change of that sort seems a slow erasure of one's very life.

When my old pal Steve Gott passed in October of 2013, I consoled myself by playing George Harrison's opus, All Things Must Pass, almost constantly. I highly recommend it as perhaps the strongest project album of the early 1970s. That's a lot coming from a guy who was always more a Stones than Beatles fan.  Harrison's deep Hindu faith led him past the end of the Fab Four into considering the very erasure I just mentioned. I'm no Hindu, but I see a real appeal in the cycles of death, rebirth, and evolution of the soul there. As with the monotheistic notion of an afterlife, there's a sense of renewal present.

We can, of course, hoodwink the Reaper, a bit. I've had a health scare that put me on a low-carb diet; 40 pounds lighter, all aspects of my life seem renewed. It's an extension rather than a reprieve, like the sturdy low tunnel I built to let us finish our butter beans, plus protect tender lettuce seedlings and young broccoli that I hope will take us into and perhaps through the winter. Of course, it only prolongs things until we can plant our Spring crop.  Elsewhere our greens will just have to overwinter as best they can, a type of outdoor veggie crisper for our table.

It's no accident that George Harrison was an ardent, and talented, gardener. I don't know about his Yoga practice, but I suspect he'd appreciate how I feel about that skylight. He'd also remind me to let it go, to cherish the memory without clinging too much. Attachment is something we learn to respect, guardedly, in Yoga, non-attachment a virtue we cultivate.

It cannot always be summer, or even a lovely Fall when the rain finally came after drought. I managed to snag all the last Thai Dragon Peppers, cutting off the plants at the ground, piling them onto a blanket, and hauling them into an unheated building just before the first frost. Then I could harvest them at leisure. The dry weather earlier made them fiery, just what our customer wants.

Paying attention to the weather helped me avoid a disaster. I could have lost 20 pounds of fruit.  But nothing would stop the cold that night. As Winter comes, that's a good lesson. All things must pass.