I
'm a total cheapskate, which means that I tend to do things the long, hard way. I'm also a bit of a traditionalist, which means that I tend to do things the long, hard way. In order to neither spend money, nor use automated tools, I hand write this blog with basic html, copying and pasting code from a template, and uploading it onto a coding website that is manifestly not made for this purpose. I'm building my chicken coop with no power tools (even though I own them), just because I felt like it. I use free drawing software on my tablet, meaning that I have to find weird workarounds for standard functionality that other programs have. Obviously, this isn't an overriding principle in my life -- I do things with machines and faster products all the time. But I definitely have some kind of fear of too much convenience, too much reliance on tools that I don't understand. So I end up milling trees with axes, instead of a sawmill, or a chainsaw.
Most of the time, this means things get done a bit slower when I'm doing them. But sometimes, the habits I've built up by behaving like this really come to life, and get me out of jams that would stump others. Eli helped me to load an upright piano into my trailer today, bless his heart. That piano was...significantly heavier than I was anticipating. The two of us barely managed to get it into the trailer, and Eli didn't have the time to accompany me home to unload it. But I needed the trailer the next day. And it would start to rain the day after that.
I like to do things myself. I will accept help gladly, but I always like to try doing something solo first, just to see if I can do it. I grabbed cinder blocks and 2x10s, laminated posts and a tamping rod. I got my weird A-frame log-moving machine, and inch by inch I eased a 500lb piano onto a homemade ramp, down off the trailer, and into my mud room, where it now stands, out of the rain. I'll try a lot of things before I give up on a job like this; I'm just glad the weather was on my side.