New Batteries, Chapter 2: In which Uncle Joel lifts heavy things repeatedly

How it began: Yesterday I pushed 4 Rolls Surrette L16 batteries up a plank ramp and into the Jeep.

It wasn’t daunting – exactly – but it did kind of point out that this past year’s indisposition has robbed me of some physical strength I’m probably not getting back.

But that wasn’t going to be the hard part. No.

Those batteries, plus a junk battery somebody had dumped on the property that I took this opportunity to dispose of properly, had to be transferred from my Jeep to Neighbor L’s ludicrously high Dodge truck. This eventually resulted in her parking a little lower on a slope than the jeep, tailgate-to-tailgate, so I could slide the L16s on a plank between the vehicles while she held the plank in place to prevent – or at least warn of – disaster.

Then we drove a long way. At the battery store…

…things got marginally simpler. I thought – because this was the way it worked last time I was there – that my lifting heavy Rolls Surrette batteries had come to an end since they had a beefy young guy to do that. It seems they now do *not* have a beefy young guy to do that. But it was just lifting them off the tailgate and easing them to the ground and the waiting handtruck. I then purchased 6 T110 batteries. $1300+, baby. Couldn’t have done that two years ago.

We drove a long way home. I moved the batteries from the Dodge to the Jeep…

Then from the Jeep to the wagon…

…where I realized I had just made a logistical error. The cabin is on a *very* slight incline. Enough to make pulling a 300+-pound wagon up it an exercise in – exercise.

But that wasn’t the part that tried to kill me. No. Once I rounded the cabin…

…gravity started working *for* me. In a bad way. I barely escaped with my shins intact before the whole thing crashed into my workbench. But at least it’s now in place for the next exciting episode. Which I’m too tired to worry about at the moment.