David Wieland

r ransom wrote:Oh...it's the name of a song!  Okay.  That makes things fall into place.  Thank you

Well, sort of. But that advice isn't very useful if you don't have a strong sense of pitch and want to tune to standard pitch. Decent clip-on tuners have gotten so cheap that I can't think of any reason not to use one. Snark is a widely used one, I also like my D'Addario micro, and Amazon lists one with good reviews (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B078WVSS2K/ref=sspa_mw_detail_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9kZXRhaWw) for under $10CAD.
Playing in tune is usually better than the other way, eh.

r ransom wrote:I hope this will pass, but a sleepless night bread an increasingly strong desire to buy and learn to play a ukulele, or other similar string instrument.  That's all I can think about, playing music for my goose who loves song time.
...
And yet, there is a drive in me to identify the skills I am worst at in this world and test myself against them.

Ukulele are supposedly affordable, make a variety of music, and easy to learn.  Now, could I do this for under $50CAD?  Or hopefully, someone will talk me out of it?

I would never try to talk someone out of playing an instrument. I took up guitar at 19, and as a kid sometimes played a comb (a really poor man's kazoo). The benefits of playing music are endless and don't require high skill to bring some pleasure. Enthusiasm, which you're expressing, is the most essential thing, because that supports the persistence that builds skill.

The ukulele is the lowest cost string instrument I know of and an excellent choice. (I play occasionally, though acoustic guitar is my daily instrument.) Decent instruments might be at least $100 CAD from a music store or online, but used ones are available for much less. I just checked Kijiji and found an unused one (with a case) in Ottawa for $50! A couple of others are $20 and $40.

Douglas Campbell wrote:And in my climate, most consumer vehicles older than 15 y rust out including, sadly, my previous Honda CRV.

I presume that you're referring to salt-facilitated rust. I'm in rural Ottawa and don't have any ocean spray, so road salt is the only rust promoter here. My 17 year-old Hyundai Elantra has non-rusting plastic for some of the most rust-prone body parts, but the main thing that has kept it practically free of rust is annual rustproofing oil spray.

craig howard wrote: I vote for a manual transmission.
No matter what vehicle you get.
My dream truck would be an old 4x4 S10 with a TDI engine conversion.
But we won't find one on a salesroom floor.

I drove mostly cars and trucks with manual transmissions (called standard then) until automatics became dominant. I was comfortable with the technique and appreciated the better fuel economy. But things change, and the fuel efficiency difference has definitely shrunk. There's also the matter of needing both feet to be in good condition to be able to operate a manual.

I asked duck.ai if manual is more efficient than automatic, and the answer included this consideration of driving conditions:

City Driving: Manual transmissions can be more fuel-efficient in stop-and-go situations as the driver can shift gears according to speed conditions.
Highway Driving: Automatics may perform better due to smoother gear shifts and reduced driver fatigue, leading to more sustained fuel efficiency over long distances.

As some others have said, reliability is a top consideration. I won't consider a full EV for that reason and for a number of others, especially since I live in a cold climate (rural Ottawa, Canada). A hybrid, such as my brother's Prius, is a possibility if my current vehicles become expensive to maintain, but just for the fuel economy. The cheapest option, and the one with the lowest overall environmental impact, is to buy a well-maintained -- and preferably low-mileage -- used vehicle known for reliability.

I once owned a Reliant, which made a mockery of its name, but I'm still driving a 2009 Hyundai Elantra that I bought with low mileage in 2010. My wife's 2012 Touring (small station wagon) version seems just as reliable and, with a trailer hitch, gives us the ability to haul almost everything we need. Having parts readily available at reasonable cost makes long-term maintenance practical and minimizes the impact on the environment and my bank account. Barring a serious collision, I expect to be driving these vehicles for at least another decade.

Christopher Weeks wrote:I’ve sliced out 74 sheets of aluminum so far but haven’t started figuring out how to flatten them yet.

It won't make the sheet perfectly flat, but the quickest, simplest way to uncurl it is to pull it over an edge while bending it away from the curl, as the video shows.

paul wheaton wrote:If you are going out to harvest wood, harvesting dead standing is about ten times better than harvesting green wood.

I was grateful for the beaver pond that had killed a lot of hardwood, mostly elm, on the homestead -- years before we bought the place. It wasn't hard to get to it and pull out logs with the tractor in winter. That meant we had already seasoned wood throughout the several years we lived in the house.

You left out how to wrestle a pig! Of course, that could be part of a homestead exercise course, including both cardio and strength training.

I've thought of a couple more uncommon tools that I've found quite useful: a garden spork (https://tool-garden.com/shop/krumpholz-garden-tool/spade/1381-gaertnerspork/) and a root-cutter transplant spade (https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/garden/garden-care/spades/75490-radius-root-cutter-transplant-spade?item=pg117).

I bought the spork (not to be confused with the spoon-fork eating utensil) many years ago from Lee Valley Tools, but unfortunately it's no longer in their catalog, which is why I linked to a European site (better for European permies at least). I've found the spork to be especially useful in chopping kitchen compost into the outdoor bin, especially after I sharpened the tines. I haven't treated it kindly, so it's quite weathered now but still strong.

The spade is very heavy-duty, which is not something you can say about traditional transplanting spades. Again, after sharpening it can cut through some pretty tough roots and then lever a heavy plant out of the ground without bending, as a light spade would likely do.