Here are some photos of the salt water batteries being loaded out of the house to their pick up destination. Carl found a company that will recycle and repurpose them. Apologies to anyone who had hoped for a very large paperweight!

Our new batteries arrived in the Solar Pack truck. The intention was to have our tractor unload and take them down to the basement. That didn’t work. One battery is 450 pounds. Our tractor is about 450 pounds. We called our neighbors.

I lost confidence in the Dodge three years ago, when the brakes became mere suggestions. But Carl—ever faithful, ever hopeful—stuck by the truck, defending it. “It works!” As if it were a dependable phenom, a version of Hercules holding up the world, not a miracle of jerry-rigged wires and duct tape. But Carl exhibited hints of disloyalty when he would furtively put down his name on the waiting list for a Tesla Cybertruck, a Canoo, a F-150 Ford Lightning, a Rivian, an Alpha Truck. He was on the hunt for a 4-wheel drive electric truck. The question being, would any of them be released before the truck breathed its last?