The Perils of Junk

It is the undeniable truth of farm life that farms are not...clean.  Charlotte's Web?  A lie.  All those children's books with the fluffy sheep and beautiful horses and shiny pink pigs?  Lies.  Farms have manure and flies and mud and muck.  They also usually have an odd assortment of stuff, usually kept around because someone, someday might have a purpose for it.  I credit this to the old farms, when people were just getting settled out in the more rural areas of the country and if you ran out of a part it might take three weeks to get it on horseback.  Everything was kept, just in case it might be the one thing that got the tractor up and running and saved haying for that year. 

So farms generally have a least a little of what I'll politely call "junk."  Ours in no different, but the situation was only compounded by the home renovations.  We're slowly sifting through all the stuff that was pulled out of the new house and moved from the old house and slowly filtering into the weekly garbage, but that still leaves a lot of junk. 

Junk and wheelchairs do not mix.  This is also an undeniable truth.  Primarily this is because wheelchairs, by their very nature, have wheels.  Wheels have tires.  Tires, in order to retain air, do not like sharp and pointy things.  Junk is often full of sharp and pointy things. 

Which brings me to this morning.
While out to feed the rabbits, I found this stuck in my right tire.

Now, if you are asking yourself, "What on earth is that?" please know that you are not alone.  That would be a rusty nail stuck into a two inch piece of wood.  Why are we saving such a treasure?  I have no idea.  I can only guess that it was part of the wood paneling that was ripped out of our bedroom and was not swept up in the initial five or six cleanings and somehow made it to under my rabbit hutch. 

If you should ever come across a situation where you find something odd, like the aforementioned, sticking out of a tire, it is imperative that in your curiosity you do not pull it out of the tire.  As tempting as that might be, in that pinnacle moment, it may be the only thing holding air in your tire.  Once removed, that will no longer be the case.  Also, putting your thumb over the hole solves nothing except makes it harder to push the wheelchair.  Also, one deflated tire gives the chair an interesting but ultimately uncomfortable slant and makes your butt perpetually slide to the right.