Retreads
Remember
our huge pile of
firewood? We
ran through it unbelievably fast --- first the power was
out for two weeks
and we had to keep a big fire going just to keep the trailer above
freezing due to lack of a fan. Then we had two weeks of below
freezing temperatures and again had to keep the fire raging to keep us
warm. The result is that the 1.75 cords of wood that we thought
would last all winter lasted a mere month.
So in January, we went
back to electric heat. I hated to give in to the coal-fired power
plant, but our firewood supplier took our $50 down payment and dropped
off the face of the earth. Due to major environmental guilt, I
keep the trailer between 40 and 50 degrees when heating with
electricity, which is really quite comfortable if you wear layers (and
are used to it.)
That's all a long
explanation for why Joey
came in his truck last week instead of his car --- he wanted to drop
off a load of firewood for his poor, freezing baby sister. The
firewood was much appreciated, but the truck got stuck due to
completely treadless tires. Rather than calling a tow truck to
haul Joey out, we called our mother and begged her to come pick Joey up
so that Mark and I could take advantage of this opportunity to haul
gravel for our driveway. (We ordered some of that from our hauler
too, but we really haven't heard from him in over a month....)
On Monday, Mark babied
the truck out of the mud (now thawed and thus a bit less precarious)
and took her to town to get new tires. We thought the two back
tires we needed to replace would come to about $300, but Mark came home
with a receipt for only $140 --- he had discovered the wonder of
retread tires! If you, like me, have never heard of retreads,
you're in for a treat. Old tires end up in a factory where
they're tested for safety and have the old tread buffed off, then a new
tread is is applied. The end result is nearly as good as a new
tire (and every bit as safe), for a fraction of the price.
Apparently, at this time, only big tires (R16 and greater) are
retreaded, so most of them end up going to large-scale trucking and
bussing fleets, but farmers are also retread fanatics. If you
have a truck that needs new wheels, retreads seem like the way to go!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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When it comes to sexy truck tires, it's all about the mud.
(Also I had not known my truck was female until your post.)