Yard work

Spot camouflaged Roland in the above picture

I've spent two Saturdays in the past month doing yard work at my grandparents house. They are still alive, but they are staying at an aunt right now, so nobody has been taking care of their house since fall. Me and my dad got yard duty, while my wife and my mom cleaned up inside.

I've lived most of my life in an apartment, so this has been quite an educational experience for me, and also a good way to do some physical exercise.

While I learned a while ago how to cut grass the old school way (with a scythe), I still have some things to learn, because I managed to break grandpas scythe :/ New things I've learned: climbing trees and pruning them.

There was another interesting insight that I gleaned while carrying various old things out, mostly to take them to the garbage dump. My grandfather pretty much never threw out anything: we found an old fridge, several ancient stoves, random rusted sheets of metal, all of which had to be taken to the scrap yard. My dad's explanation is that this was a useful behavior back in communist days, because then it was really hard to buy many things, so you kept things, just in cause you might need them for something. However now, when there are plenty of construction material retailers selling anything you can possibly want, this is no longer a useful trait and leads just to an accumulation of junk.

I wonder how things will evolve in the future. A trend today is towards minimalism, to own as few things as possible. This is possible because of how easy it is to buy or rent anything with almost immediate delivery, so in many cases it doesn't make sense to have many items just cluttering up your house. But what will happen if supply chains get disrupted, because of a pandemic or because of a trade war with China, and there will be a scarcity again about many products? Will my grandfather's mentality become the fitter one?

Another thing that I wonder about is what other adaptations my generation has, which in 30 years will look completely obsolete? Will COVID-19 leave a big mark in the collective psyche of the millennials and will my grandchildren wonder why grandpa always has a mask in his pocket?

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload - Day 17.