A Windfall of Insulators 💨

Henry continues successfully defending his crown as potentially The Luckiest Kid Ever™ 😌.

First, he was invited to visit Fresno to survey & sample from the huge collection of Lou Hall. Lou is the former president of the national insulator club & has been collecting for half a century! He and his lovely wife hosted us for four+ hours, setting up Hen with a great variety of interesting pieces. Thinking of Margot, they even gave us a cute painted snowman made from an insulator!

Afterwards we camped near Exeter, CA (roughly an hour south), where the hosts had previously given Hen some insulators. This time Big Henry (the host) came through with some even bigger glass, plus some hundred-year-old magazines that our Henry saved from being used as kindling (!).

The next day we drove into Exeter for breakfast with collector Dave Brown, who likewise entertained us with his impressive collection (even including insulators embedded underwater in his pool!) and generously provisioned Hen with as many items as our now-sagging Westy could carry. Here’s a gallery from our visits.

Following our return, the ongoing storms continued to wreak havoc on our area, and strong winds toppled a eucalyptus tree that in turn felled a giant electrical tower—narrowly missing our neighbor Severn’s yard! Noticing that repair crews were working around the clock to replace it, Henry & I drove over with our big camera lens. He of course proceeded to chat up the linemen—and they of course were happy to provision him with a bunch of insulators! 🤪

Check out a separate gallery of shots from the day.