“Repair”

 

            Many years ago, we found a delightful weathervane for our backyard. On the top perched a fairy instead of the typical rooster or bird. The first fairy to decorate our outside, she began a collection that gradually grew into special pieces gathered through the years. When a particularly vicious storm blew through one spring, she disappeared. My garden grew, and my hopes dimmed of ever finding her hiding place.

  

         I debated replacing the piece with something new, but eventually enough vines wrapped around the remaining pole that I decided to leave it in its place. Time passed with no sign of her winged figure, and I stopped looking for her altogether. After back-to-back winters of hard freezes, I knelt in my garden hacking away at death and destruction when my hands unearthed her rusted shape. The delight I felt lived shortly once I realized she’d never sit atop her perch again. Rust and time had erased part of her entirely. I tucked her away in an outside bin after my artistic husband and son stated she was beyond repair. No longer lost, but still hidden away, she nagged at all of us until a few weeks ago when my husband and son decided they could recreate her by using their 3-D printer.

            A trial and error cycle began with failures on wing design and attachment landing a couple of prototypes onto the counter. One design finally didn’t fail, and we cheered as she sat upon her newly repainted pole. The UV resistant paint dried quickly, and we waited to see how her resin would handle our August heat. It didn’t! A subtle warp scarred her. Another round of research, a different type of filament, and victory adorned her new design and color!

            Our long lost fairy couldn’t be repaired, but a new blend of art and technology, of hope and determination, adorns the original weathervane.     

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman