Fixing your own axe

A while ago I broke the shaft on my felling axe. No axe, no fire wood! and my first reaction was "Oh no, I have to buy another axe".

It wasn't until I was looking in an old fashioned hardware store, for a new axe, that I realised (or remembered) that I could just buy an new handle and fix the old one. What I find interesting about this is that even though I consider myself to be reasonable environmentally friendly my first reaction was I have to throw it away and buy a new one. What does this say about the values that seep into our conciseness from society, the media etc.

Secondly and far more importantly I found that as well as being about a quarter of the price of a new axe the actual act of repairing the old one gave me a great sense of well being and...

... well you get the idea, its a small thing I know and on another day I might have just fixed it but it struck me as interesting.