I’ve found a good way to exercise them in the spring and autumn is to use them to power the trash pump and the leaf blower. That said, they just don’t make batteries the way they used to. I rarely get the second year out of the new ones. They are quite a bit more spendy, but I’m trying AGMs this year. For standby, I still also keep a charged up Lithium Ion car jumper in the pantry — just in case.
Regarding mud daubers … methinks Dow Chemical should harvest and market mud dauber spit as the final mil-spec product in the nuclear super-glue spectrum.