Scored Again From Other's Waste

This dumpster diving and noticing other people's trash is getting to be predictable!

Once again, we drove by the garage door place and once again we found some useful items - sitting next to 20 yard dumpster. A 50 foot roll of chicken wire, a door and a box of assorted screws, bolts and washers. By golly, we'll find a use for them.

Then we visit my youngest sister and she's tossing out things faster than a water chute. Cans of vegetables she "doesn't like" and new pieces of foam someone gave her (why I can't imagine because she neither sews or recycles anything!), and a few used bricks leftover from her neighbor's flower bed project - again, the neighbor may have been trying to encourage her to make a flower bed. But, as usual, I get the cast offs and will put them all to good use.

The real score was at my oldest son's place. He's moving out of one house and into the other one a few miles away that he's been rehabbing for nearly a year. We thought we were there to haul a load of "junk and scraps" to the landfill. By the time we finished sorting through the mess half will stay in our garage. Maple and pine scraps for the wood stove; another entry door and a window without the screen torn out; a box of food that someone gave him and he's too damn lazy to "mess with" and a garbage bag full of returnable cans and bottles - ALL ours thanks to a little sorting and loading. Then, about eight bags of household garbage from his house will go in our garbage pickup tomorrow. Garbage pickup is included in our taxes here and there's no bag limit, nor speacial bags to buy. So why pay to haul it to the landfill? After removing what we're keeping and mixing his garbage in with our TWO bags tomorrow, I estimate the actual landfill bill will be about $5!!!

While at my sister's I went across the street to the Salvation Army Thrift Store. Sweetie stayed at sis's and drank coffee with my Dad. Anyway, a $10 investment got me a new pillow (still in the package), a picture frame with non-glare glass, a dishpan, a set of blue patterned chair pads for the kitchen, a Griswold #6 fry pan (sorry Staying Alive!), and a pair of brown blue jeans.

Yesterday I picked another quart of blueberries and then we went for a short drive to see the progress on the "rich folks" end of our road. Lots there are $60,000-$110,000 and three new homes have been built. We walked around one of the lots that's still for sale and got a view of the lake from the south end. Beautiful sand beach and mammoth pines and HUGE blueberries. So, I may just take another drive tonight and pick to my heart's content. Sure would fill a quart container faster. We'll see. May just sit on the deck and do nothing the rest of the day. Sometimes that's what a soul needs.

We're headed back to town tomorrow for an appointment and more scrounging. We both noticed a few things today and if they're around tomorrow we're going to knock on doors and start asking. One of our neighbors did that last week and came home with a aluminum fishing boat and trailer. Like us, he had noticed it sitting in a guy's backyard with weeds growing around it. After three weeks of driving by and not seeing it moved he stopped. For the price of a new registration he has a boat. Darn, wish we had stopped because we kept commenting about the same boat! Oh well, just goes to show you the early bird does get the worm - or whatever you're in search of!