The World Needs More Scroungers!

Desperation, necessity, homelessness and joblessness have created more scroungers in the world than a year ago. It's a tough way to learn that reusing and recycling is a prudent, economical and healthy choice. But if living in the land of plenty hasn't taught a person to conserve, living without should.

I been into scrounging so long that I choose this approach even when I could buy new. When I find an alternative or make use of leftovers I retain or increase my income and less goes in the landfill.

People who blow money on cheap goods, trinkets and gadgets that have been imported long distances have not contributed to their day to day survival. They have enslaved themselves. The adage, "Waste not, want not," means as much as possible everything is reused/re purposed - and you end up not wanting more!

I was thinking of this yesterday when we visited my oldest son's - the big spender. Once again, his recent choices gave me a glimmer of hope. He has started saving money! Better yet, he has started recycling a few things.

When his leather living room furniture was torn he thought of me! NO, I didn't come home with three leather living room pieces. He HIRED me to mend the furniture. The way I look at it, he at least kept his money in the family and his furniture in his house. What a change!

He also took us out for dinner, which I said wasn't necessary. He said he wanted to treat for us because we so seldom do such a thing. Sweetie gave me one of his looks when I suggested we cook at my son's, so I relented.

As usual, on our route to and from my son's we were on the look out for cast offs. Our first find was a pile of fresh cut 6-inch diameter, 10-foot cedar logs. Can you believe he just cleared them out of his property because the wanted other cedars to get larger? The key here was we asked "What do you have planned for those cedar logs?" Not, "How much do you want for those cedar logs?"

My son is having more Birdseye maple trim installed at his house so we picked up four boxes of scrap. His neighbor was throwing out pieces of old trim from his home so those were loaded in the truck too. Today I'll be pulling nails and cutting trim into stove wood pieces.

We have an old hot tub sitting on our land with some mechanical parts missing. Yesterday I tore the wood enclosure off and cut that up for kindling. I'm not interested in a fish pond or extra large birdbath so the tub will be hauled to the landfill. Hate the thought of that but some things will ultimately wind up there.

We've also dug up red pines and spruce that were crowded along the shoulder of the road. Thus far we have 21 "new" trees in our front yard. As long as the weather stays mild we'll keep transplanting them to various bare spots on our land. Of the 16 trees I transplanted a couple months ago during a cold spell, one has died. Sure beats going to a nursery and buying trees!

Well, time to get moving around here. Hope you all had a good weekend. Treesong