All posts tagged: scavenging

Trash picking for winter lettuce.

It’s more complicated than that title makes it seem. With some in-between formative steps. The WideEyedSpouse and I walk the Useless Little Black Dog and the Corgi for several blocks through the neighborhood every evening. This is terrible in the winter, mostly. It is nice in the summer, generally. It is ALWAYS great on trash day. Because we live in a neighborhood of historic homes filled with epic volumes of historic junk, someone is always prying something out of the basement or off of the house. I scored a china cabinet that reeked of basement mildew two years ago. It is now my garden tool shack in the garage. Elegant, efficient, free. From Spode to Spades. (I know, right?) The trick is to get there quick. Super quick because as I’ve noted before, Buffalo has an active trash picking culture. My amateur attempts are pathetic compared to the experts. We moved into this house and set up the garden four summers ago. I’ve been waiting for someone in the neighborhood to replace their generously sized …

Hello Toilet, Thanks for Being There.

I’m thinking about toilets this afternoon. Yes, I am feeling just fine, thank you – don’t be crude. I mean I am thinking about toilets, not thinking about using one. I think toilets might be unsung heroes and the porcelain joy of our lives. Toilets are there for us. They are always in the same place in the dark night. Toilets are a cool and strong comfort during vile, feverish retching. With their lids down they are nice perch for filing nails, watching kids splash in the tub, resting towels on during dog baths. With one simple push of a lever or a button, everything that is distasteful just disappears. Even when not in use, toilets are witness to privacies of every individual in a household – including guests. Toilets greet us, all clean and ours, when we come home. Have you never been happy to be back at your own toilet after some kind of sickening ex-household experience? I mourn the absence of my own toilet when living in the outer wilds. I pine …