More adventures with the trash

Yes, this is the season to celebrate Christ's birth and it is the season to prepare for the new year. It's also the season for some of our friends to celebrate Hanukkah and Kwanza.  But for me, it seems, this has also been the season of trouble with trash. See  my post, "A Christmas trash barrel adventure". Maybe I should rename this blog "Adventures in Rubbish".

Today was garbage AND recycling day. We can only put out recycling materials every two weeks. They were both delayed by one day for Christmas. It just so happens, though, that last night, a pretty big storm arrived. We got a lot of rain but the big problem was the wind. We got gusts of up to 50 miles per hour. But no matter what, the barrels had to go out before 7 am. So, there I was fighting the unwieldy barrels and the wind. Charlie (our dog) was helping me. I saw my next-door neighbor's barrel out (which he remembered to put out the night before - he is the old guy I mentioned in that Christmas trash barrel adventure post) and it seemed to be doing fine. It hadn't blown over nor had its contents been blown around. So, I figure everything would be OK. But just to be safe, I only put out the garbage. Those barrels were heavier and the garbage men always came early. The recycling truck was always later. Maybe I'd put that out after the wind died down.

As Charlie and I were heading back into the house, I glanced across the street and noticed that two other neighbors (not the older fellow next to us) had lost some of their trash to the wind. So, I crossed the street and gathered up what I could and shoved it down into their barrels (righting one container that had blown over) so it wouldn't blow around again. Then, just as I was heading to the house again, the garbage men arrived! This was going to be a good day. I returned my next-door neighbor's barrel to his backyard and took our empty barrels back behind the house and put Charlie inside. Flushed with success, I decided that it would be OK to put our recycling barrels out. I didn't want to spend the whole day worrying about when the recycling truck might come. They didn't seem to have the tight schedule of the garbage men. I put out the recycling being careful to smash everything down and making sure nothing was loose on the top because the wind was still blowing pretty hard. I double-checked that the barrels were on flat, solid ground and I headed back to the house. I hadn't gone 20 feet when I heard a car drive by that ran over what sounded like a plastic liner that would have been in our recycling.

I turned to see that one of our recycling barrels had been blown over and the bag that I thought was secure had been ripped open. It looked like a bomb had gone off inside the recycling barrel. There was paper, cardboard and plastic all along the road. And the wind had driven it down the street for as far as I could see. I dashed back to right the overturned barrel and crush what was left deeper into it. Then I pulled our other barrel inside our fence where it was protected from the wind (a little). Then I started walking down the road with the first barrel and started picking up our recycling material and jamming it back into the barrel. I couldn't believe how far it had been blown in such a short time. And most of it had ended up in the huge puddles created by the all-night rainstorm. I had to stand in water over my ankles to pick up most of it. I had to walk about 100 yards down our road before I could gather all the lost recycling and on the way, I noticed that the garbage men had missed the garbage bag the next-door neighbor on our other side had left out. Should I leave that sit there knowing that the garbage men would not return? No, I dragged that along, too. I finally got back home, wet to my knees (how did it get up that far?) and mad - mostly at myself for pushing my luck but partly at our Town's changing of the rules for our dump (that's a post for another time). I threw our neighbor's trash into our garbage can for next week and put our recycling barrels safely behind the house. I went in and dried off and worried about what to do with the recycling. Should I keep it for two more weeks?

Later, after I'd calmed down, I noticed that the wind seemed to be dying down. I thought maybe it was safe to put out the recycling and trudged out to take the recycling barrels out - one more time! No sooner had I put them out than I heard the recycling truck coming down the road. Five minutes later and our recycling was safely in their truck and I was able to put the barrels away. In the end, it had all worked out. The garbage and recycling are both gone and I am dry again. And I need to keep reminding myself - it could have been a snow storm!