by Pa Rock
Farmer in Spring
The trash man comes to The Roost once a week, early on Monday mornings. His company has a policy that sets my weekly limit at four large trash bags, but the fellow who picks mine up is an agreeable sort who always hauls off whatever I have set out.
Last week I made a project of cleaning out the hen house, the place where most of the poultry spend each night and also lounge about on hot summer days. The coop hadn't had a good cleaning in a couple of years and was ready for a major effort on my part. In addition to being the home for the farm fowl, I also use the hen house as a place to store stuff. Last week's cleaning involved a fair bit of shoveling as well as some heavy lifting.
I spread the feed and litter that I scraped off of the cement floor across various parts of the yard that could use the fertilizer and a re-seeding, and some of the storage items I moved outside while I cleaned and moved them back in later. There were, however, also some items that I needed to get rid of. Among the treasure that hit the discard pile was some old plastic lattice board that was in good shape (once the dried chicken poop was knocked off), a small hand-built poultry cage that looked like something Snuffy Smith might use to steal chickens, and an odd lot of old electrical wire. They were all things that I didn't want, but might be of use to someone else.
The most common way to get rid of excess "good" stuff here in the Ozarks is to have a yard sale. People in his area love yard sales. They love parking their cars on someone else's yard or blocking public streets while they haggle the price of a used tee-shirt down from a quarter to fifteen cents. Not wanting to host a circus for pocket change, I opted instead for Plan B.
I've written about this method of getting rid of stuff before. I set all of my excess goods out by the road in an artistic pile, and put up a sign that says "Free." If there's one thing that my neighbors like better than bragging about Trump or putting cars up on blocks in their front yards, it's getting "free" stuff. In no time at all my trash became somebody else's treasure. Somebody even took the sign, figuring, I suppose, that it said "free" so why not?
A few years ago I put some aluminum windows that were designed to go in a trailer house out by the road with a "free" sign. I found them stored in the barn along with lots of other "stuff" that the previous owner had decided not to take with him. (It had value until he actually had to put some sweat into moving the mess.) Those windows caused a confrontation when two guys stopped at nearly the same time. The first arrival didn't need them, but said that he had a field where he kept stuff just in case he ever did need it. The second said that he needed them right then. Pa Rock, the only winner in the deal, stayed out of disagreement and let the claimants sort it out.
There are times I wonder why I even pay the trash service. I suspect that if I just put the bags out by the road with a big sign that said "free," somebody would haul them off. Heck, I could probably even charge, say fifty cents a bag, but then I would have to stand out by the road and haggle!
Trash is not a problem - as long as you don't call it trash!
Farmer in Spring
The trash man comes to The Roost once a week, early on Monday mornings. His company has a policy that sets my weekly limit at four large trash bags, but the fellow who picks mine up is an agreeable sort who always hauls off whatever I have set out.
Last week I made a project of cleaning out the hen house, the place where most of the poultry spend each night and also lounge about on hot summer days. The coop hadn't had a good cleaning in a couple of years and was ready for a major effort on my part. In addition to being the home for the farm fowl, I also use the hen house as a place to store stuff. Last week's cleaning involved a fair bit of shoveling as well as some heavy lifting.
I spread the feed and litter that I scraped off of the cement floor across various parts of the yard that could use the fertilizer and a re-seeding, and some of the storage items I moved outside while I cleaned and moved them back in later. There were, however, also some items that I needed to get rid of. Among the treasure that hit the discard pile was some old plastic lattice board that was in good shape (once the dried chicken poop was knocked off), a small hand-built poultry cage that looked like something Snuffy Smith might use to steal chickens, and an odd lot of old electrical wire. They were all things that I didn't want, but might be of use to someone else.
The most common way to get rid of excess "good" stuff here in the Ozarks is to have a yard sale. People in his area love yard sales. They love parking their cars on someone else's yard or blocking public streets while they haggle the price of a used tee-shirt down from a quarter to fifteen cents. Not wanting to host a circus for pocket change, I opted instead for Plan B.
I've written about this method of getting rid of stuff before. I set all of my excess goods out by the road in an artistic pile, and put up a sign that says "Free." If there's one thing that my neighbors like better than bragging about Trump or putting cars up on blocks in their front yards, it's getting "free" stuff. In no time at all my trash became somebody else's treasure. Somebody even took the sign, figuring, I suppose, that it said "free" so why not?
A few years ago I put some aluminum windows that were designed to go in a trailer house out by the road with a "free" sign. I found them stored in the barn along with lots of other "stuff" that the previous owner had decided not to take with him. (It had value until he actually had to put some sweat into moving the mess.) Those windows caused a confrontation when two guys stopped at nearly the same time. The first arrival didn't need them, but said that he had a field where he kept stuff just in case he ever did need it. The second said that he needed them right then. Pa Rock, the only winner in the deal, stayed out of disagreement and let the claimants sort it out.
There are times I wonder why I even pay the trash service. I suspect that if I just put the bags out by the road with a big sign that said "free," somebody would haul them off. Heck, I could probably even charge, say fifty cents a bag, but then I would have to stand out by the road and haggle!
Trash is not a problem - as long as you don't call it trash!
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