Dumpster Diving Success!

For several days we have been driving by one of the construction dumpsters in the neighborhood.  There were several sturdy-looking chairs on top.  A couple mornings ago I woke up shortly after 6 AM, a novelty lately, and decided to "go for a walk".

When I got to the dumpster the chairs were still there so I loaded two of them onto my stroller and walked home.  And went straight to the garden!  After unloading the chairs I set them up beside the garden tower facing each other.  I had become concerned that our lovely sweet potato plants did not have enough room to grow.  Moving the second layer of the tower seemed like a good idea.

One concern was that with all the dirt and wood chips in that bin would make it necessary to awaken Dear One to help move it from the big blue bin.  As it turned out, I was able to move the bin with no trouble!

Only one more issue popped up:  where the second story bin had been located was a big empty hole in the bottom bin.  No problem!  We still had some soil makings from the raised bed/square foot garden patch.  After mixing up a batch I installed it in the bin and rearranged the sweet potato runners.  Now I am happy.  Well, I was happy before, but now I think the potatoes will be happier.  I think Heavenly Father was happy with our progress because He had a lovely soaking rain come in later in the day!

Many years ago I learned about dumpster diving/picking up other people's trash from my next-younger brother.  One day he had taken a trailer load of junk from the farm over to the dump across the valley.  This is something he was often called on to do as a 16-year-old tractor driver.  Daddy would send him off on this project.  On the occasion I am mentioning, he came home with a trailer full of plastic flowers and funeral displays that one of the cemeteries in town had brought to the dump at the end of the season.  My brother proceeded to bring all these items upstairs to his bedroom where he decorated the way he wanted.  It was really a disaster because old plastic flowers that have been out in the sun all spring and summer are not in good shape, plus they smell terrible.  When Mother came upstairs to see what the issue was, my brother had to remove them all. Including sweeping up broken shards of disintegrating plastic. He was disappointed.  The rest of the family was not.  At this time I learned that one person's junk is another person's treasure.  I have kept that in mind all these years, and often benefit from other people's junk!

One final note on dumpster diving:  There had been at least one more chair in the construction dumpsters (two metal dumpsters were beside each other with some plastic dumpsters bottom side up next to them...)plus there was a very long piece of 1 by 4 inch lumber.  I decided that I needed those as well. 

Yesterday morning I woke up around 6 AM again but this time decided to wait until later in the morning to go to the dumpsters.  One thing led to another and I did not get there during the day.  In the afternoon I needed to go help someone remove stuff from that home and on the way back drove by the dumpsters.  WHAT!!!  No dumpsters.  They had been removed. I gather the construction is now complete. Here is an example of when the Spirit moves, it is good practice to act immediately.  Sad.  Now I will have to actually purchase the lumber I need for a small project.