Country-style recycling
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
This morning I got up and put on my daughter's tennis shoes and her husband's sweatshirt. I did this with delight. There's something about putting on someone else's clothes (which I confiscated from the give-away table) that brings them closer to you, evoking memories of your time together. Why, on the way to the Napa Valley, I was wearing a jeans jacket that Jana had relegated to Goodwill when she was in high school — it's still good.
This kind of recycling is a long-standing family ritual. When Dad died, Mom kept one of his jackets to wear, "Just in case I need it," she explained. When Doc died, I kept several of his flannel shirts — partly because I'd gotten them for him and I liked them. I've worn those shirts for six years now and finally they were demoted from "fun clothes" to "work clothes" and then to "paint clothes" and this year they became "scarecrow clothes," in our constant recycling plan.
This weekend big-time recycling started! "How about beginning to unload that trailer?" asked Tooltime Tim. (It's sitting over in his barn.) And thanks to his prodding, we have it about half empty. Nah, I haven't recycled it all. One overstuffed chair, which Jana's cat had been using for a bed in my California garage, was washed up, cleaned up, and re-plumped to work nicely in my Kansas living room. Two tables are trying to decide if they'll work in this bedroom instead of that living room. "It's either adjust or you go stay at the B&B," I admonished them. Two pairs of jeans which I salvaged from my daughters garage sale, now belong to TTT's sisters — I wish I'd brought more of those sale clothes back with me. There were several lovely Donna Karan suits and jackets but in the midst of all my sorting and hauling I couldn't imagine who would wear them out here. I hadn't been thinking broadly enough about the recycling potential.
Last week, we barely got home when Triple T's truck was hit by a deer. Early in the morning, just a few miles from work a huge, distracted, and harried buck committed suicide on Tim's hood. Tim literally didn't see a thing until he had a new hood ornament and he didn't even have a chance to put on his brakes. "How big was this deer?" I asked when I saw the front end of the totaled vehicle with a massive deer-imprint on the mangled metal.
"It was a 13-point buck," he said. "In fact, thirteen and a half points."
"Did anyone recycle it?" I wanted to know. "Deer hunters who come to our B&B would love to take home a trophy buck like that to Oregon." (And here our recycling program took a dip. He answered "No, who needs a deer head and the meat was already ruined." Perhaps Mother Nature's recycling program took over where we failed.)
While the deer was no longer with us, the trashed truck came home to roost. "I bought it back," TTT explained. "We can use parts of it — maybe I'll make a trailer out of the back half." I eyed the truck in a new way, "Hey, what size are those new tires you just put on?" I asked. "I need new tires on the Honda. Will they work?"
Yesterday while I was recycling furniture and dishes, Tim and his brother-in-law were recycling the Toyota-roadkill. "I think maybe the engine in that truck will fit into my pickup," said A.J. "I'll have to ask Kevin about that, but I think it will work." In my mind, I was watching the truck change shape. The tires rolling toward me, the back half becoming a trailer, the engine gone. "Hey, I could use those seats in there, too," said A.J., "I'm tired of sitting on springs. And what about the radio?"
"I think it works, "said Tim, "but I never used it because I didn't have an antenna. Maybe it will fit into the tractor — now, there's a good idea."
Recycling! We don't just save pop cans in the country, or hand back our newspapers neatly bundled. Folks, we save whole cars! And if you are out driving around in the country, now you know why those old cars are cluttering the yard — they are part of a massive recycling program. How many years do you think it will take for them to biodegrade? Hmm. It's another day in the country, folks. "Get-r-done!"
