Tired of those unexpected snowstorms? Dreading mud season? Turn to a task that is sure to distract and cheer you up.
A trip to the dump.
Spring is the perfect time to clean out those sheds, garages and basements, leaving you feeling refreshed, organized and ready for summer. It’s also a great way to stay busy during those gray days of mud season.
Thoughts of going to the dump always elicit warm memories for me. Yes, the dump.
When I was a kid, Saturday mornings meant watching a few cartoons followed by a trip to the dump with my Uncle Whitey.
He’d gather up a bunch of kids from the neighborhood, chuck the trash into the trailer and we’d potter off to the dump. We loved it.
Moms, not so much. We often came home with items we had rescued from the dump, described as “good junk.” My brother kept his treasures hidden in a shoe box under his bed.
I remember one Saturday morning in particular. Uncle Whitey returned from the dump with a large cardboard box containing a mix of plastic, brightly colored golf shoes of every size. The spikes had been removed from the soles, leaving a slippery plastic base with round holes on the bottoms. Minus the spikes, they were quite slick.
For about a week, the neighborhood was covered with kids running around in our new neon colored, plastic golf shoes. They didn’t last long though. As cool as they looked, they interfered with our daily activities and were soon retired. Back to our Keds.
As an adult, memories of these visits to the dump give me a shiver now — and not the positive kind.
A wander around the dump back then entailed inhaling noxious black-gray smoke wafting up from great piles of smoldering trash, as we rooted around seeking treasures.
There were no sorting bins, detailed instructions or fees to access the dump. All manner of garbage and trash was bulldozed into piles, burned and then plowed into great earthen mounds.
I’m happy we’ve evolved.
I now live in a town with a recycling program. But there are pretty strict rules concerning what can be recycled and a long list of what is prohibited. So when we decided to clean out our sheds last year, we called a commercial outfit specializing in junk removal. We recycled what we could and the rest went into a great pile to be hauled away by the experts.
We decided to take our time and, over the course of a few weeks, accumulated a nice pile of junk in the side yard. It started as a project to rid ourselves of debris cluttering the sheds and soon included the basement as well.
Buzzing through 20 years of detritus took some time. And taking our time turned out to be key. It allowed us to sort, make decisions and get reorganized.
As we began the process of rummaging around, we came across items that neither my wife nor I had any recollection of purchasing or owning. The sheds were empty when we purchased the house, so there was no question of ownership.
The large glass jug for making home brew that made a mysterious appearance from the back of the shed (we’re not bootleggers!), a heavy bundle of old roofing shingles that didn’t match any of our houses, odd broken tools. Where did this stuff come from?!
When the date finally came for pickup, we were excited to reclaim our yard and curious about whether the professionals would honor the very reasonable estimate I’d been given over the phone.
We were extremely pleased. The process was painless. In no time at all, they had everything loaded up and even offered to carry the old chest freezer up from the basement for us. Most importantly, the fee we were charged was exactly in line with the quote I had been given over the phone. No surprises.
So don’t hesitate to use this mud season for spring clean-up. Sending those old items to the dump left us feeling cleansed somehow, revitalized. The sheds were maneuverable — again and the project kept us occupied during those interminable overcast days that mark mud season.
But probably best of all, we didn’t have to use up any precious summer days sorting through odds and ends in some old shed, when we could’ve been gardening or hiking along some beautiful Maine coastal path.
With the amount of rain we received over the winter and now spring, it could be a while before things dry up. So take that trip to the dump. You might be surprised at the treasure you come across beneath the piles of stuff in the shed or garage.
Good junk of course.