Reaching “Critical Mess”

You know how it goes: you move into a four-bedroom farmhouse with an immense barn and a seven-bay vehicle shed, and after a few years, all of it is bulging with stuff. Where did it all come from? What’s it doing here? And why can’t I find anything anymore?

So for the first time ever, I’ve rented a huge commercial dumpster (30 cubic yards). It showed up in late afternoon, so I didn’t put much into it today — a couple of broken-down wheelbarrows, the kids’ childhood little red wagon, sadly and irreparably rusted, a tractor gas tank with a hole in it, several decrepit office chairs and other defunct furniture. Soon the balance will shift as more farm stuff gets put in — rusted-out feeders and the like.

In case you’re wondering, it’s going to cost me roughly $300 to have the dumpster delivered empty and then taken away full, more or less depending on how long I keep it, since there’s a $16 daily rental fee on top of everything else. I’m sure I can fill it, so the issue is, “How fast can I fill it?” If I can fill it fast, I save on rent.

The driver who delivered it, interestingly enough, used to live here on Norton Creek Road when he was in high school. I keep running into people like that. Seems a little strange, since there really aren’t many houses here, but it seems as if everyone lived here once upon a time!

A lot of our clutter is recyclable. I’m pretty sure that Allied Waste will separate out all the iron and steel with an electromagnet, so I may not go to the trouble of recycling it myself — not if the price of scrap metal is as low as I think it is. It’s a long drive to the scrap metal dealer, and I don’t see the point of burning lots of gas to recycle scrap metal unless it’s a money-maker! I can recycle cardboard and such locally. Other stuff can go to Goodwill and other local nonprofits.

The dumpster has metal doors at one end, so you can carry stuff inside — you don’t have to heave it over the top the way you do on a smaller dumpster. It’s ideal for the kind of large objects that you’d never fit into a regular trash can — things like mattresses, water heaters, or twisted metal roofing from chicken houses that did a tumbleweed imitation during a storm.

And I’ve already found some missing treasures!