Happy Nation Crush a Can Day

@Kyeh
Did you ask them how you’re supposed to celebrate this important holiday if they don’t want you crushing them?

@kittykat9180 I haven’t.

@Kyeh that’d be my first question.

@kittykat9180 What’s today’s holiday? Maybe I can observe that one instead.

@Kyeh does either beer or strawberry cream pie appeal to you? It’s national drink a beer day and national strawberry cream pie day.
If neither of those appeal to you, you could go do something nice for your neighbor for national good neighbor day.

@kittykat9180 All of those are appealing! It’s a little late for me to get a strawberry pie; I did tell my neighbor she could put stuff in my compost pickup bin for tomorrow if she needs to; and there’s still time have a beer, I suppose (I’d rather have a hard cider though.)

@kittykat9180 @Kyeh Here’s your cider.

https://www.cigarcitycider.com/product/strawberry-shortcake-cider

@kittykat9180 @yakkoTDI Oh yumm! That sounds really good!

@Kyeh @yakkoTDI
I’m a cider fan myself and that strawberry shortcake one sounds good. I’d try it.

@kittykat9180 @yakkoTDI I wonder if they sell outside Florida?

@kittykat9180 @Kyeh I buy it at Total Wine so maybe they can ship it.

@kittykat9180 @yakkoTDI They’re currently sold out, bummer, but maybe it’ll come back.

@kittykat9180 @Kyeh Hopefully. The Apple Pie and the Blueberry were good too.

@kittykat9180 @yakkoTDI Yum!

@tohar1
Absolutely.
Unfortunately I’ve had to lean heavily into the reuse side of this equation. They closed our recycling center in the small town I live in in Central Alabama several years back. Before that I would rarely have more than a quarter of my trash can full on pick up day.
Currently the only thing I can recycle without having to haul it 45 miles is aluminum cans at the Catholic church for the Knights of Columbus. Oh, and Walmart will take back plastic bags. Glass is virtually impossible to recycle any place locally. I can’t even bring it into Montgomery for collection.
A lot of my cardboard gets reused as path lining in my garden. The earthworms love it and it gets tilled in at the end of the season.
BTW what’s your take on can crushing. I have seen the argument that you shouldn’t crush them presented by some recycling centers as well.

@chienfou Certainly appreciate that you’re doing what you can. I’d never thought about cardboard in the garden. That’s a cool idea! I guess we are lucky in Fargo that we have curbside pickup every-other week for cardboard, plastic & steel/aluminum cans. They used to pick-up glass at the same time, but had to quit because the mechanical nature of the service was causing shards of glass to be left along the route. We still have central locations that we can drop off glass though. (Mine is only about a block from my house.) As far as aluminum cans go, I have always crushed the cans that I recycle (I add to our recycling container) primarily to save space. I’ve never heard any different, TBH.

@tohar1
That’s very cool. A few (random) points
I plant the vegetables in my garden in collars cut from old Tidy Cat buckets that I policed up off the side of the road on trash day …they are super handy since they have lids that seal. I use them all over the yard for collecting weeds, moving dirt etc etc. Once they start to break down I cut the bottom out then cut them in half to make two tubular collars from each one. This makes it very easy to keep plants fertilized or target watered by hand. Water is collected from roof runoff from my shed/shop. I can put the snap-on lids back in place to keep the mosquitoes out once they’re full. In between the rows I put down cardboard then cover it with grass clippings from the yard. This time of year there’s also a lot of the pecan leaves etc. At the end of the season all that gets tilled in.
Likewise, I generally crush the cans I take to the Knights for space savings sake.
Wow FARGO! Back in the day (around 1978) I ran the Hardee’s (for AVA inc) in Moorhead, across the river. I made many trips across that bridge to run deposits to the bank etc on my motorcycle. Have many fond memories of living up that way.
Fun fact (which I’m sure you know): the Red River is one of the very few (and the longest) river that runs NORTH in the US.

TL:DR I’m envious of your recycling capabilities. Cool that you work in that field.

@chienfou Mrs. H. collects rainwater for use in her very expansive flower & vegetable gardens. I really never thought about that as recycling, but in all aspects of the definition, it certainly is! (WISE as well!) That you were a resident up here is cool. I used to service all the Hardee’s in the FM area for CO2 used in the pop/soda machines (before my time in the recycling company), and of course liked to eat at restaurants that did business with me. That was from 1992-2006, so we probably didn’t cross paths.

@chienfou @tohar1 I LOVE the vegetables in the buckets idea, so clever! I put cardboard down over weeds but I’m not very diligent about it; we do have recycling (mixed materials) and compost pickup alternating weeks. They used to include unrecyclable paper in the compost (paper towels, tissue paper, etc.) but stopped ; they do still take yard and kitchen organics though.

@Kyeh @tohar1

Mrs. H. collects rainwater for use in her very expansive flower & vegetable gardens.

Interestingly enough in California (that bastian of eco-friendliness) it was illegal to collect the rainwater that landed on your house roof until 2012. They claimed that it belonged to the state! There are still state regs governing it. It was in 2015 that they codified the right to have a clothesline in your private space backyard.

As for Hardee’s… I left the Moorhead store in late '78 then went to Detroit Lakes, Alexander City, Hibbing and International Falls opening new stores at each place or getting underperforming stores to turn around. By '81 I was in Stevens Point. In AL by '83, but no longer with Hardee’s.

@Kyeh @tohar1
Here’s a pic I just took of the garden. You can see the plants in bucket collars as well as one space (mid-upper edge) where I’ve got cardboard down but haven’t covered it in grass clippings yet. (It’s been super dry here the last 3 or 4 weeks so I haven’t had to mow. We just got rain two days ago so I expect I’ll be able to run the rider around in the next couple days.). The bucket with the lid on it has water in it as well as a re-purposed quart and a half size greek yogurt container from Costco that I use to dip out water and pour into the collars.

I had changed out the cardboard in the entire garden when I came back from a 3-week+ trip when I wasn’t there to maintain it.

@chienfou @tohar1 Fantastic! No wonder you get those beautiful bountiful harvests.

@tohar1 for some reason my city doesn’t recycle glass.

@kittykat9180 @tohar1
Much as that seems like it should be a no brainer it’s very hard to find anyone that takes glass. At one point there was talk about using it to make permanent mulch by breaking it in pieces and tumbling it so it wouldn’t be sharp… guess that didn’t pan out.

@Kyeh @tohar1
I’m still pulling jalapenos and party peppers as well as another round of tomatoes and a ton of Japanese eggplants. Have a small patch of potatoes I planted from some that had started sprouting while we’re out of town. We’ll see how those turn out. Also have a metric shit-ton of pears that I’m trying to work my way through. Processed almost 20 pounds into pear butter overnight yesterday, using another 20 lb to make pear sauce tonight.Took the liquid they generated and made some pear syrup too. There’s probably another hundred fifty pounds laying on the ground and just as many still in the tree. Each pear of weighs between a half and a full pound! They’re great cooking pears, and I may put some up as pieces packed in a (very) light strip to use at Thanksgiving etc.
Oh, I also made another round of pepper jelly.
And yes… My wife’s IS out of town this weekend.

@chienfou @kittykat9180 @tohar1 Our garbage hauler does not allow glass in the recycling bin. The city dump takes glass but you have to haul it in and toss it in the receptacle yourself. Same deal with old electronics and used motor oil and a few other items. ~25 mile round trip from home, but I usually combine it with other errands.

@chienfou @tohar1 Oh, that all sounds SO wonderful. I envy you having all those pears!

@macromeh
I take my used oil to the parts store down the road. In fact, I just changed my oil yesterday and brought it in for disposal.

@kittykat9180
Same happens here. In fact I think certain States and localities have regs that say if you sell oil you have to accept it for recycling. I can usually get by without doing an oil drop off for at least two or three changes at the same time. I think locally you can bring in up to three or four gallons at one time.
Back when I used to have a wooden split rail fence I would coat the top of the posts with used oil to help keep them from breaking down

@chienfou I dispose of it right away, I don’t want it sitting around. Plus I change my oil about once a year. Two oil changes would mean it’s sitting there for a long time.

@kittykat9180
Two vehicles plus a riding mower. If possible I try to rotate the cars in so that the oil changes are due at the same time. That way I have all the tools and receptacles (and towels!) already out and I’ve got clothes on that I don’t care about getting oil on. I actually have a catch pan / receptacle that I can store oil in conveniently if I need to. It’s pretty handy.

@kittykat9180 Not sure how big of a city you live in, but check private companies too. We have a couple in my area that recycle glass. One of them makes the glass used in the fancy fireplaces…They accept from outside sources. A possibility perhaps…

@chienfou @Kyeh One word…YUM!!!

@chienfou
Ah. I have one car and I work from home. I don’t put many miles on my car.
I have a catch pan too, otherwise the oil would drain all over my garage floor.