Thursday, January 07, 2010

Garbage Out, Garbage In

We don't actually produce much garbage but still, it has to go out sometime. This time, it got from the house to the can rather quickly.

Even the flatter parts are sled negotiable . . .

. . . sometimes with "paddles" (sticks) for speed and steering.

And this is how supplies get back up the hill when the road is impassible. It seems it is always dark by the time we get to this part, but it also seems that we always have fun doing it and that a party always ensues.

9 comments:

Madcap said...

Woo-hoo! Your garbage is so much funner than ours!

Anonymous said...

Heh, boy does that look familiar!

arcolaura said...

That's impassable? Wow. I should show that to the folks whose unplowed lanes I've been getting the school bus through after the storm this week. I may be trying too hard at my new job...

CG said...

Laura, I believe you live in flat land. I do not. Only the steep part is impassible -- at least the ancient, slick tired, 2wd s-10 wouldn't go up it unloaded. Poor school children.

Wendy said...

My aunt and uncle lived far up a hollow in Bell Co. KY where their road was impassable part of the year (and after a couple of really hard rains :). They often had to park at the creek and walk up to the house. The phrase, "God willing, and the creek don't rise" was coined with folks like them in mind, I suspect ;).

I wonder if their garbage disposal was as much fun ;).

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I drove my taxi in lots, and I mean LOTS, of places in Alaska that wouldn't be passable if they were here. Flat or otherwise. I don't know the physics of it, but it's just different. I was also known to have to trudge out to the very steep hinterlands in the wee hours of the morning to pick up school but drivers to get them into work because their own cars couldn't get them out. Gotta love a Subaru with studded tires.

I've driven in both places in bad weather and it's just very, very different here in the South.

CG said...

Before we put in the bridge, we either paid attention and parked on the other side of the creek BEFORE a big rain or we stayed home. Once I was on my way to a funeral, got to the creek, and wouldn't cross -- came back to the house and called my dad and said, hey, the creek is too high.

Also, this snow was a particularly slick snow -- somehow it was dry and slippery. But the truck isn't the vehicle you'd want to be traipsing across Alaska in for sure.

arcolaura said...

Hey, I didn't mean to sound rude, but I guess I did. I do live in flat land, but in the hilliest parts of it, and I have seen plenty of times when a climb is just too steep and slippery. My comment was not a critique of your driving, just a gut reaction because what has been frustrating me every morning and afternoon is a lane buried under at least a foot of snow, and two wheel tracks churned through it where I will hope I can keep the bus wheels one more time. Keep it moving, don't over-correct, rock it to get going again when I stop at the highway. There is a policy I could invoke, saying I won't go in if the lane isn't cleared, but these are neighbours, I know it takes time to warm up a tractor so it will start and maybe the person who used to do it is away and who knows what else. And I won't attempt to defend school and school buses here. Any job that I might take around here is open to critique. I took this one because I have allowed my life to be such that I rely on income, I was specifically asked to do it, and it indirectly makes my daughter's life a little easier because it's her boss's bus route and if I drive for him he is in his bakery more and doesn't ask her for quite so many hours a week. I know, I could put my time into my daughter's life directly and maybe help her to just say no to the extra hours, not rely on the job so much, and so on... It's been years of choices that have got me here and it will be years of choices to work my way back to something more humane, if I decide to go that way. I don't know which way I am going. I loved being at university and I long to be back there, but I intend to keep on listening to voices like yours that keep me from becoming comfortable with that path...

CG said...

hey, I considered the school bus route one time! If your driving that bus into and out of those lanes makes you as white knuckled as me sometimes trying to get in and out of here, well, I feel for you. I couldn't take the stress of it.

I find you interesting to watch Laura BECAUSE you struggle with these decisions . . . what will you do, and why? While I have my opinions, they should not matter to you! Live your life, and let us know how it turns out.