Trash!

When did trash become so complicated? There is no instruction book given to you when you move here, so it has taken me the better part of two years to learn The Rules of Vermont Trash:


1) You really should compost all the leftover food that you can. I say can, because we don't - yet.

2) If you want get rid of used household items like old chairs and dart boards, you put them at the end of the driveway with a one word cardboard sign that says "FREE". After two or three days, and at least one rain heavy storm, you should retrieve the remaining "FREE" items from the end of the driveway, and drive them 17 miles to the Goodwill.

3) Returnable bottles need to be driven 6 miles into town (using $3 worth of gas) to the Redemption Center. Once there, you will receive $2.35 in bottle deposits for two large garbage bags of plastic bottles you have been falling over in the pantry for the last two months. OK, you could combine this task with another shopping trip.

4) Non-recyclable (aka "real" ) trash is wheeled the end of the every-other Monday to be picked up by the private trash collection company. This service is not included in your taxes. It costs $38/month and the can is 64 gallons (half the size of the one we used to have). This works out to 1/4 of the trash for about 3x the price of where we used to live. On the plus side, they will call you from the end of your driveway if you forget to take out the trash can- Wow!

5) On the 2nd and 4th Saturdays, during a three hour window, we load all of our recyclable items and boxes (with certain exceptions) into the car and drive 4 miles to the town recycling site. To be fair, this is also a social occasion, and you do not have to separate paper and plastic. This service is included in our property taxes.

6) Never put a recyclable can in a non-recycling receptacle-especially in a public gathering.

7 ) You can dispose of old electronics and toxic waste in only one place- semi-annually at a semi-secret time.

8) Items that would be considered worn out and ready for the trash are not really trash. If at all possible, they should be repaired, reused, or re-purposed.

9) RiteAid will prosecute anyone that puts their household garbage in their outside cans. Ask the guy in Bristol.

Floating Front Doors

  One of the most curious phenomenon have found is something I call the "Floating Front Door". More than a few houses here have front doors without porches. They are simply floating up there, looking neat and fully functional, with no way to get to them.  My theory is that the houses were built with front doors out of a sense of tradition. However, because of the mud, snow and dirt, most people use their back doors or mud rooms to go in or out of the house.
 The thing that bothers me is that some of these houses are quite old. No one has ever had the time or inclination to add a porch? Am I the only one who has noticed this as odd?  If I were a good photographer I would make a "Floating Front Doors of New England" calender.

Turtles

Turtles often feel an urgent need to be on the other side of whatever road they may be near. Vermonters like to help them. I have seen traffic on four lane highways stop while some guy gets out of his car and helps a turtle across the road. I mentioned that to a native Vermonter and was told two things about helping turtles across the road.

1) Always move them to the side of the road to which they were headed. Makes sense. Otherwise, they just get back up on the road and try again.

 2) If you try to help a big turtle (I have seen them up to about 30lbs) , don't grab them by the sides of his shell and pick him up . His neck is longer than you think, and he will want to bite you. The proper technique is to "wheel barrel" him across the road. Lift up the back of the shell so that his back feet are off of the ground. He will try to run as fast as he can with his two from legs to get away from you thereby speeding up his crossing of the road. Again, makes sense.

Heat and Bugs

I have had some experience with heat- the dry heat of the west. Now, I am in the midst of my first New England heat wave. Our house, as well as most houses built before about 1990, have no central air conditioning systems, or even duct systems to which you can add air conditioning. It is up to you to figure out the elaborate algorithm of fan placement, window air conditioners, and timed opening and closing of windows that maximizes coolness. We are still working on it.  The thermostat in the house says 86.

My new summer fragrance is Eau de DEET. I had orginally thought that I would eschew the use of DEET in favor of a less toxic alternative. Screw that. Bugs hate DEET, and anything that bugs hate is a friend of mine.

42nd Annual Outhouse Race and 4th of July

The 42nd annual running of the Bristol Outhouse Race, Parade and Festivities

The Grand Prize

It was a real race

Church Pie Sale

Although I did not post pictures of them, there were also LOTS of fire trucks- big, red, shiney trucks. Every town within a 25 mile radius with a population of 1000 or more seem to have their own $250,000 fire truck. The size and value of your fire truck seems to be the measure by which the towns compare themselves.

A Bristol 4th

The town of Bristol, Vermont is the quintessential New England town. Think Norman Rockwell.  I don't think the look of the town has changed one iota since 1950-something. Tomorrow is the 4th of July Outhouse race followed by a parade.
Bristol has a town green with a bandstand. On Wednesday nights during the summer the Bristol Band plays a free concert. They have been doing this continually for 140 years.  If it is raining (and it rained 23 out of 30 days this June) people park around the outside of the town green and honk their horns as applause.