Scrounging

As people spring clean their houses, many of them drag out unwanted items and pile them by the road, making a feast of possibilities for veteran scroungers. Shawn and I have always made use of such opportunities, just as I dig through our things and drag out our own pile of unwanted items. It is a tradition, one we were not sure would be here in our new town, but it is. We caught the first wave yesterday and probably this weekend and next will be even more bountious. For all our driving, we found only one pot suitable for growing potatoes, but we know that other opportunities await.

Aside from planters, we need bricks or cement blocks. We have wood for shelves for the library, but blocks or bricks would be perfect. We are also on the lookout for an old fashioned wooden framed screen door. We think it would be great to use that on the garage peopledoor so Jethro could be out in the garage with the door open and not need to be tied up.

As we drove around looking I was reminded of one summer afternoon long ago when we found an amazing pile of wood. It was dumped Helter-skelter and some idiot had tried to light all that wonderful building material on fire.

As we started to rescue some of the best boards, we heard the sound of multiple rattles.

It all came clear… There was a nest or ball of copperheads tucked in that woodpile, suddenly dumping it somewhere and setting it on fire made sense. We slowly backed away and got in our truck. After doing the heebie-jeebie dance we went to get a fish sandwich. We were younger then, now I would be reaching for my nitro. But even to this day when we approach a pile left out, we look it over carefully and listen.