I am in Hunker Down Mode. Clear the accumulated stuff out of the garage so I can get the car in there when it snows. Bundle up all the recycling and take it to the transfer station. Why on earth do I have all these cardboard boxes?
Oh yes. I have them because I am paving the road to a warm place with good intentions, like flattening and bundling boxes for recycling. This is the week to turn intentions into reality. Mickey says he’ll bring the old car around and load up all the cardboard. There’s some junk, too. Odd pieces of an old vacuum cleaner. A rusted realtor’s sign I dragged out of the woods. We’ll go off to the recycling center and then, filled with virtue, go out for a good lunch, my treat.
If you are from Away, this is probably all very mysterious to you. Why don’t you just put it all out at the curb and be done with it? you are wondering. Well. There is no curb. And there is no taxpayer supported garbage truck making its rounds. When a person lives Up North, a person must retain a waste hauling company to pick up the trash. Most of them charge by the bag plus a monthly fee. A person may also take the trash to the transfer station and pay for the privilege of dumping it in the compactor. A person must pay extra for anything that does not fit in the prescribed bags, and a person must pay a LOT extra to have dead appliances hauled away.
There are advantages to this. I think it is good to factor in the cost of disposal when contemplating replacing something. We buy these red-orange bags in packages of ten for $23. Put stuff in them that we don’t want–thoroughly chewed dog toys, coffee grounds, styrofoam packing materials, dead birds–put the bags out by the road early on Friday morning and whoosh! They vanish. I love my waste hauler. I used to have a different one but we had irreconcilable differences.
I don’t generally make a lot of garbage, but this week I am the Garbage Queen. Three bags full so far, and another begun, and I still have tomorrow’s pitching frenzy to go.
Then I can turn to the windows. I have to wash them. There’s no way around it. Then I can tape big sheets of plastic over them and caulk around them. The doors are a different, and larger, problem. Remember the comforters I acquired the other day? They were not for the beds. They are going to be giant draft protectors. I haven’t gotten them on drapery rods yet, but the Cowboy has already given them a tentative paws up.
I had planned a somewhat more elegant decor for my little retreat in the woods. Ah well. Matching draft protectors will have to do.
Torch Lake Views 
P.j. grath
November 11, 2010
Gerry, do you have to pay to recycle your cardboard? Here the recycling stations in each township are supported by a millage, and the system is very popular. Glass, plastic, paper and cardboard can all be recycled and keep the number of garbage bags per household down. All summer I composted, too, and a way into the fall–until we started finding those reddish-purplish-brown, fruit pit-filled piles of poop that may or may not be bear poop. David was always kidding me about running a lunch counter for skunks, but I definitely don’t want to run one for bears.
Your comforters should be great draft blockers. Do you close off rooms of the house, or is the plan to have comforters over the doors to outside? We have never done the latter, have done the former.
Gerry
November 11, 2010
Recycling is free everywhere in Antrim County, although it is limited to cardboard, paper, clear, brown or green glass, tin cans, aluminum, and plastics numbered 1 or 2. (Emmet County has a magnificent recycling program which should be a model for the entire North Country. I should write about that sometime.) My problem with getting all those cardboard boxes to the recycling center is partly sloth and partly my car. By the time I get it loaded with newspapers and bottles and cans there’s no room left for the cardboard, and so it accumulates.
I am way more scared of skunks than I am of bears, and thus do not compost. If I had any sun I would garden, and if I gardened I’d compost in one of those dandy skunk-proof barrels.
The draft blockers are going over the outside doors. I have lots of outside doors in this tiny little house. I can see that I have to do a more thorough post about all this.
Fee
November 11, 2010
That’s just reminded me to call the council to uplift my old drier. It’ll cost me £20 but, hey, I have no choice.
I also remember fighting every winter to keep the cold draughts out of our first home – the windows were very old, leaky, and beyond our means to replace. They cost us an arm and a leg, but I love the windows we now have in our present home – and I just keep telling myself that they’re paying for themselves in reduced heating bills – but it may take longer than I have left to live!
Gerry
November 11, 2010
To my delight, there’s a guy in the township who decided to get into metal scrapping. He picks up dead appliances, disassembles them into useful parts and recyclable materials, and makes a little money at the scrap dealers. That’s what’s so odd about the way we treat discarded stuff. It has value, if we could only focus on ways to extract the value.
I covet your windows. It isn’t just the energy savings, but the luxury of living in draft-free comfort, all cozy on a dreich-filled day. A sensible friend used to buy one or two new windows every year, depending on what he could afford. We all thought this was a futile enterprise, but he’s lived in that house for nearly 30 years now and has had the last laugh pretty much continuously for the last decade.
Karma
November 11, 2010
I have always found it comical, perhaps even a bit ironic, that this dog’s name is the Cowboy. His size and playful curls are, to me, at odds with his name. This last photo gave me a smile today as I contemplated the Cowboy staking out his winter territory.
Gerry
November 11, 2010
He came with the name. I thought it was a silly name for a dog, but he seemed to know it was his, so I left it. Upon being introduced to the dogs, people always assume the muscular terrier is the Cowboy and the fluffy spaniel Miss Sadie. Upon closer acquaintance no one makes that mistake. Life is full of irony.
Preston
November 11, 2010
I totally understand about plastic and windows. In the next couple of years I hope to be able to replace all the windows in our house for some which are draft free. Until then, and as I’ve done for many years past, I will staple plastic around them for the winter. I will be giving some thought about your giant draft protectors. How do they work on the doors?
Gerry
November 11, 2010
I believe I’m going to do a “how-to” post on giant draft protectors! In the past I have hung them from tiny cuphooks screwed into the top of the door frame. This year I am going upscale, and have purchased drapery rods. This only works well on sliding doors (I have two sets of those going out onto the deck). The hinged entry door is another story entirely. The giant draft protector must be moved out of the way to open the door, which means it must be left out of the way while I am gone. I am working on this problem. Updates to follow.
Margaret
November 11, 2010
You are too cool 🙂 and from your last blog, looks like your perfectiionist self will have little time to play with more word press’. But keep in touch. I will enjoy working with you. Plus, I make awesome bagels.
Gerry
November 11, 2010
I am too cool. That is why I have been investing in giant draft protectors! 🙂
I did a little playing with WordPress and will do more. (I’m still getting up to speed on the back-end differences between .com and .org.) Yes, we will keep in touch. You make your own bagels??? This is worth a post all by itself. Clearly I must trot over to the eastern reaches of the county to investigate.
Cindy Lou
November 11, 2010
I end up with cardboard boxes because I always think it’ll be a good box to use for that elusive ‘something.’ Of course, I have no room to store them, but just can’t seem to part with them. I think they breed in my crawlspace – which is where they abide. Nice handy place, hey?
Gerry
November 11, 2010
Exactly. But I am on a mission to rid myself of all those boxes. That photo is really misleading. It was taken after a great many boxes were flattened and stuffed inside other boxes. And it does not show all the piles of boxes full of boxes. But on Friday they’ll all be in Mickey’s old car, and on Saturday we’re headed to the transfer station. A good thing, too, because next week I will probably want to park the car in the garage. ‘Nuff said.
uphilldowndale
November 11, 2010
Ahh, useful boxes. Every home must have a stock.
Gerry there is so much in this post that draws me in, insulation, recycling, refuse collection, hoarding.
Is it my age?
Gerry
November 11, 2010
Oh dear, I hope not, because that would mean . . . No. I’m positive that’s not the explanation.
I believe it’s your sagacity. Yes, that’s it. Sagacity.
Nye
November 11, 2010
The comforter as a draft protector is a great idea, my sister does that for her bedroom during the cold winter months also.
Gerry
November 11, 2010
See, this is proof that I am not as eccentric as people say I am.
Or as old.
Cindy Lou
November 12, 2010
My daughter’s mother-in-law, a delightful lady who has immense amounts of energy, is also a quilter and has made beautiful, jewel-toned quilts for all of her windows. They roll up and down and everything! My windows? They’ll be lucky if they get the hair-dryered plastic treatment 🙂
Gerry
November 12, 2010
I used to fantasize about making custom window quilts. The best I managed was pre-quilted fabric cut and hemmed to size and hung with tension rods. Come to think of it, they were sort of itty-bitty draft protectors . . . But in those days I had woodframe windows and real old-fashioned woodframe storm windows for a lot of spots. I am a huge fan of old-fashioned woodframe storm windows.