![]() They want every unfinished crumb sealed away for later, especially suckers. She guards the plastic gold and even washes out the old ones. It’s a great system until Dawn refuses my technique. After dinner, I like to keep leftovers in their original bowls and then put each one inside a gallon-sized freezer bag. The biggest battle for our family is probably over Ziplocs. Yeah, it’s gross, but hey, we’re making a difference. After they left the backyard hose running overnight for a river they were making, I’m happy when they forget to flush the toilet or catch them digging out yesterday’s dinosaur flosser out of the trash. Levon refuses to wear underwear, while Atticus recently boasted about a seven-day run in the same pair of socks. But to tell you the truth, the boys are greener than me, even if their motivation is suspect. I might not be racing a Mustang or an old Triumph motorcycle, but I’m outside, mending the fence, working with my hands, feeling like Steve McQueen. Instead, it’s my mission to make sure no paper goes in the trash. I feel like a farmer, doing chores and working my land. Jack London’s To Build a Fire did something to me, so even during the warmest days, I cut and I saw. Instead, I use the lint from the dryer and head for the backyard where I make big sticks into little ones. ![]() ![]() I’ll admit I’ve been tempted to grab the Restoration Hardware catalogue that shows up every quarter even though we’ve never bought one of their cool light bulbs, but I stop myself. When the boys ask, “Can you build us a fire?” I jump right on it. It could be eighty degrees outside, but I don’t care. Sure, I’ve messed around with those kerosene-soaked starter logs, but Martin’s foot-long receipts work just fine. I gather them up like the little treasures they are and toss them into our backyard fire pit. Paper is everywhere, and I’m not afraid to grab that unfinished toilet tube castle or the abandoned coloring project left in the hall. Costco cardboard, Zappos boxes, that six yards of butcher paper Amazon tossed in with Elvis Costello’s new book – it’s a long list. Then, when the neighbors and the family aren’t watching, I fling it into our yard under the Japanese maple and let nature do her thing. In the morning, I leave my banana peel on the floorboard of the car until I get home. Composting lost its luster after that, but I still do what I can. He must have caught a whiff of the homemade sauce we were brewing. ![]() ![]() Standing in my Redwings, it was all so easy – until the trees died and the opossum showed up. I dug up roots and left the hose on the new spots like I’ve seen every pro lawn guy do dozens of times. I even used the homemade dirt once when I moved four trees from the backyard to the front. I took pride watching last Wednesday’s buried clementines transform into a grayer, more wrinkled version of themselves. I churned The Earth Machine’s soup with gusto and learned quickly that bulldozing my heap was the secret to keeping all the little maggots content. And I was in charge of its columnar ventilation, which meant opening the tomb and dumping our kitchen pail full of dinner slop inside, minus any meat, of course. A sticker on the front told the world who it was: The Earth Machine. Next thing I knew, it was living by our kitchen sink, holding eggshell shrapnel and avocado skins until I delivered them to their final resting place inside a large, domed tombstone that sat squat near the fence. A couple of years ago, my wife Dawn spied a stainless steel pail on Pinterest. ![]()
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