Archive: More Reclamation

Today I yanked five more bags of leaves and other organic stuff from the streets. Most of this was from around Shoal Creek somewhere between Austen’s school and Anderson Lane.

I started grinding it. It was wet from last night’s rain. That made the shredder much less happy than the dryer stuff from the previous days. More clogs. I discovered I could run a few sticks from my brush pile through and that would force most clogs through. In any event, seems the wetter the green stuff is, the more likely it is to clog the shredder.

A few minutes into the first bag, I discovered, to my horror, a poison ivy vine. I’d been wearing a lot of clothing, but the vine slapped me in the face and forearm. Fairly soon after I went to wash vigorously with soap and warm water. We’ll see. I’m damn sensitive to poison ivy.

A few days ago I was ruminating on the idea that I’m not the “greenest” or most organic gardener. For one, I have no problem using the gasoline lawnmower to mow or mulch leaves. Then there’s the gasoline shredder. Also, I regularly use Roundup, an herbicide I suspect to be quite awful, although more from the business standpoint than environmentally. But, had I found poison ivy vines in my yard, I’d have hit ‘em with Roundup without hesitating. But I do try my best, and I really have started to embrace composting everything as well as grabbing materials off of Freecycle, from friends, from curbside offerings, and from land that’s to be developed.

I guess I was feeling sensitive about my state of “organicness” because gardeners tend to fall in one of two camps: militant greenies or Chem-Lawn addicts. And, I was wishing I had more gardening geek-buddies. My parents are away (they usually fill the role) and other garden geeks I know are remotely-based. I’m not too interested in finding an octogenarian-occupied garden club, but I also don’t know if the community garden granola crunchies would do it for me, either. It could be that I have a few preconceived notions, too.