Dumpster Diving

These things all have something in common...
They were all pulled out of dumpsters.
I have been thinking about whether or not I wanted to post about this, because there is a stigma associated with dumpster diving. But I think the real shame should be in those who throw perfectly good things away because they are too lazy to deal with all of their stuff. I can't even tell you how sick seeing all the things in the dumpster has made me.

Edited to add: Amber made a good point in my comments that I meant to add here. This happens every year in Corvallis as college kids move out of the dorms and out of their apartments. So this waste is being generated by partially college educated youth in an environmentally friendly state, in a very environmentally friendly city. Every year I am dumbfounded by the waste - aren't the younger generations supposed to "get it"??? I try not to think about the fact that this is happening in every college town across the country, but this is a real problem. The mentality seems to be that if you didn't pay for it, or you don't have to pay for the replacement, then it is disposable. This is pure laziness and a lack of accountability. I have some free time on my hands, I think I might just write a letter to the university addressing this issue...

Uggs, Aaron got most of that stain out. I feel like a cool kid now!


These look like they were worn once (through mud)


These too.


Works


An IMac scrapped for some parts, but mostly intact


A refrigerator, Aaron found it with ice and food still inside


Tons of wood and a snowboard with bindings


Ed Hardy purse with tags still attached


A comforter and a blanket - they look like they were purchased less than a year ago (hmm, maybe in the fall??)


A pillow, a like new mattress pad and two blankets


Batiked fabric


Here is a box of things to go for donation somewhere. Suggestions welcome! I was going to call the Jackson Street Youth Shelter to see if they could use bedding. We will donate what we don't want or can't sell easily. Much of what we pulled out was just to keep it from going into the landfill - if it was clean and in good shape we tried to take it.

We also pulled out a broken TV to take into recycling.

Either not shown, not taken, or we couldn't haul it all home:

Multiple televisions
Silverware still in the silverware tray
Canned food, packaged food still in the box, random things out of refrigerators (packages of Tillamook cheese, yogurt, bottles of ketchup)
A Simple Human garbage can (full of garbage and tossed in the dumpster, now cleaned up and in our bathroom!)
Dishes
Glasses
Tupperware
Furniture
A shopping cart (??)
Clothing
Exercise equipment
Pencils, pens, rulers, glue
So many recyclables - school papers, bottles, cans, newspaper


People literally cleaned out their kitchen and threw it all in the trash - pots, pans, glasses, food
Or their bed - pillow, blankets, sheets
Or their bathroom - bottles of shampoo, bottles of vitamins, shower caddies

After one day of this Aaron said, if people just donated what was still good and recycled what could be recycled, the dumpsters would have been almost empty. My question is, who are these people that think it is perfectly acceptable to do this? No wonder our world is in such a state. Everything is disposable to some people. At least we saved a few things from being wasted, but I know we didn't even put a dent in it. I wish the dorms would get a little more organized and make it easier for people to donate and recycle. But maybe if people don't care, it doesn't matter how easy it is, because obviously there are options in place already.

Sorry I don't have a picture of Aaron actually in a dumpster for you, it's pretty funny.

Papa Bird

We found a blue jay nest above our back garden yesterday. Today they fledged and are hanging out under some trees in the backyard. They are pretty close to the ground and we have been keeping our eyes out for neighborhood cats. They will not be treated kindly if they get near our babies!

The funny part to me, about this is that every time Aaron hears the parents squawking, he is running out the door to make sure that the chicks are okay.


Streeetch those legs!


Wish these babies luck in surviving to adulthood!

Third Inspection

I swear I will be taking up new hobbies soon...for those of you sick of bee posts! Aaron takes his board exam this Friday, and my last one is Saturday. I'm hoping to resume a normal life after that.
We were thrilled today to find lots of larvae! That means the queen is doing her job and soon our hive will be bigger and better. Some of the brood has been capped as you can see below. This, oddly enough, is called "capped brood". This capping looks a little different than the honey that has been capped, it is a different color and it has breathing holes.

Lots of chubby, healthy larvae! The nurse bees feed each larva 1,300 times per day! You can see a nurse bee feeding a larva above on the upper right. After 5 days they are 1,570 times larger than they started out, at this time, they are capped and begin metamorphosis to becoming an adult bee. I'm very excited because next week when we open them up, we might get lucky enough to see one emerge - bee birth!

Pinning

Today was my pinning ceremony. We had this as a kind of private graduation service for just our class. Our instructors and one of the dentists spoke, it was nice. Here I am getting my pin, it says
Erin
Dental Hygienist

I was definitely the only one in jeans - I hate hate hate dressing up. I'm no good at it, but I was much more comfortable than I would have been in a dress.



Here is my carpool group. Life would have been very, very rough with out the help I got from these women. Driving once a week instead of four times made a huge difference.

Me and my friend Skye.

Phew, so glad that's over with!! I still have one more board, next Saturday. As long as my patient shows I think it will be alright though. It's just a stressful one because it's $1,000 and if anything goes wrong you lose your money and have to pay again to get your license. I should be about done jumping through hoops!

Second Inspection

We did our second hive inspection last week. We check every week through most of the summer to make sure everything is alright and to know when to add honey supers as they run out of room. If you don't give them more space, they will swarm and half your hive will leave. At this point in the season it would be hard to recover from this.
I spilled a little sugar syrup as I took the feeder out. Bees are so funny, "Hey - what are you doing in our hive. What's this?? Sugar!!" and they stop caring what you do. They are literally driven by sugar.



They are collecting pollen and nectar. I meant to take a picture of the latest burr comb we removed, you can see the layers of pollen. They smash it into a cell until it is full. Aaron tasted some of it, one type tasted like garlic, the other like mint.


They are beginning to cap the sugar water from the feeder that they have made into honey - that means at this point it is ready to be stored for later.


Here is our queen. She was doing everything she could to hide from us, she did not like being out of the hive.


If you blow this picture up, and look very, very closely, you can see 1-2 day old larvae in the cells. We are inspecting again tomorrow and should be able to see larvae very clearly now.


At the end Aaron gave them a powdered sugar bath. They didn't like it too much, but I did see a big increase in mites that had dropped down onto the sticky board after, so that's good.

Drowned Drone

I went out to the hive the other day to check things out. We have been having crazy weather, rain, rain and more rain. But if the sun comes out even for just a few minutes the bees are itching to get out so the fly out and get to work. But generally it just starts raining again. I noticed a very soggy bee on its back at the entrance to the hive. I was about to flick it onto the ground when I saw it moving. It's wings were stuck to the hive, those H bonds are a force be reckoned with when you are a small bee. It was a drone, so I quickly put my finger onto its legs so it could grab on. He did and I took him inside and blotted him off with a Kleenex. Those hairs can hold a lot of water! His legs weren't working right, so I just held him and kept drying him off.


Drones have HUGE eyes for spotting virgin queens as they leave the nest. They also have long back legs for grabbing on to her. Unfortunately they do not live long past the mating experience as their male appendage is torn from their body after copulation. They have no idea this will happen of course, so I guess they probably die fairly happy.


Another way to tell them apart is the noise they make when they fly. They sound like an old fighter jet coming in for landing. They are also kind of clumsy because they are so big and heavy.


Once he started to feel better we took him outside and like that - he took off due east.


I had been waiting for a drone to grab and play with, so it worked out well for both of us.

Our First Truffling Adventure!

Weeks and weeks ago some of Aaron's friends invited us to go truffle hunting in Turner. The weather today was absolutely beautiful for a change. A man owns an 14 acres and let 30 mycophiles have free range of his property. It turns out it was unusually good truffling today. Here I am with my first truffle, it's actually a pretty big one.

It was so exciting to be digging along and have one pop out! I got a little obsessed, but I wasn't the only one. I can only imagine that all sorts of pleasure hormones were going off in my brain each time that I found one. Here's Aaron hunting:


My classmate Leah came along and also had a blast. Here we all are dirty with our bounty.


We gathered 1.25 pounds. Over $200 worth. Apparently what happened today is not normal, we were not only finding a ton, but really large ones as well. I found the largest one out of all of us, it is at the top. It had a few nibbles on the other side. You actually find them by looking for areas that voles have dug up. When you find one near a tree, you know there are usually more.



I carefully scrubbed them all with a new toothbrush. This was very tedious, especially with the small ones.


Here they are all clean. I laid them out on a towel to let them dry. We packaged some up for neighbors and put the rest in the fridge with paper towels.


They are famous for their aroma. I wish I could begin to describe it for those who are not familiar. Earthy, musty, spicy, fungal, but there is also a strange chemical element. I heard it described as similar to gasoline by one person and benzene by another. One woman today had some ready to ship to another state and the package was returned to her with a hazardous material sticker on it because the people at the post office thought there was something dangerous inside.
We plan to make:
infused butter
infused oil
truffle butter (truffles grated into butter, you have to freeze it if you do this or it will spoil quickly)

And also to put it on everything we can think of for a while. We had some on buttered toast tonight, it was really very good. Next time we go to my parents house we are going to see if they have any on their property.