Crushing Cans

"I love smashing stuff."

-- Norman Reedus

Crushed aluminum cans 9-23-14

"Aluminum can be recycled forever. It never wears out."

-- Aluminum Can Recycling, wastecare.com

"Recycling one aluminum can conserves 300-watt hours,

enough to run a 100-watt bulb for three hours."

-- Gibson's Recycling Depot

There's a real big box just outside our back door where we toss our empty aluminum soda and beer cans.

We don't put the cans out on the curb with the regular weekly recyclables because Leo likes to take them to the metal scrap yard for gas money.

"Tin Can Mountain" 9-23-14

Lately, because the big box is getting real full, every time I toss in a can, it just rolls off the other ones onto the garage floor and causes an aluminum can avalanche.

I've asked Leo to take care of Tin Can Mountain's overflow problem, but it just keeps growing.

So yesterday I handled it myself.

I dumped the box out on the patio, laced up my heavy motorcycle boots and stomped, crushed and flattened 'em all.

When I was done I loaded the smushed cans back into the box. What was once spilling over was now only about a third full. An added bonus: when they're flat, the little fuckers can't roll around anymore. 

I felt good.

Smashing empty cans is oddly therapeutic. Cathartic, even.

They make a really satisfying "pop-crunch" sound when you hit them just right, and I even worked up a little sweat.

It was a good way to de-stress, clean up the garage, get a little exercise and help the environment in one fell swoop.

Turns out my carbon footprint is a size 9 steel-toe Doc Martens.

Fresh Strawberries. In Ohio. In March.

"'Locavore' may have been the 2007 New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year, 

but there's already been a word for those whose diets are restricted 

to seasonal items grown in their immediate area: 

That word is 'peasant.'"

-- Brett Martin

Strawberries 3-10-14

I know.

I know that out of responsibility for the environment I should shun out-of-state strawberries that are trucked into Ohio supermarkets while our own berry plants are still dormant under a blanket of snow.

I know about the damaging effects of the fossil fuels used to haul them here to Ohio from Florida, or wherever they grew.

I know I should hold out until June when the native, local strawberries are ripe, and then go pick them myself and enjoy them in season, the way nature intended.

But I also know that our friend Vera turns 86 today, which means Vera needs a birthday cake.

And I know that Vera likes strawberries.

And I know that the only way to bake Vera a strawberry birthday cake was to go ahead and buy the trucked-in berries.

Which I did.

Yesterday I baked the strawberry cake and we took it over to Vera, along with a birthday card, a party hat and some vanilla ice cream (made at a local dairy from locally-produced milk! See, the universe balances itself.)

Vera 3-10-14

And when she said she'd read a recipe for a white cake with strawberries in a magazine, and had thought to herself "Wouldn't that be nice for my birthday?" but decided not to make it because she's had the flu and was just too tired to bake ... well, I was never so glad for store-bought berries. Because nobody should have to bake their own birthday cake. Especially if they've been sick. And extra-especially if they're as dear and sweet as Vera.

If you are a hardcore locavore, forgive me. I acknowledge and respect your commendable efforts at eco-consciousness and sustainability and halting global warming. I also ask you to look at Vera's happy grin and tell me a little plastic box of Florida berries wasn't totally worth breaking the rules for.

It's a magical kind of alchemy that can turn a few red berries into a smile like Vera's.

I'll worry about my big fat carbon footprint a different day.

For today, I just feel lucky to be part of the magic.