the week that was...

Spent several days this week in Quitman. Though it does not 'appear' that any progress was made, I know how many big garbage cans we filled up, so feel like we did make some headway. But as is true with lots of things, and accurately documented in some sub-set of Murphy's Law: the more you do the more there is that needs doing.

One of the things I really wanted to accomplish was to get rid of a pile of old nasty, water-filled tires that had been left in the backyard years ago, and hopefully find some place to haul them away and deposit while there was a pickup truck available to load them in. So I went by a shop that sells tires to ask: If I am willing to pay a small disposal fee, will you let me bring you these old tires to add to the pile that you will have a recycling company haul off and turn into asphalt? The answer: we will take them off your hands for $8 each. I think I had 12 tires, so that seemed to be pretty outrageous to me. We started calling around and found that the city would not pick them up (I pretty much knew that), and the local landfill would not accept them. So called the trash contracting service in Valdosta who said they could not take them because that landfill would not allow them either. We finally contacted the landfill in Thomas County, and found that they would take them for about $1 each... I did not want to drive the dry-rotted crappy old bald tires to Thomasville, but could not in good conscience just roll them off the back of the truck into the creek. So we hauled them off to the Thomas County landfill and paid $11 to unload them there: with a flock of buzzards sitting on the bare branches of a dead tree as witnesses, like something out of a very bad movie...

We borrowed/heisted a Thomas Utilities garbage can on the way back to Brooks County, that nearly filled the back of the truck, and was immediately loaded full of more bags of trash when we got it back to the house.... so yes, though you would open closets and cupboards and not feel like anything had disappeared, we really did make some Cleaning-Out progress. Thanks to you, FS! ;)

There is some sort of electrical crisis: some of the lights do not work, both in the kitchen and outside. Will have to get the electrician (who also drives a county school bus, and will work me in around the pick-up/delivery hours) to come and figure it out, and hope it is nothing overly complicate/involved/expensive to remedy, but fear the worst in a house where most of the wiring is nearly 60 years old.