Dumpster Diving and garden projects

Our neighbors are converting their business into a residence. They are wasteful Republican types, like most people locally. They are throwing away a lot of perfectly good things, such as metal shelving, brand new treated 2 x 4s, boards, pillows, flowerpots, and wooden cabinets. I liberated a bunch of the bedding trays for starting seedlings. They are expensive in shops this time of year. I also filched about 10 2 x 4s to build a raised garden bed with, since Dad doesn't show any sign of being interested in bringing over his unused landscape timbers for that purpose. (It's either too hot, too cold, too snowy, too early, too late, too muddy, or some other excuse why it cannot be done). Some of the boards are short, but I will make them work somehow. Maybe I need some of those spiky metal sheets used to nail planks together.

Mr. Dumpster came out and told me that I could have anything I wanted out of the dumpster, but to not disturb his precise organization of the dumpster. He said some other people had been rooting through his trash and they dis-organized the way he had it filled (naturally). He obviously would rather have the landfills fill up with perfectly usable stuff, than have someone get some use out of it and disarrange his dumpster. As far as I could tell, it wasn't loaded particularly efficiently, so he can't complain too much about that. In any case, if people take stuff out, he can fit more in. Besides, an open dumpster on a residential street, filled with usable construction materials, is bound to attract many dumpster divers. As far as I'm concerned, you relinquish any ownership of the items inside the dumpster once they are discarded.

Here are the raised beds - obviously, they need more soil. I ran out of steam after about 20 bucket-loads shoveled out from the compost heap behind the garage.

Here is the pond project I worked on this week. I unearthed the pond form from the back yard and filled in the hole with dirt from the new location I had dug in the middle yard. I put sandstone flags around the pond rim, to help it blend in its new location. Next up, is filling the pond and putting a few goldfish in it to eat the mosquito larvae. I will probably wait until we are out of the freezing temps to do that, although goldfish would probably be ok.