scavenging, collecting, and conserving

Daniel thought I was going to think he was crazy when he asked me to use the van to go get a load of broken up concrete. He had already made a bed out of some other old concrete he collected before. I thought it was beautiful. So instead of giving him a hard time I offered to help. We drove a few miles down the road to where someone had taken up the sidewalk and loaded huge chunks of sidewalk into the van. Altogether Daniel has brought home 3 loads of the recycled blocks. He then began cutting it with a hammer and chisel and stacking it.

Around this same time he saw a bunch of bamboo that someone had chopped down from their backyard. It was stacked up on the side of the street. So he asked the homeowner if he could have some and he carried home 2 big bushels of it. It makes great steaks and teepees for the garden.



Even before we got the concrete and bamboo we started thinking about how nice it would be to have a rain barrel or something to catch rain water and use on the garden. We've seen them in gardening books but they are very expensive to order and seem so simple to make. The hard part is finding the barrels locally. We heard from a friend that we might could get one from a pepsi, coke or beer plant in town. So daniel began calling and even went by there twice until finally someone knew what he was talking about and was happy to hand over 6 large food grade plastic barrels. We'll keep you posted on how the project goes. We know several people who are looking to get a barrel from us already:) By the way, Ellen took this photo.
This is obviously a picture of the garden. Notice the sunflower is blooming and it is at least 7-8 feet tall. Look at the monster squash plant to the right of the pic. Can you believe how big it is? We've already started eating it and it's kinda scary to think of how much more we will be eating:)