Adventures in Dumpster Diving

Yoo-haloo, all!

Today was such a fun, interesting day! Woke up at 5:45, helped make breakfast, watered the plants, and then headed into Walsenburg to help the community matriarch, Micki, do a food bank run. Once a week, she goes to the Safeway in town to collect free food that they would otherwise be disposing of (like break, tortillas, eggs, butter, etc.). Then, she brings it all back and distributes it among the needing families in Gardner (the majority of the town). Let me tell you about this woman: she is one of the most amazing, caring, patient, compassionate people I've ever met. And she's got a mouth like a sailor, haha. Micki has done everything: ski patrol, fire woman at the volunteer station in Gardner, EMT, teacher, and foster mother. She has foster cared for so many kids, I can't even remember the number. It's something ridiculous though. She biologically had around 6 kids (all grown now with their own kids) and has adopted a number more. She has the biggest heart ever. It's beautiful... and inspiring.

The most tragic thing happened two weeks ago. One of her adopted sons died in a car wreck on the back roads while sneaking out at 11 pm to go see his girlfriend. Supposedly, it was his his last time he was going to see her, for some reason or another. He flipped his car and flew out of one of the windows and was found about three hours later curled up in an almost fetal position on the side of the road. His car, having fully rolled back upright, was facing a normal direction (north), as if he was just parked. Nobody stopped to see if anything was wrong. Upon hearing this, I immediately broke into tears for Micki. Such a terrible, horrible thing to happen a) to such a young person, and b) to such a wonderful, loving woman. Being the strong woman that she is, Micki is holding up OK. She gets teary. I was over at the house the other day and two of the other foster/adopted kids were arguing over Eric's (the young boy) xbox. The devastation was obvious in the energy and feel of that home. It was so sad. Poor, poor, Micki.

So, to help Micki out in her time of need, Ahni and I met her in Walsenburg this morning to help her load the truck bed with all the food. We went to town early (we were supposed to meet her at Safeway between 10 and 10:30) so we could do some of the shopping we needed to get done. Well, we finished those errands with about 30 minutes to kill so we went to this AWESOME flea market looking shop. It's like a dollar store, but with SO much more. Basically, it has everything you could ever want but never need. And it's so ridiculously cheap. It beats a dollar store! Well, Ahni and I were having so much fun in there... we totally got lost in the time warp, hahaha. We ended up crossing the street to Safeway at 10:30, and Micki was already packed up and getting ready to go. We helped her move around a few heavy boxes, then, Ahni decided to check out the dumpsters.

Let's just say we hit the motherload. This one dumpster was FULL of food that wasn't even bad! Apparently, in order to avoid law suits, grocery stores throw out anything that might be about to expire. There was so much edible, good food in there! There are starving people all over the world, including our very own, wonderful nation, and here we are, THROWING out perfectly good food. Anyways, Ahni hopped on in there. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen. First, she leaned into it, then realized she couldn't reach anything, so she pushed herself in to where she was basically upside-down and her feet were sticking straight out of the bin into the air. Even now as I describe this, I'm laughing. It was so funny. When that didn't work, she just climbed in and I pinpointed stuff from the outside and held the box while she filled it with food. We got a pineapple, some oranges, a ton of blueberries and blackberries, tomatoes, potatoes, a cucumber, and like seven apples. Unfortunately, Micki was still outside talking to the manager as we walked back to our cars with two full boxes of food. Apparently, dumpster diving is illegal and if a cop catches you, you can be fined. As the manager was yelling after us, Ahni kept walking, but I turned around. The manager asked where we were going, and we were like "to throw this all away over here..." (my car was behind another set of dumpsters, mostly hidden from her and Micki's view) As we continued to walk, the manager came up to the car and was like, "you can put that right back in the dumpster." Ahni, being so quick, already got her box (the fuller of the two) into the car. I... had not. Thus, one of our boxes of treasures had to be thrown back away. Such a waste. We could have eaten for days off what was in that box. But, Safeway can just SUCK IT, because we still got away with the full box!!! We ate the potatoes tonight and they were yum, yum good. I'm still getting used to this whole dumpster thing, but it makes total sense and great stories of adventures in dumpster diving!

So, with our heads held high, we departed Walsenburg... but not before stopping at Subway for an early lunch. Mmmm... meat. When we got back to the farm, we finished filling in the raised beds with more manure and mixed in perlite (the little white balls you see in potting soil) to help hold moisture. Then, we finished the western wall and I painted the wood section of it (green, of course). I've got this whole mural planned out for the door... it's going to be awesome. I'm really stoked. We moved all the babies (and the mamas) in today, and they really seem to like their new home. Everything's set up now! It's so exciting!

As you can tell, I'm in much better spirits today. Haven't really had any drooping points, which is nice. Hopefully, my moods will continue to remain constant. I hate days like yesterday. But, the power is in positive thinking, so I'll keep that up (hah!) and we'll see how that goes.

That's all I got for now... Tomorrow we're going to hike to some caves up on Greenhorn, then we have some orders to fill. Busy, busy, busy! The caves should be really cool -- they're apparently where the Comanches held their last stand against the Spanish conquistadors. I'll know more tomorrow and will have pictures to share. Thanks for reading, people! Peace, Love, and Mother Earth!!!!!