To Create, You Must Destroy

 I'm pretty sure that the folks at my local Ace Hardware and Home Depot smile when they see me coming. Over the years, I have become quite the Do It Yourself guy, preferring whenever I can to repair, construct or tear down most of the things that get on my list/in my way. I tend to attack these projects with reckless abandon, which means that sometimes the supplies I need cannot be found on the premises, necessitating a trip to the DIY store. Whichever fits my mood and trip linking for the day. Then back to work, hammering, drilling, sawing, whacking, and so forth. 

And somewhere in all that hammering, drilling, sawing, whacking, and so forth there will come a pause. I have, inadvertently, snapped a blade, bent a tine, broken a shovel. My wife will attest to the fact that very few of these home improvement attempts are complete without at least one tool being sacrificed to the gods of home ownership. She has been in the unenviable position of being the one who has to stop whatever she was doing and rush off to the DIY store to purchase yet another hammer, saw, whacker and so forth. I usually stay home and limp along with the stub of whatever tool it is that I have made less than useful until the supply chain has filled my hands once again with that sadly ill-fated hammer, saw, whacker and so forth. They understand that their days are numbered once they start working with me. 

Recently, after a flurry of weekend yard work, I rolled an overstuffed compost bin to the curb. The next day when I went to pull it back up behind the garage, I saw a note, scrawled across the top in white grease pen. It read, "Lid must be able to close." Somewhere in my head I knew this, but I had taken that directive to be more of a suggestion than a commandment, and once I commence to stuffing the green bin, I work to put every last branch, leaf and twig in, imagining a cylinder that stretches infinitely into the sky. As long as my debris fits within this imaginary cylinder and I can still roll that bad boy out to the curb, it's fair game. This note was politely reminding me that there were limits to my efforts. I was subject to agreements made with other people's patience and endurance. I had overwhelmed Waste Management as a tool.

So I started minding the brim of my compost bin, and on the occasion of our beloved wisteria's massive trim when our house was being painted, I attempted to meet both criteria of getting all that detritus into the bin and getting the lid closed. 

No tools were harmed in this action. Unless, of course, you consider the rolling compost bin a tool. Or just the guy stomping on it to close it. 

We have to get a new green bin.