Remembering that there are
numerous recycling centers in Chapel Hill, I took my three stuffed bags of newspaper, glossies, and "mixed paper" to the one at University Mall last night, when I was in the neighborhood on another errand. (It seems contradictory to make a special trip to a recycling center—if you have to burn fossil fuel to do so.)
Well, tonight is our next-to-last night in the apartment, and my back is looking forward to a lie-down. I loaded and unloaded a 14-foot U-Haul today—the main cargo's being 30 or 40 of my wife's potted plants that some former neighbors let us set in their yard until we moved to Mebane. That doesn't sound like many. Only
one load? Well, it was about 300 feet from where most of the pots were sitting to the truck, which I parked on the street so as not to risk damaging something on my neighbors' property. And the pots were heavy. I moved 20 or 30 by putting several at a time in a wheelbarrow, but the others required a hand truck (or "dollie'). There was also a four-wheel wagon with a huge jade plant that I rolled up the ramp on to the truck (and rolled down at our new house). And about 20 1-gallon plastic bottles of water, which I took along to help buffer the pots, about half of which are ceramic. That is, they can chip, crack, or break. And I didn't want to damage any of my wife's pot. (She and Wally went off to Mebane early to let in the painter who would coat the new drywall in the garage and touch up the repairs from where we removed the standard shelving in two closets and the laundry room, in favor a more versatile style.)
There was also some other yard and gardening stuff under some other neighbors' deck: two metal benches; several water hoses; two shepherd's hooks and three water hose racks; four heavy rubber-wrapped rebar poles (which a local nursery sold as rose stakes); a large disassembled metal pot stand; a bag of pine bark soil conditioner; shovels, hoes, and rakes; and the wheelbarrow and dollie mentioned above. Oh, and two very heavy rocks. Yes, rocks. One has a cavity in which we poured water for our visiting birds. The other is just a dramatic-looking rock, about two feet long, that my wife likes for me to plant vertically somewhere (wherever she asks me to, I mean). Well, these neighbors have a deep front yard also...I wonder how many miles I walked today loading that truck.
I barely had a third of the truck bed loaded and my back was already feeling none too good. I was so far from having my first load delivered and being on my way back to Chapel Hill by one o'clock or so, that I didn't leave Chapel Hill with my
first load until about 2:30. We didn't pack up at our new house to return to the apartment until 6:30.
We had our first experience in Mebane of working out in the rain, just after some new neighbors from across the street had come over to introduce themselves. Within minutes of their leaving (to go to Wal-Mart, which is about a mile away), the rain started heavy then leveled off to tolerable soaker. Not seeing any lightning (although we did hear one and only one thunder clap), we felt comfortable being out in it to unload the truck. Most of the pots had to be moved only about fifty feet. (I think I mentioned in a post of several weeks ago that we were downsizing; our old house was on 1-1/3 acre, our new one on about 1/4.
I felt more than comfortable in the rain; working in thoroughly soaked T-shirt, pants (and underpants), socks and shoes took my mind off my back (well, almost), and I drove the truck back to Chapel Hill feeling quite accomplished, even if I had managed only one load. Anyway, there are only 15 more pots (even if they are humongous). I'll have room to load everything from the storage locker tomorrow, too, plus a few more gardening implements from under the other neighbors' deck. Oh, my aching back....
And raise a toast to good neighbors, bless 'em!
