Nice days

We have had some stunning weather around here lately.  The evenings have been getting down to -20 or -30, but the days recover well and we have gotten into the 20's with the sun being high in the sky.  It makes me feel like spring might be coming.  Though the snow won't be melted for another month or two, the radiant heat has caused some evaporation of our couple of feet of snow, so there isn't much snow on the trees.

We had a great weekend.  The new church we tried today (our 9th!) was a hit with everyone, and so that put us all in a good mood. 

I wanted to show you one of the cool things about living here.   Transfer centers for garbage.  We don't pay for it, but you have to take your own garbage in.  We just keep our bags in the garage and take a load in every week or two.

You just back your car up to one of the dumpsters...this is about a 1/4 of how many dumpsters there are.  All year, but mostly in the summer, there are always a few people sifting through the dumpsters with sticks and gloves and many of them (women and children included) actually crawl inside to dumpster dive (I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon)

  

These are the bins for brush and construction debris...you often see junk cars left here.  It's all free, which is great.

 

And here is a covered area where people can leave items they think others would want.  You see computers, furniture, clothing, decor all set here.  The North Star Burough (or whoever they are) come once a week and clean this area out and make sure there's no litter around the dumpsters.  

 

 

I notice there's a lot less litter and garbage dumped on the sides of the road compared to the Northwest area.  Having an resource like this is one of the reasons I think.   I love it...so much nicer than dragging the garbage cans out to the end of the drive.