… at the Tip today. No sewing machines, but they did have a push mower – our old one has finally given up the rusty ghost – and a grill the right size for my reclaimed firepit. (Also some dark green satiny fabric; DD2 is working on a pink & green theme at the moment, so she’ll be pleased with that.) I’ve re-installed the handle of the mower and have been playing with the height adjustment & sharpening the blades. Everything turns very efficiently so I think we’ll have it up & running in the next day or two. Our lawn is tiny so a push-mower is perfectly sufficient, and totally guilt-free on the carbon front, especially as it’s reclaimed.
The grill is a bit of a find. I will be able to extend the range of things I can cook on the firepit quite a lot. I have a family party coming up, and a pleasant evening around the firepit, burning the spacer blocks from the pallets and a log or two from my friend’s enormous & eventually unsafe ex-leylandii, cooking a few traditional campfire & BBQ goodies, fits the bill perfectly. I will hang little tea-light lanterns in the willow tree, to echo the stars; some reclaimed recently, some we’ve had for many years. Weather permitting, if course! But I do have a gazebo, also rescued a while back from the tip; it was ripped & needed mending, but that wasn’t hard to do. So as long as it isn’t overly windy, the show goes on… and the ashes will go onto my compost heap and help to feed next year’s vegetables.
Isn’t it wasteful, maybe even damaging to burn stuff for pleasure? Well, maybe, but I would plead that if I am cooking on it, and it’s wood that really doesn’t have any other future, that mitigates the damage. And there is something sacred about gathering around a fire, something in the glowing embers that speaks to an important part of us that’s in danger of being lost now. Perhaps that’s what people are looking for in their smoky barbeques, chimineas and patio heaters… give me a clean-burning campfire every time!
A recycled lifestyle... 