Tuesday, June 04, 2013

I suppose dumpster diving is the natural progression from talking about the attraction of the dump.  Dumpster diving is not for the faint of heart because some things just belong in the dumpster and shouldn’t be disturbed.  The waste from our summer fish butchering operation after dip netting comes to mind.  Those bags really just need to go straight to the landfill and be buried ASAP.  On the other hand, construction sites yield all kinds of building supplies from pipe and steel and lighting fixtures and conduit and lumber to 5 gallon buckets and tools in need of repair.  My favorite dumpster story involves chickens.  Years ago when I was in the Army, we raised chickens for the eggs and for the experience.  In Alaska, it is not particularly cost-effective because in the winter, egg production falls.  Chickens really like to scratch, and will eat greens voraciously.  We had 20 plus chickens and feeding them through the less productive winter was not very profitable, and though they would go out to eat the snow, they spent most of the time in the henhouse.  Robert, who worked at McDonalds, would bring home a bag of dried-out buns from time to time and the chickens would go wild, but what they really loved was salad greens.  I had noticed that in grocery stores, the produce section would prepare their goods for sale by taking off the outer leaves of the cabbage and lettuce and would throw away anything that didn’t look fresh.  Safeway refused to part with their produce waste, and it went into a compactor-dumpster so there was no chance at retrieval.  I inquired at the Commissary (the military grocery store) and the produce manager told me he couldn’t give the waste away either because if it killed me or my chickens, the government might be liable, but he took me to the back door and pointed out the dumpster that they threw the black garbage bags in every night, and I began frequenting the dumpster and the chickens couldn’t have been happier.  A couple of bags of leaves would keep them happy for a week.  I was a Lieutenant Colonel at the time, and had traveled with another officer to Fairbanks for the day to work in a clinic there.  We flew on a military C-12 aircraft and the trip took about an hour.  When we returned to the base one evening, I was giving my friend a ride home and suggested we check the dumpster.  It was quite dark out with snow on the ground, and Paul felt more than a little conspicuous, but I assured him it was alright, and that I had never even been questioned.  That was all about to change, however.  Picture two senior Army officers in uniform rooting around in a dumpster  looking for vegetable scraps when two squad cars of military police roll up with searchlights lighting up the night.  Of course the trash is much too valuable to allow anyone to pilfer, so they wanted to know what we were doing.  I explained about my chickens and they inspected the contents of the trash bags and finally let us go.  They even let me keep the bags, and the chickens were happy as usual, but I know I will never hear the end from Paul of nearly getting us arrested for stealing the produce trash from the dumpster at the Elmendorf Commissary.