Crate Collection in the Time of Hard Rubbish

Hard rubbish awaiting collection in Northcote, I got there

after a text from Simon.

Loaded up, ready to go home.

St. Georges road near Wecycle in Separation St.

Plucked up courage to ask for more crates, and Adam from Flower of Sorrento said ok, but I had to take four.

Backyard scene. I really shouldn't collect any more, but its possible there are worse addictions.

 Hi

My wife Christine is away for a few days and so I'm a bit less fettered than I might otherwise be. Its been hard rubbish collection week in our neighbouring suburb and I have been scouring the streets on my bikes for useful stuff. As per my previous post I have been making crate adapters for bikes, so I have collected milk crates of a particular design during my travels.

Monday: A rotten cold rainy day, and I started it by driving to the dentist in Balwyn. Yes, I know, I am a thrill seeker, a risktaker, a person who lives on the edge. But as an antidote to the mundaneness of driving to the dentist, I managed to spot a crate for later collection, so I went and got it on the bike when I returned home. But I forgot to go to the bank on that bike trip, so headed out on a recumbent and managed to remember to go to the bank, and also scour some more and bring back another crate, a ceramic electric ketttle and a crap enamel teapot as per the pics below. (2 extra crates)

Wednesday: World bike day. Found 1 crate on the way to helping out at the Wecycle bike shed. Quite a good day at the shed, I repaired one bike that was one of several collected by Simon and Carlos from scrap or from appeals on the Darebin Good Karma Network. One bike was handed over to a customer, Mike was due to deliver 4 the next day and a few more customers are lined up. (1 extra crate)

Friday: During the day my Mum rang up and said my Dad was a bit crook, and that she'd ring me again at 5 in the afternoon. Simon texted me about lots! of crates on a street in Northcote, and I was prepared to go for a ride to think about things for a while.  Picked up 4 crates in Northcote, I've done this before on the same bike, and wasn't going to be greedy for more or phased by carrying them.

Then I dropped in on our local shop on the way home for milk and tomatoes and started having a chat to Adam who works there. He had just started a ciggie outside and needed to come inside (without ciggie) to serve me, and I was joking that he needed to design a ciggie preserver for when he had to come in and serve pesky customers like me.

So anyway we were chatting, so I asked him if I could take some of the milk crates he had round the side, and he said ok, and I got 4 extra, then stacked them on the bike!  I didn't ride home like that (all 100m distance or so) even though I was encouraged to do so (Call me a wooss, I don't care!).  I just walked it, and even then one crate fell off when it dragged on an overhead branch.  And then Mum rang when I got home 5ish, Dad was ok and had got out of bed so all was good again. Rather a large collection of crates though. (8 extra crates)

Bike repairs inside, I will test this one again tomorrow, its almost ready.

Other spoils, the larger pot is a plug in Speedie ceramic kettle.

Saturday: Simon had left me 2 crates for me at Wecycle, so I rode a bike that could carry them home up to the Wecycle shed for my volunteer session. It was Mike's birthday and he shouted lunch, and I got 2 bikes fixed, and a few interesting bikes came in, and there was lots of activity, and we even got rid of two bikes. One of the interesting bikes was Simon's bamboo bike as shown below with Mike, Steve, and a crate en route home. I didn't ride the bamboo bike though, my leg is still hurting from coming off my recumbent earlier in the week (2 extra crates).