Selfsufficientish.com

I think I've gone over the edge. A friend at church was cleaning the garden and I was helping. I noticed several bales of hay over by a bunch of old branches. She explained it was going to be hauled off by the city. I asked if I could have them. She said yes!

She told me of more hay behind the church. It was used during the Christmas Eve outdoor presentation with real livestock. It was a bit messy with animal droppings. Anyhow, I loaded up 5 bales of hay into my small truck.

On the way home I kept thinking I had 'hit the mother load'. I was feeling pretty good...especially saving $30 (about 20 pounds). However, if I shared this with my 'non-gardening' friends they would consider me nuts.

How about you...what makes you excited? And makes you seem crazy to those who don't understand?

Regards,
Chuck

Wehave been known to slam the brakes on and dive out of the car with a bag to pick up some horse poop!

I get given cardboard by people who are convinced I'm daft. I'm teaching them to keep their pure cotton and wool clothes to cut up and include in compost heaps as well rather than send them off to landfill.

I've eventually taught my daughter that teabags and old cotton washing up clothes are acceptable in her offerings of vegetable peelings too.

I got pretty excited when I saw a sign up a few miles from where we live saying, "Free horse manure"

I put a pot in the kitchen at work for people to put their used teabags in and excitedly checked to see how many had been donated everytime I made a cup of coffee

There's a horse in the field next to home and I haven't quite got up the courage to nip over the wall yet, but it's only a matter of time!

as a livestock keeper as well as gardener.. I have absolutely no shame in accepting & blagging all kinds of stuff!
Colleagues donate their egg boxes, carrier bags, old fruit & veg, peelings, windfalls, shredded paper & cardboard.

friends will pass on anything they've tried & dont like - wash powder, pasta sauces, dog biscuits etc

I bring home carboard boxes, shedded paper & bubble wrap from work (for when "He" sells on ebay) and I collect all kinds of pallets, slabs, bricks and stuff from people's skips! I can often be seen walking through town with odd things, or when I walk home from work, with dandelions & stuff for the animals.

last year, my friend moved house & offered me a table - I went round to fetch it & she said we could help ourselves from the garden.... it took us all the daylight hours of my husband's February birthday but we stripped the garden, greenhouse, shed & pond! she said it served the idiot ex right for bu**ering off and leaving it!

Yes!
Next door isn't bothered about his garden and gets some gardeners in once s year to mow the law & weed the drive.
I popped in to talk about the evergreen hedge between us and got a massive bag of grass clippings ( his grassy bit is about 80 feet long) for my compost which has been a bit dry & struggling despite hubby and the dogs best efforts to water it (doggy thinks his dad is 'marking' so he joins in)

Dug in the grass last night and it already looks better this morning!! Yeay for free compost material!

Yes, always! I love it when I can get a hold of free manure, and all my veg peelings go straight to the bin. At my old job (a coffee bar), I used to collect buckets full of the coffee and espresso grounds and throw them in the compost, giving it a major jump start!

I also get excited when I find meat "off cuts" in the grocery store: usually pieces of meat that people normally don't think about eating, such as tongue, heart and oxtail. They're usually cheaper than other, better known cuts of meat. I was pleased this weekend when a friend invited me over to help package up her steer, and sent me home with lots of good meat. :)

When our neighbor, lost his wife a few years back the OH, would often make a meal up for him and his two sons when they were busy in the fields.
The following September, came home from the town, to find the biggest heap mature cow sh-manure, on the veg garden, took me weeks to spread it around the gardens, and amongst my friends. My friends thanked them, in the usual manner.

So now every September they deliver the muck during the week and we have a
Thanksgiving at the weekend

having just aquired my 3rd compost bin,I've got some strange looks from family and friends when i've been known to shout "Don't you dare chuck that ! I'll have it for the compost. I have a lovely friend that lets me help myself to the lovely old horse manure pile in her field. Bliss !!!

Basically I get excited by anything going free, for compost or otherwise. Bits of old rope on the road, clumps of straw or muck that have fallen off a tractor, collecting more leaves from the woods in the autumn to add to the leaf pile along with the odd bit of wood, asking the paint shop if any of their pallets are going free............... Making the most of everything makes me happy.

Hubby and I went to the Cemetery yesterday to put flowers on his Mum's grave. as we were leaving we passed the bins on the ends of the rows and they were full of dead flowers etc - I am seriously thinking of suggesting to the Council that they install brown recycling bins, or invite people to add dead flowers etc to a heap that could be raided by gardeners to add to their compost heaps...alternatively, I might just take a couple of big bags up there next time and help the council by relieving them of some of the green waste that will just go to landfill otherwise!

Today my my neighbours very neglected and unproductive garden was tidied up by her brother making a big bonfire of lots of branches etc. I just can't wait to ask for the wood ash.

I almost cry when visiting other peoples houses: How can they waste the way they do!

P.S. I have now had three buckets of wood ash and charcoal and a part bucket if cobbles and stones: My neighbour was delighted and so was I!