recycling

or up-cycling or re-purposing, reusing, reclaiming, recovering, rescuing, salvaging, or taking-some-piece-of-shit-you-find-lying-around-and-doing-something-else-with-it....whatever you want to call it, I LOVE IT.  As was recently pointed out in an article sent to me by my brother-in-law, artists and poor people have been doing this for all of time.  And it's genius.

Now I'm not talking here about getting your empty wine bottles into the right bin.  That also is a good idea, but that's not what turns my crank.  I like this kind of recycling....

Yep, that's an old bed frame made into a fence.  I might have complained about those in the past since our neighbors have them everywhere but now, I get it.  I find them beautiful in their simplicity, practicality, and they're easy on the pocket book.  Isn't that better than, say, this purchased fencing

I think so. 

This re-purposed material fence might have passed that line between brilliant reuse and squalor....

But that's probably the fault of the reuser not the reused.

Some more good salvaging....

those frames that I saved from the neighbor's pyre which David will soon make into raised garden beds. 

I came home the other day to find this on the side of our house....

Yeah, looks like a pile of rocks because that's what it is....NOW.  But just wait.  Guess what we've got going on here

Yep.  David and our friends Franco and Gino are making us a grill from stuff we've got just lying around every where. That's awesome.

Why buy pots when....

you have loads of empty wine boxes?  Yep!  Upcycling.

And the best recovery yet....

GRANDMA'S OREGANO!!!!!  It's sprouted.