A Murder of Crows

There...I've finally done it. Despite their unusual group name, these birds are quite entertaining as long as you're not bothered by their urban ways and raucous voices. They are very social birds, and look like they are at a train station with lots of coming and going, shouting and jeering. Then, in an instant, they all start yelling at once and are off to the next meeting.

We made a trip to the recycle center with a load of empty boxes. Unlike our last trip in the pouring rain, this one was accomplished quickly and without incident. There is no end to the variation to human approaches to a problem, however. The chap in front of us had parked next to a huge bin marked "office paper" and was standing behind the open back of his car, stuffed with boxes, going through the piles of paper filling each box before chucking them into the bin. Most people would probably do the sorting at home: many would take the results to the shredder, but whatever works., I guess.

We also had one box of toxic waste items which traveled all the way from Berkeley in Dana's minivan on the day of the Biblical rains because OilMan never got around to getting rid of it in Alameda County. He tried to get out of taking it to the Sonoma County dump today because it was "too far away", but I convinced him that it was never going to get any closer. So on we went to the dump. As dumps go, it's quite pretty--surrounded by rolling hills and grazing cows. As we waited in our specially designated (and very slow moving) queue we watched pickups vans and cars rolling by in another lane to dump their loads of old furniture, barbecues, bicycles, lamps and chainsaws. We had to remain in our vehicle while a white jumpsuited figure with a mask unloaded our toxic box. It continues to amaze me how much junk we accumulate, what other people consider junk, and the edifices to materialism that can appear even at the dump. A particularly poignant one for some reason, was the little corral full of small bicycles, tricycles, and faded plastic wheeled toys.

All in all, quite an entertaining morning. When we got home, it was to the news that our new furniture has arrived and will be delivered on Monday. That means the old couch and TV cabinet will have to go....