Under cover of darkness

7/25/10 Three bouquets of flowers, recycled

I may go to jail for tonight's downsize.

One of the more difficult adjustments we've had to make since moving into our little apartment has been throwing organic matter into the trash. In Maine, just about everything organic went into our compost bin. Our garbage was reduced to a bag a week, and we felt great about contributing to the natural cycle of growth, decay, and rebirth.

Since arriving in Denver, Joanna has been desperately trying to figure out where we can take our compostable items, to no avail. We've been met with blank stares even, shockingly, by the folks at composting tent at our local farmer's market. They were all ready to teach us how to compost and get us the necessary materials (not so easy when we don't have a yard yet), but had no idea where we could take our old coffee grounds and banana peels if we weren't composting ourselves.

Joanna has taken this even harder than I have. Putting apple cores in the garbage, where they shall be hermetically sealed in plastic for the next millennium or so, is a frustrating undertaking.

Thus, as Joanna's birthday bouquets passed their prime, I couldn't bring myself to toss them in the trash. They sat in a bag on our porch, a sad symbol of how man loves to interrupt the natural cycle of things.

This afternoon, we visited the Denver Botanic Gardens for the first time. Thanks to our good friends Marc & Gianna, we are now members, and I can see that it is going to be a wonderful place to spend many a day. Perhaps, they will even help me figure out how I can compost while living in a one bedroom apartment.

In the meanwhile, I was inspired to finally find a way to return those flowers to the earth. Even if it meant trespassing and littering.

After sunset, I took a shadowy stroll over to the neighborhood community garden. I couldn't find anything online about how to participate in the garden, but I'd seen that they had a place for grass clippings. I darted up to the fence, pulled back the tarp, and dropped in the flowers.

Then I ran like hell.

Hopefully, this downsize will lead, in one way or another, to a breakthrough on the composting front. I'm betting that when the cops show up on my doorstep later tonight, they'll know what we can do with our table scraps.