Today was the much awaited spring township cleanup day, the day when you can bring all the junk you can haul down in 6 hours, and let me tell you, we hauled some major junk off the farm today. I have mixed feelings about this day. On one hand, I am elated at being able to clear out the area behind the barn where we have stacked piles of trash, building debris, greenhouse plastic, old bikes, irreparable and unidentifiable items over the last year. On the other hand, I am mortified at how much trash we have created, especially plastic. Rufus and I try to be very conscientious about our household plastic use, buying as much of our groceries as possible without plastic, bypassing plastic bags, and using reusable glass jars for a lot of things. However, I feel like our outdoor plastic use more than cancels all of that out. Farming with greenhouses and black plastic for weed control adds up to a lot of plastic, and that was more obvious than ever to me today. We have done a lot of greenhouse remodeling and repairing over the last couple years due to frequent wind damage on the ridge, and it really sucks to think about all that plastic going into a landfill or ocean somewhere, never to break down. In the future, I want to think of better ways to preserve, reuse, or recycle this plastic. At Keewaydin, one of our core values is taking care of our earth, and I felt like a hypocrite today.

~Joy