FD, IA - Dumpster # 1

The dumpster company in Fort Dodge is a company called Pederson’s and what marvelous service we got from them. Gary ordered a dumpster to be delivered on Wednesday afternoon so that we could fill it on Thursday, get it emptied and delivered back to us for filling and emptying on Friday afternoon.

Wednesday, Gary drove up early in the morning for a 10:00 mtg with the lawyer while I stayed around WDM for my dental appointment where I was going to get ‘crowned.’ Yep, I finally got the new crown that covered the tooth that I had broken about 2 weeks ago. Since they had put a temporary crown on it, there was no pain or discomfort and I could eat without trouble. Luckily, to put a crown in, they drilled on the crown but not in my mouth. Whew.

When I got it put in place I headed on up to Fort Dodge also. And, here’s what I saw when I got there. Wow, is that what a 20’ x 7’ by 4’ dumpster looks like? I never knew.

Luckily this dumpster had a huge swinging door on it so that Gary could go inside and ‘pack’ all of trash. Hey, look, there’s left-over trash in the dumpster already.

On Thursday, Gary and I had breakfast and then began to put some things into the dumpster. Cathy then arrived and joined in the fun.

Because we had no idea about how many dumpsters we could fill with all the trash we had, Gary packed all of the trash very neatly. In fact he packed it so neatly that we could have tied a pretty pink bow on and given it as a birthday present to the landfill. No, Actually, he packed it neatly so that we could get so much more in. He began by lining the doors, screens, windows etc, all the big flat things up against the sides and rear so that we could pack all the irregular things inside these. Here you can see how neatly he’s packing it. Cathy and I are taking a break while he neatens it all up. What a beautiful day it was. A bit nippy but we were working fast and I'll forgive any nippiness when the sun is shining as brightly as it was.

Then it was back to work. We first emptied the basement. Here’s Cathy carrying up one of 'treasures.' She and I would carry each item up the stairs, through the back door and to the garage. Here, Gary had taken out a piece of the wall that Lug had designed to be removed for easy entry into the house from the garage if you had furniture or whatever. Clever man that Lug. Here, we left it on the ledge there and Gary picked it up and placed it into the dumpster. We had quite a system going.

We did this until the basement was empty.

And our prize for emptying the basement was to start in on a smaller pile we had in a back entry room.

Then - the garage. by 3:00 we had the first dumpster full and ready to be picked up. It was obviously going pretty fast with us 3 working on it. Getting it all out of the cubbies and into a large pile earlier saved us lots of time today.

And Pederson’s was there right on time to pick it up, take it to the landfill and return it for another filling. Now, I had never seen a dumpster, which is also called a ‘roll off’ being loaded onto a truck nor had I ever seen one being delivered. Obviously, I’ve led a sheltered and deprived life. But, today I got a two-fer: a pick-up and a delivery. Wowsa, wowsa - my lucky day.

Meanwhile Dawn had arrived to help. The 4 of us worked on this one until it was time for dinner. I had made a soup that was simmering on the stove and we had the soup and some cheese and crackers along with some sourdough bread that Cathy had brought from Panera in Des Moines.