Dumpster Diving and an Unexpected Visitor

Germany has an interesting garbage removal and recycling system. Basically, you have recycle just about everything except dirty diapers, seriously, I'm not kidding. It is a good thing though. I feel as though I am doing my part to be a little kinder to our planet. When we moved to Texas after four years of a very Green life, I had a hard time with all of the waste that our family threw in the trash. Actually, we just received info that our old community in Rockwall, TX is beginng a recycling program. Go Rockwall!!

Anyway, in Germany, they basically don't have a service for getting rid of large pieces of furniture or unwanted household items. Instead, they have "Junking Days". I wish we had our household goods and I could take pictures of all of the fabulous things that we have found over the years through Junking Days....Kaden's bedroom night stand (which we refinished), the red chair that I use to have in my entry way, the solid wood round table that was in my living room, the two cute chairs in my bedroom (which my mom helped me make slipcovers for).....just to name a few.

So a few days after we moved into our home, we noticed that our neighbor had a black leather sectional outside on the curb infront of her home. Not wanting to be too presumptuous, I asked if she was getting rid of it and if so, if I could have it. It was perfect for our game/toy room in the basement. She said, "Yes", and I couldn't wait for Kevin to get home to help me haul our treasure home.

We had kind of a busy evening, and by the time that we got the kids in bed and had time to get the sectional it was about 11 p.m. Although we share a fence with this neighbor, to get to the front of her house was about a two block walk. Now two blocks is a short distance to walk, unless you are carrying a heavy leather sofa. Luckily, the sectional came apart into three pieces. The first piece Kevin and I carried home together. However, half way there, I started laughing hysterically (must have been the hour) and it took me about 10 mins. to regain my composure enough to muster the stamina for the rest of the journey back to our house. Kevin threw the middle section over his shoulder and huffed it home by himself as I was still laughing. What a stud I'm married to. Finally, we realized that we had a wheelbarrow at the house which proved to be quite handy with the last piece of the sofa.


So we had all three pieces infront of our home, we just needed to carry them into the house and down the stairs. Kevin had a brilliant idea to bypass the stairs, take the furniture through the backyard, down the slope, and into the house through the walk out basement. On our way down, we found this little guy rolled up tight in a ball and sleeping in the grass. Lucky for us we didn't step on him first. We lovingly nicknamed him "Hedgy" and Kevin was as giddy as a kid in a candy store. He loves little critters.

This picture shows Hedgy unrolling a little bit. He was so cute. We learned that hedgehogs hibernate during the winter. Sometimes the young ones don't find a very safe place for their long winter nap, and Germans will rescue them, put them in a shoebox, and keep them safe in their basement all winter. Seriously, they do this. I guess it's pretty common.

Kevin was so excited, that he insisted on waking up Kaden to show him what we found in our backyard. Kade is a little dazed in this picture, but he thought it was pretty cool. How many kids can say that they have actually held a hedgehog? Good thing that Hedgy slept through it all, I'm not sure how aggressive they can be. Come to think about it, we probably should have checked into that before bringing a wild animal into our house and waking up our slumbering son insisting that he touch it.

After Hedgy's photo shoot and play date, we carefully set him back outside and continued to carry our sectional downstairs. Ahhh....finally finished. What a night!