We’re heading to Toad Hall this weekend to correct some plumbing issues that have plagued us for the last two visits.  Read:  no water.  It will be nice to have running water again and not have to dump buckets of river water down the toilets, making our daily constitutions glaringly obvious, as in, Oh, there she goes with a giant bucket of water into the bathroom.  Hmmmm, I wonder why?

Having to buy drinking water and refilling the jugs at the local spring in Thomasburg made us realize how much we actually do go through when all it takes is a quick twist of the tap.  Going without water is not as big a deal as, say, going without electricity, not for heat but for light.  My fear of fire means candles are not lit in the house at all, so it would be problematic for my nerves if we had to use candles to see. We could live off of the wood burning fireplace and the pellet stove for heat if we needed to but we still go through an awful lot of wood and pellets, even just for the weekend.  While we feel like we’re closer to nature out there our environmental impact is more susbstantial than we care to admit.

We produce a lot of garbage.  In one weekend we collected two blue bags of paper and plastic, two grocery bags of non-recyclable garbage (which includes styrofoam and disposable diapers, which would be recycled and composted if we were in Toronto), two large bowls of food compostables, one cardboard box and one giant bag of beer cans, which we should have brought back to the Beer Store for a refund. Too bad there aren’t any little old lady beer can Ninjas around who could whisk them off to the Beer Store for us, just like in the city.

This is too much garbage, just for one long weekend.  Having to haul our own waste to the dump sure makes us realize how much we throw away, even if most of it is recycled.