Recycling in Seattle

One of the most interesting facets of the wedding weekend in Seattle was noting how our hostess handles recycling. Almost nothing ends up in the trash compacter or the garbage disposer - most of their waste goes to the garden or to the crows.

Cricket is an avid gardener - her roses, mixed English-style borders and glorious dahlias are all testament to her passion for her garden. Little by little, she is uprooting her grass and adding new beds of flowers and veggies - there is hardly any lawn left. Loving the garden as she does, you know she has an active composting system. All green leftovers and egg shells end up in the compost pile, which she turns vigorously on a regular basis.

Meat scraps and miscellaneous other stuff, however, find their way into a more unique form of recycling. Having raised a baby crow and released it to the wild, Cricket started feeding the young bird out the back door until it was well established. It began bringing its friends and pretty soon Cricket earned a reputation as the "Crow Lady" in the neighborhood. The crows recognize her now and as many as eight or ten at a time will come to the garden when she is there - they even tag along as she walks her dog. You'd be amazed at the variety of foods they will happily consume. Needless to say, they are shiny, healthy, plump crows.

The wedding dinner was held at Daniel's Broiler, locally famous for its filet mignon; most of us at the table chose that option. It was too much to finish so I took some home and, the next day, discovered that the chef included his card, something I've never seen before, in the doggie box. I managed to recycle all of these particular leftovers myself - neither the compost heap nor the crows got any, and only the cardboard box and the foil went into the trash compacter.