Trash Bin

My apologies to my loyal followers for my long silence. It would be great if I could tell you I have made all kinds of progress on the JayBee. Unfortunately, even though the weather has been unseasonably sunny and warm, I have done absolutely nothing new on the JayBee. I'm pretty much living at work these days, I had bronchitis for four weeks, I had a relative in the hospital and a rehab center for weeks, and I've been avidly following my son's thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail (and also updating the maps on his blog). Yes, I realize this is starting to sound like "my dog ate my homework." Let's just say that life has been happening every day, all day.

This week I took delivery of a ready-to-assemble trash bin. It may seem that a trash bin would have nothing to do with the JayBee, but it is actually a part of the bigger picture. The trash bin will give me a place to store recyclables and trash without having to have a place for them in the JayBee.

After I unpacked the two large boxes, I had the ready-to-assemble trash bin parts...

and I had a substantial amount of packing material to recycle.

First, I attached the sides of the bin to the bottom.

Then I attached the two back pieces.

Next came the top front piece.

I installed the hinged lid on top.

Attaching the doors was a little tricky (it was hard to hold them in place and attach them at the same time), but I got it done.

I leveled cinder blocks off to the side of the bottom of the driveway as a place to set the trash bin. I realize the cinder blocks under the front edge make the thing look a little like it's up on stilts. This strategy saved me some trouble with excavating hard-packed clay out of the hillside. More importantly, I'm hoping it will make it easier to open the trash bin doors as next winter's snow piles up.

I guess I can take longer to replace my falling-apart plastic trash can, now that it has a roof over it. Notice that the bin has lots of room for recyclables.

Guess who had to check things out!

Update 29 Apr 2012: Steve was up this weekend and caught me applying a preservative to the trash bin. I used stuff left over from when I applied it to the deck. I've used different products over the years, and this stuff actually lasts a few years--yes!