Driving through New Mexico we passed a grocery store after a
long stay at the Welcome Center where we stopped for internet and water. Of course, Andre wanted to stop to
scope out the dumpsters, which were parked alongside the building in an easy to
access area. Most of them were
filled with flies devouring the remains of what had been tossed out the night
before. We grabbed 2 bags of
Doritos, spicy “dinamite" tube-shaped chips, and almost immediately
devoured one bag, despite the long list of ingredients I couldn’t pronounce,
food colorings, and MSG. I can see
why people love those things. Yum
and yuck at the same time.
Just outside of Taos, I spotted the Earth Ship community
designed by Michael Reynolds, Garbage Warrior (if you haven’t seen that documentary,
you should. I show it to my Best
Practices in Sustainability class each semester… great stuff!), and we quickly
pulled over to check them out.
I’ve been wanting to visit his place for years, and was so excited about
our accidental passing. Each house,
made from ram earthed tires, glass bottles, cans, and other reclaimed
materials, has a water capturing system, uses passive cooling and heating and
uses no electricity, and importantly, has an indoor garden. At the visitor center, we met Jess, a
nice young lady interested in foraging and mushrooms but had little to no
knowledge. We talked about herbs
around the center, our forays, and our harvest. I spotted some kale and chard plants growing in their indoor
garden, and while I’ve been enjoying the nettle, oyster greens, dock, amaranth,
and other greens we’ve found in the forests, there’s just no wild replacement
for a delicious and hearty kale green. Andre asked if we could trade some for
wild chanterelles and without hesitation she answered yes. What a score, for all of us!
A few miles down the road we decided to look for restaurants
that might want to trade mushrooms for a meal. Andre’s been longing for some meat, an elk steak maybe. We had no luck (except for the harvest
of shaggy manes from the lawn at the resort that turned us down). Somewhat
tired of mushrooms, greens, and garlic, we headed to Cid’s Market to see what
the dumpsters had to offer. There
we met Ryan and Karin, fellow divers, travelers, wanders. They dive regularly
and donate much of the food they rescue to various organizations and people in
need, traveling from city to city, scavenging food for themselves and
others. Ryan had already done all
the hard work for us, and generously offered to let us take what we wanted from
a lovely wooden box he rescued from Whole Paycheck. He had plenty, so I pulled out a few tomatoes, onions, a
cauliflower, red pepper, daikon, turnip, and a lemon (we haven’t had lemon
since LA). He spoke of their
dreams to build a donation-based restaurant out of a trailer that they’d haul
behind their truck, and they invited us to camp on their land. We hugged goodbye (“my hands are
covered in garbage,” he said. I
replied “I love garbage). I hope to see them again before we leave Taos, but
was excited to wake up in the mountains rather than in town so we moved on.
Scavengers and pickers are the saviors of our water and our
land—taking what might be tossed into a landfill that is destined to leak (all landfills eventually fail) into
our aquifers and using it or distributing it to others—not to mention helping
to ensure that the energy, time, and resources that it took to extract, grow,
produce, and transport all of the stuff we consume and discard gets used to its
fullest. Thank you Ryan and Karin
for the work that you do. Thank
you to all of the scavengers out there. May you remain free from judgment by those who do not recognize
your value.
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