Late Harvest

During my brief blogging hiatus I did make time for one of the more important short harvests in a gardener's biennium. I refer, of course, to the tomato stake season which in my locale runs for a mere 48 hours, beginning at 1900 hours on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November in even-numbered years, with occasional small harvests in other years.

This year the environmentalist in me was heartened, and the gardener dismayed, to discover that my preferred candidates had used recycleable materials--a printed polyethylene sleeve over a wire frame. Much as I hate to do them the favor of disposing of their waste, I was left to clean up the opposition's signs. One candidate, whose mulititude of signs had the best quality stakes, had waged a particularly odious campaign. Unable to campaign on his own qualifications, for he had none, he flung the foulest sort of dirt at the incumbent during the primary. It worked and he, not the incumbent, was on the November ballot.

I mentioned the waste. Once you've separated the tomato stakes from the actual signs, you're left with a stack of sturdy, weatherproof, non-recycleable, non-biodegradeable, corrugated plastic rectangles. There must be some way to use them, I thought, as my gaze fell on the chicken coop. The new coop

is bright and airy, but with single-wall construction it's also drafty. I've considered finishing off the interior walls with something. Perhaps the signs would work.

Two of my young roosters, Darcy and Collins, have taken to roosting on top of the nest boxes. I don't know how they manage to stay up there, given the slope, but they've made an awful mess of the plywood. It occurred to me that a slick plastic surface would either make it impossible for them to maintain a toehold, or be easier to clean if they were able to hold on.
Behold the candidate (who lost the election), useful at last:

And when those signs wear out, I have replacements at the ready: