Ho Ho Homan (and other Christmas tales)

Setting the stage: Here is our citizen-owned, not-for-profit recycling center just north of Hamilton, MT.

On a crisp winter morning, I pulled off the highway near our new recycling center to take a picture of where we'd hit a deer.

Yes, the night before, we'd been baptized as true Montanans by running into a deer on our way to a Christmas concert. Everyone here has hit deer. The animals are so prolific and stealthy at dusk that they spring out of brush with no warning. And where there's one deer, others follow.  Our car wasn't badly damaged; in fact, we'll just need a new fog light underneath. The deer was freshly dead when we hit it -- never saw it, just felt it. Alex drove straight ahead over the shoulder, getting some air in the process but not swerving into other lanes, and after stopping for a minute, shaken, we gave the car a once over and went ahead to our destination -- the lovely choral performance of Missoula's Dolce Canto -- (http://www.dolcecanto.info/).

But as I was finishing up photos of the crime scene (just a bloody smear and some deer bits that birds had been dining on, sorry) I looked across the road. That's what this post is mostly about. On this beautiful morning, I saw our not-for-profit, citizen-owned recycling center with fresh eyes. I  volunteer there. I help people dump bags and boxes of sorted items into correct bins. But on this crystalline day, it all looked surprisingly, well,  beautiful. Snow, like confectioner's sugar, had powdered the mountains behind it. The lot -- with its big grain bags of collected materials -- was pristine and ready to receive the next round of cans, newspapers and cardboard. The little red building in the center -- our office/workshop/restroom -- was a cheerful contrast to the clear, blue Montana sky. I snapped several pictures of it. One may end up on a T-shirt, said a half-serious RCR (http://www.ravallirecycling.org/) board member.

Fast forward to Saturday, when I actually did some volunteer work there.  Snow from the night before blanketed the valley as well as the mountains. About three inches of the white stuff had been shoveled strategically off driveways and paths by an early-arriving volunteer. I went into the office to sign in, and lo and behold, around a corner came Santa Claus.

Doug Soehren, vice president of Ravalli County Recycling, makes darn good use of his white beard this time of year.

 Santa Doug helped citizens find the right drops for their newspapers, plastic and office mix.

Santa Doug also waved recyclers into the recycling yard.

One recycling husband got a photo of his wife with Santa.

Why do I like this recycling stuff so much? Besides the fact that smart, kind, cheerful people work there, and that it is environmentally sound to help reduce the waste that crowds our landfills, recycling represents to me a progressive approach to living in Ravalli County.  I hear the tales of several right-wing county commissioners holding up for months a federal grant that was meant for this new recycling  project (and that recycling is not at all on their public agenda).  That makes the act of sorting and depositing cans, cardboard and the like even more of a peacefully militant one, for me.  I also like the growth of this three-year-old venture, from a patch of ground at the county fairgrounds to a larger parking lot next to Habitat for Humanity to the big industrial site that they now rent.  People do love coming here, too. Nearly always there are fast-moving lines at the bins and smiles and waves -- even donations of money -- as folks leave this lovely space.

But, in other business on this pre-Christmas Saturday was something just as exciting for my husband.  Alex, a new board member of the Bitterroot Audubon Society (http://www.bitterrootaudubon.org/), took part in the annual Christmas bird count.  He was hanging out with some expert birders. They were only a mile or two away from where I was recycling.

Birders from the Bitterroot Audubon Society, in the annual Christmas Bird Count. (Photo by Alex Shaffer)

Now, it is Christmas Eve. The sun is out.  Snow in the valley is gone. We've just walked to and from Murdoch's Ranch & Home Supply (http://www.murdochs.com/) in countryside south of town. We did all of our last-minute Christmas shopping there -- Bogs for me, Muck boots for Alex, Smartwool socks all the way around, other cute odds and ends.

And in a few minutes, Mel Holloway is to arrive to take me on a Christmas Eve "photo safari." Can't wait to see what we're going to see this time! Stay tuned...