A dedicated servant leaves us in the morning. Under the City of Portland's new refuse rules, the 95-gallon roll cart that we have used for many years to hold yard debris will be taken away, having been replaced by a smaller cart that arrived earlier this month. We called our garbage hauler to see if we could keep the bigger one, but apparently that's verboten. If we can't fit everything into the new cart, we'll have to put the rest out as an "extra." We have the perfect can for that purpose, but still, we'll miss the rugged old big boy. His lime green replacement is a wimp by comparison.

Remnants of so many great growing seasons wound up in that bin. Some cast-off Christmas branches and Halloween pumpkins, too. Plus, it's the last remnant of the excellent Dave's Sanitary from up in the 'Couv, the hauler we had when we first moved into this house; the route was sold when Dave retired a while back. His son still drives the route for the new owners, the Heibergs, but it was always cool to have a yard debris cart with "Dave's" on the side.

The one bright spot in the story is the superb reception we got when we called Heiberg earlier today to ask about the resolution of the duplicate carts. It must have been Heiberg himself who answered, but whoever he was was friendly, patient, and knowledgeable, not only about what's allowed and not allowed under the new city regime but also about our account in particular. As maddening as all the city's garbage and recycling gyrations have become this year, it's nice to know that the small business that's doing all the heavy lifting is on the ball and eager to help.