An example of a “dumpster fire”

The Merriam-Webster dictionary now defines the term “dumpster fire” as

“US, informal

: an utterly calamitous or mismanaged situation or occurrence : disaster”

Here’s an example. I ordered compost and wood chips and wanted them delivered last week before the rain came. Their regular driver was on vacation, but they could use a contractor. I asked if the contractor used (North Bay) fire debris trucks, because I really don’t want to get any (more) ash from fire sites on my property if I can help it. (To the truckers who are driving remains of the Pressley Fire down my street: slow down!) Well, I got one of those delivering my stuff today. See the sticker on the left side? There’s another on the right that has the license number or whatever on it. I sure hope it was cleaned well after its last job! I recently did see an ad on FB craigslist from a company that cleans out trucks such as this one.

He dropped off the first load, which was wood chips instead of compost (and the wrong amount) and drove out to get the transfer (is that what you call the 2nd load? it was pretty cool to see how the truck transfers the container with the 2nd load into the truck bed) with the compost in it (supposed to be 15 yards but it was 12). I looked at where he’d driven and asked if he wanted to drive on those sunken tracks, or to make new ones. He tried to come in at a different angle to avoid those ruts, and, well, he got stuck. And I should have just said that our tractor (somewhere between 32 and 35 horsepower) was too weak to try to pull a huge truck out, especially since the 4-wheel-drive doesn’t work. The rest, as you can imagine and see in the photo below, is history.

delivery truck and tractor both stuck in the mud. note the fact that the front wheel is only half-visible because the rest is below ground-level

That’s what I call a “dumpster fire.” (well, that’s different than the ones from protests I used to attend)

The driver was really hard to communicate with — for one thing, his boss was literally in a meeting all afternoon, and by the time the tow truck drivers showed up, he refused to even talk to them. And they went thru some things to be able to get up our driveway past the guy’s trailer! (and to let me out so I could get T at school) I don’t know what happened to my photos from when the two tow trucks got there, but I don’t have them. Fortunately, they were quickly able to pull the driver out and he somehow got his truck and the trailer out of there in one piece (I was gone by then).

What a disaster. The soil is so messed-up. Inside the gate where I put a lot of woodchips to heal the ground after the wood chips were delivered in late December, the ground has hardly any tracks visible. So the wood chips HAVE helped! Yay. Now I need a lot of free ones so we can help make the soil outside the garden more resilient.

I forgot to mention that someone “tagged” the truck (with graffiti). He thought it might have been while he was parked at the building across the street. The guys across the street said they didn’t see it (and they have security cameras). When I talked to the guy at the compost business, he said “beyond the one” tag? In other words, he had already seen that the truck had been spraypainted on. The driver was able to clean it off (diesel), but he was really stressed about it. 😦

And one more thing: the compost isn’t even fully mature! I would like to move it into the garden, but hauling 12 yards by wagon just to store it in a different place is not in my near future.

I guess our “farm” has been “baptized” or whatever by our having finally gotten the tractor stuck in mud.

One thought on “An example of a “dumpster fire””

ethicafarm says:

March 9, 2018 at 12:02 pm

Wow, sounds like an exciting day. We have similar issues here, I now have a place just off the road for trucks to dump bulk supplies. Saves them tearing up my yard and fields. Does mean a lot more work hauling then to where I need them though.

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