Most years, part of the spring cleaning process is a matter of going through closets and saying "Which of this stuff is no longer any use or value to me? What should I get rid of? And what should do with the stuff I've decided to get rid of?"

You'd never describe me as a minimalist. I can't really get into the Marie Kondo School of "Does it spark joy?" But even so, a lot of my past tidying up activities have consisted of packing books into boxes to be donated to the Friends of the Experimental Farm book sale; or putting unwanted clothing and triplicate household utensils into bags to be taken to Value Village. That's not necessarily a bad thing if it means our discards are kept out of the landfill and may even spark joy for their new owners. But I still think it means looking at our possessions first and foremost as something negative. At best, we see them as necessary evils for going about our day to day lives.

Since the pandemic upended everybody's lives, I've noticed a subtle shift in my attitude. It's no longer quite so easy to go out and buy something new. Or even to stay in and buy something new. So if there's something I discover I want or need, I'm more likely to put on my thinking cap and say, "Hmm, what do we have around the house that might do, or could be fairly easily adapted to suit the purpose I have in mind? So it turns into a mindset of appreciating what you do have, rather than thinking about getting rid of it so you can get your hands on what you don't yet have, but have now decided you need.

That applies to practical stuff, of course, like what ingredients you can substitute in a recipe if your cupboard is getting bare. Or those scraps of material you used to think were useless but might be just the thing for cobbling together a non-medical mask or two. But it also applies to stuff you might do for fun. Finding books you'd forgotten you owned and are pretty sure you never read - but they look really interesting! Or you did read them long ago and would now love to read them again, no doubt from a rather different perspective. Then all those DVDs, LPs, 45s, CDs and so forth that you haven't watched or listened to in ages, or maybe not at all.

It's materialism of a sort - we do live in a consumer-oriented society, after all - but it's valuing and appreciating and even enhancing our existing possessions more so than hankering for more, or wanting total replacements for them.

Sometimes it really IS easier to be green.

Back in the sixties (and probably long before), before blue boxes and black boxes and green bins, I remember one day every spring was always Big Garbage Day. That may not have been its official name, but it's how I remember it being referred to around our place. It was the one day every spring that you could put out furniture, appliances and anything else that didn't fit in a garbage bin or bag.

The "day" part was a misnomer too. While there may have been a specific day designated for the stuff to be put out there, it was, to the best of my recollection, often a few weeks before it was actually picked up. A veritable paradise for kids going to and from school (in those days, of course, we all walked, at least to elementary school) who could explore other people's junk and play around in the piles of old furniture.

Modern-day "helicopter parents" would of course be shocked and appalled. What sort of nasty diseases could their kids pick up from all those flea-bitten, moth-eaten old couches and armchairs? How many kids suffocated after climbing into discarded refrigerators or freezer before you were required to remove the door? And wouldn't our children all get tetanus from stepping on rusty nails?

But maybe that was just the beginning of separating our garbage just like we do today, only nowadays it's all so much more complicated. And nowadays, despite ever more containers of ever more hues, there seem to be ever more items that you CAN'T put out for curb side pickup even once or twice a year.