“You can’t retire, the planet needs you!” If I didn’t really feel it was time for me to retire, those words would give room for some serious thought about changing my mind. At this year’s fair, among a small group of young folks that wandered into the old ice arena where our office display was located, was a face that was very familiar to me. I’d see that cute little pixie face every year when I visited classrooms at Holy Redeemer School and here she was “all growed up.” When I mentioned to her that this was going to be my last fair due to the fact that come the end of October I was retiring, her comment was what you read at the start of this column. How sweet of her! Hearing that from her reinforced something I’ve always felt — I’m very blessed to have had this position!

Recently I’ve been deleting a lot of stuff out of “my favorites” on the computer, and there’s still a lot on here! Of course, if I deleted everything at once it would be way too crowded there in cyberspace/up in “the clouds”/wherever it goes. It sounds better than the real reason — that I have a hard time getting rid of what I like. Here’s a sample of what was, or still is, in there.

“Don’t cry over spilt milk, make loo roll out of it.” Love this title! Qmilk is a German fabric innovator that’s making use of two million tons of waste milk by turning some of it into loo roll, aka toilet paper. “OK,” I said to myself, “Wiping up spilled milk with toilet paper if need be is one thing but making the T.P. out of milk, come on!” Well, being they had already developed hypoallergenic cloth woven from fibers made from a protein extracted from soured milk I guess the next thing naturally was to make toilet paper from the proteins, right? That’s what I would have done — not. My mind just doesn’t work like that. Anyway, Qmilk partnered with Lucart, an Italian company that manufactures paper and tissue products and voila, loo roll was born.

Another favorite is about recycling workers in Inver Grove Heights. Unfortunately honesty isn’t always easy to find but the recycling workers in Inver Grove Heights recently gave a pretty good example of it. Just this month a safe came through the pre-sort line. You read right…a safe. Apparently burglars dumped the evidence in a recycling container which then was emptied at the materials recovery facility. The safe had been cut open, but unbeknownst to the thieves there was still a bag containing $20,000 cash inside. When the workers found it they called the police to report the find. As the article stated, “The safe was suspiciously cut open and still carrying what could have been a lot of temptation.” The workers chose the right option. Bless their hearts!

Well folks, I’m running out of room, so here’s bidding you a fond farewell! Thank you for your encouragement over the years. I appreciate it! Blessings to you and yours!

This is a different ending than before but my soon-to-be-former-coworkers will be “keeping the ringer on for ya.” Call the Lyon County Environmental Office at 507-532-8210 for info about recycling, hazardous waste disposal, disposal of appliances, electronics and tires, and of course the mattress/box frame and child car seat recycling program. www.lyonco.org click on environmental in the depts. menu.

Happy trails to you!