in retrospect: memorial day weekend

I took full advantage of the three day weekend and my non-structured job and drove home to Sugar Grove for a couple days. Luke asked me to take some pictures of "the business," meaning the family enterprise so aptly named "Mortenson Recycling." It's not something I talk about a lot, mostly because it's hard for me to explain and even more difficult for most suburb-grown kids to imagine. Hopefully the pictures will help.

This is where I'm from.

This is the new fancy-pants firewood maker machine. Dad's latest, and apparently most profitable, side business.


My darling mother highlights the mega tons of "raw materials" to be processed in said side business. She's absolutely going to kill me when she sees this online.


Classic pict of the parentals. This is the site of the infamous "Tuesday Night Cardboard" piles.


The main Mortenson Recycling hub. This building came to be sometime in the late 1990's. Any other structures you see were built in the 1960's by Grandpa Axel Mortenson as farm buildings.


Dad sorting newspaper on "Drop-Off Day." Every 1st and 3rd Saturday, Mortenson Recycling takes a break from profiting from corporate/municipal materials and accepts donations from the community. Without fail, every single Saturday, someone brings a car/truck full of old National Geographics that they hauled out of their Great Aunt Essie's garage/attic/trailer.


Is it any wonder that I'm obsessed with print media?


The dark side of being environmentally friendly.


The hayloft of this ancient barn residing across the road from my parents house is the setting for innumerable dreams and nightmares. Even still. The night before last actually.


What used to be farmers fields behind said barn. We spent hours and days here as kids catching small creatures, building forts, swimming, etc.


And this same field is full of wild strawberries! :)


Old oil pump in the back of the field. Rumor has it that they may be sinking new?


THE creek. My brothers and I almost literally lived in it year round.


My little, uhh... I mean younger... brother Ryan and his girly friend Felisha. She seems nice. And cute. And reasonably stable and accomplished. I dunno what she's doing with my weirdo brother... Rob, does this train of thought sound familiar?


My very much littler brother Jacob at a family cook-out. BBQ for all ya'll westerners.


My dad and a driver who came to pick up a load of cardboard bales. He'll transport these lovely chunks of post-consumer content to a paper mill where the real recycling takes place.