We have made several trips to our local landfill lately disposing of lots of stuff. Our landfill is set up so that you drive onto a scale, they weigh your truck, you empty your stuff in the appropriate bin, then you drive back onto the scale and get weighed again. It costs $3.00 for every 100 pounds.
The people who weigh the truck and calculate the cost are in a sunny office where we frequently see at least one of the three cats who live at the landfill. They have soft beds and full food dishes in the office. Sometimes they sleep beneath a sunny window on the workers desk. One cat has only three legs, and that is the cat we most often see running around, prowling , and sometimes taking a nap in a sunny space. They are very well loved cats and they make going to the landfill a more pleasant experience.
What are your landfill experiences? Where have you unexpectedly run into resident animals at businesses?
Trail Baboon 
It seems like more and more places are accepting of pets. I see people bringing pets to places where I never saw them before. If I’d known I could bring Pippin with me in Menards, I would have done it. I saw a guy with his dog in a shopping cart at Menards the other day. The dog was standing in the cart with its front feet up on the front rim of the cart, like a ship’s prow. That surprised me a little. Otherwise, I’ve known many coffee shops with cats. The Anderson House in Wabasha used to have a cat in every room. My mom used to stay there before she and her second husband built a new home on the bluffs southwest of town. There was a cat who always curled up in the sink in their room. I think its name was Hepzibah or something like that.
I’m on my way to Two Harbors today.
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Safe travels, Krista. Are you taking the sweater you finished yesterday?
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No, it still needs to be blocked.
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WP won’t let me log in so I might be anonymous. No, it still needs to be blocked. Peace Fleece is worsted weight but it seems heavier than normal worsted weight. There are eight skeins in it so it’s a pretty heavy sweater. I’ll block it when I get home. I might give it to a friend.
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Rise and Shine, Baboons,
When I was quite a small child I remember assisting my mother and my uncle in loading up the cars with garbage and going to the dump to discard it. We had a burn barrel for everything that burned. The rest of it went to the dump. My uncle would spend a few minutes looking at everyone else’s stuff left there in case there was some profligate who threw away something usable. There were rats out there, but I do not remember any cats.
Small stores now often have a cat, especially if it is a family owned business in which someone will care for the kitty. It is fun to spy them peaking out from behind a box or shelf.
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In recollection, how we had a burn barrel in the middle of Moorhead, Minnesota surprises me.
Dad took the 55 gallon drum and other waste over to the West Fargo landfill. I believe that facility now has methane recovery.
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This summer Husband cleaned out the garage, and we borrowed a friend’s truck, and took a lot of scrap metal to Red Box, a local place with the same system – after being weighed, we actually got about $10 cash. It was great to be able unload all this!
The downtown used bookstore, Chapter Two, had two cats, Guildenstern, who passed a few years ago, and Rosencrantz, who I petted just the other day. I just checked the FB page to see how to spell Rosen… and learned that he passed during the night. I am joining throngs of Winonans who are leaving comments of grief. Sigh – he loved being petted, was with you while you shopped. He looked like this:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1541971375928795&set=a.297742637018348
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Beautiful cat!
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The first time I went to Sugarcreek Bird Farm, I didn’t expect to see birds outside of their cages. The big surprise was a white-bellied caique who jumped on my arm and crawled up on my shoulder. That surprised the staff as well and came to rescue me from Taco. Apparently, Taco doesn’t do that with strangers. I am pleased to be selected by the clown of the parrot world.
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Yes, an honor!
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I have some family up in the Northwoods so as a child, visiting the dump was a fairly regular occurrence, at least once per trip. Three times in my life as we were driving down the dump road, my mother called out from the front seat “here bear, here bear“. All three times when we rounded the corner into the dump area there was a black bear. Those were the only three times that my mother called a bear and the only three times that we ever saw a bear at the dump. We tried to get her to call a bear many other times, but she always said she wasn’t feeling it. I guess she has a talent.
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There are often surprises here… who knew?
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Langula Hardware store on S. Robert St. in West St. Paul, closed at the end of 2017 after 96 years in that location. It was a family owned business with several generations of Langulas working in the store. They had a very laid back cat that would usually lie on the counter by the cash registers near the front door. The cat really didn’t interact much with the customers, but it was a nice calming presence as it lay there sprawled out on the counter. It was the first thing you’d see when entering the store, and the last when you paid for your purchase.
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When I was a kid on the Iron Range, my dad would make trips to the dump. I suppose it was to get rid of whatever he couldn’t burn in the trash barrel. It’s amazing to think that people used to just go out to the back yard and set things on fire. Anyway, I remember going with him to the dump a few times. I never got out of the car because of bears. Dad would drop off whatever we were dumping and leave.
I can’t think of too many businesses that have pets, but there’s an account on instagram called Bodega Cats of Instagram that has an endless supply of photos of kitties who inhabit the little “corner shops” of the world.
The children’s bookstore Wild Rumpus in Linden Hills always had cats and other critters, everything from a chicken to a tarantula. I’ve only been there once or twice since the pandemic, and it seems there are fewer pets now.
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The Settergrens Hardwares on Penn and also up in London Hills our dog hardware stores. The dogs aren’t always there, but I know them and I always have treats in my pocket just in case.
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Oh, I’d forgotten about Wild Rumpus and the chicken(s) – loved that. I just checked their website: “…has been home to a menagerie of animals which has, throughout the years, included Manx cats, chickens, doves, cockatiels, chinchillas, ferrets, rats, reptiles, and even a tarantula.”
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