Over they last two days we’ve filled up almost half of the largest dumpster you can order with random bits that have filled up our yard and basement over the last 17 years. And we haven’t even touched the attic yet.

Here’s a random assortment of things we’ve thrown away:

• 3 rolls of rusty barbed wire
• 1 300 baud Modem
• 3 moldy air conditioners
• 2 broken chairs
• 6 towel racks
• 1 cardboard box from a TV purchased in 2000 (TV still in use)
• 1 cardboard box from our original iMac
• 1 cardboard box from a ride-on Tonka truck
• 1 cardboard box from a Big Bird lemonade stand
• 1 stair rail from unknown stairs
• too many bits of wood, metal, pipe, and tile to count
• 1 broken Shopvac
• 2 child-sized snow shovels
• 1 Siemens phone system, 15 years old
• 16 feet of rotten blue picket fence
• 2 sheets of ugly wood panelling from the 1970s
• 1 kitchen sink
• 1 power-steering rod from 2000 Jetta
• many, many CD racks and holders
• 2 wrought iron park bench ends (rusty and broken)

If we were more responsible, we’d sort this all, donate some of it, recycle some of it, compost some of it, etc. But we lack the capacity to do that, and as the alternative is to become a long-term junk warehouse, we bit the bullet and decided to purge with reckless abandon.

The 300 baud modem was the hardest.