Passing from one season into another offers as good a time as any to assess what we have accumulated and determine whether or not any of it, or some of it, or much of it will any longer be required. In spring and in fall people often clear out their garages, to dispose of items they no longer have any use for.

A week or so ago my husband decided to have a good, hard look at the larger of our two garden sheds into which he just habitually tosses all manner of items. He is the kind of person who can always find use for things -- at some imagined time in the future when something saved might be cannibalized for parts to be used for things other than what they were originally intended for. Often enough, this is just what happens; that saved items come in handy to make or to patch up other things. There does come a time when the schoolboy impulse to save string, pebbles, bits of newspaper articles on how-to, small change and other things make pockets too full and they require emptying.

Apart from setting out the waste normally collected bi-weekly, and the cartons containing recyclable plastics, glass and metal, along with the compost bags full of garden detritus, my husband also put out a number of other items. As, for example, a clumsy-to-use all-plastic garden trolley, exploded plastic rose cones, and those bits and pieces saved over the years, and never yet seen a use for. It's amazing how much waste can be generated even while practising re-use principles.

Increasingly, but not often enough, when trash day arrives there are those who cruise the streets in pick-up trucks to see what can be picked up before the trash collection crew arrives. It's amazing that when people toss out items they no longer want to clutter their homes, other people will see value in them as 'collectibles' and 'memorabilia' they snap up at bargain prices at flea sales.

On the other hand, when people see items in others' curbside pickup, they feel free to select from the offerings what they think will be of use to them. That's what happened with the rose cones, and with the plastic garden cart. I figure most of my perennials, shrubs and ornamental trees were babied for enough years with winter-protective covering. If they're not capable at this point in their hardening-off process in the micro-climate of our backyard and front, they never will be, and I'm simply not prepared to keep on wrapping growing things that have grown to an outsize making it awkward to continue protecting them. I started off a few years back no longer winterizing some shrubs and trees, and goodness, they survived. The rest will, too.

In any event, although there seemed a substantial pile of trash for pick-up when my husband put it all out at the curb last night, much of it was carefully picked over, mostly by people picking up metals for recycling, and by the time the trash collectors came along, there wasn't much left that didn't resemble what we normally put out.