putrilescant, rancidity, fucking dirt, and the majesty of resourcefulness

whilst (yes, whilst.. shut up) at the primrose operations centre today, i undertook the task of cleaning out some absolutely stank broken green bins i found.. no, wait. the green bins deserve their own small paragraph. the county takes back broken bins, great. people don't clean the bins though, and their incompetence or generally inconsiderate nature results in old food waste sitting in these bins in the sweltering heat for months. today, we opened the bins and got to experience the beauty of anaerobic (for the most part) decomposition. boy, does it smell wonderful. hardened cottage cheese like substances with clearly identifiable garlic cloves, grapes, and other strange innocuous items, that you would think would be part of the same goop, all stuck in the bottom. when we sprayed the bins with the hose to clean them out mist flew out of the bins and into the air; all i could think about was lung cancer and swift death.

anyway, on to the thing i alluded to. some of the green bins are industrial sized for facilities like old folks homes and so forth. these are kept separately. one bin had a fist sized hole (save your jokes) at the back of the lid. i lifted it up and moved it to the back of the trailer where it was out of sight because we were cleaning things up for tomorrow. when i set it down i heard a rattle inside. i did a double take, assumed i just had a small seizure or brain hemorrhage, and turned away. then it rattled some more. this time, i assumed it was a racoon; i kicked the lid open and stood back waiting for something to fly out and try to kill me. nothing happened, so i walked up and looked inside. in the bottom of the bin were a ton of twigs and straw and hair.. and four baby birds. upon seeing me, the birds collectively flipped their shit even more than before and tried to awkwardly flap out of the bin. they couldn't fly yet and i was left rather amused. i moved the bin back to its original spot, because i figured the mom would be pissed that her house and kids were gone. then we staged a half an hour stakeout; the mother came back with food, but kept swooping over the area scoping it out. sadly, because we were actually working at this time, we had to leave eventually and i never got to see what happened. but i'll be back tomorrow! in the same spot! watching for the mom! she gon' be pissed.