This week we went on two Field Trips: one to the Rumpke Landfill in Colerain Township and another to Rowe Woods Nature Center. We had a very positive experience in both and the boys learned two completely different things.
Rumpke’s Landfill Tour
The tour was incredibly easy to schedule (I just emailed Sara Cullin –sara.cullin@rumpke.com) and she sent me the times for the next tours. The tour happens while riding on the Rumpke bus but they take you all the way into the landfill. Rumpke’s engineers have figured out how they’re utilizing the entire area and they open up a hole daily where they dump all the trash. The hole is covered by clay in the bottom and rubber layers on top. Then the next day they open up another hole. In the hole, huge machines drive over and break open the trash (I think the tour guide said they weighed over 250k pounds). They also have a plant where they purify methane and sell it back to the energy provider. The tour guide also shared some stories around a circus elephant that died while in Cincinnati and is buried there, as is the world largest chocolate bar. He also shared that recently an elderly man called and told them that he had mistakenly thrown away his wife’s dentures. Luckily, the dump truck for his area had not visited the landfill yet. The man and Rumpke employees searched the truck until they found his trash bag and his wife’s dentures.
The tour was informational and well-organized – Rumpke is running a tight and well-organized ship. It just made me sad though. The tour guide said that 10 MILLION pounds of trash comes in every day. Every day. We generate so much trash! I’ve definitely come away with a higher level of consciousness about what I put in my trash can (and even what I put in my recycle bin).
ROWE Woods, Cincinnati Nature Center
Ever since we went camping, I’ve been wanting to go hiking with the boys to start conditioning them to walk for longer periods of time. Rowe woods was the closest option and had multiple hiking trails. I also read about a great visitor’s center and bird watching area. The nature center is private and so has an entry cost ($15 for the three of us). The boys weren’t super interested in the nature center (lesson for me: they just want to be out and about, no educational area will get their attention). Finally we set off for the 1 mile track but of course, once we were 20 minutes out, one of the boys needed to use the restroom so we had to head back. While we were walking back, I was all cranky because we had spent the money to visit this place and once we hit the visitor center, there was no way I would be able to convince the boys to go back out. But here is why we should trust God and the fact that he wastes nothing. While we were walking back we ran into a group of teenagers with large aluminum trackers. We started talking with them and realized that they had tagged five Eastern box turtles and were tracking them to find out more about them. Once they successfully found them, they recorded their size, weight and location. My boys were super excited about being part of “turtle hunt”. It took like 15 minutes of off-trail hiking when the turtle finally appeared. The boys got to touch the turtle’s shell and take a look at him (he had red eyes which characterizes a male. Females have brown eyes).
It was a really educational and fun experience. This was definitely an exercise in opposites -first the ugliness of human consumption and wastefulness and the other the beauty and majesty of God’s creation. Lucas spontaneously wanted to draw something in his sketch pad – so some of this is sticking (I hope).
Te amo!