The Craigslist “free stuff” section is where dreams go to die. Several months ago, we had two trees cut down in our yard, and one was a black walnut tree, which according to the tree company is a coveted hardwood. They said they’d leave a couple of 10-foot trunk sections intact and we could probably sell them to a lumber yard to recoup some of the tree removal costs. Ever the optimistic cheapskate, I believed them. After dozens of calls to lumber folks, and even an email to the Cincinnati Woodworkers hobby group, the trunks were still stuck in our yard five months later.

So I posted them as freebies on Craigslist – with the major caveat that they’d have to haul them away – and got a dozen replies within minutes of the posting. The “first responder” came armed only with a regular pickup truck and some chains… I thought there was no way that he’d be able to move the gargantuan logs. But he and his son pushed, pulled and dragged them out of our back gate, then set up some crazy scaffolding and a chain hoist to lift the logs so they could back the truck up underneath and gently lower them into the pickup bed. You go, Log Man!

The next item up for bidding (minimum bid: $0, maximum bid: $0) was four 10-foot sections of old wrought iron railing that we had removed from our 2nd floor deck about a year ago. My wife and I thought we could use them for some sort of decorative yard/garden project… but after a year of them sitting near our fence, it was time to let the dream go.

Again, we got dozens of calls within minutes of posting. I’m sure someone drove them right to the scrapyard, but scrapyard is better than our yard.

And finally, the pièce de résistance… or rather pièces de crapola. A bunch of weather-beaten old windows and two French doors from our sunroom.

   

I was hanging on to them in hopes that the local community garden could use them to build a greenhouse. But after a year of staring at the eyesores and no response from the garden organizer, it was time to let them go. The good news is the gentleman who picked them up does plan to use them for a greenhouse. So I’m sure they’ll be happy in their new forever home.

Now if only I could list the dog poop in our yard on Craigslist…