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5/18/12


We official finished up all the streets in our general area that we can get to just by biking. We're now strictly a mobile clan of canners! This last section wasn't very can lucrative but it is fun to sight see a little. Attention Realtors: We would definitely be an asset to anyone looking to buy a house in our area as we've seen all the for sale signs and can tell you about the surrounding areas.

These are the few we got on the first half.

We got back home and loaded up so we could drive to a new spot. Again everything was pretty slow going in our new spot, so I started animal watching more than finding cans.

As it got pretty close to dusk we found a spot that seemed like it would be the most productive spot of the day. A family pulled up to their house across the street from where we were and we soon moved along after finishing up our picking. Just a few lots down from there Savannah spotted a few cans peppered across the front of a lot. We both got off and soon discovered we found a great spot. Everywhere across this entire lot were cans. None of them were within 5 feet of each other so they were spread out over the entire area. Several had collected rain water and had the worst smell imaginable. As we were gathering, one of the family from down the street came walking down to us because of all the "clinking" of cans he kept hearing. He was amazed at how many we were finding. After Savannah told him what we were up to he offered to give us his cans so he walked back down to his house to round them up for us.

Savannah at the scene of the crime with just 2 of the full bags

Once we got done counting them all we headed back down the street to meet the neighbor to get his cans. After visiting for a few minutes we headed back to the truck as darkness was approaching fast. Before we left our friend said he'd leave us his cans on a weekly basis... so we've added another regular pickup to help build up our donations.

9.5miles

Realizing the potential this canning effort can bring to our church building campaign, we had to figure out a way to get everyone from FAC involved. After having a meeting at the church and getting their full support we had to come up with a place for people to drop off their can donations at the church anytime during the week. After much brainstorming we found a great little trailer on craigslist that just needed a little TLC to make it perfect for our purpose. We had to buy a new trailer hitch (smaller size) and some lights, and then we headed up to Bradenton to pick it up. We also enlisted in Papa (my grandpa) to help us.

Our main goal was to have lights on it so we wouldn't get stopped on the way home. We were able to attach them temporarily for the trip home with the help of our resident engineer.

We did all this in the street out front of the house where we purchased the trailer. Once we put our "temporary" tag on we were on our way. Over the next couple days I put a roof and a partial back on the trailer as well as permanently affixing the lights.

The trailer is now in it's place and ready to collect cans for the next 3 years!! I was allowed the opportunity to make an announcement at church this past Sunday as well to make everyone aware of this new way of contributing to the FAC Building Fund. We even picked up 4 bags out of the back of it as we left Sunday. 

Our First Pickup from the trailer after 5 days parked at church!!

Here's hoping our trailer overflows many times over the next 3 years!

I'm getting so behind on my posting I almost forgot the best post! We made our first trip to the recycling center because our garage was starting to overflow with cans. We filled up the back of the truck and off we went.

All but one of the bags in this photo contain crushed cans... that'll give you an idea of just how many are there!

Once we got to the recycling center we quickly learned the process of weighing our loot by stacking them all on the floor scale.

I really had no idea how much we had, weight wise... but I would have never guessed when the scale stopped at 125 lbs!!! As we left the house Savannah guessed we might get eight or ten dollars for our truckload, and I secretly hoped she was way off since the entire truck bed was FULL!

Check out our "How Much are we Talking?" page to see the potential this ministry has for raising money for the FAC Building fund.

Retreat!

5/17/12


We've often joked about all the "gear" we should bring with us on our bike rides. Everything from extra bags and hand sanitizer, to first aid supplies and a Gopher repair kit. Well today we realized another essential part of late evening Florida canning and that is-- bug spray. We didn't get very far before we both started getting carried away by the mosquitos (or some kind of bug with teeth).

But before we called in the official "Retreat!" we did come up with just a few cans as well as our fourth full can. The Gopher reached into the brush and exhibited all the tell-tale signs of a possible sealed can. It's primarily the difficulty retrieving under the can's weight that gives it away. Either way I was quite pleased to add #4 to my full can collection!!

Savannah doesn't let me keep them inside yet... but I might push a little harder for a display shelf after I reach a dozen! I'll keep you posted ;)

Thanks to Katy and Jared who gave us two big bags they'd collected from several of their family members!!

6.5miles

Someone's following us...

Ever since we started hunting for cans we've been trying to keep track of where we've gone and which street and neighborhoods we'd hit.  I was convinced there must be an app for our iPhone that would track us and leave a trail on a map of where we've been.  After much searching on our own to no avail (had trouble meeting the very first criteria of FREE)... our friend Jarred found an awesome app that was running a promotion, Free download for 3 days. We got CycleTracker and it works exactly as we'd hoped... it even talks to you throughout your trip telling you how far you've gone, your average speed, and elapse time. Today we tried it out for the first time... Here' a screen cap of what we had once we finished our 5 mile ride.

We finished a little early today so we could set up our can crusher. We've got a couple people nearby saving cans for us and we get almost 200 every Friday that haven't been crushed. So we used a bucket we found on one of our trips and filled it with Quickcrete and put the crusher on a 4by4. This is getting serious!

PS. I'm sure everyone is wondering about the fate of the Gopher. I was able to get it back together with a miscellaneous screw I had at home and a twisty tie... All is well once again.

Man down!

5/1/12


After all our excitement over our new gopher in our previous post, today was a bit of a sad day! Soon after we started our ride I stuck the gopher down in a bush to pull out a can and it came back missing one of the suction cups! The online reviews all noted that the suction cups came off too easily but I had hoped my gopher would be different... but it was not.

The screw that once held the suction cup in place was still secure so we continued on, not without some significant searching for the missing suction cup... and a brief period of mourning when we realized it was lost forever! However the gopher still worked as well as before and was back in action in no time.

Today was slow going can-wise... we did have one stop where we found 20 but other than that we were having to work hard, finding only one or two at a time. It was soon after that the gopher had another injury. This time the screw came out and rendered it completely non functional!

Today was not a total loss... We got word right in the middle of our ride that our good friend Courtney gave birth to their second child... Welcome Jordan! This can's for you :)


5 miles


2 1/2 bags

Make mine a Root Beer

4/27/12

Just a quick update to try to get caught up on all our rides... Today had 2 blog-worthy incidents on our trip. First, we went over 300 miles on the odometers on our bicycles during this ride. Right after we got our bikes we really racked up the miles quickly in the first few months... but that has slowed down significantly since we start "canning"... we do a ton more stopping and starting now.


And second, we found our third full can on the ride... We're now starting a bit of a collection!

3miles

Back to finish what we started

4/26/12


If you haven't read this post you owe it to yourself to read there before continuing...


Okay, you're up to speed now? Good, let's proceed.


We finally headed back to retrieve the rest of the cans that we couldn't carry the day we originally found this spot. Now armed with the Gopher, I felt we were equipped to finish what we started!

We spent an entire hour grabbing our buried treasure from countless nooks and crannies under and in a series of palm bushes. Still perplexed how all of them got there, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that after a while I was praying they would stop. We filled bag after bag and there seemed to be no end. Crouched down, exhausting the 30" reach the Gopher lent me and stretching as far as I could stretch... we eventually got them all.

We threw the bags in the back of the truck and headed off to park elsewhere and continue our bicycle-mounted search.


Fast forward a few days we had the energy to crush the rest from this one vacant lot and take a final count. Savannah employed the can crusher my mom gave us even though we haven't mounted it yet! I helped by stomping some cause there were so many...

Final count... second trip we collected 319 cans!!! We hadn't even gotten half of them in the first trip. All total, this one lot had 584 empty cans on it. Crazy!


Our bike tour was somewhat uneventful thereafter except that Savannah found our third full can... We're starting to have a collection of unopened cans now.

2.5 miles

We went how far?

4/24/12


Day 3 parking just off Cranberry Blvd and making our tour. We had one last street we hadn't covered in this loop of streets. Just a few minutes in we stumbled on a pedestrian cut through from this road over to one of the main roads through town.

Just a few steps down the path and we realized we'd hit another big one! We'd go to pick up one can and spot three more. This went on the entire length of this path. We were both filing up grocery bags and taking them out to the pavement to pile up. The Gopher was getting heavy use, reaching into every nook and cranny-- preventing countless late night Calamine applications, I'm sure.

There was even a large opening back off one side that looked like it might have been a campsite at one time or another that had dozens of cans laying around.

We spent the majority of the daylight we had rounding up cans from this one spot. Once we got them out to the street and stomped them all we had a total of 103! There were still more but my Gopher and I, despite our best efforts, were unable to capture them all.

On the way back to the truck we met a little friend on her bike cruising the neighborhood too. She ask us what we were looking for, and once she found out she joined in helping us spot cans along the way. We told her we were collecting them for our church... she told us she used to go to church but isn't able to any more because of her parents' work schedule. She was quick to inform us that "I still believe in Jesus though!" As we left her she said that maybe she'd see us tomorrow too... She was so eager to help us.

Today we only went about half a mile (just over a mile total after making it back to the truck)... but we had a good size pile to haul home.