Yes, those are upside-down beer bottles on the left. OK, before you exclaim in horror, "OMG! This is the tackiest thing I've ever seen!", please hear me out... I'm trying to do a good thing for all of you by making garden terracing and edge fencing out of beer bottles. Yes, I'm introducing a new concept I'm calling "eco-tacky"... it may be tacky, but it's better for the environment overall. 

My brother, the environmental scientist and I had a long conversation in Florida about recycling, et. al. Bro is quite well versed in this area and informed me that a vast majority of glass bottles put in recycling bins actually are NOT recycled, but end up in landfills anyway. You see, recycling glass is apparently quite cost prohibitive, as it's much cheaper to just dig up some sand and make new glass. Fortunately the glass is not toxic to the environment, BUT the additional fossil fuels required to haul the heavy glass around adds tremendously to the taxpayer's burden, CO2 emissions, environmental stress and really does nobody any good except the big oil companies. 

Wow. I realized that I am single-handedly burdening my fellow citizens & enabling corporate greed by not only my own consumption of bottled beer, but the bottles that accumulate at my parties (some of which are just friends coming over to hang out & drink beer...). All this time I had thought I was being a good green citizen by dutifully loading up my recycling bin and lugging it out to the curb every 2 weeks. Alas, I guess I wasn't. No wonder the recycling guy would often curse as he dumped my oversized bottle load into the truck (especially after a couple/few parties). 

So I decided to make "useful" things with my beer bottles. I needed some garden edging anyway, so thought "why not beer bottles?" God knows I have enough materials! So I just started doing it. Granted, it's a work in progress (like most things I do, it seems). The plan is to create terracing on the little hill where Shedra resides (also called "Mount Mojo", as he loves to perch on top of the hill and oversee his little doggie domain... he's so friggin' cute!!) When it's finished, the sides of the bottles will no longer be as visible. For now, however, I'm finding it quite visually entertaining, as I do love many of the label designs. 

AND as an added benefit, I'm thinking my beer bottle fences/terraces will help to keep the slugs busy, therefore keeping them away from my plants this year! Since slugs are known to enjoy beer, I'm hoping that the residual beer drippings will lure them to the bottles where I will strategically sprinkle "Slug-be-Gone" (or whatever it's called). Hey, it sounds good in theory!

So yeah - I know it's tacky and I'm ok with that. Now that I'm almost officially old (50 in a few weeks), I feel I have earned the right to celebrate my tackiness in the open, and hope it will be viewed as "eccentric" rather than tacky one day... whatever - it is what it is, and at least it is better for the environment than putting bottles onto a recycling truck.