Talk the Walk and Walk the Walk

Yesterday, I started my collection of recyclables and garbage for The 2nd Annual Mayors'  "Keep the County Clean" Challenge.

This was not my intent when Bo and I left the house, but it was the  broken up computer keyboard glaring at me from the ditch that made me realize that just because I don't have my 'kit' from the County should not stop me from starting to Clean Up. I must have anticipated my intentions as I was wearing my stretch gardening gloves instead of my usual driving gloves.  I decided that since we were only 5 minutes into our walk I would just start piles to be picked up and get them with the car later. Really, last year I was dragging home bags of garbage and recyclables. I do not want to do that again, it was too heavy.
So Bo and continued down the Old Danforth, here is Bo on the summer road that starts just after Purdy Road. He is off leash at this point and revels in the ditches and scents that he can check out on his own.

That is Bo on the right side of the road, barely visible, nose down doing what he loves to do, check out the stink in front of him!!
 This road is part of the original Danforth Road that ran from York (Toronto) to Kingston, Surveyed by Asa Danforth who was hired by The Crown in 1797. What I like about this particular section of the Old Danforth is that if I let my imagination run wild, I can place myself into another time. Although, I am sure that the flora was much different in and around 1797, no European Buckthorn, no dog strangling vine and the trees would have been all native and much larger. Too bad the Crown insisted that the landscape be raped of trees as a prerequisite to settling on the land. Along here, you can see huge erractics that have been rolled down the side of a drumlin that allows the farmer to create a field. The course of the road has not changed, but the sides of the road has, with invasives' and  total disregard by those who seem to think this road is a dump site.



It was soon after we round the corner in the previous photo that I discovered my first large 'dump' site. Now I had already made piles along the way which consisted of pop cans (pepsi & Canada Dry ginger ale), beer cans, lots of plastic water bottles & most had the water still in them, plus other items. This cache I discovered had film containers labeled 'Presquile 1947' and something else with a name that evokes other meanings than 'ditchfill', a name which which escapes me, but I could not help but wonder: who ever made this film of Presquile Park in 1947 I am sure had no intent of it landing on the side of any road. There were numerous hinges, screws and other metals, all of it I will take to the scrap yard.

I decided not walk all the way to Benlock Road as Bo & I had been making piles of refuse for about 2 hours. I know what is down towards the end of the road, much more garbage. I would love to set up one of those birdcams that I talked about on a previous blog and actually catch on film who is doing this. Last year for the first clean up, I cleaned the Old Danforth Road from my house to Benlock Road and although it is not as bad as last year, I am amazed that the trend to discard garbage and some of it by the bag on The Old Danforth still exists. There are a couple of areas where I would love to set up one of those cameras and let them be fined. $5,000 is the fine in Northumberland if you are caught littering, that is the difficult part, catching them!

Just as we neared our turn around point I noticed that someone as well has been dumping their yard waste all along the road as well, leaves etc. This is not so bad as it will decompose, but really I believe that you 'own your waste', no matter what kind of waste it is. These people are missing out on creating compost for their lawns and gardens by doing this. It was when I saw the corkscrew willow that had been removed from someone's property and dumped that I thought: cuttings!! Since I had no secateurs' with me I decided that Bo & I would return in the car, pick up the recyclables and take cuttings from the willow. 

On the way home much more amiable visions were before me. First I saw one of my favourite hawthorns, it's very horizontal in form and this is what I love about it. I have decided that I am going to take a cutting from it as well as this is exactly the kind of hawthorn I need in my backyard so the birds can nest safely in my backyard.

Then as we were headed back and left the summer road I was overwhelmed with the noise of killdeers. I looked up and there were 2 pairs in a field having a grand time flying around and quite upset about Bo entering the field, I called him out, he was all the happier for it as he could not understand what was causing the commotion by these birds. 'Don't they love me?' is what his face seems to say at moments like this.

I then looked up and saw my first Turkey Vulture of the year here in Ontario. So this is another sign of spring in my books, the killdeers setting up house and the Vulture.
Once we got home, Bo was quite exhausted, he is getting older now and like me, we don't have the steam we had 5 years ago. However, Bo is always up for a car ride! He had a drink of water in the kitchen and when I picked up the keys his ears picked up too, this always makes me laugh. He has this ability to move his ears independently but the 'pick up of the keys' jingle always sends both ears up and flopping over!!

Yes, Bo we are going back to get those cuttings and pick up the recyclables!! He heads straight for the car, knowing that a ride is next. So off we went and we were successful in loading up the cans, plastic bottles, Tim Horton lids etc for recycling. Then we got an armful of cuttings from the corkscrew willow. Some for friends and one for me at the back down by the stream. It was after I got the cuttings I decided to drive to the end to Benlock Road to check out what is store for me, to pick up. It was at the end at Benlock Road that I made a discovery that irks me beyond the pale.

Here is a pile of newspapers from our local newspaper companies. Every Thursday both papers throw at the end of every driveway in the County their papers wrapped in plastic. It is quite evident to me that there are many people who do not want these papers and therefore do not pick them up. I can understand their frustration, they do not ask for these papers, they are tossed from a moving vehicles at the end of the driveways. What really is gruesome is the amount of plastic that is disbursed around Northumberland every Thursday and Friday by these papers. I want the $5,000 fine levied against these papers and maybe they can change their method of getting these papers out to the public. The 4 walking routes that Bo and I take daily (I scoop his poop) is on average a mile to 2 miles long. I would say that 70% of the papers that are dropped are not picked up, they are left to die a slow death in ditches, waterways, the bags get caught on trees, embedded in our earth etc. Why are they not fined? They are willfully dumping there papers out on the road, no one asks for these papers and although I do not agree with the fact that they are left there by the residents, I believe the papers are responsible for dumping and should be fined. The papers shown in this photo are not even at the end of a driveway, they are at the intersection of Old Danforth Road and Benlock Road.