Thursday, September 24, 2009

Living Down Wind

I have to begin with a cautionary statement. Some people may be disturbed by the following images. I certainly am. I got close to my south-western property line and found some little gifts from the neighbors delivered to me by the prevailing wind. I’m at peace with the ancient junk left by past generations, but I despise contemporary trash that someone thoughtlessly let escape.

A giant snake skin? That would have been exciting. At least this plastic was low enough in the tree for me to reach and still fresh and pliable. I hate to find old brittle plastic that crumbles at the touch. I’ve spent a lot of time picking tiny plastic bits off the ground. I usually walk this line in October to check the fence, cut back trees and pick up trash. Most trashy bits don’t disintegrate too much in a year’s time.

Here is an old plastic grocery bag. This item was specially designed to be carried long distances by the wind. At least it’s still serviceable and will hold the other trash I’ve collected.

Styrofoam meat trays are great at snuggling close to the ground and smothering little plants. I’ve purposely left a buffer strip of trees along the property line to capture traveling debris like this. Better to have the trash concentrated in one strip than scattered all over Blue Jay Barrens.

A spun fiber fabric that I often see used in new building construction. Well, everyone knows that once an area is designated a construction site, you can just throw your scrap material any old direction and not worry about it.

2 comments:

  1. =sigh= I'm sorry this stuff has landed on your property Steve. Litterbugs irk me to no end. Sometimes I think folks think that country roads were made just for them to dump their trash! We are fortunate that we only find the stray beer can, pop bottle and McDonald's cup at the edge of our property (we have a nice ditch that collects the debris for us!), but worse things get dumped off the bridge that crosses the creek at one end of our road. There are other rural areas of Athens county that are even worse, where people literally just dump all their trash. We've even come across pieces of furniture, which sometimes have been burnt on site. Why, why, why, why, why? Okay... thanks for listening to me rant!

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  2. Heather - I share your feelings. What's really unbelievable is to talk to these people and find that they honestly can't understand what the problem is. I would have as much luck trying to convince then to stop breathing.

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