I had a socially distant lunch this week which was odd but very pleasant, seated at a alrge picnic table in my back yard, shaded, overlooking our bilious green canal.
I am astonished by the stuff I have seen over the years dumped at trail heads and even deep down muddy trails far from paved roads.
I know the location of a very rusty school bus, the engine here, the distinctive roof there settled into the bushes out of sight and out of mind. A car with those 1950s wings is rotting into the tree growing through its rust not a mile from US 1. There used to be a Volkswagen bus in the shrubs on Sugarloaf until someone with lots of effort and time removed the thing. Clean up is a permanent state of affairs I think.
I see construction waste too and sometimes the contents of what looks like a life, a roommate possibly who left town and abandoned belongings, who knows, and some strange people dump the usual mattresses and appliances.
I find it annoying as I like these wilderness spaces and don't feel that dumping garbage is good for anyone or anything especially as we have first rate collection services for trash and recycling.
As with all county services everything has to be in triplicate for the lower middle and upper Keys but there are dump stations with full recycling services in easy reach. And I don't find them expensive but I guess others disagree. Now that sewers are self contained after decades of struggle dumping trash no matter how colorful could stop you'd think.
But I am odd I know as I find beauty everywhere in these gnarly tangled woods. I don't find many other people extolling the beauty of mangroves but I find them fascinating and peaceful and all the more so for splashes of color.
To walk in the woods, even if not Walden Pond woods is to see whatever it is you are looking for, a splash of color perhaps.
But never a pile of rust or heaps of tiles no matter how colorful.
2 comments:
I agree with you on the litter and trash problem that seems to plague the entire planet. Don’t understand how people can just throw their refuse anywhere and everywhere. I recently watched a travel show on India. I actually had to turn it off. The train ride sequence showed noting but garbage lining the tracks. Face it, people are slobs. There was a mayor who said “ if everyone would sweep their own doorstep, the whole world would be clean.” Seems pretty simple.
Beth and I would walk our rescue white Shepard down through the old gravel pit where I would swim as a kid. Blue the Shepard loved people, a real tail wagger. We would have to pass through an apartment complex to get there. Pretty well run complex it appears. As we would walk the trails made by kids, people fishing, folks that had camp fires and the like, we would remove trash of all sorts. Day after day a couple plastic grocery bags full. We were making some progress, having to go further into the bush some days to get our fill. One day the complex manager explained to us that since we weren't residents we were not allowed to pass through to the twenty or so acres of woods and paths. We went back several yeas later from another direction. No one had taken up our cause.
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