Rainy Earth Day

As a family we've gone to the annual Earth Day town cleanup for years. Fairly often it's in a park or open area. This year it was in a hilly, wild, wooded area. Even with the rain there was a record turnout, including a scout troop. We pulled about 30 old tires, parts of cars (whole cars left where they were), bottles, unidentifiable plastic and paper items, and what not out of the woods. The dirt was muddy when we got there and became more so as we walked and slid around. The kids learned how to spot deer tracks. Mr. J. showed them a pitcher plant. I pointed out all the wild onions we had walked on, the crushed plants letting out the telltale onion smell. All of our shoes and boots are on the front step, too muddy to wear in.

While the kids thought finding all that stuff was cool, all the adults I spoke to were worried that when we found the half-buried cars we might find the occupants as well. Fortunately, it was just a dumping ground, and not a future CSI episode.

Trying to avoid falling into ravines and getting untangled from briars and watching the kids took up a lot of my attention so I wasn't able to talk with people as much as I usually do. With the larger group and larger area to cover than usual people were more spread out and there weren't as many opportunities for conversation anyway.

I'm glad we go, though. It's a good thing.