Earth Day 2022, Invest in our planet

What does Earth Day mean to you?

In our neighbourhood, it meant getting together with neighbours to clean up a park and its nearby greenspace. Luckily for us, there wasn’t a large accumulation of garbage causing a particular eye sore. It’s nice to see that most people are mindful about not throwing their waste into wooded areas and waterways. Garbage cans provided and emptied by the city no doubt encourage citizens to maintain our parklands.

Ten neighbours were on hand for the clean up. Equipped with garbage bags, gloves, long handled grabber tools and a hand cart we were enthusiastic and prepared for Earth Day.

It was time to “Git-R-Done”

Larry the Cable Guy

We separated into preassigned groups to tackle problem areas, though none of the areas were particularly terrible. Setting out, and maybe a little like the musical “Into the Woods”, we discovered the character of our neighbourhood, albeit without the musical part.

If I could draw character conclusions from our outing it would be that Tim Horton’s coffee is as popular as ever, followed closely by cigarettes and beer. You know that’s actually a song Cigarettes, coffee and beer ?

Picking up empty beer cans and bottles was kind of like finding money. If I saw a nickel on the sidewalk, you can be sure I’d pick it up. You know the saying, “a penny saved is a penny earned”.

Fun Finds

In a wooded area half of a Volkswagen Beetle car bumper was protruding from the ground. How much more of the old car might be buried here, we humorously said?  In another place we picked up an 8-foot artificial palm tree and later we found a small unopened suitcase in the water. No one dared open it, but much speculation was made of its contents.

The greenway we use everyday for walks and meet ups with our neighbours forms part of an emergency flood plain. On rare occasions during quickly developing weather conditions, water levels will increase rapidly and the water flow rate increases accordingly. It’s surprising how large tree limbs and even an entire bicycle can get swept away.

Garbage to Art

Someone had repurposed these discarded shells into art. The next time I walked by, the trio was gone. Have they met their fate at the bottom of a garbage bag 😦 ?

Feel goods

• A visit and helping hand from our city mayor.

• Our efforts written up in a local newspaper.

• We can look forward to seeing spring wildflowers blooming and buds on trees soon.