Happy Earth Day

Appearantly the old phrase "Don't throw your junk in my backyard," doesn't apply to my neighbourhood. Please, do throw it in my backyard! In fact, I suspect some neighbours are tossing their refuse into the woods right behind their own houses. The large No Dumping sign (City of Hamilton Bylaw 77-221) that greets you as you enter little Tom Park has no effect. The biggest offenders are: water bottles, beer bottles, makeshift bongs, dog crap, chip bags, bundles of newspaper flyers and 3 Fortinos shopping carts. I know damn well who the shopping cart offenders are, as I have already returned carts that have been left in the park after said cart "borrowers" have finished with them!

The other day my good friend Jon asked me 2 questions about my previous blog entry reporting on the Cootes Paradise clean-up. He asked, "What was the funniest item you found?" and "Did you find anything you kept for reuse?" I can answer those today.

In all of the junk I collected this morning, I did find a nice rock (now in my garden) in the middle of the grass in the park. Usually, I don't scavenge rocks from "the wild" as they are a part of the natural landscape. However, as this one was obviously going to be mowed over when the grass grows, I figured I'd save the City a lawnmower blade.

I can't really laugh about this. I did have a bitter cackle of sorts when I saw the 3 Fortinos shopping carts. In the winter I had taken to returning carts that I'd found in the park. That'll show me!

What to do? Is there a Fortinos hotline for cart retrieval? What about the numerous bundles of flyers? Call the Hamilton Spectator? Their delivery job is probably outsourced. One step is cleaning all this up. Another is the maintenance of the park. I had hoped to continue working this spring and summer on the garden in the front end of Tom Park. It is so disheartening to do so when the flowers will be marched upon by drunken idiots who party in the park on the weekends. Somehow the police who regularly patrol this street, never see those cars pulling up at night, dropping off drug-users who meet down in the ravine and then leave behind their disgusting garbage.