Working Around The Daffodil Festival

Visit #1070, Saturday 22 April 17, 6:00-7:50AM, 4.1 miles.
Temps in the 50's with gray skies and possible showers.

Visit #1071, Sunday 23 April 17, 6:00-6:45AM, mileage n/a.
Temps in the 50's, dawning with sunny skies.

With the Daffodil Festival in Tag Sale mode, parking would be at a premium, and walking around with a chainsaw would probably goon people out. So I opted to start early, beat the crowds, and clear the trail.

With all the parking restrictions in effect, I had to park right next to the gate blocking the road to Merimere Reservoir. This turned out to be beneficial because, as I walked the road and picked up trash, I discovered yet MORE new graffiti had popped up, in addition to what I found and covered in the last few weeks. This is a disturbing trend.

This was found on the I-691 underpass.

And this was found on the building where I covered over other graffiti last week.

Well, I wasn't prepared to tackle graffiti so it would have to wait.

What I WAS prepared to tackle however, was the fallen tree Paul and I found last week on the trail near Merimere Reservoir. I brought my chainsaw.

I made two cuts.

Then swung the tree aside.

I  retraced my steps back to my van and dropped off the chainsaw so as not to alarm anyone.

I dropped off my first bag of trash, too.

Then I patrolled all the trails on the south side of I-691, picking up litter.

Find of the Week was this dinner plate. It's not the first time I've found dinnerware. I previously found a bowl with a similar finish in roughly the same area back in May 2013, a week before I started this blog.

Anyway, I reached the western end of the trails and turned around. On the return trip I found this box, which looked like it formerly held somebody's pet hamster.

I dropped off my second bag of trash for the day.

But just like the previous weeks' encounters with graffiti, I couldn't wait to deal with it. So, I got up early Sunday morning and went to work again.

In the process of packing for the paint work, I discovered that while a gallon of paint doesn't fit in my new backpack like it did in my old one, there was an alternative that is equal to or better than that.

The gallon fits beautifully in the pocket that normally would hold my chainsaw. It's balanced, very comfortable, and leaves plenty of room for tools inside the backpack. What a revelation, as I'm not usually such a creative problem solver!

I walked up the Soap Box Derby track and remembered some old graffiti that I knew some day I would address. With the proper color paint on hand, now was the time.

I couldn't quite reach the last inch or so; I'll deal with that some other time.

Then I turned my attention to the door. Color match was close enough for government work.

I returned to my van and exchanged gallon cans to gray, to cover the last of the new graffiti, on the I-691 underpass.

While I was at it, I painted over some faded graffiti adjacent to it.

Last week I told you I purchased a commemorative brick for the wall of the Record Journal conference room. This week the newspaper published hopefully the first of many updates. See if you can spot my blog HERE.