The Best Laid Plans

 

Visit #1280, Sunday 29 November 20, 7:45-10:10AM, 3.8 miles, 15.6lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 40's, rising to the 50's today, sunny.

Most of the time the agenda I set for myself in Hubbard Park is firm. I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment in "checking off the box". But sometimes I get off-track and as long as I accomplish SOMETHING, I can still finish satisfied.

This week I abandoned my plans and just let myself be led by the litter and the clock.

I was collecting too much too soon and if things continued as they did in my first 15 minutes I would run out of room and time, so I left the first bag at the water treatment plant.

Hiking up to the Halfway House, I found some new graffiti. This crayon-like application must be the new go-to for taggers.

With my bag o' tricks and some elbow grease, I did a yoeman's job. I may plan to return next week to perfect the finish, unless my plans change...

Further up the trail, but still far from Castle Craig,  I came upon my Find of the Week.

What is it-it's the ball normally found at the top of a flagpole. In this case, it's almost surely from the flagpole at Castle Craig. It's a two-piece aluminum orb, or at least it was. I can't believe I passed by this spot numerous times, a few hundred yards below and away from the flagpole, yet never noticed it.

By the way, the ball on top the flagpole is called a "finial", and normally looks like this:

I carried it up to Castle Craig, while continuing the hunt for litter. Reaching the castle, I squeezed it past the iron gates, hoping the parks department will pick it up later. I placed it there so there would be less temptation for sticky fingers.

Here's the decapitated flagpole.

I left my second bag of litter at Castle Craig for the parks department to collect later. You can see the imprisoned finial in the background.

I was so far off schedule for my original plans at this point that I abandoned those plans and hiked the trails over I-691 and back to the park.

Along the way I found more cryptic graffiti but this appeared to be done with chalk.

I used a toothbrush on this. I need a bigger brush.

I returned to the park to drop off my litter, and my second Find of the Week.

That metal tube next to the trash bag is called an "offset block" and is used with cable guardrails. A cable guardrail runs along a section of trail and that piece was orphaned from the pole it was attached to.

Time Alone

 It's that time of year; the lights go up in Hubbard Park next week.

Visit #1279, Saturday 21 November 20, 6:45-8:45AM, 3.3miles, 12.2lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 40's rising to the 50's, sunny.

I arrived at Hubbard Park early Saturday morning expecting the usual, but I didn't get it.

Due to the parks crews installing the Christmas light displays, all entrances to the park were blocked off. The only parking available was at the skate house which holds a dozen vehicles, tops. Good thing I arrived early in the morning, as I managed to find an open spot.

To bring you up to date: Between May and October 2018 graffiti started to appear on a water department building near the two retention ponds. I painted over the graffiti on the yellow building using gray paint.

It took a couple years, but the water department finally tired of my contrasting paint and covered my gray with a reasonably matching yellow.

But they didn't bother to take the 15 seconds to walk around the entire building and cover ALL the gray paint, leaving one eyesore.

Today I finished their job.

Last week I brought swatches from the paint store to best match the existing color. I wasn't messing around!

I picked what I thought was the closest match and bought a quart.

Starting early on Saturday morning, I figured fewer people would see and question what I was doing. Today's bonus was, with access to the park restricted, my chances of encountering anyone were greatly reduced.

I headed straight there, laid out my kit, and went to work.

To compare, here's the water department's color choice for their patch job.

It took me a mere 15 minutes from set up to clean up, with a flowing brook nearby to wash the latex paint off my equipment.

I doffed my coveralls and continued with my regular litter hunting duties, canvassing the trails on the south side of I-691. I pretty much had the trails to myself, since all the entrances were cordoned off.

By the way, those are my new, replacement hedge clippers painted garish colors so hopefully they'll be easy to find if I lose them again.

The Hubbard Park lights are scheduled to turn on November 25th. Drive by and enjoy them, while observing Covid courtesies.

Tree Patrol

 Visit #1278, Saturday 14 November 20, 7:30-11:00AM, 5.6 miles, 6.6lbs. of litter.

Temps in the mid-30's and rising to the 50's, sunny.

First things first. Two weeks ago I lost my hedge clippers while in Hubbard Park. I returned to the park in an attempt to find them, but was unlucky. Here's a mug shot from a lineup. My hedge clippers had looked like the suspect but fortunately, he wasn't fingered by the witness.

I lamented their loss, in addition to breaking my camera and almost losing my watch in Hubbard Park, all in the last two weeks.

Well, Meriden Mayor Kevin Scarpati and Chris Bourdon, Director of the Meriden Parks Department, were extremely generous and offered to pay for a pair of replacement hedge clippers. I had ordered the replacements prior to their offer, honest! They may change their minds when they see the bill...

My thanks to Kevin, Chris, and the City of Meriden.

I just need to paint them before they go into service.

 During last week's adventure in Hubbard Park, I counted three trees which had fallen across the trails. I would remove them this week.

Also, if you remember from last week, I placed a book in the Hubbard Park Little Library. It was a terribly written biography about a self-proclaimed, World's Greatest Counterfitter. Titled, "You Thought It Was More", which is some sort of mob saying which was explained in the book but made no sense to me. Then again, neither did the book itself. This week I checked the library and the book was gone. Pity whoever reads it.

Following Percival Park Road, I found one of the early signs of winter, lost winter clothing.

I'll wash this fleece headband and bring it to Goodwill.

I then revisited a telephone pole on the road toward Merimere Reservoir. Last week I spray painted over some graffiti but admitted I did a crappy job. Had to redeem myself. I can sleep better now.

Further up the road, I found "Junior's" high school report card.  I've redacted all sensitive information. At least Junior is doing better than Peppermint Patty; she's getting "Z's" on her report card!

I reached the trail where two of the fallen trees were and proceeded to conduct business.

Number One.

Number Two.

Reaching Castle Craig at 9:15AM, I was surprised to not encounter any hikers. I had the place to myself, and took the time to clean up the area. I didn't see a soul the entire time.

Taking the trail down, I removed a tree that has been hanging progressively lower into the trail.

Eventually the trails led me to the third and last tree, which was on the trail behind the water tank.

Last week I discovered a lot of graffiti on the back side of the water tank. I e-mailed the Director of Public Utilities, Richard Meskill, and told him of the issue and offered to take care of it if he didn't want to.

I did receive a reply where he said, "The Water Division will investigate and take care of any graffiti concerns on the structures it maintains."

Well, since I was behind the water tank and done with the fallen tree, I looked up not thinking they would possibly bother with it.

Wrong.

I was impressed with the speed with which they addressed this. A tip o' the pipe wrench to the Meriden Water Division. As for a gesture of my thanks, I picked up trash around the water tank, returned to the parking lot and dropped off my bag of the week.

Paying Attention

 Visit #1276, Saturday 7 November 20, 7:45-9:30AM, mileage n/a, litter n/a.

Visit #1277, Sunday 8 November 20, 6:45-9:30AM, mileage unknown, 15.2 lbs. of litter.

Both days: Temps in the 50's, and rapidly rising to the 70's, sunny.

I didn't record my hiking mileage this week because I let a coworker borrow my pedometer. He restores Chevy Impalas from the 1960's, and goes to swap meets in search of car parts. Don was always curious how many miles he walks at these swap meets so I let him borrow my pedometer to find out.

Don reported to me he walked 5.75 miles on Friday and 6.75 miles on Saturday, which confirmed to him why his legs are always sore after these swap meets!

On Saturday I took a mountain bike ride through Hubbard Park for three reasons: 

1. To have fun!

2. To see if I could find my hedge clippers, which fell out of my backpack last week.

3. I received an inquiry about the graffiti I reported finding last week. It was inferred that someone might take care of it before I did. I was curious...

So I arrive at the bridge abutment and sure enough, a bang-up job was done covering over the graffiti.

Nice straight edges, good coverage, the works. Now, if they were paying attention and inspected the adjacent face of the abutment...

Of course, some would argue that since it's not seen by the public then it's not an issue. I had actually prepped my backpack on Saturday night to paint over the hidden side, then for a variety of reasons changed my mind. I may return to this. Nevertheless, whoever painted over the visible graffiti did a very good job, and in a timely fashion.

Just a short distance up the road I noticed some graffiti on a power pole. The tag is reminiscent of similar graffiti I've found elsewhere in the park in May and July.

When I returned Sunday morning, I brought some spray paint and covered it up. In retrospect, I should have covered that black, too. I think I'll fit it into next week's plan.

Up at the small brick building, I noticed someone painted over areas I previously painted, while covering graffiti. Admittedly, my gray paint didn't match the building's color at all, and I don't blame them for rectifying the discrepancy.

But if they were paying attention, they would have inspected the other sides and not missed this one spot on the rear of the small building.

In the interest of not making the same mistake twice, I ahem, "borrowed" a flake of paint from the wall and brought it to my local paint store. There, I grabbed some paint swatches, which I'll tape to the wall and find which matches best, then buy some to cover this.

I rode my mountain bike up the road and stopped at the spots where I thought I might find my beloved hedge clippers but came up empty handed. And the replacements I bought last week- they weren't EXACT duplicates and it was bugging me. So I returned them and ordered the correct ones.

After I discovered them missing from my backpack last week, I ran into a hiker and as we spoke, the subject of my hedge clippers came up. He promised if he found them he would leave them on the backside of the water tank. I took a detour up there, and while I didn't get reunited with my hedge clippers, I did find more graffiti, with many of the tags copies of graffiti I've seen and covered before in Hubbard Park.

Like the pink graffiti on the I-691 abutment, it's not visible to the public so I'm torn as to whether to address it. I had previously painted over graffiti on the water tank. The water department apparently took exception to my work and within a week covered my gray with their appropriate blue paint. 

I e-mailed the water department to get an official ruling before I go all Rembrandt on this. We'll see what they say.

So I rode my mountain bike up the road and took a trail down. Along the way, I discovered two newly fallen trees which need to be removed from the trail.

It was while photographing this second fallen tree that I removed removed some cycling clothing to put in my backpack. In the process I took off my watch and forgot to put it back on. Leaving the trail to get back on the road, I looked at my watch and only saw wrist hair.

This was a problem.

Now, in the last two weeks I:

Damaged my camera and had to replace it: $$$

Lost my hedge clippers and had to replace them: $$

I wasn't about to buy a new watch: $

So I pushed my bike back up the trail to the fallen tree and unlike my hedge clippers, found my watch.

On Sunday morning when I arrived at the park, I had one pressing task to perform before I began my hike. I recently read a book which had received a glowing review somewhere.

If I ever remember where I read that review (if I was paying attention), I will burn down their headquarters and torch the ashes, too.

I was going to drop the book off at the Friends of the Meriden Library Bookstore but I wouldn't want to see ANYONE pay a penny for this bound toilet paper. So I dropped it into the Little Library at Hubbard Park. Let someone suffer without spending any money for the pleasure.

I chose to walk the road toward East/West Peak on Sunday because, after walking DOWN the road last week and picking up so much litter, I expected the roadsides to be relatively clean this week. My mountain bike ride on Saturday made me wonder whether I was paying attention last week when I was picking up litter, or if it's just the change in direction the enabled me to spot more litter.

In the end, I didn't prove either theory, but I certainly picked up a lot of trash.

I reached the top of the road and took the Blue Trail down. It was on this trail I saw sticky fingers couldn't leave alone the log I placed in such a fashion to enable me to remove three trees from this trail.

Here it is in September when we cleared damage from Storm Isaias.

And Sunday.

I recovered from that trauma and hiked the White Trail toward the Halfway House. Along the way, I came upon a "widowmaker". It was hanging low enough that you had to duck underneath it or go around it. I trimmed it to make it passable.

And, after a little trimming.

Nearing Merimere Reservoir, I found my third fallen tree. Next weekend is sure to be

a Power Tools Weekend®!

Bonus-I found entry #2 into Season of the Missing Glove 2020/21. This is the Work Glove Edition.

I dropped off my bag of litter for the week. Incidentally, someone commented to me today that they noticed that since the road to East/West Peak closed, several trash cans have been removed from the park. They could not understand why one action was related to the other.

Occasionally I have commented on this blog on the number of spring water bottles I find on the trails, and the absurdity regarding them. Today I documented the bottles I found today. Discuss.