2021 Year End Tally

 It was a quieter than usual Sunday in Hubbard Park as people recovered from Christmas Day activities. Hangovers? Sore arms from opening presents? Who knows?

Visit #1343, Sunday 26 December 21, 7:55-10:55AM, 4.6 miles, 14.7lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 40's and sunny. Quite comfortable for a December morning. The days are getting longer, too!

I wanted to pick up where I left off, using my pole saw to trim overhanging branches on the road around Merimere Reservoir. The trip to the starting point was a bit dicey; light snow on Christmas Day turned to slush, which froze overnight. While temperatures were to rise well above freezing today, they first had to get there. The conditions were certainly questionable for the few runners I saw this morning. One passing runner equated it to a certain level on the Super Mario video game! I don't think the runner's name was Luigi...

I reached my starting point, roughly adjacent to the north end of Miner's Island, and picked up where I left off.

At the water treatment plant, I see the iron I left there TWO WEEKS AGO has still not been picked up by the water department. I actually saw the water department employee leave the site this morning and drive right by it...

I dropped off the pole saw at my car and continued on, hiking the trails on the south side of I-691.

Along the way I found Season of the Missing Glove 2021/22, Entry #1. Winter doesn't officially begin until I find my first lost glove!

Around this time a police officer stopped by and asked if I had seen a man wearing black pajama bottoms; they were looking for a missing Alzheimer's sufferer. I kept an eye out but didn't see anyone matching that description.

I returned to the parking lot and dropped off my last trash bag of the year.

And the 2021 year end tally is:

240.6 miles hiked; 694.0 lbs. of litter collected; chainsaw use, 44 times.

The Calm AFTER the Storm

 

Oh, there was a righteously chilly breeze out there Sunday.

Visit #1342, Sunday 19 December 21, 8:00-10:15AM, 5.1 miles, 13.9 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the low 40's, cloudy but clearing after Saturday's rain.

Saturday's rain wasn't exactly a storm; just daylong intermittent showers with a raw wind, the kind that makes you want to stay inside and drink tea. I stayed inside but I didn't drink tea; I drank a Moxie, because I'm that kind of a guy.

Fortunately the rain was being pushed out early Sunday morning as I started my hike. You could see it in the clouds and feel it in the wind. For sure it was chilly to start but once in the woods I could shed a fleece layer and feel comfortable.

I hiked up to Castle Craig, where there's a small ravine to the right of the Castle at which I wanted to pick up litter.

While I was doing my thing, I saw two guys leaving the area, both carrying Dunkin' Donuts cups. I reasoned that if they walked from the park up to Castle Craig with their cups, there either wasn't much coffee left in them of if there was, it wasn't warm any more. I wondered whether they would carry their cups back to the park or if I'd find them discarded somewhere.

Guess which happened.

The time stamps on the cups fit the timeline of when I saw them at the Castle. Kinda sad.

Anyway, I cleaned up around Castle Craig then walked the road down and back to the park.

The sun was struggling to break through the clouds at Merimere Reservoir. Eventually today, it would succeed.

A second Christmas Tree has been decorated at Echo Point.

Reaching the water treatment plant, I see the iron I left there last week has not been removed by the water department since I witnessed them tossing it aside. It would surely take them much less effort to remove that iron that it took me to carry it down from below Castle Craig, so what's the problem?!

We're charging head first into the week before Christmas, it'll be all elbow and kneepads at the malls this week and the Amazon drivers will be breaking every traffic law on the books trying to get all those last minute packages delivered. Be careful out there!

 

Heavy Lifting

 Visit #1341, Sunday 12 December 21, 7:30-9:55AM, 5.8 miles, 17.8lbs. of litter.

Temps in the low 40's, mostly sunny and very breezy.

A frosty December welcome to the incoming city councilors, who have been added to my e-mail distribution list!

Update: Last week I reported finding a wallet and my attempt to find the owner. We did correspond and I mailed the wallet out this past week, which he received and signed for yesterday.

Edwin sent me the video of his drone, which eventually led to him losing his wallet.

You can watch the video HERE.

This week I would return to the location to remove a tree fallen across the trail, and for something else.

Early Sunday morning I slung my chainsaw laden backpack on my shoulders and hiked up to just past the Halfway House to remove a tree bent over the trail.

I had been eyeballing this tree for a couple years as it bent lower and lower over the trail. This morning I finally did something about it.

Hiking up toward Castle Craig, I stopped at the fallen tree I found last week.

There's no need to step over it anymore!

Now the REAL heavy lifting would begin.

While crawling among the rocks last week, I found some wrought iron, likely from Castle Craig and certainly many decades old. I'd seen it on previous climbs on the talus slope but thought it too heavy to carry. Well, I stopped making excuses and bundled the three pieces up, added them to my backpack, and headed back to the park.

When I reached Merimere Reservoir, I had to take a break. If I had to guess, I'd say the iron added 30lbs. to my load. I'd love to know what its original purpose was and its age.

I had dreams of schlepping this all the way back to the park but the reality was, it was all to clumsy to carry. So I wimped out and dropped it off at the water treatment plant. Surely the weekend employee will pick it up when he stopped by Sunday morning...

...yet when I caught the employee's arrival later that morning, rather than throw it in his pickup, he tossed it aside and drove in the compound without a second thought. I'll be curious to see if it's gone next week.

I returned to my car and dropped off my chainsaw, then returned to the road around Merimere Reservoir for more litter pickup and another adventure.

For the past few years, there's a tree at Echo Point that gets decorated for Christmas. This year would be special because I heard there was an "ornament" with my name on it! Of course my ego had to go see if this was true.

I found the tree and the wreath.

And then there it was, an ornament with a personalized note to ME on the backside!

It makes me all warm and fuzzy to know someone's thinking of me during the holiday! (Yes; it's addressed to me. I know more than I'm revealing.)

With joy in my heart and a spring in my step after seeing the ornament, I turned around and headed back to the park. Along the way I came upon my Find of the Week.

I was going to wash this hat and take it to Goodwill, but when I traced the logo to a nationwide cannabis dispensary chain, I changed my mind.

I dropped off the last of my heavy lifting for the week, without a contact high.

Even A Blind Squirrel Eventually Finds A Nut

 The proverb in this week's title is brought to you from a yogi in the mountains of Middlefield Connecticut, pal Bob S. .

Visit #1340, Saturday 4 December 21, 12:40-3:30PM, 3.5 miles, 8.0lbs. of litter.

Once a year, when the snakes are gone and if the weather cooperates, I will try to clean the slope below Castle Craig (the Orange Trail) where unfortunately people toss their cans and bottles galore. It's very steep, loose, and clumsy work. That is what I did on Saturday.

On the lower slope of the trail, just as I was going to begin crawling around among the rocks, I found this newly fallen tree across the trail, which I'll remove next week as part of a Power Tool Weekend ®!

The photo above is when I was done picking up litter and heading back to the park.

It was while I was crawling around on the slope, far away from any trail, that I found my nut.

Well, it really wasn't my nut because I was able to track down the wallet's owner, a New York City resident no less. I'll let Edwin tell the story:

Good Morning Peter, I can't believe you found it! You won't believe the story but it is true.. and I can prove it! So last June, around the 20th I think, I went with a buddy to try out my semi new drone.. we found that Castle Craig in Meriden allows droning so we went up to the castle.. well to cut a long story short, it crashed against the tower at the top of the rock... Using the 'find my drone' feature on the app, i saw that the drone fell just below the tower but... i didn't realize what getting there would take. So, i pulled out google maps and saw the hiking trails in the area and saw that there was a trail parallel to the where the drone had fallen.. and so i started the hike. I wasn't ready, as i had just regular sneakers.. when i got somewhat close to the drone i could hear the beeping and realized it was super steep but i climbed up and found the broken drone. it was still filming too lol. well on the way down i had to sit on my butt and slide down the side of the mountain to the trail... i think it was somewhere around there that i might have dropped it. when i was sliding down i saw tons of rubbish and glass.. just made me sick to my stomach since i adore nature and hiking that i thought why would people throw so much trash there? Anyway... climbed up back to the car. drenched in sweat, it was humid that day and i was very dirty.. at the car, i realized the wallet was missing. not sure if i left it on the mountain or in the parking lot.. i looked and could not find it.. Here's the footage i recovered from the drone that day:  

I'll be sending the wallet and its contents home to Edwin as soon as I get his mailing address.

I tracked him down by comparing his driver's license photo with a photo he had posted on LinkedIn. I had to create an account just so I could contact him! I hope to cancel it before I get charged...