Summer Arrives

 

Just like that; BANG! Summer gets off the bus.

Visit #1373, Saturday 25 June 22, 6:35-10:25AM, 5.6 miles, 18.8 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 70s, rapidly rising to the 90s, sunny and humid.

I started early Saturday morning for two reasons; to avoid the heat and humidity, and to perform some graffiti paint-over without a lot of questioning eyes. I still got caught by one early walker, but she said "good morning" and that was it. Fortunately, we've seen each other before so there was some familiarity.

Last week I found some new graffiti on the I-691 Hubbard Park Drive underpass. The graffiti remover I applied last week wasn't very effective, so paint over it would be the solution. I took care of it then returned to my car to remove my coveralls and drop off the paint.

I'm trying to be a little more orderly in how I paint over graffiti. Geometric shapes bring a little "feng shui" to paint-overs which can look as bad as the graffiti. You can see the difference between the older paint-over I did, above, and this morning's work.

Another reason to start early; some people might take exception to me cleaning my brush in the brook!

I doffed my coveralls, returned the paint supplies to my car, and grabbed my trail (this week, road) trimming gear.

As I cleaned up around the south end of Merimere Reservoir, along with discarded fishing tackle I found some this sign, probably removed by an angry fisherman. Actually, that would be a great name for a fishing equipment store, "The Angry Fish"! You see a lot of that; The Angry Olive (restaurant), The Angry Scissors (hair salon), The Angry Cone (ice cream shoppe). Why is everything so angry?! Maybe I should rename the blog, "The Angry Trail" or "The Angry Trash Bag"!

Further up the road, I found the inner fender from a car. I placed it on the roadside thinking a passing parks or water department employee might pick it up later in the day, as it was too bulky to put in my trash bag or to carry for the rest of my hike. But through a change of plans, I wound up sidetracking back to the spot toward the end of my hike where I DID pick it up and disposed of it properly.

This turtle played Uber driver, giving the slug a lift.

I finally got down to work trimming the roadside.

There are definitely many low hanging branches on the road to East/West Peak.

I trimmed for an hour, then reverted to litter pickup, during which I came upon my Find of the Week.

I saw a grocery bag off the road and when I picked it up, found it was filled with groceries!

I considered keeping the canned/dry goods but then thought I didn't want to experiment with items left out in the sun for who knows how long.

None of this seemed like picnic food; I'm trying to get an idea of the backstory behind all this food being discarded. These were third-tier brands so they didn't come from one of the well known supermarkets.

The family-sized drumstick package added way too much weight to my bag, so I tossed the drumsticks into the woods. Maybe the bears will have a feast.

As I hiked back toward the park, I passed the Halfway House and was pleasantly surprised to find the Meriden Parks Department had given the area the summer buzzcut I requested. Just like the summer haircuts we received as kids!

Not only does it look nicer and not overgrown as is typical this time of year (the grass was waist high), it gives hikers the impression the city recognizes the value of the attraction. Big thanks to Chris Bourdon and the parks crew.

Time to settle in to the warmest part of the summer.