Earth Day 2026

It was Earth Day. I went ditch diving in celebration. The problem with this stuff is that if people see someone else has treated the land badly, they follow suit. There is a man who goes around and picks up beer cans and bottles to claim the return $. I'd give him a bag to pick up the rest for me!

I found a wee ribbon snake in the ditch. Such a cutie, with lovely colours.

Look at what I spotted. Two heavy duty garbage bags. I could barely lift them up the hill. 

I left them on the side of the road, and sent an email to the township to let them know. I wasn't happy standing there. The traffic is fast. 

Clean ditches!

One bag full. Am I ever tired! There didn't seem to be as much garbage as in previous years. Then I remembered I'd only done 1/2 of the distance I wanted to do. 

In April, 2024, the kids helped me Spring ditch diving! Last year I had three bags full. Earth Day 2019 I gathered up 7 bags of garbage, but I went farther up the highway that year. 

I went back out Thursday, and finished up the other half. I ended up with two bags total. All of the highway on our frontage has been done. I was exhausted, scrambling up the sides of the hill. 

What a day!

 

Earth Day on Crumbly Acres

 While Earth Day was Tuesday, I went out on Monday, April 21st, to do some ditch diving. I think there was only one face mask, unlike other years post-COVID. The cigarette packages, frequent flyers, with their gruesome messages and images on lung cancer were out there, this year there were several discarded vaping tools. Then, the cigarette butts have these message:

I went at it. After my first foray, I went back to my bench, grabbed my water bottle, and had a rest. 

As I sat getting my breath, I realized my daffodils were in bud, planted in Oct., 2023: Daffodils are in the ground!

As I sat there, the cowbird was singing his song up in the maple tree. It was lovely. I taped it on the Merlin App, but it didn't record well. You can listen to it on the All About Birds Cornell University site.

We've a pair of cow birds at the feeders. They are brood parasites, she'll lay her eggs in another bird's nest. We had that happen one year. Happily, the cow bird hatched before the Phoebe eggs, and all was well with the world.

May, 2023

Susie Snake made an appearance. It was a bit of a surprise. I talked to it. And carefully walked past it. I was in the bottom of the ditch. I was afraid it'd climb the ditch and go on the highway.

There were a lot of cans, plastics, and recyclables in the lot. Many bottle were tossed on the rocks at the side of the road and were broken. The alcohol containers can be taken to get a deposit back. Thing is truckers are known to limit stops by urinating into bottles. There were some with yellow liquid in them. I used gloves and threw them all into my garbage bag. 

Happily, no condoms or diapers this year. Just a remnant from when they replaced a Hydro pole. I moved it up on the rocks, but couldn't take it far. It is really heavy.

Just at the edge of our property, what iPhoto tells me is Liverwort. 

This is my haul. There was a deer killed, accident debris, and the lid of a garbage can. 

This is our haul from last year when our Ottawa kids helped me. We're on a roll!

They are very busy these days. I asked for help, then realized we should relax. Caitlin has a choir concert this weekend. Aster is preparing for several school band events, including graduation for her sibling in gr. 12. 

 Jordan is busy signing up for university and scholarships/bursaries. Word is, he's taking Astrophysics at Queens U. Grampa went to Queens! We offered to help with transportation next school year. Kingston is about an hour away, double that from Ottawa. That's fun. We like that city for day trips.

We're on a roll!  this was 2024

Let us see what today brings. We're having out snow tires taken off today. I hope we don't jinx it!

Earth Day 2019

UPDATE: April 24 –  I'm up to SEVEN bags. I did another part of the road, it was frozen before. It looks as if someone went into the ditch at some point,  red tail light plastic and the drainage pipe is bent.

UPDATE: April 23rd – I came home from my client's house and saw all this in the ditch. I picked it up, as it would blow away in the storm that is coming. That makes SIX bags full!

We did our part. Garbage day is Mondays, so I wanted to get this picked up. Plus, there is less frantic traffic on a Sunday, than during the week. I already picked up two bags worth of garbage [Earth Day April 11th – ditch diving]. I asked JB to help, since I just felt safer with him there. The traffic is so awful. I thought a Sunday would be a little quieter, men in pickup trucks aren't in a hurry to get to a job. There was a guy in a black pickup coming out of a nearby road, who roared past gunning the engine. I have a low startle reflex, and it is worrisome.


The blue bag has been in the ditch for awhile. It is full of Christmas wrapping paper.

We heard a yellow-bellied sapsucker nailing his beak to the metal antenna. It could be ours, as it was very close. The only other critter was a lovely grass snake! It slithered off into the dead grasses.



My amazing assistant. He didn't laugh when I nearly fell in the soft muck several times. Or when I was scrambling up the steep sides of the ditch!

The silt from the rock fills the bottom of the ditch, and it is much like quick sand!



My foot was bothering me, JB went on ahead.


There is stuff where I picked up a few weeks ago. Sigh.


It's really wet in there.

If there isn't oncoming traffic, the good drivers move away some.


The water is too deep, in spots, to get in it.


What did you do for Earth Day?

Earth Day April 22nd - what will you do?

Garbage collected from the ditch
-quite the haul.

Now, to me every day is Earth Day, but for those who aren't inclined, like the drivers who cruise up and down our highway,  chucking stuff out their windows, they need to figure this out.

Dirty ditches
trash blown by the wind

I would like to show you the garbage picked up from the ditch. I was motivated to do this after spotting a Facebook friend's photo of the garbage she picked up. I do this at least twice a year.

We often go for walks and it is disconcerting seeing the garbage in our ditches. I know how much many depend upon tourism for their income, and it looks terrible on a drive through a county.

We took a long drive across southeast Ontario the other day, photographing birds and otters,and I spotted two couples in the ditch picking up trash. I wasn't quick enough to get a photo, but it warmed my heart.

Our precious critters

What is ironic, is that to put out extra bags of garbage costs us, as we have to put a township tag on those bags! On my first foray, I picked 5 beer bottles/cans from the wet ditch, and put them on the road, intending on coming back. They were gone when I returned! I've seen people walking up and down, collected them. I asked one dude why he couldn't pick up ALL the garbage! Silly me.

The garbage is awfully disappointing. Tim Horton's is the worst, with the others following suit.
I see these guys drive by and wonder why.

We are a distance from Wendy's. Enough to eat a supersized meal and dump it out the window. Read more here.

Two supersized orders with fries,
 and he didn't finish either.

Obviously, they were NOT in MY classes. We learned about the impact of the ubiquitous plastic on animals. We collected it, the kids were keen and we did it every year.

Garbage attracts bears. Muskoka cottagers leave garbage out on a Sunday night before heading back to the city for the week, garbage day being on

This little gift on our driveway after a storm

Wednesday. The bears get into it.

We had someone dumping their bag of garbage with ours our first summer here in Lanark. It was bizarre. It's what, $2 for a county sticker. They thousands of dollars in property taxes lakeside, for the privilege of being here.

Impact on wildlife
Birds eat spent balloons.
Turtles are compromised by plastic.
On our lake, fishermen would leave lures to be picked and eaten by anyone and anything.

last year I laid it all out. 

Talk about drinking and driving!

Smokers are the worst! Can't tell you
how many cigarette butts I found, too!

Canoeing I found this. They get stuck on animal's necks
or turtle's bodies.

Surely they could encourage people to return them?
That dang roll-up-the-rim contest...

recycling bin full, one large garbage bag
I have a strategy

With my gr. 7 class, we collected these in Nepean.
We charted and graphed the results!

It was a blur of excitement and activity!
I know how to teach math!

Found...left behind in the lake

To learn more about Earth Day 2013 and The Face of Climate Change, go to www.earthday.org/2013.

to see a garter snake slithering amongst
human trash is a sad commentary