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“I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.”
- Henry David Thoreau
It’s quite evident from my point of view that the first thing necessary to prepare this area for any kind of respectable habitation is a good clean-up. The above photo is of the first set of appliances I removed (some friendly folks had left these in the ditch on our private road which leads to the Saint John River.) The road is a very useful one to visitors as it allows boat access to the river. We had left this road open for the sake of those who used it properly. Most people, I’m quite sure, used it respectfully and didn’t leave anything behind. Unfortunately, it’s the small number of folks who have used this road disrespectfully which has lead to this accumulation of crap. In the end 15 abandoned appliances (4 washers, 4 stoves, 2 fridges, 2 freezers, and 3 hot water tanks) and truck loads of other household rubbish were removed from the forest of our property. I have such a hard time understanding the mind that would choose to dump their trash in someone else’s yard rather than dispose of it properly.
As I was removing this rubbish from the woods alone, I decided that putting it all square in the middle of the private road was a reasonable thing to do. Obviously, the road is off limits until clean up is done, right? Actually it wasn’t as obvious as I had thought. I awoke the next day to someone driving a jeep down the road (my bedroom window overlooks this road). I rushed down and found him throwing the garbage back into the woods. I ran up to him while buttoning my shirt an yelled out to the guy to politely stop what he was doing (You may insert any likely inflammatory remark here. It probably was said. However, this is a family blog…) What is interesting is that this man thought that someone had just come down here and dumped garbage into the middle of my road (‘Some people are so ignorant!’ he says). His idea of improving this situation was to remove the garbage from the sight of people. Who cares whats in the woods? Out of sight out of mind. I learned a lot from this interaction. In his mind, he was completely justified in his action. In fact he was righteously indignant about how selfish and stupid ‘other people’ were. He was, from his point of view, doing me a favour. I politely asked him to leave until the clean-up was done.
I realised from this meeting that we often decry the habits of others that are sometimes closest to our own.
Here are some more lovely pictures of garbage…
This is a complete truck load of home demolition debris. It would have cost someone five dollars or there abouts to drop this off at the dump.
It’s possible that recycling hadn’t been introduced at the stage when 300 cans were left here. For whatever that’s worth…
Free washer to a good home
If this is your car please come pick it up.
