Thames River Cleanup

Saturday was a day of volunteering involving both coyotes and Elvis.  First I spent the morning cleaning up along a  portion of the Thames River. Once a year there is a big event where members of the Thames Valley Trail Assoc. help cleanup along the river. Why oh why people have to discard such large amounts of garbage along the river banks eludes me. Just lazy I guess. And NOT nature lovers.

My helpers, Michelle and Miriam, were bold and eagle-eyed! When I spotted a broken recycling bin down in the ravine the 3 of us climbed down and hauled up all kinds of discarded treasure including a mattress, a seat from a car, tons of barbed wire, plastic bottles, glass bottles, coffee cups from Tim Hortons (TONS), windows, lots of broken glass, broken buckets etc etc etc...

Our first pile, then we went down into the ravine again and found lots more...

We found several animal carcasses, we think they were coyotes because of the long and shaggy hair and their shape was dog-like....

Apparently farmers are allowed to kill coyotes if they find them on their land...(I guess the coyotes aren't aware of where their land ends and the farmer's land begins!!

There was a total of 43 people in our location and we easily filled a large bin with our collected garbage...plus we recycled all that we could...

A peek inside the bin...

Men with trucks came along periodically to collect our garbage which we just piled along side of the road...

 There's a better picture of the bin.

It was a glorious day - warm and sunny.  The camaraderie was apparent and lots of laughs were had.

 Can you find me?

Some big bird's foot!! Poor thing! Maybe a coyote got a hold of him. I thought it looked a bit like Woodstock, the bird from Charlie Brown. Some macabre humour to lighten your day!

Stay tuned for an Elvis sighting!!