Tally Up Time

 The last days of July mean it's time to tally up where I'm at in the litter clean up detail.

Butter and Eggs, aka Yellow Toadflax

A late, gloomy, rainy spring meant I couldn't start walking the highway and picking up litter, so I felt I was always behind.

However, Thursday I finished a last 0.6 mile gap and now I've walked every foot of the Seward Highway from Mile 37 to Mile 72, except for 8 miles that Mary is doing.   I also did the first four miles of the Sterling highway from Mile 37 to Mile 41.

The Sterling BEGINS at Mile 37?!!!    Yes, it does.   Right at Tern Lake where it intersects with the Seward and terminates in Homer.

Clover blossom

So, for me, that's 39 miles of highway on both sides.

I filled 2265 bags so far, plus left numerous piles of stuff with them that don't fit win the bags, like tires, lumber, and other items.

The dozens of individual flowers that make up the blossom of yarrow.

I'm on my 9th tank of gas dedicated exclusively to cleaning up litter.

Time for a short break.   But it won't last long because there is always new litter to clean up.  If and when DOT mows the roadside vegetation, I'll be out there walking again.   It's really hard to hop they begin that soon, because right now the highway is lined in wild flowers.

Red Thunder, a type of Burnett.

Red clover

The invasive Bird Vetch

Sitka rose

Monkeyface flowers

Orange hawkweed , another invasive, and oxeye daisies.

Columbine

Dwarf fireweed

Bog candle

Chocolate Lily

Geranium and yellow paintbrush

These flowers aren't just found in random places along the roadside.   They re all over!

Weird Things that Happen to Me, Ch. 8235

As you know, if you've picked up on the hints in this blog, I pick up litter along the Seward and Sterling highways in Alaska. 

 That's up to 40 miles on the Seward, and four miles on the Sterling. I walk every foot of it as early in the spring as I can and sometimes I do it twice, filling more than 300 bags every year. Sometimes the bags aren't full. Sometimes they get too heavy for me to carry; sometimes I leave them with a large item that won't fit ion the bag, such as tires, lumber, mud flaps off semis, etc. 

I seem to be obsessed with it and I love the way the highways looking when they are nice and clean.

Today, it was raining.   I was going to stay home but around 2:30, I felt compelled to go clean up litter along the Sterling highway not far from my home.   I do only the first four miles and others take care of it from there.

Prickly roses at Tern Lake

So, in the light rain, off I went, knowing full well I was going to get wet.   It was sprinkling lightly, but the encroaching clouds were ominous.

I had left off Friday at Mile 40 so I went a quarter mile beyond that and parked.   Then, litter bag and grab stick in hand, I started back to the mile post.

Upon reaching it, I crossed the highway and began the route back toward the Mile 41 post and the end of my jaunt.   I didn't reach it.

Instead, shortly after I crossed the highway, and was walking behind a guard rail, I spotted something rectangular in the traffic lane next to me.   I stepped over the rail and picked up a very expensive iPhone!

On its front was a message:

I continued on until I was opposite where I'd parked my truck, where I crossed back over four lanes of highway and got into my truck.   Then, I examined the phone, trying to figure out a way to find the owner's name. 

I had no luck.   By this time, it was pouring down rain so I drove a few miles to where we haul our household trash, where I loaded my personal garbage into the Dumpsters.   We don't have garbage service where I live and have to handle it ourselves.

It was still raining hard so I went home and began a lengthy, and frustrating, attempt to locate the owner.   

I posted messages on several Facebook pages, and got loads of advice from friends.   I attempted to find the owner through the carrier--Verizon.   Blah.   Waste of time.

I tried contacting the Verizon shops in Anchorage.   To even send a message about finding the phone, I needed to sign into an account (which, of course, I don't have) or enter the cell phone's number (which, of course, I don't have).

As I was fooling around with the phone, following some Internet advice, a message popped up.   It was from the owner, trying to locate the phone.

We connected.   And 2-1/2 hours after it was lost, the owner knows where the phone is and will pick it up tomorrow.

SO:   

Why would I feel compelled to clean up litter on a day I knew was raining?

Why would I go to the exact spot where the phone was lost?

Why would I find it shortly after it landed on the pavement on a very busy traffic day?

I always feel weird when these things happen to me.

As Cap, a friend of mine, frequently says, "To feel good, do good."

Yep, I do.

I LOVE it when weird stuff happens.

A Steller's jay fledgling begging an adult for food.

Excuses Galore

 What can I say that would excuse my absence here?   Only this:   it's summer.

Like the little tree swallows below, we Alaskans cram a lot of living into a short period of time.  The swallows arrive, build nests, incubate and hatch their young, feed them non-stop unless the little ones fledge and then they're gone, leaving us to deal with the abundance of mosquitos they leave behind.

A wee tree swallow waits for food to appear..

Alaskans are much the same--cramming a lot of living into a few short months before the arrival of yet another long, cold, dark winter.   This year is worse than usual.   Some of us aren't sure if summer has yet arrived.

April, May, June and now part of July were n on-stop gloomy gray and rainy.  Cooler than normal.   We had a few nice days here and there, but for the most part summer has been a bust.

Everything is late.   The birch trees didn't fully leaf out until mid-June and that "fully leaf out" thing is the cue for everyone to start planting their gardens and hang their flower pots.  No more can we count on Memorial Day as "the day" because they've gone and messed with its date.

INCOMING! Open wide!

Even the swallows have chores to be done.   Here, an adult is removing a fecal sac from the nest.   The little hatchlings don't stick their butts out and poop.   No, their feces is encases in a mucous sac that makes it easy for the adults to remove it and drop it in my yard.

This load appears to be extra large, and contains something that looks like a mosquito wing.

Chores.   I haven't even begun the gazillion things that need to be done around here.   However, my friends Mary and Shawn decided they were going to split, haul, and stack the firewood I bought and they are almost finished.   Four cords in the woodshed and one to go.  They won't let me help, either.

The spruce bark beetles have bored through the bark of the mature white spruce, girdled them and killed them.   It breaks my heart to see so many brown trees.   They have to come down.

Looking at these photos reminds me of another horse I've been putting off for several years because I can''t figure out how to accomplish it.   All the facia board on this big house needs to be refinished.  I figured out the part about lying on the steep roof and reaching o ver and down with a stain applicator.   What I can't figure out is how to keep the stain in whatever utensil I use and not spill it.

So, here I sit like this swallow, trying to figure out how to get things done.   All the deck rails need to be pressure washed and restrained.  Deck steps need replacing.   Some siding needs to be sanded down and restained.

It never ends.   Not for me or the swallows.  

In the meantime, I drive off every day and pick up litter along the Seward Highway.   At least I can see what I've accomplished by doing that.  I've reached the far side of Turnagain Pass, which is the right place for this far into summer.

EXCEPT:   My friend Mary is dedicating one day a week to cleaning up litter , too.   She can walk farther and carry more weight in the litter bag than I can.  She's doing miles 48 through 56.5.  Thagt's the only reason I'm on schedule time-wise.   We couldn't even start until the first of May because the snow and ice lasted so long.

Oh, well.   The wildflowers  in Turnagain Pass are magnificent this year and are making "spectacles" of themselves.