For those of you who regularly read this blog, sorry for the delay on this post. As you will see Sunday was a beautiful hike, the problem was it ended up with Penny going to the ER right after and I went to the ER the next morning. Both injuries occurred on this little trash collecting adventure, Penny's was the priority and it is going to take her much longer to recover. Was happy to have some help on this clean-up and set out with Jeff Comiskey in a small section of the Lackawanna State Forest. The site is one I have been to several times before and there are always piles of trash. It is one of the nicest places one can hike in the area, yet others see it as their personal dumping ground.
On the walk down to the stream there were items here and there, a little more than most hiking trails. When I went to pick up one piece about twenty feet or so off of the trail, Penny took a different route around a sapling. The leash connected to her and my arm on opposing sides bent over the sapling and somehow it flung up with a branch hitting me in the eye. I did't think anything of it and we continued on. Near the stream was a buried pile of bottles, plastic bags, plastic utensils and other items one might use camping. The trash from the walk down and this pile filled the bag. We were able to get most of the items out.
Two sizes of batteries were pulled from the buried pile. These I do keep separate and make sure they are disposed of properly.
While I worked on collecting the items on the left which were by the stream, Jeff worked on a campsite on the right. A lot of the items looked like they had been left recently.
While we were cleaning Penny was howling at us to hurry up. She wanted to get moving, there was much more for her to see and sniff.
Who knows how many cans are at the bottom of the stream here, pulled these three cans out of a pool on its side. Glad to have the tongs. Even though it has been warm it was a hike in November and the water is a tad chilly.
An older pile of glass bottles made the second bag rather heavy. Only removed the unbroken bottles. I will be back in the future to get rid of everything. I know groups have cleaned up this area before, but piles like this are often missed by volunteer groups. In order to really clean up a place you have to look behind every rock and in every crevice.
I know I am repeating myself, but I just can't comprehend how anyone would go to an area this beautiful and trash the place. Do they never plan on coming back or do they just expect someone else to clean up their mess?
This was the total taken out of the area. Like I said I do need to go back to remove more. There looked to be an active encampment there, so I am sure new trash will also be there when I return. I would like to thank the Comiskey's for disposing of the trash! That was a huge help!
The second hike of the day was to a nearby falls. It was all for the hike and I only brought my pack along even though it ended up being filled with recyclables by the end. I had never been to these falls before and they were definitely worth checking out.
At the top of the falls was this deep pool and another small fall.
Penny seemed to be having a good day and that all changed on the way out. We decided to take the road instead of a briar filled path on the way out and that is where Penny found some type of refuse that nearly cut off a large portion of her biggest pad on her back paw. There was a lot of blood and I am thankful the Jeff was with me and was able to help me get her back to his house and get the wound cleaned out and bandaged. The rest of the day was spent driving to and waiting at an emergency center where Penny was patched up. After finally getting her home I realized I had an issue with my eye. Early Monday morning with no sleep between my eye and watching over Penny I decided I needed to go to the ER. There I found out that the tree branch early in the day put a nice gouge in my eye. I received drops and went back home to take care of Penny. Went all summer long with no incidences like this for either of us and in one day we both got hurt. With the drops I am just about recovered, Penny had another vet visit yesterday afternoon and has another one tomorrow. She has about two weeks left to recover. If everything goes alright I will be back out and posting again either tomorrow or Thursday!
You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project at: gofundme.com/takingoutthetrash
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