Garbage and Green Stuff

This city has an "event" each year where it asks for volunteers to pick an area of town, then go there to pick up litter and leave it better than they found it.  I had asked the community association for my area (of which I belong) if they'd participate.  The response was not overwhelming, but I signed us up anyway.   I thought at the time that it might be only me with one friend, and even then we had to cancel and reschedule a bunch of times.  Friday night, we decided to just get it done and declared yesterday as the day.  We put out one final futile call, and got ready to head out.

Not only was I surprised to see unexpected volunteers, one of them had gone to the trouble of making us long handled pickup sticks with nails on the end to skewer the garbage.    We went out to a field not far from our houses.  It's got paved paths running through it, as well as a few copses of trees -AKA Garbage Traps- and a slew.  From the road the area didn't look too bad, but there was a lot.  Within a few hours, we filled the back of a truck... and I still have to call the city to pick up some items that were too big for us to take away.

Did I mention that the wind is blowing at 60km an hour?  Fun times.

But.  It actually wasn't that bad.  It was a great group of people, and I hope it makes a difference.  I'd rather not have to pick up after others, but somebody's got to do it.  We got some good exercise, and we left our walking trails a lot better off than they were.  

AND, I earned some very serious bonus points when I stood up and accidentally skewered my head on a dead tree branch.  
I  did  not drop the F Bomb within hearing of the young kids who were helping out, which was a mirale in and of itself.  
Excuse me while I pat myself on the back for that.

On another note, I got a happy surprise today.  Last year, I planted a number of ferns in two of my shadier gardens.  They didn't do very well, and by the end of the season, I declared the fern experiment to be a failure.  It turns out, I was wrong:

   I love ferns.  I particularly love their little fiddle heads, when they pop out of the ground.

Also, the daffodils are blooming.  

I think that daffodils could quite possibly be the most cheerful flowers around.

ps - Cotton's still not doing very well.  He's crying any time he tries to move around so we'll be going to see the vet as soon as we can get in.