Neanderpundit

My days are always a bunch better when I take the trouble to get some damned caffeine in my system first thig in the ayem.

This morning I got in on one of the club’s work parties, cleaning this section of Rt 6

Our club volunteers to clean this strip several times a year, it’s a common route for all manner of traffic.

We fill plastic bags with junk and put them alongside the road and INDOT comes and picks them up. There are bottles and cans, 70% liquor or beer, with some gatorade and tea thrown in the mix. Paper and biodegradeables we leave alone, but anything glass plastic, or…. other, we put in buckets, and then empty the buckets into the the bags we leave for INDOT.

One year we found a battery powered… thingy. We’ve found inflatable… things. Today I personally picked up a dozen or more cateyes, because the damned snowplow drivers can’t be bothered to raise their blades or properly adjust their skids. And these things are DESIGNED to be sowplow proof. I know I didn’t want one in my tire, as most of them were not in one piece.

Anyway, over the very nearly two mies we did sixteen bags, I think. And i went to Andersons Winery afterwards, to see what they have (What they have is some excellent locally grown wines and preserves) and I picked up some local honey and a bottle of Rhubarb wine, which I think the Ogwife will love.

Having gotten almost no sleep the night before I cranked a bedroom window wide, and crawled into bed to try to regain my balance. Having not eaten for the better part of a day, I woke refreshed, and with a headache the size and shape of Gainesville Florida. Several hours and a meal and coffee later, I’m doing better, but the wreck I made of my knees clawing my way down ravines to pick up broken whiskey bottles is gonna require some ice tonight.

Doing the shit i do, it’s not uncommon for me to need a cotter pin about, oh, once a week. To keep the jones at bay, I’ve developed a box of cotter pins that I refer to mysteriously as “The box of cotter pins”. This vital bit of kit sits on the shelf in the shed, or did, until I KNOCKED IT OFF last night.

So I swept the assorted crud up, and spent a while winnowing the cotter pins out of the dust, because hey, my cotter pins! and damn, I don’t want one of these in my tractor tire.