The Dead Fruits of Fall Labors

One definite sign that it is fall are the leaf trails I find throughout the house that require excess vacuuming...

I opened the backdoor and discovered the cause of these leaf trails...

Monty lies in the leaves on the back patio, they stick to his fluff, and he sheds them as he walks through the house. So, this morning I woke up early and swept the patio. I also coiled up all the hoses to prepare for the next snowstorm, which is expected to roll in tonight and tomorrow.

I also grabbed a big black plastic garbage bag and walked every square inch of my 1.3 acres picking up other people's trash. Every time that a big wind comes along, it blows over someone's trashcan and blows the garbage into my yard where it sticks thanks to all of my neighbor's tumbleweeds...

I have these neighbors who are adamant about digging every hint of sagebrush out of their yard, but instead of taking all those weeds to the dump or burning them, they just leave them in a pile and wait for a big wind to come up and blow them into my yard up against my chain-link fence. Then the tumbleweeds' sharp branches catch all other pieces of garbage that blow through the neighborhood, and my place starts looking like a dump in no time.

I resent having to spend my weekends and holidays picking up other people's garbage and then having to pay out of my own pocket to have it properly disposed of, so I look for names and addresses on the garbage and if I find out who it belongs to, I deliver the garbage bag to their doorstep. However, this time the name and address on the garbage was from a house that was miles away. Since I didn't know the neighborhood, I didn't want to risk getting attacked by a Doberman or Pit Bull on my way to the doorstep. Considering the types of drugs this guy was on (I got all of his prescription papers), I'm sure he's too sick or out of it to keep track of his garbage anyway.

What astounds me is that the majority of garbage I find includes candy wrappers, liquor bottles, beer cans, and cigarette cartons. It makes sense that someone who doesn't care what they put into their own body also wouldn't care what they put into the environment. By the time I got done collecting the garbage, the entire 30 gallon bag was stuffed to the gills. I'm just glad that this time around I didn't have to pick up a used rubber. Yuck.

I noticed a number of neighbors watching me while I was picking up garbage. I wanted to ask them if they were going to help or just stare, but they were too far away to hear me anyway. I then started picking up tools that were left outdoors and discovered that the only tools I could find were the old, weathered ones that no one would want. Our nice tools were missing. I don't want to jump to the conclusion that we've been robbed again, but with the number of people who trespass on my property I wouldn't be surprised. I'm just going to have to train my family members that if they want to keep what we own, they need to take care of it and put it away, especially with the number of losers we've got living in the neighborhood now.

What really freaked me out is that after I cleaned up all that garbage, put away the tools, and went into the house, I heard a noise on my front doorstep. When I opened the door and walked outside, I stepped on a piece of garbage that magically appeared right smack in the middle of my doormat. Now, I had just walked in that door a short time earlier and there was no garbage there. That means that one of these nosy neighbors who was watching me pick up garbage must have seen that I missed a spot, and instead of just picking it up themselves and disposing of it in a trash can, they put it on my doorstep. Hmmmmm. I wonder if it could be from a neighbor who previously found a bag of his or her own garbage on his own doorstep. I think it is time that I set Norman the Gnome out on my walkway to hurl insults at people who trespass. The problem is that chances are that someone would just steal him.