Slow Roll

Day 1

Another day, another tire. This one was slowly advancing towards the pond at the West End Community Centre — it started on top of the hill last I saw it, and had rolled to the bottom by the time I picked it up, sitting in the goldenrod just across the road from the pond. (The tire is obviously not sentient, but things have a way of ending up in these ponds with some help).

Four days ago we pulled another one out of the Speed River floodplain, after three the week before that. The ponds here drain to the Speed, then the Grand, then Lake Erie, and we’re finding tires everywhere we look along the watershed.

As usual, I carted the shredded tire and the bucket of trash on the bike carrier for proper disposal:

Day 2

I returned early the next day to find three painted turtles basking in the morning sun. On these crisp mornings, the leaves are turning colour and grapes are dangling over the turtle pond. While admiring the turtles, I also spotted quite a bit more debris in the pond than when I left the previous evening. After about 30 minutes I filled an entire bucket (I found in the pond) with plastics and picked up 22 beer cans and bottles from the water. Somebody had a fun evening on the pond shore, probably not the turtles.