I was paused briefly during my circuit in the ravine with Jackie and Jillie yesterday to speak with a friend we'd come across, discussing a range of things from the progress my husband is making in his post-surgical recovery to the topic that is most on everyone's mind going through the forest, the harvesting in accessible-key areas to where the beavers have located themselves, of poplar trees, now littering the forest floor, their stumps bare white cones appealing to the heavens above.

And then I noticed far down below where we stood on a promontory, someone was struggling with an old discarded car tire, to encase it in a large orange plastic bag whoever it was had obviously brought along for that express purpose. The presence of the tire was a sensibility-irritant and had been for many years, although it was so deep in the ravine I would wonder on occasion whether others trekking the trail high above would ever have noticed it. This person, whoever it was, obviously had and it irritated him sufficiently to energize himself to remove it.

My companion and I watched as the man struggled up the hillside, dragging the bagged tire behind him and as he neared us I recognized him as a man whom we would occasionally come across striding along the trails, wordless, his wife walking dutifully behind him. She was friendly and courteous whereas he seemed to be detached from the presence of anyone he might come across. Over a period of time he relented sufficiently to  acknowledge our presence on passing one another.

On this occasion I lauded him, and thanked him for his efforts to restore that portion of the ravine to its proper, unencumbered state. He isn't the only one who does this kind of thing. There was a giant of a man with a booming voice, middle-aged like this one, who on occasion would arrive with an empty backpack and finally exit the ravine with a bulging backpack, going to extreme lengths to haul himself into difficult-to-access parts of the ravine to retrieve plastic bottles, paper coffee cups, candy wrappers, and even on occasion inappropriately offensively-discarded car tires, bicycle parts, and once a mattress. We haven't seen him in ages.

There was a friendly dog-loving couple whom we'd known for decades to walk through the ravine trails with their beloved dogs. When the dogs died of old age, they never committed themselves to other canine companions, but did for a while walk through the trails, picking up dog offal they'd come across, especially in the spring, to cleanse the trails of the result of dogs not wanting to venture into the deep snowpack to evacuate.

Another man has dedicated himself latterly to encouraging trail walkers with dogs to pick up that detritus, and deposit it into covered pails he thoughtfully nailed onto trees close to the many trail entrances off neighbourhood streets. He empties the pails on a regular basis, replacing the plastic bag that sits within them, as well as providing small bags out of the goodness of his nature-loving heart for people who may have forgotten to bring their own with them. 😇