Tire Cleanup!
I'm guessing you can already tell what this post is going to be about.
There is a road that I frequent, which has a ditch...er...creek beside it and I noticed one day this winter that there were quite a few tires dumped in it! Well, after a couple months, I started to get pretty annoyed at seeing this and made up my mind to take care of them. The first try was Friday, but I realized that I'd desperately need some sort of waders and a rope. The "bank" down to my quarry was extremely steep and rather than try to wrassle the tires up to the road, I figured I'd just yard them out with a line.
So, Saturday morning found me in chest waders playing in the creek! I managed to get the four I've been eyeballing in pretty short order, but then kept noticing more and more downstream! All in all, I came out with NINE tires!
Da loot
Not too bad
Yea, so I was taking some cardboard out to the dump too...
It was interesting, there were a lot of people who drove by while I'm walking around in my waders, pulling a rope around, and stacking tires on the side of the road. They all slowed waaay down to eyeball what I was doing, but I'm not sure anyone truly got it! I was walking up to the truck with two tires under my arms and an older guy on a motorcycle slowed down enough to have a brief conversation. "Got everything under control here?" "Yep, just cleaning tires out of the creek."
Boy, he looked at me, looked at the tires, looked at my truck, looked at the creek....paused...and looked pretty confused when he simply said, "Oh." What I said must have hit him about 30 yards down the road because THEN he hollered, "good man!"
There was ONE MORE tire I had eyeballed for a couple months and that was in the now-muddy (VERY muddy) Blue Creek Bay. I knew it was a big tire, probably a semi tire and half of it was mired in mud about 60 yards from the road. I thought, "I don't really want to deal with that today, but since I'm down here, I'll just take a look again." On my way, I got a call from Rod, which is fairly rare on a Saturday morning. He asked what kind of day I was having then said, "Well, just so you're in the loop and you knew him ..." Oh crap "....Denny passed away this morning." Now, over the past six years of shooting trap I've become fairly close with this family and his boys, so it was kind of a shocker. I think we were all stunned, because he wasn't all that old, nor in terrible shape.
Needless to say, shooting trap on Sunday was a little rough and somber, but the boys showed up, so that was good. It was the last day of league and I talked to one who said, "Well, we're here to finish what we started and do a little shooting for Dad." Eventually we had a moment of silence then the order for, "All shooters get your guns and three shells. We're going to send Denny off right." Now, fifty shotgunners all going after three birds, one bird at a time, is something to see and HEAR.
Back at the bay, I was in a weird mood after hearing that and really didn't want to go home at that point. So, I donned the waders and went after that nasty old tire!
That's where she WAS
After a bit of digging and prying, I oozed that tire out of the mud. I was pretty proud of myself as I didn't get TOO muddy! Score! But, now I had to roll that thing to the road and between keeping it steady and not getting stuck myself...I was COVERED. I also didn't get all the mud out of the tire itself, so it tried some interesting antics in order to try and get away. All in all, I got it to the cutbank and tied the rope on. I had thought about just using the truck, but...I just yarded it up by hand. Heck, I got the rest that way, why ruin it now?
The beast
Now, just pay attention to the size of the tailgate...
After all that, I ran up the road and sat in the clean part of the creek and basically took a little bath with the waders on. I then unloaded all the tires at the dispersed "rural" dumpsite and arranged them by size in two neat columns. I followed that with another trip to the creek to wash my gloves, normal boots, and my rope, then headed home.
I drove by there yesterday to get rid of some shotgun shell hulls (no Dad, these are Estates) and noticed someone picked through the tires? It was bizarre. My two neat columns were in shambles, yet all ten remained.
People are just flat out weird. Sure, when they were in the creek you didn't pick through them nooo, but when they're at the DUMP where they SHOULD HAVE BEEN in the first place, you look for anything of value. Well, getting them there made me feel good anyways.
I just wonder how many people thought I was doing court-ordered community service rather than assuming I was just "doing the right thing."
There is a road that I frequent, which has a ditch...er...creek beside it and I noticed one day this winter that there were quite a few tires dumped in it! Well, after a couple months, I started to get pretty annoyed at seeing this and made up my mind to take care of them. The first try was Friday, but I realized that I'd desperately need some sort of waders and a rope. The "bank" down to my quarry was extremely steep and rather than try to wrassle the tires up to the road, I figured I'd just yard them out with a line.
So, Saturday morning found me in chest waders playing in the creek! I managed to get the four I've been eyeballing in pretty short order, but then kept noticing more and more downstream! All in all, I came out with NINE tires!
Da loot
Not too bad
Yea, so I was taking some cardboard out to the dump too...
It was interesting, there were a lot of people who drove by while I'm walking around in my waders, pulling a rope around, and stacking tires on the side of the road. They all slowed waaay down to eyeball what I was doing, but I'm not sure anyone truly got it! I was walking up to the truck with two tires under my arms and an older guy on a motorcycle slowed down enough to have a brief conversation. "Got everything under control here?" "Yep, just cleaning tires out of the creek."
Boy, he looked at me, looked at the tires, looked at my truck, looked at the creek....paused...and looked pretty confused when he simply said, "Oh." What I said must have hit him about 30 yards down the road because THEN he hollered, "good man!"
There was ONE MORE tire I had eyeballed for a couple months and that was in the now-muddy (VERY muddy) Blue Creek Bay. I knew it was a big tire, probably a semi tire and half of it was mired in mud about 60 yards from the road. I thought, "I don't really want to deal with that today, but since I'm down here, I'll just take a look again." On my way, I got a call from Rod, which is fairly rare on a Saturday morning. He asked what kind of day I was having then said, "Well, just so you're in the loop and you knew him ..." Oh crap "....Denny passed away this morning." Now, over the past six years of shooting trap I've become fairly close with this family and his boys, so it was kind of a shocker. I think we were all stunned, because he wasn't all that old, nor in terrible shape.
Needless to say, shooting trap on Sunday was a little rough and somber, but the boys showed up, so that was good. It was the last day of league and I talked to one who said, "Well, we're here to finish what we started and do a little shooting for Dad." Eventually we had a moment of silence then the order for, "All shooters get your guns and three shells. We're going to send Denny off right." Now, fifty shotgunners all going after three birds, one bird at a time, is something to see and HEAR.
Back at the bay, I was in a weird mood after hearing that and really didn't want to go home at that point. So, I donned the waders and went after that nasty old tire!
That's where she WAS
After a bit of digging and prying, I oozed that tire out of the mud. I was pretty proud of myself as I didn't get TOO muddy! Score! But, now I had to roll that thing to the road and between keeping it steady and not getting stuck myself...I was COVERED. I also didn't get all the mud out of the tire itself, so it tried some interesting antics in order to try and get away. All in all, I got it to the cutbank and tied the rope on. I had thought about just using the truck, but...I just yarded it up by hand. Heck, I got the rest that way, why ruin it now?
The beast
Now, just pay attention to the size of the tailgate...
After all that, I ran up the road and sat in the clean part of the creek and basically took a little bath with the waders on. I then unloaded all the tires at the dispersed "rural" dumpsite and arranged them by size in two neat columns. I followed that with another trip to the creek to wash my gloves, normal boots, and my rope, then headed home.
I drove by there yesterday to get rid of some shotgun shell hulls (no Dad, these are Estates) and noticed someone picked through the tires? It was bizarre. My two neat columns were in shambles, yet all ten remained.
People are just flat out weird. Sure, when they were in the creek you didn't pick through them nooo, but when they're at the DUMP where they SHOULD HAVE BEEN in the first place, you look for anything of value. Well, getting them there made me feel good anyways.
I just wonder how many people thought I was doing court-ordered community service rather than assuming I was just "doing the right thing."
posted by geotracker12 at 9:06 AM
0 comments
