Driving rain

Cool, pouring (low 30s)

I didn’t make any teenage friends today, that’s for sure. I would imagine it’s a pretty quick way to make enemies: Tell a group of people they’re going to spend the day fishing old pipe out of the woods while getting soaked to the bone and cold to boot. It was a lot of work, but we pulled the plastic pipe out all the way to Walker Creek, and much of the metal pipe out as well. It was pretty delightful for me, seeing all that pipe come out of the beautiful woods, but I don’t think it had the same significance for the kids who didn’t want to be here, doing the work.

I don’t understand what compels people to toss garbage in the woods. It’s an enduring and maddening mystery at my job here; it drives me absolutely crazy. I don’t understand how you could abandon a water system and then not take it out. I don’t understand how you could put tractor parts out in the elements and watch them get covered by blackberry brambles. I don’t understand how you could leave rusting metal or open septic tanks. But these are the things people do. It’s bizarre and troubling. Someone should do a study, and then come up with some way to prevent this sort of stuff. Sheesh.