Sunday in Reinhart and Tussing Parks

Monday, March 22, 2014

I felt like a Sunday in the Parks.  While walking Petey around dawn, I saw that someone had a party in the basketball court on Saturday; trash all over the place.  By the time I got there around 11 AM, there were people playing in the court and the larger trash had been cleaned up.  I gave the man there with his wife and kids a prize and got the little stuff. 

Up by the front entrance, someone had a birthday party in the shelter; they left the Happy Birthday banner along with the rest of their litter.  There were a bunch of big glittery stars and such that I figured to come back and sweep up.  I don’t know that I ever did, because I got involved in the playground.

The playground and the shelters around it had a lot of trash, and when I came back around a short time later, it had more.  It was certainly being well-used at the time.  There was no old trash, so the parks staff keeps it pretty cleaned up.  Still, someone had spread a lot of paper confetti in one area that took a long time to get it all.  

Playgrounds and picnic shelters in Riverside and Reinhart parks would be good places to Super Sponsor.

I had observed a fair bit of trash in West Tussing Park from the pedestrian bridge, and was determined to give it a cleanup, so I drove over and parked in the parking lot at the relatively new east end of the park.  Started in the bio-swale right in front of my truck and then proceeded to the east side of the lot.  There was a lot of small litter in plain sight, some larger farther back in the bushes and next to the fence. 

I found a bunch of lipstick-marked butts in the same place where I had cleaned up what I thought at the time was a place where someone had dumped her ashtray because of all the lipstick butts.  A gentleman I was talking to told me that a lady in a black sports car drives in there every day; eats her lunch; stands outside her car and smokes; and drops the butt.

The litter in East Tussing was, as usual, mostly around the parking lot, tables, and benches by the river.

From there, I proceeded to West Tussing, where the big trash was.  There was some litter around tables and benches, but not as bad as I remember it previously.  I climbed to the top of the rocks under the bridge, and found a piece of sleeping visqueen surrounded by small litter and dirty socks.  Picked up larger litter down the downstream trail and down by the river.  Some was fresh; some had been washed up the steep bank in high water and was hung up in the blackberries debris, very hard to get, but I got it.  

By the time I got to the bridge, I had two full grocery bags and a full bucket to haul up the hill to a trash can.  I strained my left wrist in the process and had to wear cabbage on it all the next day.  I reported some blankets and such upstream, too heavy for me to haul out that day.

Monday on the Miracle Mile

Monday, March 17, 2014

On this Monday morning, my daughter needed me to babysit while she went to a meeting at work.  It fit in before my Toastmasters meeting with plenty of time to spare. 

At the Toastmasters meeting, I ended up volunteering to compete in Canyonville on March 29^th, and gave a first run of the speech I would give.  But I ended up having heart pain that Thursday while working in my parents’ yard, spent a night in the hospital being tested, and withdrew from the contest by the following Monday.  No heart damage, but I now carry nitro and aspirin; take a low dose aspirin every night; eat better with an apple a day, less sweetener in my drinks and no fried foods; doubled my morning dog walk to cover the length of the Reinhart Volunteer Park; and try avoid unnecessary stress. 

I had already stopped going to County Commissioner and City Council meetings because they run too late and I got too bored and irritated by them.  I know what’s going to happen.  When the Council surprises me, it’s usually irritating, because they’ve been pretty reasonable lately.  The Commissioners hold no surprises, with only 3 of them, but they are usually irritating for just that reason.  Their unnecessary camera restrictions, aimed at Dale Matthews and Sandi Cassanelli, were the last straw.

Country Weeklies left on the driveway.  They are commonly ignored by residents around town.

Later, at the Miracle Mile, I picked up KAJO/KLDR’s second $250 check for their Super Sponsor site, so they have been on the Super Sponsor page since then.  The station property was very clean except along the front.  Country Weeklies were smashed to pulp across the side street; I keep that clean in at least the front half, since it can be seen by people leaving the station from the time they walk out the front door.

From there, I moved to the Grange property on the corner and cleaned their property and down that side of the street to the station.  Crossed the street; cleaned the other side of the block and proceeded to the next block to clean in front of the little car lot.  Picked up a bucket of trash right there; asked if I could dump their trash in their can; and asked for a donation.

I started on Umpqua bank’s frontage again, thinking about approaching them or the convenience market next door with a full bucket.  There was heavy litter on the market’s property, but I got called to pick up my daughter, and dumped it in the truck.

When I came back, I started south on Parkdale again, cleaned the front of Swiss Precision, and found a black and white handwoven blanket just inside their fence.  Carrying it back to the truck, my middle back started to spasm, and I called it a day.

Starting the 7th Street Bridge

Sunday, March 16, 2014

I’d had a hankering to clean the 7^th Street Bridge for some time.  It’s a simple bridge, without the arches and columns that hide and shelter litter and litterers on the Caveman Bridge, so most of the litter is too small to see from a moving car.  But I had to do Greenwood Dog Park and check out Baker Park first, so I got there later than I wanted.

I parked at the old drive-in eatery on Park and 7^th, and started, as usual, by cleaning up the parking lot and the grass near 7^th.  There was a lot in the grass, and it continued to be a lot as I worked my way toward the bridge on that side of the road.  I kept filling my bucket and having to walk back to the truck, occasionally working down the hill to get pieces of trash. 

By the time I got to the bridge, it was getting late, and I only managed to work half-way down one side.

The litter business is picking up

This gardener has gotten a bit old for the stoop work of gardening and is really tired of the litter in parts of this town and so has been moving on to cleaning litter from areas of public access and asking for donations and sponsors to continue and expand this much-needed work.  Starting litter pickup two days a week in early December, I made a bright green advertising tunic; started a website, GPgardener.com; got a payment vendor; made a better tunic; started The Litter Cleaner Blog to document my work; made a sign for my truck; and recently started getting sponsors, including one Super Sponsor. 

Carl Wilson of KAJO/KLDR has pulled me away from Redwood Avenue and is paying me to clean his portion of the Miracle Mile, as he calls the Rogue River Hwy.  Logan Design has donated small and large bright green stickers for advertising.  The City of Grants Pass sponsors me with bright yellow litter bags, which they allow me to drop in our parks next to trash cans for easy pickup by their crew. 

You or your business can Super Sponsor weekly litter cleanup of a particular landmark, like the Caveman Bridge, the area beneath it, a stretch of road, or an alley, for $500 a year, less than $10 a week.  It need not be in a single payment; $250 is enough to get started cleaning.  Recognition on the GP Gardener Super Sponsor page, which includes your logo and business motto, must wait until you’ve paid $500 within a year.  Some areas may take more than one Super Sponsor to cover, but one is enough to get the work started.

It takes only $100 of donations in a year to be listed as a Sponsor, for which you can sponsor cleanup of either one day of an event (before, during and after) or weekly cleanup of your frontage if you are near a sponsored site and it is not too large.   Donations of any amount are greatly appreciated and any amount donated by website or mail will get you at least a thank-you note and a small and large sticker.  You will know that you are supporting cleaning of Super Sponsor sites ($10 a week doesn’t go far) or any other place I feel the need to clean. 

Donations for my litter-cleaning business are not tax deductible as a charitable donation, and will be reported as income for tax purposes.  Business sponsorships can be reported as advertising expense, since one is listed on the website and I tell people who is sponsoring a place as I clean it.

I can only cover so much ground, so I will be able to offer Super Sponsorships of new areas only until my work week is filled, so it pays to buy in early.

Please visit GPgardener.com, read The Litter Cleaner Blog and donate today.  You can also like GP Gardener on Facebook.

Read The Litter Cleaner Blog and support litter cleanup in Grants Pass at GPgardener.com.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener        541-955-9040      rycke@gardener.com

Gardening is easy, if you do it naturally.