Moles, Voles or Shrews?

Monday, July 6th, 2020 – Safeway

Our first walk after the Fourth-of-July Holiday was very different from last year. With a few exceptions, there was much less debris. Last year along 112th Ave NE, it looked like a war zone. The city even sent a sweeper to clean it up. This year, there was almost nothing, well except for this location.

It stretched about fifty feet in front of a house. Of course, this is not directly in front of their house, it’s on the lawn of a school across the street. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and let it go for a few days.

Also along 112th, we found some pressed Styrofoam stars.

They were about one-and-a-half inches in diameter and may have been part of some fireworks. We thought they were kind of cool and added them to our trash museum. Doesn’t everyone have a trash museum?

We’ve run into this before.

A druggie dime bag and a nickel bag? The dime bag is appropriately decorated with biohazard symbols. The nickel bag has crowns. Who knows?

We found a pair of scissors without handles.

Also a brush without handles to go with it.

Okay, we also picked up another brush

It was well-used, and not suitable for our tool collection. Recycled.

We found a couple of stuffed toys.

We have no idea what the green one on the left is, but the one on the right is Wario. We looked it up. Wario was pretty dirty but cleaned up well.

Another Seattle Mariner’s cap.

This guy capped off the season too soon. They still plan a shortened season this year. Instead of a 7th Inning Stretch, it will be a 7th Inning Covid Test.

A crossbow arrow.

It’s only six and a half inches long. $20 for a 24-pack on Amazon. We could buy us a crossbow since we now have an arrow, but we don’t see the point. Stay with us, folks.

Uh-oh. Someone lost their Fitbit.

We picked it up and took it home. We put 11,283 steps on it for them, though. [Update] We put it on the local NextDoor app, but have had no response.

Tuesday, July 7th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride

Overcast and misty. Where’s Summer anyway? We saw a sight today that we have not seen in three months. Four people at the bus stop.

It’s still a long way from the prepandemic 25 riders queued up to board the bus, but it’s a start.

The park-and-ride lot had some beer cans and other trash, but honoring the request of the Metro Worker, we did not pick anything up. Well, except for the pop tabs from the cans. We feel really bad about picking up a can, removing the pop tab and dropping it again. I don’t think that we would make very good litterers.

We did find a bunch of trash between two parked vehicles.

On the right were two large plastic bags of garbage. On the left, we found some clothes. We snuck the clothes home.

A kid’s jacket and some Boy Scout uniforms. “Honor Unit 1982?” The guy must be at least 50-years old. Maybe he dumped them because he finally outgrew them? Or maybe he was disgusted that they now allow girls to join? Eew!

We removed a mole or a vole or a shrew from the road.

From this description, it was probably a mole, but next time we’ll look closer.

We found a nice baseball.

There was no obvious home for it nearby, so we adopted it for our ball collection.

Someone lost some tools.

A 5/8ths-inch and a 17mm socket and a rusty saw blade. Ok, the saw blade was probably not lost, it was tossed.

“Build the Link to Loyalty”

We don’t know what the Link was, but the ring had teeth marks in it, so probably loyalty to a dentist. Just a guess.

People keep leaving us beverages.

An unopened White Claw Hard Seltzer. We were tempted, but since we have been finding the empty Angry Orchard Hard Cider bottles, we have Built a Link to Loyalty to that brand.

Wednesday, July 8th, 2020 – Safeway

This morning was overcast, but with no rain. We are getting kind of worried that we have been shut out of money so far this week. We get lots of honks and waves. Would it hurt to toss a few coins out the window too?

The start of today’s walk was ominous.

Someone painted messages on the street warning us to go back. But we threw caution to the wind and rushed into the jaws of destiny. Ok, at our age, we walked into the jaws of destiny.

And we met our downfall.

We disturbed a crow having his McDonalds breakfast. Crows remember. We left the fries, but they don’t seem to like McDonalds fries. They need to try them with a vanilla milkshake.

We removed roadkill today. A squirrel, two rabbits and an opossum.

The Opossum was on the line and there was some discussion over whose side of the road it was on. Chuck lost.

Another pair of glasses making a spectacle of themselves.

“Wine Vocllca Room essence.”

Makes no essence to us.

Janet picked up a large rubber shock absorber lost by a piece of heavy machinery.

She thoughtfully allowed Chuck to carry it the rest of the way home.

Another socket!

This one was a DeWALT 10 mm. Yesterday’s were both Husky brands, so not part of the same set.

We picked up another almost-full pack of cigarettes.

Did you ever feel like someone was watching you? Strange how these eerie feelings come upon you. The wonders of the human mind.

We found a BMW key and its keychain.

Or is that a mole, vole or shrew?

Thursday, July 9th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride

Another overcast, misty day. We removed a crow from the roadside. Picking it up by the tail feathers, we carried it about forty feet back up the road and tossed it behind some bushes. As it sailed through the air, it flapped its wings. It was still alive! It alit spread-eagle, make that spread-crow on some weeds. We felt bad. Fortunately no other crows were around to witness the event. They would have hounded us for a year.

At the bottom of the Tolt Pipeline, someone is stacking rocks again.

It’s like they’re trying to reenact the scene from Galaxy Quest.

Great. This is exactly what we need, a new brand of cigarette.

THIS Cigarettes. “American Blend” and “Made in Korea.” They are the fifth largest cigarette seller in the world and since 2017 went from almost nonexistent to fifth largest in the U.S. At least one litterer has adopted them.

At the park-and-ride bus stop, there was a 50% drop in riders from yesterday! Call the Seattle Times, they can make some bad news out of it. Okay, it went from four to two. But it’s still 50%! Exclamation marks added for emphasis in case the Seattle Times fails.

But we did find more Coors cans at the park-and-ride lot.

About twice as many as Tuesday’s walk and about half had pop tabs attached meaning littered since Tuesday. Metro must clean up on Thursday or Friday. We’ll inspect on Saturday.

Another shock absorber today.

Not nearly as heavy as yesterday, but still about three inches long. We could have used it for an eraser for the pencil they gave us in the third grade. Along with the paper with the two-inch rule lines and chunks of wood embedded in it.

Along Juanita-Woodinville Way we found a broken mirror, then some more mirror parts and a downed sign.

“DO NOT PASS ON RIGHT” or you will hit a “DO NOT PASS ON RIGHT” sign and lose your mirror.

Friday, July 10th, 2020 – Safeway

This morning was nice with a light overcast and no rain. We are still waiting for summer to arrive. We checked on the crow from yesterday and it did pass away, so it does count as an official roadkill.

After being shut out for the week, we finally found some money by the apartments on 112th.

A dime and a penny for a grand total of eleven cents. We also picked up the cigarette, butt it doesn’t count. [Get it?]

Ok, it’s the coldest first week of July in Seattle since 2002, but it wasn’t this cold.

No wonder the kid tossed it. And, of course, only one.

Outside KinderCare, was an escaped toy.

We reincarcerated it over the fence.

Burt’s bees?

Well, they’ve escaped.

Halfway down Juanita-Woodinville Way, we found an emblem in the street.

It looked familiar and past Safeway, we saw an older parked Cadillac. A perfect match. Do any cars have a hood ornament today?

Chuck remembers his parent’s 1953 Packard with a hood ornament.

Chuck’s cousin, Julie Beth and his mother, Patricia with the Packard in the background at Big Sur, California in about 1955.

The safety of namby-pamby pedestrians has signaled the down-fall of the hood ornament. Damn pedestrians. Wait, that’s us. Okay, they were a bit dangerous.

We found a secret Windows 10 key card.

We will try it to see if it is still active. But first, we need to find a computer. It may be a while.

Ok, this worries Chuck. Janet found some 7-Eleven pieces-parts of some kind.

The box went into recycling, but where did the McThings go? Chuck will be watching his food closely.

We found two hats today.

The cap on the left is in good condition and will definitely go into our hat collection. The one on the right is interesting. Chuck’s cap was found when we first started walking and has weathered over the last five years.

We are on the lookout for a replacement.

Saturday, July 11th, 2020 – Riverside Drive

Today we had nice weather for the last walk of the week. We removed a crow, a small bird and a rabbit from the roads. The worrisome thing is the McLitterers seem to be homing in our our home.

This was found on the side of the road next to our house. Perhaps they are embedding GPS tracking devices in their tea bags to find where they end up. It’s a good thing we’re not paranoid.

We did find a penny.