Monday, August 31st, 2020 – Safeway
This morning we had a light mist for our entire walk. The overcast made it even darker and we used our flashlights for most of the trip. We didn’t find any money but had a roadkill first for us. We were walking along NE 145th street when, about a hundred yards ahead, we saw something fly across in front of a car. It was dark and misty, so we couldn’t make out what it was. When we reached the spot, we found a newly demised squirrel. We hadn’t witnessed a road kill on our walks.
Early on our walk, we found a pair of earbuds.
They look to be in good condition and are priced at $30 on the website. They state,
the Fit Sport 3 Wireless Fitness Earbuds will keep you GOing through it all: running, biking, climbing, you name it
JLab Audio Website.
Evidently not. They baled on whomever was wearing them. We will sanitize them and see if they work. If so, they’re headed for Goodwill.
Behind a tree on Juanita-Woodinville Way, we found a jacket, clean and in very good condition.
We bagged it and carried it home. When we reached home, we found that in the pocket, among other things were a bunch of prize ribbons in a plastic baggie.
The ribbons were dated from 2007 and 2008 and a couple had a name on them. We have found references on the Internet and are attempting to contact the person. We’ll let you know.
We also found a backpack and two tennis rackets behind a dumpster.
They were in good condition and, we are guessing, stolen. We left them but later, picked them up with the car. The backpack is actually a pet carrier and there were unopened cans of tennis balls inside. There were also vaccination records for a dog with the person’s name on them. Again, we’ll try to contact the person. Otherwise, Goodwill scores again.
On Norway Hill, the McLitterers struck again.
Twice. One was down a bank by the side of the road. The second, about 500 feet farther up the road was on the shoulder. It had been hit by a car and was bleeding syrup. No, we don’t count this as roadkill. They both contained the same contents, two clean platters, two used tea bags and a small paper bag of unused plastic utensils, four butters and two syrups. One of the syrups had ruptured and was bleeding badly. We should have put it out of its misery, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it.
Someone was screwing around on Norway Hill at the upper Tolt Pipeline.
Literally. A condom. Perhaps it was the McLitterers taking a break?
Tuesday, September 1st, 2020 – Park-and-Ride
This morning was warmer by a few degrees without the rain. A pleasant walk overall. We found no money and removed a squirrel from the road.
We found a tool for our found tool collection.
Another socket. We find a lot of these. But we have yet to find a working socket wrench. We’ll have to work on that.
We found more clothes today. A tee shirt.
Pretty ratty and not worth washing. Goodwill would reject it anyway.
Also a fleece, hooded vest.
We saw this last week and left it in case the owner came back for it. He didn’t. We’ll wash it and send it to Goodwill.
Speaking of clothing, we were able to contact both owners of the items from yesterday. The pet carrier was lost in a car break-in and the owner was glad to get it back.
The story of the jacket was strange. It was lost/stolen nine years ago! It was in good condition and certainly had not been weathering for nine years. Neither of the people claimed the tennis rackets or balls. Maybe we will give the sport a try.
Winter decorations?
Oh, hell no. We haven’t had a full summer yet.
The McLitterers struck yet again.
This time very near our house. Pretty cheeky of them.
Someone’s going camping! We found their equipment list.
- Two gallons of frozen water. [It’s called ice, by the way.]
- Garbage bags. [THANK YOU!]
- Steamer. [For oysters?]
- Folding table.
- Potable water tank. [For the frozen water.]
- Fire fighting kit. [Wonder what made them think of this? The hole burned in the middle of the list?]
- Rock terrain. [They’re going to have trouble fitting this into their vehicle.]
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2020 – Safeway
Another pleasant morning walk today. A little warm at 61° F but no rain. We removed a rat from the road. As we approached the dead rodent, a passing car moved over a little to give us a wide berth and ran over it. Again. We also found some money, a very beat-up penny.
These just keep turning up like, well, a bad penny.
We came across a large box for a $400 Nama Cold Press Juicer.
We spent a few minutes cutting it up and fitting it in our bag. We continued for a block or so and found another identical box in the middle of the street.
Since our bag was full from the first box, we carried this one about a mile to a dumpster. “We’re here to help.” No you’re not.
We found another syringe.
It was run-over but the needle and cap were still intact. We put it in a water bottle we had picked up and added it to our growing collection at home.
Someone’s menu for the week.
Starting the week with leftovers, then Turtling soup. Make that Tortellini soup. Nothing on Saturday. What are they going to have for leftovers next Sunday?
Behind a utility cabinet.
An empty coke can and a full baby diaper.
Bud Lite Mango Clamato.
This is just plain wrong in so many ways.
More screwing around on Norway Hill.
No sign of the McLitterers, so it wasn’t them.
Thursday, September 3rd, 2020 – Park-and-Ride
Another warm but pleasant day for our walk. We found no money and no roadkill. We extended our Tuesday and Thursday walks up to Simonds Road that we started when the 100th Ave construction closure was in effect. Today, there were still construction cones and machinery, but our favorite flagman was not there, nor was there any other activity. They must have slept in.
As we started our walk, there was more free stuff on 112th Ave NE.
Some chairs, a couple of tables and a wooden basket but no ‘free’ sign. We ran a few errands and as the day progressed, the chairs and tables disappeared, but the basket remained. If we were forced to take something, the basket would have been our choice, but no thanks.
A short distance farther down 112th, more stuff.
A stove and an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner. No signs here either. They also remained here all day. The garbage/recycle company offers a service to pick up large items. We hope this is what this is. The other option is to toss them down a nearby hill, which is what a lot of miscreants do.
Yet more screwing around.
A condom wrapper but, thankfully, no condom. Come on, people. Grow up.
A couple of golf tees on the street.
Folks, these do not work on asphalt. And if your ball landed here, take some more golf lessons.
We did find a tool.
A smashed winch. The only thing this was good for was adding weight to our recycle bag. No more winching for this guy. That is “winching,” not “wenching.” Though a smashed wench sounds more interesting, at least to fifty percent of us.
And this is sad. We’ve been here before.
A balloon landed in a very sticky situation among the blackberry briars. We tried to safely extract it, but alas, it did not make it. R.I.P. balloon. Or maybe P.O.P.
A construction worker lost part of the plans for the E360 Pedestrian bridge.
So, are they going to just wing it? “Hey Joe, where do you think this bracket goes?” “Dunno, probably an extra.” We’d think twice about using the REDMOND TECHNOLOGY STATION PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE.
Friday, September 4th, 2020 – Safeway
Another nice day for a walk. We removed a roadkill mouse from the road. “An unexpected check or fortune will arrive today.” And we found a fortune!
Actually, seven fortunes. We would have preferred the check.
Yesterday’s free tables, chairs and wooden basket all disappeared. We assumed the vacuum and range were set out to be picked up by the recycle company.
We were wrong. And the vacuum cleaner was grabbed. We think the stove will be a hard sell. They need to lower the price.
We found page five of a book.
It looked interesting and using Google, we were able to determine it is from the book, “Junie B., First Grader: Toothless Wonder.” Reading age six to nine. Ah, that’s why it looked interesting to us.
A VW hub emblem.
It was not in good condition and got recycled. We can see losing a full hubcap, but the emblem should be secure. Then again, after paying $33.3 billion dollars in fines for the “Dieselgate” scandal, maybe Volkswagen needed to cut back on the quality of the emblem clips.
We saw a dog ball in the ditch and attempted to pick it up. We won’t say which of us did it, but she let it slip and it rolled down a culvert.
Fortunately we were carrying a trash picker and were able to retrieve it. We know the dog that lives here and she wouldn’t have been happy losing a ball.
We found a gas can, but it was pretty much useless.
No spout.
Saturday, September 5th, 2020 – Riverside Drive
We wrapped up the week with a nice walk down Riverside Drive. We removed two rabbits, a bird and a crow from the roads. Yes, we know a crow is a bird, but we track them separately.
This has been a very disappointing money week. We found one beat-up penny on Wednesday and that’s it. Even the freeway ramps were dry. What a bunch of cheapskate litterers.
However, we did find some food today.
A half-bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and an unopened soda.
More food.
We presume these were donated to someone when they really wanted money, so they took what they wanted and dumped the rest. Later in the day, we picked it up with the car. We didn’t notice a bunch of ants inside and took them home too. That was fun. We got rid of the perishable items, including the ants, and will take the rest to a food bank.
We also picked up some clothing.
A white tee shirt and a pair of socks near the apartments on Woodinville Drive and a black tee shirt on Brickyard Road. It’s a sad thing when folks lose the shirt off their back.
And their sunglasses off their head.
Unlike most sunglasses we find, these were in good shape and moderately expensive. The ones on the left are Foster Grants and cost about $30. The pair on the right cost about $26 and are designed to fit over regular glasses. We tried wearing them over the Foster Grants. Don’t try this at home.
Near the Northshore Senior Center, we found a Rosary and a bracelet with a cross on it.
Then, about one and a half miles down the road near the apartments we found another bracelet. There was no identification on them, but we’ll watch the lost-and-found posts.
On the way down the hill to Riverside Drive, we found a card for the requirements to allow a student to attend school.
They forgot at least one: “Is your kid a brat?”
This mask was hanging on an old blackberry bush.
It was behind a fence running along the sidewalk and just out of reach of our picker. We attempted to use the picker to pull the bushes closer to us but the mask eventually fell to the ground. We ended up going about thirty feet to the end of the fence and walking back through the berry bushes to retrieve the mask.
From our camera timestamp, we spent seven minutes to get that mask. Not a good use of our time, but it was a challenge.
On the subject of masks, as we were walking up Brickyard Road, a fairly steep hill for us, we said good morning to a lady on her way down. A couple of minutes later, we looked back and she had turned around and was following us up the hill. She said she dropped her mask somewhere and was backtracking to find it. She then stopped and said she was going back down to get her car and asked us not to pick up the mask.
When we found it, there was a brief discussion about taking it just to mess with her. We spent seven minutes picking up a paper mask. How long would she spend driving up and down Brickyard Road looking for her nice cloth one? No, we didn’t, we left it on the sidewalk.
Someone’s dog got away.
This leash was lashed to a picnic table bench. The dog must have finally cracked the Leash-Latch Technology. Quite a feat without opposable thumbs. No more being forced to watch his former owner bag his poop.
Under the freeway overpass was another used condom.
It was probably tossed from the freeway. Yet another use for self-driving cars.
This car has been parked across from the Woodinville Drive apartments.
This week, the guy took two tires off the car. If this is a ploy to keep from getting towed for illegal parking, we don’t think it will work. Also, concrete blocks are not the safest way to prop up a car.
Also across the street from the apartments, a large TV was dumped into the bushes.
And on the apartment side of the street, a sofa.
The sofa was filthy. The person had the audacity to put a “Free” sign on it. We bet the TV didn’t work either.
This is getting to be a regular event along this stretch of road. Why pay money to take things to the dump when you can just put them on the street or down a hill to be someone else’s problem? Thank you for being good citizens.
Trash Walking 