Monday, April 10th, 2023 – Safeway
We started the week with a pleasant walk. It was 46°F (7.8°C) with some very light rain toward the end. Our shoes were wet from walking through the grass, but otherwise we were dry. We found neither money nor roadkill.
We did reach a milestone of sorts, one of our pickers has started to fail and we retired it. This one lasted nearly seven months which is probably close to a record. Averaging, we have purchased 6 pairs of these over the last 33 months which works out to an average of 5.5 months of use. So, lasting seven months should qualify it for a place in our TrashWalking museum, but we don’t have room for them unless we build a new wing. And it’s only a picker, anyway.
These Scoop Troop signs are popping up around our neighborhood.
We found this is a company that started in Spokane, WA and is now expanding into the Seattle area. Its goal is to “make life just a little bit better for dog owners in the local area by eliminating the most hated chore of all time… scooping dog poop.”
Their website has a careers page that states, “Scoop Troop is constantly growing and looking to add new highly motivated staff members to our amazing team! From Scoop Technicians to Regional Managers Scoop Troop is dedicated to providing employees with family wages, solid benefits, and a work environment that promotes growth and rewards job performance.” They also have openings for “Scoop Technician, Part Time” and “Scoop Technician, Full Time.”
This sounds pretty good to us, after all, we are always picking up dog poop bags. We can’t commit to full time, but we do walk two to three hours each walk day which could qualify as part time. We will check this out.
We found a handle of some sort.
It did have the name, Valterra printed on it. It was easy to track down. It is a lost handle for a sewage dump valve for RV’s. Some RVer is in deep doo-doo, literally. Maybe they can hire a Scoop Troop technician.
Behind the Party Store near Safeway, was a Safeway basket, an empty Mike’s Hard Lemonade variety box, about three-quarters of a large coke and a Mike’s bottle.
The Mike’s bottle was unopened, but it was a Pineapple-Strawberry flavor, so that explains it.
Along our walk, we pass a deteriorating wooden retaining wall and last week we saw some work starting on it.
What a difference, it looks great. Oh, wait.
They were two bricks shy of a load.
Tuesday, April 11th, 2023 – Park-and-Ride
This morning was a bit colder at 41°F (5.0°C) with a light rain, but not too uncomfortable.
Near the start of our walk, we found a bag of urine.
A urine bag is a bit messier than a bottle because we need to cut the bag to drain it and there is no easy way to reseal it. We wear rubber gloves for a reason.
We found a wheel cover near the freeway overpass.
It was a generic replacement for a lost one, so not a Toyota brand like we mostly find, although it could have fallen off a Toyota. We left it at the bus stop trash can for the Metro guys. No, not for the bus, for them to pick up.
The park-and-ride was a real mess today.
Random trash, mostly from food, condoms, and human excrement. We picked up some random trash around the lot but left the big piles to Metro guys. They may not be too friendly to us the next time we meet.
We found some dog identification tags.
One tag had a phone number on it, and we texted the number that we had found them. After a few exchanges, we could tell that they were leery about giving us their address to return them and they have not even met us. Of course, if they had seen us, they would be even more leery. We hid the tags in a nearby parking lot and texted them the location.
We removed a very problematic roadkill opossum that was also carrying a baby.
We removed the opossum and tossed it behind a tree, but it got caught up on some berry bushes. So, we picked it up again and placed it behind the tree. When we approached the road, we saw the baby that had probably been in the pouch. We placed it with the mother.
Then we noticed some of the entrails of the opossum and tossed them, but they got caught on a tree and wrapped around it. We gave up and continued our walk.
Wednesday, April 12th, 2023 – Safeway and 100th Ave NE
It was cooler today at 34°F (1.1°C) which forced us back into our heated gloves. But it was dry and partly cloudy. We didn’t need to deal with any traumatic roadkill like yesterday and found money to boot.
Yes, only a penny at the gas station, but it keeps us from being skunked for the week.
Give the kids a little nice weather and they go nuts.
Outside the KinderCare fence we picked up several toys including four balls. Fortunately, there were no more severed heads. We toss all the toys back over the fence, except for the severed heads.
We picked up a lost bandana.
It was in good condition and will end up at Goodwill. We looked up bandanas on the web and found they were originally used as handkerchiefs. When cowboys started using them to cover their faces from dust and sun, they became a popular accessory. So, bandanas started as “hand-kerchiefs” and ended up as “face-kerchiefs.”
This was left at the site of the new wall.
We are not sure what the purpose is. We were not about to cross it and we couldn’t fit anyway. If we removed it, the pipe, the pole, or both might fall over. And that would be throwing caution to the wind, but there was not wind today.
Somebody went radio silent.
Get it, a broken antenna, “Radio silent”? We can’t quite hear you. It must be our reception.
Thursday, April 13th, 2023 – 160th to 124th Street
It was a bit warmer this morning at about 40°F (4.4°C) and dry again. We can live like this. We found no money and removed a rat from the street. But we found a tool that made up for it.
It was a nice one too. Well, before it fell on the freeway onramp and got run over, of course.
On the freeway overpass, we thought we’d found a quarter. It was about the right size and shiny.
When we turned it over, it was enameled with a bar over the 70. After some research, it is a golf ball marker from an equipment company, Sub 70. A golf ball marker is used to mark the location of a ball when it needs to be temporarily removed when it is blocking an opponent’s shot. It’s a nice marker, but we would prefer a quarter. We are assuming the “Sub 70” name implies that if you purchase their equipment, you could score below 70. So, we have this marker, will that help?
On the freeway onramp, we found a fuel cap.
We find lots of gas caps and this would normally not be picture-worthy except we usually find them smashed in multiple pieces. This one was pristine, except that the retaining tether designed the keep it attached to the vehicle was broken. Which is why we found it.
Also on the same freeway onramp, a lost remote control.
This was for a Craftsman-branded controller with tape on it, presumably to hold it together. It seemed to work because it was in one piece. Later, we considered driving slowly around the nearby neighborhoods to see if we could open someone’s door, but Janet said we have better uses for our time. Like walking and picking up trash. She is so controlling.
Something in the gutter along NE 160th St. caught our eye.
It was a micro-SD memory card. We have found several memory cards, mostly as parts of destroyed cell phones which either were destroyed with the phone or encrypted. Later when we checked it out, it was a memory card from someone’s car dashboard camera.
We once found a dashboard camera that had been run over and smashed, but the card was unreadable. This card had a lot of files on it, mostly of the closed garage door. We did learn a lot from the files like where the person lives, where they take their kid to school, and that they shop at Target. They even drove down part of our Thursday walking route, but they never saw us. Now that would have been cool.
The card had a “protected” file that contained a few files that were saved when the camera detected a sudden movement. Most of them were when the camera windshield suction failed and the camera fell. In one video there was as brief shot of the car’s sun visor.
What? A taped Craftsman remote control? We are probably going to return the memory card to the owners, and perhaps a remote control too.
Friday, April 14th, 2023 – 100th Ave NE
Today was 38°F (3.3°C), a little cooler than yesterday and still dry. We removed a roadkill rat, but found some money.
One thinner dime. It had been run over a few times, but it counts.
We picked up a sign.
“Give Up on Giving Up.” But, if you give up on giving up, aren’t you giving up on… Never mind, it’s a motivational thing, but it’s hard for us to be motivated when it’s dark and our hands are cold.
Today is Friday, time to check out Chuck’s vest pocket.
We picked up lots of cards this week. First, a VISA gift card. We find a lot of these that people toss because they are empty, but we check them out anyway.
Nice. This one has money left on it. This will help this week’s TrashWalking financial status.
A Harbor Freight Exclusive Member card that gives you even more emails than the daily email we now get, an EZ-Pass to a laundry in Monroe about 15 miles away. We found one of these before and there can be some money on it but you need to visit the laundry to find out, so not worth it to us. Daisy’s Blue Cross Insurance card, two more Pokémon cards that we don’t know what to do with and a business card for a treatment center’s Opioid Use Disorder Program. Not a good sign that the guy tossed it.
Then, two Nerf bullets, a mystery package containing two discs, two random pieces of hardware, a grease fitting, and, though it’s hard to see, a single glasses lens. It is prescription, not just readers like we normally find. When we got home, we opened the mystery package.
And it’s still a mystery. The two discs are about the consistency of mothballs but smell like gasoline. No clue.
A Velcro OneTigris patch and part of an inhaler. OneTigris is a tactical and pet gear store. It is unknown what the Velcro patch is for, but it fell off. A check for $2.50 to Joyce or bearer from the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization. We don’t know if it has been cashed or not, but we are the bearers now but we don’t know how to go about seeing if it has been cashed. Too bad, it would be nice to add more to this week’s income.
A bag of Power’s Camp Mix, unopened, but leaking nuts. A map to the location of several hot tubs. This is from Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort and Spa in San Luis Obispo, CA. The rooms are $999 per night. Phew, we can swing that, but $1000 would be out of the question. The hot tubs cost $23 per hour per person. You pay $999 to spend the night and you still need to pay more to sit in the hot tub? That does it, we are not going.
Finally, two “Daily Inspiration” cards. “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does,” and “You cannot do kindness too soon, for you know how soon will be too late.” We don’t know about you, but finding more money would be a lot more inspiring to us.
Saturday, April 15th, 2023 – Riverside Drive
It was warmer this morning at 44°F (6.7°C) with overcast, but no rain. No roadkill, and we found more money.
Two weeks in a row, we’ve found a twenty-dollar bill. It was in the weeds across from the apartments on Woodinville Drive. Maybe we can afford the hot tubs at the Sycamore.
We also found some tools.
Another small socket for our socket jar and a very nice, but cheap screwdriver. No, we do not have a cheap screwdriver jar.
We started out our walk finding another urine bag. The second this week.
Either it was a different guy with a prostate problem or he didn’t drink as much beer because the bag had very little in it. We were close to one of our garbage drop-off points, so we just put it in our bag without draining it.
Another mystery, a red bottle.
We found this in the middle of the street and had a locking top like a pill bottle but had no label. It contained about ten pieces that could have been candy, but we were not going to taste them. The bottle itself was a big red flag. Literally.
Someone lost their drug bag.
We opened it when we got home and found some ball point pen tubes converted to crack pipes, a partially-melted dime bag, and burned foil used for cooking the dope. We’re not sure about the energy drink, but possibly to keep one awake so they remember where they put their drug bag.
We found the mother lode of beer cans.
Behind a fence on Brickyard Road, we saw a bag and went in to retrieve it. From there, we saw some beer cans.
Not just some beer cans, a lot of beer cans. The first picture is the cans we first saw, then more cans farther down the hill to the to the left and more down the hill to the right. We estimate there were well over a hundred cans, but many were covered with leaves. We gathered what we could and saved the rest for another day.
Under the freeway, we found a skeleton.
It was up the bank and looked to be an opossum. It may be one of our previous roadkill removals.
Then things got weird.
Okay, weirder. This was found down a hill on Woodinville Drive across from the apartments. We tried Google Lens to find a match, but it refused to find anything. Guess we can’t blame Google, it was a bit creepy. We’re just glad we found it when it was daylight. If it had been earlier in our walk with flashlights…
We found something on the road that was smashed into several pieces. We picked them up and, when we got home, loosely assembled the parts.
It was a SmartyKat Loco Laser cat toy shaped like a mouse.
The cat probably tossed it out the window. Can we count this as a roadkill?
That wraps our week up. This week’s take:
- 23 Dollars and 52 Cents, counting the gift card.
- 26 Mike’s Hard Lemonade cans. Mike is back.
- 7 Balls, mostly returned to the owners.
- 5 Roadkill, including a messy opossum and its baby.
- 2 Urine bags.
- 1 Set of dog ID tags returned to owner.
- 1 CB radio antenna.
- 1 Garage door opener.
- 1 Video showing an identical garage door opener.
- 1 Dope bag.
- 1 Mother lode.
- 1 very creepy doll head.
Have a great week and remember to “Give Up on Giving Up.” Or not.
Trash Walking 