A swarm of volunteers descended on Hemlock Gorge this morning for the annual spring cleanup of the park. It’s part of the much larger Charles River Cleanup over the whole length of the river.
Village14 regulars were well represented by me, Greg Reibman (in photo), Bob Burke and alderman Brian Yates. Greg was hoping to top his find of a $20 bill at last year’s cleanup – but came up empty handed. I, on the other hand, scored two rubber ducks and a stuffed animal.
Dunn Gharin’s donated lunch for the entire crew and the historic Stone Barn was opened for the occasion.
By noon time, the crew of 30 or 40 volunteers had cleaned the whole park, hauled a mountain of trash and Hemlock Gorge is looking better than it has in months.
Thank you all for your hard work!
Several observations from a morning of picking up other people’s trash.
1. Vodka is the most popular nip. Or at least vodka nip is most popular among inconsiderate slobs who toss their empty nip bottles out the car window while driving past Hemlock Gorge.
2. You’d be stunned by the number of people who clean up after their dog and then tie up the bag and toss it into the bushes. Do they not realize that sealing it in plastic is worse then not cleaning up after their dog at all?
3. While there are a lot of slobs on this planet, there’s a lot of really amazing folks too…including the 30 or more people that spent the morning at Hemlock Gorge cleaning up the after the aforementioned pigs.
4. Dunn Gharin rocks!
Most folks hauled away more than I did, but I was able to get some unsightly items of trash that I had been almost obsessing about since I first saw them during the fall cleanup last October. I had tried to get these items in the Fall cleanup, but there was just too much water bordered by steep rock cliffs to reach the area.
Today, I climbed down to the Devil’s Den (Hemlock Gorge’s largest cave) to see if the items (a wad of plastic bags, 3 six packs of empty beer and an old jacket) were still on the other side of the stream leading into New Pond. They were.
Now, this Spring’s drought had created a dry bed that I was able to walk over to reclaim all the items. But first, I had to do a major hike past Artists’ Point to the top of the Gorge and back down to New Pond. I snatched them up and returned to the Stone Building for a great lunch with some very nice people, courtesy of the generous folks at Dunn Gaherins.
you guys are awesome. I couldn’t go today due to family obligations, but I’m planning on taking my inlaws tomorrow for a hike. So glad it will be clean! Thanks for your hard work!
You guys really do rock!!!! Thanks.
Our relatively new neighbors, the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, had a crew of about 10 volunteers there. These are the folks who have been refurbishing the old Methodist church on Summer St, around the corner from Echo Bridge.
My favorite volunteers were the parents with little kids – start ’em off young!