I celebrated my experience of stewardship for one piece of the landscape with a small team of volunteers on Saturday afternoon.  We participated in the Pitch-in, a Clean Sweep that was happening right across Canada!  Here are photos of paricipants in Dryden, Ontario; Lacombe, Alberta; Hanna, Alberta and if you take a google on the information highway, you will see that participants worked this past week in every province and territory to change their landscape and do a Clean Sweep!  I feel very proud of my team for their efforts and their support.

We went out on Saturday morning, after an orientation around my feast table at home.

A hearty breakfast served, with gratitude.

We were granted beautiful weather and except for a section of property that was swamped by two days of rain, we were able to do a clean-sweep of Bishop O’Byrne highschool’s slope and a quick pick up on the flats.  We were witness to the mating dances/songs of Merganser Ducks on the water, as well as enjoyed this spring’s first siting of a heron in flight.  It was a truly wonderful time.

From the boundary of ‘my landscape’, looking down at a couple of members of team members.

Here are a couple of team members on the flats.  I felt so proud and happy.  After all of these months of work on this site, it was nice to have the company of others and to hear them saying the things that I had been saying in my head every single day.

Thank you, team!

There were some interesting finds…not much that I hadn’t found before.  In total yesterday, five lighters.  A discus.  Many granola bar wrappers.  I managed to haul another large piece of foam insulation out of the pond’s edge.

A Great group!

It was rewarding having others share the efforts because at the conclusion of a set amount of time, we had six bags of litter instead of one!  Whoot!  Whoot!  There’s rarely a photo opportunity where claymation-master, Kristen, doesn’t take the chance to make a face!  That’s her on the left.

YES!

And so, the Changing the Landscape: One Bag At a Time comes to a close.  I have my Drive By Shootings (filming) project in the works and still wish to contact the CPR regarding their position on garbage alongside their tracks…and apart from that, I’m going to be hitting the paint brushes…tending to the internal landscape for awhile.  I’ve learned so much by being so completely ‘in touch’ with a small part of our environment.  I hope that there will be many more stewards of Frank’s Flats in the future and that while they enjoy this space and spend time observing nature,  they will not take any of its beauty for granted.

Throwing in the towel AND TWO RUBBER GLOVES!

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. Author Unknown