The Garden Continued

For the setup please see the original post.

I’m not the greatest go-gettingest-self-priming-and-starting-briggs-and-stratton gardener you’ve ever met, so I decided to start small.

Four shopping bags and a half-time refreshment small.

I spent about 45 minutes picking up garbage, although I stopped for a “pop” halfway through so I couldn’t have spent more than half-hour on actual work. I filled the four bags with garbage, most of it cups and wrappers from Micky Dee’s. Looking at the base of the steps things are definitely cleaning up, but at the top I barely made a dent in the surface garbage.

I used a stick to dig down a layer and I think the situation up top is more along the lines of an excavation than a simple cleanup.
This’ll require professional help.

Enter the Burnaby Engineering Department – 604 294-7210.

I didn’t expect it to be this easy. The site is near the train tracks and a highway. I thought I would get bounced between departments while trying to figure out which taxpayers, and which taxes, would be finally responsible for helping with the cleanup. I've run into similar situations trying to tell a story about potholes and who is responsible for filling them in.

The absolutely professional and pleasant person at the BED was more than happy to write up two work orders for me. One was to have a city crew remove the remaining refuse, the other was to have the area assessed for garbage-can-installation-viability. I’m happy the city will send someone(s) to clean, but it kind of stinks (and will for a while I imagine) that the area has to be “watched for a few months to see if we can put a garbage bin there.”

So, with an hour work (including commute) and a phone call we’ve got a moderately cleaner staircase that is about to get a whole lot better.
I am going to celebrate today’s success with a “pop” or two and the beach.

Oh, and sometime tomorrow I have to plant these earth-day flower-papers I found while organizing my filing cabinet.