Sheepish!

Oh dear! I think I'm taking my Eco-warrior persona too seriously these days! It's time to scale back, I think.

Dale 'caught' me returning from a plant survey, loaded up with a plastic table and chair balancing on my kayak, a spare paddle, as well as bottles, cans, plastics, fishing line and plant samples. I do my best to remove trash and unsightly litter from our lake whilst I'm out, no matter how difficult or impossible the task may seem.

I think I look like a homeless person carrying their possessions around with them!

Sometimes I reach up with my shrub rake, enmesh it in the fishing line hanging down from the branches above, then twist it as if eating spaghetti, until it's well and truly tangled, and then pull down hard with all my might, often showering myself and my kayak with twigs, seeds, branches and needles. I carry a knife, scissors and gloves with me to handle some of the fishing tackle.

But my latest foray is embarrassing ... I feel so stupid and sheepish. Last week, in my overenthusiastic exuberance to remove litter and ugly plastics from the lake, I broke off a twig to bring this strange item home.

Yes, I did notice that it was deliberately attached with a zip tie, but I thought no more of it. Dale took one look at it and said "that's probably a geocache!" which it was! Oh dear me! What a fool I am! I should have guessed when I saw that it was intentionally attached to a branch - it was clearly not a loose, floating piece of plastic. Here is the visitor log for the cache (it's a little like the old hobby of 'letterboxing' - a combination of technology, geography and scavenger hunts):

I added my visit to the log and returned it to its original location over the weekend. And I thought I was done with driving my kayak to remote parts of the lake. That'll teach me - what an interfering little busybody I am!