A rant. A lengthy one. Some disturbing images...

Last week I took the dogs for a walk down to Torbay’s Big Beach. The sewage outfall pipe has apparently been replaced and I’d heard rumours (unfounded, perhaps) that the large, yet invisible, signs warning people away from the beach were going to be removed. I even heard word of a big opening ceremony. Again, the rumours may be nothing more than that. Rumours. 

So, there I was, walking the beach and very dismayed at my findings. I’m going to post the photos, as disgusting as they are. I’m sorry... but I think the impact of seeing it for yourself speaks more strongly than any of my words. 

A mini-pad. No wings... 

A diaper wipe

NOT a scallop... 

Another "disposable" cloth

This, for the guys who don't know, is a tampon applicator. Plastic

Another tampon

Add caption

Pink! Isn't it pretty!!! :P

Toilet paper,  I think.

This one looks like a kid's plastic toy trumpet

All these photos were taken during a 10-minute span of time. I didn’t have to go looking for any of the items, as they all stand out quite clearly. I don't know about you, but I read the package of tampons when I was fairly young and I'm sure I remember the instructions saying "DO NOT FLUSH" ... What is wrong with these women? Do they seriously not know any better?! You don't flush this stuff! While the fluffy cotton with is cute little string will eventually disintegrate, the plastic is NOT biodegradable!

There was a machine, affectionately called the “Muffin Monster” which was supposed to grind whatever came through the sewer pipe before it entered the bay, there to be spewed out and carried off into the Atlantic via the ocean current. I’d seen several examples of this machine’s failure to adequately chew up material ever since our arrival in Torbay. I thought I was looking at a scallop when I first saw one lying on the beach! We now call them “Tampy the Mouse.” It turns out that the machine isn’t even in the ground anymore. It was removed for repair (?) and it was advised (?) that it wasn’t truly necessary (?) as the new pipe was sufficiently far enough away from the shore to ensure that it wouldn’t wash back. (?!?!)

Apparently, that is NOT the case. I've been told that the "guys" go down and clean the beach "regularly" ... I'm sure it wasn't in their job description. I don't envy them. Apparently they pull a couple of bags of "stuff" out whenever they go down. 

Capelin are coming soon. Think anybody will be fishing in Torbay? 

Change of topic: 

I thought you might be interested in seeing the result of the work done by the owner of the property just west of Tapper's Cove. (78-82 Dunphy's Lane, Torbay) This is the area where the large appliances, etc. were being thrown (looked like the town dump) and I understood he'd been ordered to clean up the mess. (Update: An Environmental Protection Officer sent a letter to Torbay's Town Council indicating that this mess was to be cleaned up by June 22, 2011. Inappropriate items, such as metal products like duct work, metal piping, heating radiators, and an old trailer undercarriage, children's toys, domestic garbage, old appliances and an old wooden shed, etc. were to be removed and properly disposed of.) (I happen to know that there's a wooden boat hiding in that pile, too!) If this is what he considers "cleaning up," I'd hate to have him in charge of any major works in town! 


There's also a smelly sludge making its way down the hill, across the trail, and down to the ocean where you can see the murky guck swirling around against the shore. A section of the newly-minted East Coast Trail, just between the two sets of stairs (Tapper's Cove to Father Troy) is muddy, which isn't the worst problem. It stinks! STINKS! It smells like some sort of raw sewage is draining down. Several HUNDRED people walk that trail in a fortnight's period (Hello there all you Tely Hikers!), and each one of them must go through that section. I’d like to think that somebody else has noted the problem and informed the TECT and the Town of Torbay. However, most people seem to think that it’s surely somebody else's responsibility, or somebody else has already informed "somebody."

It's hard to see, but there's a sludge of black oozing into the water.

Is that a fridge?! There's a boat under the pile to the left... A dory, or something.

Clean fill? What's clean fill supposed to be made up of? Is this clean fill?

Aww... the dogs are trying to drink the water. There's usually a bit of a stream with clean water for them. What a disgusting disappointment. This is the trail that people walk through! It absolutely REEKS! 

The first image is of the garbage which has apparently been left under the "soil." Is that really appropriate "fill" material?! I've taken other photos over the past year and sent them on to the town. Has there been any monitoring of what he uses and how he cleans it up? Doubtful, based on the speed, and the fact that I took a small video not long ago where a dump truck was pouring soil over the bank with the appliance-pile still sitting nearby. It's disgraceful that property owners are allowed to do as they like with their land, no matter what the repercussions to anything else affected by their actions. 

Keep Torbay Clean? I'm more and more disgusted. There's no garbage bins at Torbay Beach for people to put their trash into. Shortly after we moved here, I spoke to one of the Town’s “people” about setting out concrete garbage bins and was told that vandalism was more likely to happen. People would throw the garbage bins into the ocean, as had happened at the Gully. 

Should've taken a picture before the wind blew it around... Micky D's trash in a huge pile!

Well, gee whiz! Now they open their car doors and shovel their McDonald's and Tim Horton's garbage, cigarette butts, dirty diapers, etc. etc. etc. directly out onto the beach. Our family learned to take a plastic grocery bag on our walks so that we could pick up some of the debris found along the trail and on the beach. Pretty soon, the bags were too small for the job and we were lugging green garbage bags!  With the damage to the sewage pipe, I've been reluctant to touch anything on the beach, with good reason. I don't claim that garbage bins will be 100% effective, but who knows! It might help a bit! We can be taught!! 

Further to the Beach debris... I'm also attaching a couple of photographs of campfire debris. A number of teenagers from the high school were down by the beach last week and apparently decided that the beach was a good place to leave their trash. Garbage bags, half-empty bag of marshmallows, a bucket... Teens aren’t the only culprits. I’ve seen remains of campfires on the beach where adults have been just as negligent in picking up after themselves. Apparently, somebody else will clean up after them. Or the ocean will wash it all away and that’ll be the end of the problem. *snort* Ignoramuses... 

Cuz the beach needs another bucket...

Should've photographed this yesterday when the 1/2 bag of marshmallows was still there. 

And what campfire would be complete without the requisite plastic garbage bag?

Here’s a few pictures of metal debris. Apparently, they’re segments of the old sewage outfall pipe. They're rusting and sharp-edged. I hope you're all up on your tetanus shots! And just think, there was some sort of "Mermaid" photo shoot done at Torbay Beach yesterday afternoon. I wonder how those are going to turn out with all the garbage on the beach? PhotoShop, I suppose.

This is in the stream by the bridge...

and this tire rim is just on the other side of the bridge. This is the river that we helped the ECTA clean out last year! 

Despite the large, yet seemingly difficult to see signs, people still use the beach. Heck, why shouldn’t they?! IT’S OUR BEACH!!! We deserve for our beaches to be clean! Our oceans aren’t a dumping ground! If we don’t look after things, who the heck will? Some mythical authority figure? Psht... I haven’t seen much evidence of that lately.

Rant over. For now. Thanks for listening. Hope it helps in some way to raise awareness of the problem and to truly, keep our town clean.

Summer is AWOL, and we discover "Stinky" the Mink

“Another blustery Monday morning. Rain for everybody... a bit of fog, a bit of wind. Quite strong winds. About 3 mm of rain. And there’s moose. So, be careful behind the wheel today!” ...  That’s the word from VOCM this morning. 

A quick glance out the window corroborates the weather conditions. Yup. It’s raining and foggy. Again. *sigh* I thought it was heading towards summer.  It was dry and non-rainy this past weekend. The sun, while a bit washed-out, was shining. We actually sat out on our back deck for several beautiful afternoon hours, playing cards with friends. Somebody seems to have hit the Rewind button again.

Ah well. That’s the way it goes. I’m sure that once we have summer in our grasp, all pains, agonies, and suffering will be forgotten and forgiven. I can hardly wait!

Moving on...

Paul found a baby mink on Friday night! It was chirping miserably on the parking lot of the Torbay Circle K, attracting a lot of unwanted attention from a pair of circling cats. He watched and waited for nearly half an hour to see if Mama Mink showed up for a rescue. No such luck. He says that he squatted down and reached out his hand and the little thing scrambled over and crawled in for a rescue.

You know your rough, tough, he-man is a softie when he shows up at the door with a ragged little bundle of fur snuggled in the crook of his arm. A STINKY little bundle of fur! There’s a very good reason that ferrets are de-scented. This guy has his musk glands firmly in place, and when he gets stressed... whew! Imagine the very worst smelling underarm scent you’ve ever encountered. (think back to that hot summer day when you sat on the bus with the sweaty, smelly guy next to you!)  DOUBLE IT. You’re getting close. 

Fortunately, we’re not noticing it so much anymore. (It’s Day 3) Either we’re getting used to it (it’s not all that unpleasant in small quantities), or our noses have had their linings singed off. Considering our Saturday afternoon guests noticed a slight odor, but weren’t offended by it ... his quote was “I like it!” ... it’s not that bad. Actually, I kept circling the kitchen in an effort to discover the source of the horrid armpit stink, (yes, I’m weird), only to discover that the smell was coming from the package of fresh basil!  

We tried contacting the Wildlife people, to no avail. Did you know that Government services close down over the weekend?! The SPCA didn’t want anything to do with it. Even Heavenly Creatures, as helpful as Jessica was, couldn’t do anything for us. 

No worries. We’re going to feed him up for a week or so and then release him ourselves. He’s eating well. Very well. I wonder if they eat until they bust or if they self-regulate. Hmm.. 

Because he has such tiny baby teeth, we figure he’s just teething now. We fed him small bowls of evaporated milk mixed with water. A 1: 2 milk to water ratio seemed to be favored. Some canned cat food, using the sample of Taste of the Wild that I picked up at the NL Pet Expo last weekend. I started thawing the feeder mice I keep in the freezer for our snakes. I thought, since he’s a small critter, we’d begin with the smallest size available. I was impressed to see him chomping through a half-frozen hopper! I picked up a handful of minnows from the pet store, and he seems to have enjoyed the first one, once he found it. I guess it doesn’t have a strong odor. Their noses aren’t their strongest asset. 

We’re thinking that we should let him get some exercise so he doesn’t turn into a fat lump of furball with poor digestion (think of your last airline flight!), so we started releasing him into the downstairs bathroom for feedings. I’m planning to set a pan of water down for him to explore. Mink are semi-aquatic hunters and damn good swimmers, but the bathtub experience was traumatic. A smaller setting might be more appropriate. Tossing a pair of minnows in for good measure. Something for him to chase and catch. 

lol... which reminds me of last evening! Our next door neighbour has one of those live-trap mouse catchers. She caught a mouse and offered it to us for little Stinky. Let the fun begin.

Sequence of events:

Set trap in mink bin.

Slide open the trap door.

Mouse FLIES out.

Mouse zooms around mink bin and returns to trap.

Flies back out of back side of trap.

Decision is made to remove the trap so the mink has a chance to catch it.

Open mink bin.

Mouse flies out of mink bin and zips into kitchen.

Mook and I scream. I dance in place, my heart going pitter-patter. Mook jumps onto the couch.

Regina and Paul scramble after it, dustpan in hand. Paul laughing like a loon.

It took some work, but the dreaded mouse was soon clobbered and ready for re-insertion in the bin. 

BUT!!!  ... there’s always a “but.” ... There was a second mouse in the trap! Who knew?! It took advantage of our distraction with his compatriot and also flew out of the mink bin. (More screams from Mook and I.) This one stayed behind the buffet in the dining room. It took a bit more work to finagle it out, but again, the dustpan proved to be a good tool for sedating the damn thing. So, two adult mice, one live, one definitely deceased. 

Moments after putting the still-barely alive one in, I heard a startled squeak, cut off quickly and replaced with a sort of crunching noise. Apparently, Stinky starts at the head and works his way down to the tail.

Well, we know he’s capable of eating larger prey. Now we’re going to see if he can catch it himself. I’m not sure how to do that. I am sure I don’t want to go through the role of mouse-catcher again.

It’s kind of interesting to have a wild mink around. We looked on the ‘net and found that many people have taken them on as pets. Probably the domestic ones that are used in the fur industry. Apparently there’s a window of opportunity when they’re young where you can socialize and tame them. Ours is probably in that window, but we’re more keen on releasing him into the wild than turning him into a pet. With that in mind, we’re not handling him more than necessary. Leather gloves. Did I mention he was able to eat a half-frozen mouse?! I like my fingers just fine where they are. 

He strongly resembles a black ferret with a white chin-spot. Heavier headed, longer and stronger neck, and solid bodied. Soft, plushy coat. I can understand why people favor them as coats. But he’s got such an expressive face and I’ve watched a few of them cavorting in our stream over the last few years. They’re beautiful to watch! How could you peel the skin off and wear it? I don’t get it.