This past week was weather-perfect for outdoor projects – not too hot and not too cold, although the wind continues to blow.

One of the projects that happens this time of year is picking up garbage that has accumulated along the roadsides, etc. during the winter – year-round, actually!

I must commend my Back Narrows Road neighbors and friends who, for the fifth year, spent Saturday morning walking from one end of the three-plus miles long road to the other, carrying bags and wearing gloves, to clean up the trash strewn along the route. Once again, beer bottles and cans took the prize for the most tossed trash. Why are they there? I guess the drivers who are drinking don’t want to be caught with the evidence so they get rid of it by littering.

I did my small part, filling a 10-gallon bucket with mostly – you guessed it, bottle and cans – from along my usual dog-walking route of about an eighth of a mile. From the pictures I saw on Facebook, looks like the crew mentioned above (and below) filled the back of a pickup with bags of garbage.

I may miss some people who helped with Saturday’s clean-up, and I apologize, but this core group of road warriors deserve recognition for their yearly effort: Sarah Jo and Mark Barter, Corey, Brandy and Spencer Pottle, Heather and Ryan Casey, Mike and Danny Peters, Kristin Sibley Page and Mike Marr. To celebrate their job well done, Heather and Ryan hosted the group for a cookout; the Pottles have done the same in the past.

Kudos to others who may have done a similar project around the region. My brother Glenn reminded me that Joan Rittall and others used to organize roadside clean-up details, with kids and adults, in the 1970s.

What was one of the mottoes of those days … “Rise and shine, it’s clean-up time?”

Thanks neighbors!