Before and after

Ruth's mother was an avid gardener. In fact, when she looked after the property years ago, it was suitable for Better Homes and Gardens magazine. And in fact, she won local awards for her garden.

 I don't have many electronic photos of what it used to look like, but I can give you an idea...

This one was taken in 2003...

Ruth's parent's house in 2003.

But a garden like that is a lot of work. And when Ruth's mom passed away about 10 years ago, her father just couldn't keep up and it gradually deteriorated over the years. 

So Ruth has been spending a lot of time working on it over the past month. In the photo above, you can see that they had garden growing right out to the side of the road out front.

This is what it looked like when we arrived.

Mostly weeds.

And this is what it looks like now.

Like I said, it's hours of work.

While Ruth was doing that, I was cleaning out the work shed. He had years worth of old oil, gas and various chemicals that were garbage. But, they have some pretty strict regulations about getting rid of that stuff. This week, the municipality was operating a hazardous waste disposal site for a few days, so I took the opportunity to get rid of a bunch of that stuff.

But of course the little red car isn't very big. And, I didn't want to make a mess at all so I lined the rear hatch with thick garbage bag plastic and then put it in boxes that were also lined with plastic. Didn't need any leaks getting onto the material of the rental car! But there was too much stuff and I was going to have to make two trips.

I went to the website and read all of the rules to make sure I could drop off what I wanted to.

It was about 35 kms (22 miles) one way to the site.

I got there, and the first question the young guy asks me is "Are you a city of Ottawa property taxpayer?"

Not wanting to lie, and figuring they might ask for ID, I explained the story that I was just dropping this off for my 85 year old father in law who is a city of Ottawa taxpayer.

The guy says that no, I was going to have to turn around and go to the dump where I would get charged to drop it off.

I argued with him and eventually he waved me through, I think mostly because there was starting to be a line up behind me!

But then, I thought how am I going to come back with a second load? So when I got back to the house I called the city of Ottawa and explained the story. The girl totally agreed with me, and went off to check with someone else. When she came back on the line she said that they are not allowed to ask for identification, so simply say "yes" when they ask the question. We both laughed at my thought of what if I get the same guy? He's bound to remember me.

Anyhow, Ruth found the property tax invoice and I brought it with me. It was a different guy this time and when he asked the question, I just waved the paper at him and he waved me through.

Later, I got an email from the director of waste services from the city, apologizing for the inconvenience.

Kind of dumb to turn anybody away even if they are not a rate payer. Here is someone trying to do the right thing disposing of waste in a responsible manner, and they make it difficult. For the 2 or 3 people who might slide by who are not rate payers, who really cares? It's not like someone is going to drive for hours to drop their stuff off, and even if they did at least the stuff is being disposed of properly.

Back at the house again, I got the bikes out and we went for a ride.

Scenery along the way.

Lots of back roads around here for us to ride on.

We did just over 17 kms (10.5 miles) in an hour. Good workout on a nice day.

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