The road to ruin is littered with dashed hopes

Someone's lottery scratcher did not produce a win, so it was carelessly tossed out of a car window onto the side of the road. The ticket's pretty colors will compete with the wildflowers until rain and sunlight cause it to decompose. Once again, I did not pick up this piece of litter I encountered on a recent walk with Callie.

I like the flowers better.

While there isn't a lot of litter around here, we do find curious things along the roads and paths from time to time. Mostly we see used shotgun shells. There is also a busted clay pigeon or two. Crumpled tissues, crushed cigarette packs, and empty beer cans show up periodically, although none in great quantity. A few times, someone used the woods as a dump for broken floor tiles, old appliances, and miscellaneous pieces of household trash (these were quickly cleaned up by the town). I remember wondering why someone would pack that stuff up and dump it in the woods when there are free dumping facilities within a few kilometers. A while back we discovered the rusted out shell of an abandoned car in the woods, all overgrown with vines and weeds. After a couple of years, it disappeared, but we have no idea who took it away. I once saw a couple of used condoms on the ground at the end of the dirt road that runs through the vineyard. Yuck. I used a stick to move them into a ditch and covered them with leaves so the dog would not get curious.