C'est Ma Terre

"It's My Earth"

So this post serves to highlight the less-than-glamorous part of life here in France.  On this morning, our snug little hillside hamlet had seen better days. The five houses in the hamlet have a communal trash dumpster that we dump all our trash bags into (and, weirdly, our seperated clear plastic bags of recycled materials... I am convinced they just throw everything away).  In any case, some people close the lid back over the dumpster and some, apparently, don't. When the lid is not closed it opens up a smorgasbord for the neighborhood cats (and Lord knows what else) who tear apart bags and drag various delicacies out, leaving remnants scattered about. One day earlier this week, I saw a cat who had chewed into a bag of recycled plastic containers and actually *crawled inside the bag* to make sure no spare morsel was missed.  He was still inside when I found him. Real nice. He politely declined my offer of assistance. 

Today was a gorgeous day so the kids and I set out on a field trip to do trash clean up. Call it an early Earth Day practice run.  Ellie asked several times why I had gloves on and I explained that sometimes other people's trash is not clean (she seemed okay with that explanation).  So today was trash clean up day around the dumpster. I found many Coke cans, a flip flop, a metal hub cap type thing and an amazing array of other items that had escaped the bounds of their green plastic bagged confinement.

The dumpster looks just lovely now.  Though the cats seem a bit forelorn.  Hey, it might not really be MY village but, translating the accompanying music (by Christophe Maé if you want to check him out), it's my Earth, it's where I sit.