week 10 John & Ginger "Happy 4th of July" in zone 4

Wow!!!  I think lots of people celebrated in zone 4 yesterday!!!  And they were already setting up this morning with tents and trolly carts of chairs and toys--- it looked like a lot of work to me and I don't want to work that much on 4th of July!....or do I????  After all, we did collect 13 bags of trash!!!

One of the first things that John found was an American Flag near the surf.  This flag is now in one of my big plant containers and it looks great with the Hibiscus Tree.  :)

We could have collected more trash today, but honestly after 13 bags, we were really done!

Besides lots of plastic, straw sleeves, paper, and other bits and bops, our bags contained the following:

31 butts
17 plastic bottles
8 glass bottles (several of which were buried in the sand) (we actually uncovered them for the picture below)
10 aluminum cans

7.5 plastic cups
4 plastic condiment cups from Oceanic
3 styrofoam cups
5 plastic cup lids
39 straws/stirrers

6 fireworks and a lot more plastic remnants from fireworks.  We picked up two large boxes of explosives and saw more in the trash cans.

1 towel
1 pair of sunglasses
1 pair of reading glasses
1 panty liner (yuck)
1 plastic bag of tent stakes ( a friend of ours took those)
46 various plastic bottle caps

1 blistex chap stick
1 Bobbie Brown lipstick (not my shade)
1 large metal scooper that said "jelly belly"
30 toys (including foam shapes of a duck and elephant)
3 balloons
2 nets for toy packaging

2 ziplock bags
3 plastic bags (two of which we utilized to finish picking up trash)
1 boogie board (left at trashcan)
2 pair of flip flops
7 clothing articles (one we left by the trashcan on the beach with the towel)

We also found one volley ball net that was left up near the yacht club.  I know it is difficult to assemble those nets and take them down and put them back up b/c I have one at home.  However, turtles get tangled in these types of structures that are left on the beach.  They even become stuck in beach furniture, such as chairs.  There was a false crawl at Caswell Beach this week that apparently was deterred from nesting due to an abandoned tent that had been left on the beach.  (sigh)

On our way back, we did see Nancy Faye Craig on her bike and that made for a really "Happy 4th of July"!

Yesterday, we were boating and we scooped 1 ziplock bag,  3 plastic bottles, & 5 aluminum cans from the water + 1 boat key floatie.  There were no keys attached, so we plan to use it on our water proof camera. :)  (I am going to add these numbers to our totals)

The picture below is the celebration across from Masonboro.  I have to say that the island itself looked pretty great thanks to Masonboro.org.  They are doing a fabulous job!