I am hoping this squash fertilizes in time to carve a jack-o-lantern

I saw a complete watch with band in the middle of the street yesterday while riding home, but I didn't stop to check it out.

last night, at dusk I saw a bunny, then after dark I saw a rat. the rat was bigger than the bunny

Boston rats are notable.

Towards the end of a recent long and totally spontaneous ride, I found a matras on the verge of the countryside road. Thought it was funny; named it ‘B&B – The Verge’. Very cheap!

:-))

This morning I found a kayak paddle sitting all alone on the MUP. I left it there, seeing as I had no way to transport a kayak paddle, nor any need to own a kayak paddle.

This morning there was a blue water bottle in the bike lane... not a bike style but a gym style, with a valve spout. I had to leave it there as I judged it a bad idea to try to turn around and retrieve it along a very busy road with kiddo in the kid seat. If it had been a thermos and not a plastic bottle my decision might have been different. Was pricing out a Hydro Flask last night... damn!

Not really on the ground but

I try not to spend much money, as my wife takes care of that for both of us, but I splurged on a Hydro Flask from a favorite brewery and that is one of the best $40 I've ever spent. I wish I hadn't waited so long to do it now, and with the $10 straw lid it's even better for me.

-H

Yesterday I picked up a Thermal cycling skull cap and a dog harness. They were about 20 feet a part, so I don't know if someone's bag spilled or they were unrelated.

I did bring them home. The dog harness had a broken fastener so I threw it away, but the cycling cap washed up and I used it this morning for my commute to work. Temp was a crisp 29 degrees, and the cap fit and worked great.

I have found things in the street or near the gutter while riding my bike and sometimes I have picked them up but depending on what it was I have at other times moved it off the street where it can be seen. I have lost things that fell of my bike while riding and went back to look for them and was happy to find them, that somebody didn't just pick them up and say, "mine now".

Paper handkerchieves everywhere. Like breadcrumbs ;-)

Found my new best pair of gloves. Black Canyon Outfitters, with leather palms, worn smooth, but no tears. Good time of year to find them. Winter is coming.

2 dead raccoons in the road on Wednesday's commute, less than 200 yards apart from one another. Weird.

Probably a murder/suicide.

I've seen almost entire raccoon families flattened by what must have been a tractor trailer. you get a mom in front crossing a road & 3 or 4 babies behind it, then 18 wheels come along, that can't swerve & you have that result. always sad to see especially the little ones

I rode in between a pair of adult raccoons one night out in the country on a BMW boxer. I'm not sure how I missed them considering how wide those engines are, but I did.

Saw a really nice pair of scissors in the road last week. Turned around to pick them up and they were only broken toy scissors.

Bummer. I have quite a few small screwdrivers, wire cutters, and pairs of pliers I have found in the road. I even found a very fancy padlock one time . . . with the key still in it!

When I was 20yo, I was riding home after dark on my Sportster.
I was doing 55mph around a nice sweeping curve when...OH ****!!!
A mama skunk was leading a caravan of baby skunks across my lane.
Being banked over as I was, and certain a squashed skunk would provide very poor traction, I tried the only option I had: Aim to put my tires between two skunks.
It worked, thank goodness!

These 2 were scurrying across the interstate on a pitch black night. I didn't have time to react more than thinking "golly, this might not be good", and somehow managed to go right between them.

On Friday I found this 16" long 3/4" drill bit (top).

Yesterday I found this 8" crescent wrench.

Weird thing happened on Saturday. I was on a 200 km brevet, riding with two other guys, who were just ahead of me. I saw a chrome tool that looked like an extra-long socket wrench, and immediately stopped to pick it up. But having just seen it seconds before, I couldn't find it! I looked around for a few seconds, but the guys I was riding with were getting farther away. Okay, nuts to this, I thought; and I rode off without finding the tool, whatever it was.

Probably an optical illusion, where the fact that you found a tool the day before made your brain think a shiny rock or stick was a similar tool.

Sorta like when you find a $20 bill on the ground. For the next few days, every rock, leaf, and piece of trash starts looking like a $20 bill. Though I did go through a one week period once, where I found $20 bills on the ground in three separate places. Very strange.

I found my second set of keys yesterday. The first set of keys I found the person who lost the keys and they told me they must of started their car with the proximity key then drove off with the keys on the ground as where their car was parked is where I found them. Maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon but this wouldn't happen if cars required keys to be in the ignition to run.