Cleaned Up -Nicely!

For years and years many people around here used the old coal stripping cuts as their own personal junk yard. And not just the stripping cuts but also, the area along side of the roads to two nearby areas here - Cooper Two and Peale - became massive dumping spots too. All of that made for a combination of a massive eyesore as well as dangerous areas to be near from the different type of garbage people through out -anything, as the old saying goes, "from soup to nuts." These areas held all kinds of things people threw out -furniture, appliances of the large and small varieties, clothing, kitchen garbage, old batteries, probably just about anything and everything except maybe Ferrari parts it probably would be safe to say could be found in these dumps.

Thankfully, over the years there has been a tremendous effort put forth to curbing the dumping of trash randomly -along the roadside or back in the huge chasms in the earth left behind by coal stripping operations.

I don't know exactly when the reclamation began of the area out along Cooper Two Road which runs a little north and easterly from my house but in filling in the former mining operations there, the mountainside now has contours to it as close as possible to what it was looked like, many years ago.

Here's a current view though of the mountain side that has recently been part of a reclamation job here. This is looking out from near the top of Cooper Two mountainside and across to the mountains on the backside of Peale -the ghost town here.

And in this photo, along Peale Road -which used to have garbage brought down here and just dumped right along the road and which littered the banks of the road for about a mile at least - this is a view looking down from the road into the gully and swampy area well below along the Moravian Run -better known in this area as the Sulfur Creek -that when I was a kid, you would never have been able to see the trees, the stream, the swampy area that is there for all the garbage that once was strewn along here.
These are just a couple pictures I have taken on my walks with Sammy using my newly acquired camera to replace the one that got broken -on one of our walks -about 5-6 weeks ago now. It doesn't have massive power with respect to the zoom feature but hopefully, it will bring some of the things I see on my walks into a better perspective for you to see as you travel along with Sammy and with me.

Here's a picture though that really has me a bit baffled. I'm far from an expert at the vegetation that grows out in the woods here but the other day, I saw this flower blooming near a little run out along Cooper Two and I don't recall ever having seen a flower like this before. Got any idea what it might be?