There's a stove in the ditch down the road from where I live. It has been there for as long as I can remember. A stove. In the ditch. Deep in the ditch. So deep it's on the other side, perched on an edge of the hayfield, but still part of the ditch.
Why?
Who rolls down the window and tosses out a stove?
While out walking, I have noticed that it is nearly always some sort of human vice that litter the ditches - cigarette packages, Tim Horton cups, beer cans and liquor bottles - the sort of things people want to distance themselves from. Addictions. The stove contradicts this theme. For whom is a stove a vice? A cookaholic?
When it first appeared questions must have been asked. Whose stove was it? Did they get a new one? Were they on the way to the dump when it fell out, bounced and somehow rolled its way up onto the edge of the field?
I took my husband to visit the Bessborough Ditch Stove last week. He had never noticed it before. It's true that it's not on the road he takes to work, but he's been living in this area for over 20 years. And it's a stove. In the ditch. As we made our way back onto the road, two vehicles went by, one right behind the other. If we had kept walking we could have easily slammed into their passenger doors. Neither driver saw us.
"We're just deer in the ditch." Darcy said, as the drivers went by, staring straight ahead. We weren't even wearing camouflage.
It got me thinking. If drivers didn't even notice two large adults in the ditch, how long has it been since they've noticed the stove? Which leads me to a plan. A great, grand, devious plan.
Check back for bold and exciting updates on the Ditch Stove Project . . .
