Friday, April 30, 2021

Swept Out of Bed

To say the least, that was weird!  We were watching tv when out of the corner of my eye I I thought that I saw strange lights out on the street, and they seemed to emanate from trucks turning around and around. What the heck?!

This was around 7 o'clock. Full of curiosity, we paused the program, went to the patio door, and confirmed that, indeed, there were trucks turning around and around. 

With this better view, we soon discerned that there were 4 street sweepers plus a little truck to guide or follow them. What the heck?! Four? Sweepers? In the evening?

They went south, down the street, past the traffic lights. Thinking that was the end of the weird show, we settled back into our program. 

Lo and behold! A few minutes later. we were caused to spring from out chairs yet again. They were back, heading north this time. They drove out of sight; surely they were done.  

And they were done, but only for a few hours, as it eventuated.

As usual, Sue trundled off to bed early, and put in her earbuds to listen to a podcast. Shortly thereafter, ~10 o'clock, alerted by quite a racket she heard above her podcast, she jumped out of bed, thinking that she was hearing a helicopter passing over. This does happen from time to time as the hospital's helipad lies just over yonder.

Somewhat incredulously, she notified me that the same four trucks, plus their minder, were passing yet again. Apparently, they made one more subsequent pass, but I missed that one as I was then elsewhere in the house doing other things.

Four sweepers! Turning around! Going up and down! For several hours! In the evening!

I have never seen the like.


17 comments:

Patio Postcards said...

HaHaHa. My Mr Man would be thrilled to have four street sweepers out on our street; we get one lone little truck once a year. My second thought was, could this be a training session in play?

Marcia said...

What were they collecting? Sand? we expect sweepers to come by here sometime this spring. They collect the sand the trucks put down on the snow laden roads.

Your streets must have been flithy for them to pass so many times or maybe they were training.

DJan said...

If you do eventually find out what it was all about, I hope you will tell us.

Barbara Rogers said...

They know all about you...and were obviously spies. You'd best turn yourself in, having that stockpile of (sand, dope, small valueable things?) that they were hoping to sweep up. Otherwise, you might report them for wasting tax dollars with sweeps and re-sweeps.

William Kendall said...

That's quite thorough.

David M. Gascoigne, said...

And the crew was probably paid time and a half! You taxes being wisely spent!

Marie Smith said...

Your road must be quite the mess! Lol.

MARY G said...

Gee, a clean sweep. They are all over Lanark Village as well. Broken field driving ensues.
What we get is a large road grader turning around in front of our place, beeping like mad. I guess in case a squirrel is in the way. Speaking of squirrels, one of them got onto the hydro transformer and shorted it out somehow. Hydro had to come out and reset it. Fried squirrel, they said.

PipeTobacco said...

Like Patio Postcard, we get one sweeping a year. I find it interesting to watch it work.

PipeTobacco

Karen said...

Pembroke posts notices that the street cleaners are going to be out and about between this time and that time and the streets they will be on. If memory serves (I haven't lived in town since 98), they make a pass in formation in one direction, then another pass in the next direction, then a pass to scrub the roads. When I saw them yesterday, a front end loader was scooping up the winter sand and other debris that was swept up. They reminded me of the formation of the snowplows on the 401.

Debby said...

Do they eat off the streets in your town?

Mage said...

Sweeping up the Covid leanings.

Margaret said...

Debby's comment was exactly what I was going to say, so I'll just shake my head. I might call the company to inquire what in the world was going on!

Rita said...

That is odd. Like others have wondered--maybe a training session? But why at night for goodness sake?

Joanne Noragon said...

Well, it's spring and streets like to be clean, too.

Red said...

Well, you're going to have a very clean street.

Ed said...

I do like those sweepers. They came to our street finally about four days ago and cleaned all the winter grit off. It makes for a much pleasant walking experience since we have no sidewalks.