hooks - ganxos

Went away with the man and some friends for an excursion this weekend.....and it was marvelous.

It's going to take two posts to cover this, because first I want to talk about a town in Catalunya.  The town, Horta de Sant Joan is small, and fairly remote but had a couple of interesting things about it.

Now, I have to say, I was there for very little time.  Very little, so these observations are based on very little information.  Though, still interesting to me.

First thing that struck me as unusual was the number of dogs off-leash, even in the quite busy main plaça.  Most of them smaller and all of them calm and pretty friendly.  

Then we went for a walk, and I noticed these:  

 Weird, no?  And they slope upwards, like maybe, just maybe they were supporting some sort of curved beams, but there isn't really anywhere for them to land.  So I have NO idea what those are all about.  

Then I noticed that every house has one of these, or a version thereof:

See? Lots and lots of hooks on all the buildings.  Look below, see what they then do with them?

Guess why.....

All those dogs off leash?  Seems they like garbage, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever had ANYTHING at all to do with a dog.  So, in this town, which seems to have agreed to leave the dogs off leash, everyone has a hook on the outside of their house, on which they hang a bucket with their garbage in it at the appropriate time of day....

I would like to add that in this town of loose dogs, we saw a grand total of 0 dog poops on the street.  That's right.  None.

Wish I could say the same about where I live, and where almost every single dog is on-leash.

Oh, and there was this really nifty mailbox too: