Dan Keayes spends 8 hours a day supervising the town’s Bayberry Lane yard waste site. He lets very little of his time — or whatever Westporters throw in the brush pile — got to, um, waste.
Over the past few years, Dan has built a handsome garden on a formerly forlorn dirt pile. Filled with sea grass, boxwoods — even a fig tree — it wraps around the entire building, behind the Westport-Weston Health District. Every living thing — plus wood chips and a birdhouse — was salvaged from nearby piles.
Plenty of stuff gets tossed there that shouldn’t. Once, every morning for a week, Dan found rocks (illegal to dump). He simply incorporated them into his creation. “If life gives you rocks, make a rock garden,” he philosophizes.
Dan Keayes stands near a small part of his creation.
The Monroe resident — a yard waste attendant for 15 years, at North Compo and North Avenue prior to his present location — says the garden is now self-maintaining. He trims a bit, and weeds here and there. But the garden takes care of itself.
Dan learns about gardening as he goes. Martha Stewart’s former landscaper has been a big help, teaching Dan about plants he doesn’t know.
Dan is unsure what his supervisors think. “I don’t know if anyone in charge knows what I do,” he laughs.
They may not. But anyone dumping brush does.
And they love it.
