Beautiful Day to Beautify the Church

This morning it was a brisk 32 degrees, sunny and calm, when men, boys, and even one girl from Avondale United Methodist Church started cleaning up the grounds of the church.

The annual event began at 9 a.m. with the pickup of leaves, brush and the various items of trash that accumulate around the church. Under the direction of David Garrett the attendees dispersed around the church from the back entrance to begin raking.

I was in attendance with my son Nathan and daughter Carly (the one girl working). Rakes were there in plenteous abundance, and people were accumulating piles of leaves, so the three of us took on the assignment of bagging the leaves piled up by others, and carrying them over to the dumpster rented by the church for the occasion.

The church has a lot of window wells, some of them quite deep. David Garrett, one of the tallest among us, was the one to use a ladder to climb down into them, bag up the leaves, and then come back out.One of the big annual projects is raking up the leaves on the Bellefontaine Ave. slope of the church. I don’t know which group of people raked them all up into piles, but Luke and Scott were the first to start picking the leaves up, raking them onto a tarp and then carrying them up to the dumpster.  Nathan and I saw them doing this on one of our trips to the dumpster and decided to join in and help. So on the next trip the 4 of us hauled the tarp up to the dumpster, which I believe was a lot easier.

Then David Garrett noticed and suggested he bring his truck over. So the rest of the leaves were carried up by loading the tarp with leaves, loading the tarp onto the truck, and then taking the truck up to the dumpster where the tarp was unloaded.  That was even easier. But it still was plenty of work raking the leaves into piles and then onto the tarp.

Another significant project is trimming the trees and brush on the east side of the lot, which includes the drainage ditch behind the “Little House”. That ditch is often used as a trash dumping spot. That ditch also leads to a pipe underneath the parking lot that can cause a lot of problems if it gets clogged, so we pay special attention to keeping it clean and the brush out of the way. This year the trash was minimal, and the brush wasn’t heavy either.

But that still left a lot of bushes all around the church, and the shrubs and plants along the main entrance walkway. Most of that got taken care of by the diligent crew before the ladies of the kitchen crew (who are always HIGHLY appreciated) put together the feast that they called lunch and called everyone in to eat. Hot dogs, sloppy joes, cole slaw, potato salad, baked beans, chips, and a smorgasboard of desserts greeted us from their creators’ industry.

A meal like that deserved to be followed by a very appreciative nap. But there was more work to be done. I didn’t see what that work was — I headed into the organ to do some more rehearsal and prep work for Sunday (substitute organist this weekend) — but I know they needed to finish up the cleanup, and then spread the new mulch around the trees, shrubs and flowerbeds.

We were all concerned coming up to the weekend about whether the weather would cooperate. And by the forecast it seemed like it would be a little cold. On the contrary, that 32 degrees we started at, calm, no wind, was ideal to work in — the work and sunshine kept you warm, and the temperature rose modestly during the day until various coats were able to be worn unzipped with comfort. Once again an ideal time to work. Especially since I just got an alert from my weatherbug that there might be scattered snow falling throughout the area around 9 p.m. tonight.