Courtyard Beautification

This past Saturday we had an impromtu clean up morning in our courtyard. First it started with Rachel and Lucas raking some leaves and then I saw them and decided I wanted to do and do some yard work. Plus, I was getting erked by all the leaves that had fallen in the last few weeks.....yes, they fall in spring here because the new leaves are coming in, weird if you ask me.

(We have a person who comes and does basic grounds work in the courtyard, but things like raking out flower beds and planting isn't done by him.)

So I got out there and started raking and then Ben and Alisa came out and started to help. We cleaned out everyone's flower beds by raking out years and years and inches and inches of dead leaves. Then we took out all the dead debris from the flower pots and set them aside (we'll get flowers this week). Afterwards, Carl came out and trimmed all the trees and bushes around the place and was in his glory. Every spring he loves to prune bushes, a primitive hair cut session, a tension reliever, a way to release the plant from it's decaying limbs. Joel and Kezia helped out too by hauling the branches onto the compost pile.

There were so many leaves that we had to fill garbage bags and then empty them because we would have run out. We filled two autobins full of leaves and such. By 11:30 I was getting hot and sweaty and Rachel was kind enough to bring out water for everyone. At noon, we finished up by sweeping the entire courtyard.

We decided that since we all worked together, we should eat together. So Ben and Lucas went to buy some tri-tip and I made a pasta salad. It was a wonderful meal and out of us sitting over lunch, we had some good discussion about how we can make this courtyard better. We planned to have a meeting later on that afternoon with everyone to talk about more issues.

There was one part of the weekend that was a bit emotionally draining for me, but I don't know if I'll blog about that. The issue hasn't been resolved and involves the entire courtyard, so I don't think I will share about it until it's all out in the open and done with. But I was proud of myself, because I spoke when I needed to, to the people I needed to, and now have peace about leaving it to be dealt with by those higher up.

The whole weekend was us neighbours sitting and eating together, which was nice because it was started by two people who wanted to do some light yard work, being the catalyst for a very positive time in our courtyard.

I would have had pictures to share, but I was so busy cleaning that morning, I didn't get the camera out. What do you say that when we get our flowers, I'll go around and take pictures of our lovely new courtyard, okay?