It’s getting perilously close to springtime, and working outside. We all like to see things green up, and those of us with early flowers have already noticed touches of green here and there. My surprise lilies have been trying to come up for a couple weeks, but the cold spells tend to slow them a bit. I hope we don’t get a real hard freeze, or else they will get a surprise of their own! Last year the leaves were burned on the tips because they didn’t wait long enough.
Although there are benefits to a cold winter, such as bug and weed die-off, we have kind of been blessed at the school this winter by not having the ground totally frozen when we needed to do work. And there has been a LOT of outside work done, starting from as soon as we got possession of the building, to last week, and there is a lot more planned for this spring.
We had to do a lot of digging around the southeast door, to address the issue of water in the basement. That was done early on, so we could work without swimming, although we had another chance to get our feet we one day when the water softener drained all over the floor. Amazing how much water that thing goes through!
Another issue was that there were sandbags around the west basement door when we bought the building. I remember wondering what we had gotten ourselves into when I first saw them, but having someone at church with heavy dirt moving equipment and drainage experience came in handy. They soon had the runoff rerouted away from that area, but there is still some work to be done to handle all the water coming off the football field. That seems to be another blessing to a wet winter. All these frequent rains have allowed us to check our landscaping work every once in a while and make corrections where needed.
Lately, a bit more work was done on the east side of the building, hooking up the downspouts to underground drains. It will be nice to have all the earth moving done on the east side. Every time it rains, a bit more mud runs out into the driveway and makes it hard to get in and out of cars without getting mud on your shoes. And that is some sticky stuff! Can’t wait for the grass to grow back in that area.
Although I haven’t heard anything about it myself, I wonder if there are plans by any green thumbs to plant some flowers or shrubbery around the building. That would go a long way to making it seem like a living, working building again. But I would hate to have anything planted and then have to dig it all up again. Maybe we better wait until we see how everything functions before we do the final landscaping. Besides that, I know everyone is putting forth all their efforts just to get the school open, and that’s what is most important right now. We can pretty it up later.
Another project that is on the back burner, sort of, is the need for more parking. In the old aerial photos we looked at, we can tell the north parking lot used to be much larger. We are thinking of removing the dirt that covers that area to see if there is still a usable surface under there. It will be very handy when we have special events. Hopefully our school will eventually grow enough that parking becomes an issue!
Just so you don’t think I forgot to post, I’m thinking of spacing these blog posts out to every 2 weeks instead of weekly. As we get more and more work done, there is less to write about, although I do have a lot to go, and more things will happen. There have already been more improvements that have made a big difference. Til next time!
If you would like to donate to our project, you can go on our website, www.uccs.school, there is a Donate button there, or you can contact us for more information.
