Mount Gordon

As was evident from the tools littering the parking lot (well, behind Paul Jr.'s car anyway), the Men's Breakfast and Fellowship was followed once again by a work party, scheduled from 10 AM to 2 PM, the idea being to spruce up the place in advance of next week's visit from Bishop Provence -- and some longer-range general sprucing up, particularly in the area facing Avondale Road.

There was certainly no shortage of things to be done. Paul did some great work with the brushcutter getting the hillside by the road cleaned out, and pulled out more brush -- this looks like great preparation for the "native plant" plantings planned by Dee, Joanne and others as part of the five-year transformation plan. (It's going to take a long time to be completely rid of the blackberries --a nasty invasive species here-- though.)

I re-raked some of the gravel, ran a weedwhacker around the perimeter of the parking lot and then, per Junior Warden's suggestions, went to work on the unwanted trees that were starting up -- particularly the maples, but others also. It was interesting to see all the stumps, cut in years before, growing again. As Paul noted, it'll have to be repeated until the roots are exhausted. I wasn't certain about all the saplings so I left some, but I could see that the woods will look a lot nicer with the unwanted trees out and the Oregon Grape covering the ground.

It was great to have John present too. He was one hard worker; I felt embarrassed to quit sometime after noon (and lunch) when he was still going, but I was not feeling well at all and still had to swing by the office to pick up same papers I'd left behind and go home and pack for my week away (to the D.C. area for 4-1/2 days of technical standards committee meetings).

Lunch. When it was announced last week that the men would provide lunch for the workers, my immediate thought was "Yeah, right..." Appropriate for me, I guess: my contributions included potato salad from a nearby supermarket. I've cooked for myself in the past (before getting married): it's, well, it's not great, but it's definitely a weight-loss program. Haven't learned how to burn water yet, but I'm working on it.

But we do have some great cooks/chefs in our church, and the sandwich-makings were excellent. For all that I couldn't eat much for feeling ill.

But during lunch the function of the pile of gravel mysteriously left near the Ark when we'd re-graveled the parking lot was revealed. It turned out it's part of the toolshed project Gordon's been working so hard on. And not only that, but the children playing on the Ark (thank you, Eagle Scout Ian!) have been told that they are not to play on "Mount Gordon" -- and they are now enforcing that themselves.