Getting Egdy

It has been an eventful couple of days here on Corbin Park. I borrowed an Edger because I don't have one of my own. I mean, come on! If I had one of my own, I wouldn't need to borrow one and my sidewalks need a trim...a buzz cut in fact. It seems odd to me that the places where my lawn grows the best is over the sidewalks.

After working with the Edger and getting to know the nuances of operating it, my legs were spattered with scars, cuts and bruises from Edger shrapnel. Then there was the clean up. I set about the task of tossing several long thin lines of grass into the wheel barrow. Susan came out to help after her run and then my friend Mark, from whom I borrowed the Edger, stopped by. As we were working, this guy pulled up in a big ol' Dodge pickup. He walked over to me and asked if we had any plans for the arborvitae. I said we really didn't have any plans other than to have them and keep them. He said he would trim them for $50.00. The last time I had them trimmed it cost $700.00...so I was obviously interested.

By this time it was approaching 6:30 or 7:00 but he said what he didn't finish today he would come back for tomorrow. As we talked more, we added more work for him until the price was up to $100.00. Still a bargain! Then my neighbors saw him working and we added the arborvitae going down their driveway for another $25.00.

He even allowed me to dump all the crap I was accumulating into the back of his truck. He had to move a pile of stuff out of the back which led me to believe that he was living out of his truck.
In the end, I paid him $75.00 and told him there was $50.00 more when he returned on Saturday.

It is now 5:00 on Saturday and I haven't seen him. I did get his phone number so I'll call tomorrow and find out wazzup.

I took the day off from my Bartending gig to do some community minded work in the park.This is the sign at what we, the residents consider the entrance to Corbin Park. It is located in the middle of the park at the end of Washington Street. The picture above was taken a while ago but I think it is good enough to click on and enlarge and read. It describes the origin of the park when it was a horse racing track and fair grounds.

You can see that it is rather badly beaten up.

When the area became an Historic District, the home owners association built and installed the sign. When the decal was printed, they made five or six. This one is number two and it was applied over number one so it was really a number two kind of job removing it.I had arranged to do this with Mac, a guy who lives down the street and is largely responsible for the Historic District becoming reality.We used a vinyl buffing pad to remove the decal. It's a wheel you put on your drill and then you spend two hours running over the whole sign area until you are really really tired and grimy and have a sun burned neck. (I always burn early in the season because I forget about sunscreen)Anyway, we finally got it cleaned off. We still have to repaint the sign and we are looking for some sort of way to make this one a little more vandal proof. I think we are going to lay a plexiglass laminate over it.

We do have a lottery going to see how long it takes before this sign is hit with graffiti. I said three days. Mac says by the end of the weekend. Ted, our third neighbor to help on this project and whose ass is shown above had no opinion.

Finally, I would like to give a hops update. This one is half way up the post and about 8 feet tall from the ground. They are really growing this year.

One last thing, mark May 15th as the day I shut down the furnace.