Saturday in the Sun...

We have all new City Commissioners this year. Judy Sinclair, our next door neighbor is one. She has responsibility for the parks. We actually have two parks in Sadieville.
Judy's vision was to take all the playground equipment from the park on Angle Avenue and move it to the park on Pike Street. She worked very hard to get this accomplished.

Before she was elected and with the help of Detta Wilson, they put together some playground equipment that was given to us by another city. They set this up in the Pike Street park.

After Judy was elected she set to work to move the playground equipment from Angle Avenue's park. She found it was cemented into the ground. After locating and contacting the people from whom this equipment was purchased,  they moved the equipment to the Pike Street park. They even anchored it in its new home.

Judy, with the help of her hubby, Dan, and Dominic Whelan moved all the railroad ties from one park to the other. Judy killed the grass where the new playground equipment would be sitting.

Then she got a grant to purchase 45 tons of rubber mulch to cover this new playground area to a depth of 6 inches.  Last Wednesday the mulch was delivered at three different times that day. The mulch came in 200 pound bags. Judy called Claude and Claude called the County and they provided help from the inmates. The bags were strategically placed, opened and emptied into piles.

Saturday at 9am we showed up to rake those 46 tons of rubber mulch to a 6-inch depth. As each new volunteer arrived I felt more relief.

I wore gloves, sunglasses and a hat. It didn't take long before I had a blister in the curve of my hand between my thumb and my pointer finger on each hand. Anytime a cloud cover came over I said a little prayer of gratitude.

After a bit I felt sick to my tummy. I stopped my working and headed for water for Claude and me. We paused for a few minutes and enjoyed the water. Then we set back to work. We were trying to pace ourselves but still be consistent so we could finish this work.

We were all extremely surprised when the mulch was all spread and even moved under all that playground equipment. It was black and blue in color. The colors were randomly placed. I'm sure, over time, these colors of mulch will get mixed all together. But it was quite attractive being shades of black and blue.

Claude headed to the grill and turned out burgers and hot dogs for all the volunteers. We all paused to chat and eat and look at this beautiful new playground.

While I have no little kids of my own, I do have grandmonsters. I eMailed them a picture of our new playground and they are very anxious to come and try it out.

This was an exhausting morning for Claude and me. But it just felt so good to see something really good being set up in our little Sadieville. And it was especially nice to have so many helpers from our community there to get this project accomplished.

Judy has plans for adding trees and eventually a building with bathrooms. We feel change for the better happening in our little town.