Friday, November 11, 2016 – Cleaning Missionary Housing, Queensberry, Bass, Robers, Pursels

Another good day of work and we got a lot done. Today we cleaned the flowerbeds, trimmed hedges and cut out rogue trees at one historic site and five houses that are owned or rented by the church. The homes are used for missionary housing or FM interns. Our first stop was at the historic Scovil Bakery where we cleaned and trimmed. The big Yew hedge needed to be trimmed way back so the large flood light on the front of the building could actually shine on the front of the building. Now that the trimming is done, the front of the building will be lit.

Our next stop was at the home of three Single Sister Missionaries, Sis. Queensberry, Sis. Rollins & Sis. Simmons. These sisters are great, hardworking and dedicated missionaries. Sis. Rollins & Sis. Simmons were both in our MTC group last March. This home was the easiest and quickest to do. We only had to remove one peony flowerbed.

 

Next we went to the two homes on Young street. The first was the home of Elder & Sis. Bass and they too were in our MTC group last March. They are our good friends. This house was special because of the Juniper bushes in the front yard. They looked like giant bonsai bushes. I did some trimming and shaping with the hedge trimmers but the amazing part was the dead wood I cut out. The old dead wood was twisted and gnarled and Sis. Johnson fell in love with it. She’s seriously considering using it as our Christmas tree! If she does, and if it turns out the way she has envisioned, it will be spectacular.

 

The next house we cleaned was also on Young street. It was a duplex rented to our FM interns. What was special about this flowerbed was a large Holly Bush that needed to be trimmed back and shaped.  Once again the “Florist” in Sis. Johnson and I came out so we couldn’t stand the thought of throwing away all of those beautiful Holly bush trimmings.  Don’t be surprised when they show up in a Christmas center piece or two.

The next house we cleaned is the residence of Elder and Sis. Rober. The Robers are in our “Rendezvous” cast with us and are our good friends. The special thing about cleaning the Rober’s flower beds and trimming the bushes were all the chocolate chip cookies Sis. Rober gave us. Thank you Sis. Rober, I love chocolate chip cookies. Mmmm-Goood! 

Our fifth and last house to clean is the residence of the Pursel’s. Our friendship with the Pursels goes all the way back to the MTC as we were in the same MTC group together. Cleaning the flowerbeds around their house took us the longest of all the homes because of all the rogue volunteer trees that had to be cut out and killed. It may sound like an easy task but killing a tree is anything but easy especially when there are so many rogue volunteers to kill. At least I don’t have to dig the tree up by the roots to kill it. To kill it I trim it back, as close to the ground as possible with my pruners, loppers or saw, then I use an eye dropper to cover/paint the fresh cut with a tree root poison. Once the poison is drawn into the bark and down into the roots, the rogue volunteer tree will die roots and all. That’s much easier than using a shovel to dig up the roots.