Great American Clean-up -- Polk County Style

The cemetery committee was invited at the last minute to join in the big county clean-up today, so I opted to go along.  We went to two small cemeteries deep in the woods, well out of sight of any roads.  It's fun to see these old family cemeteries, and feels good to help keep them from being lost in overgrowth.

We started off the morning at Peek Park with a sausage biscuit for breakfast, then headed out to our various assignments.

We began our day at a small cemetery way back beyond the tree line at the edge of the next treeline.  All those yellow flowers were pretty!

As you can see, it was an overgrown mess!

This was the Brumby Family Cemetery.

We found this Confederate States of America star half buried in the ground.  It wouldn't budge, but at least it's not likely to be the subject of vandalism.

It looked much better by the time we left.

Then it was off to the Ammons-Young family plot, buried amidst all this periwinkle.

I'm guessing he was the patriarch, although there was another, very old and almost unreadable, marker for a Jessee Ammons born 1800 died 1879. This marker is clearly new.

This was an interesting cemetery.  We found numerous markers that were knocked down, but this one was also buried under soil and overgrowth that kept it in pretty good shape.

By the time we left, this one looked pretty good, too.

Back at Peeks Park, this group had to have won the prize for most trash picked up, if there was such a thing!  They were sent to what was described as 'the worst area of Polk County'.  I don't know where it was -- but those are bathtubs in the back of the pickup!

I came home ready to rest, but ended up feeling guilty about that so I went out back and sifted some more compost, dug up a few weeds.  Now, I'm ready to rest!  I knew I was too tired to paint  -- painting is easier than sifting compost, but takes more skill and attention than I had to give it.  Tomorrow.