Spring Cleaning at Forest Cemetery

Forest Cemetery

“Many Hands Make Light Work”

The redbuds, crabapples and forsythia have been showing off their finest colors, the daffodils are already finished blooming, but the ground phlox and bleeding hearts brightening the landscape are just getting started. Spring is a glorious time of year; we hear the honk of geese overhead, robins singing for their mates and that busy chatter of the wrens preparing their nests. Another common sound is “Oh my aching back!” Yes with all that spring has to offer – it also bids us back into our yards to tidy up after the long winter. The wind and rains have a way of clearing the trees of dead or weakened stick and twigs.

Now imagine you have the biggest lawn in town, with more trees and yard ornaments than anyone else – and you are inviting people from near and far to visit your yard in the next few weeks. That is the situation confronting the staff at Forest Cemetery. In addition to the responsibility of their usual tasks – they are diligently working to cleanup the remnants of winter so that the grass can be mowed and the trimming completed by Memorial Day.

The Forest Cemetery Board, Mark Walker and his team of caretakers are putting out a call for help. If you would be willing to assist the lawn crew with making the cemetery ready for Memorial Day, please meet at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 14, near the cemetery maintenance shop, behind the office. Bring your gloves, lawn rakes, brooms, lightweight plastic garbage cans or tarps and Mark Walker will assign you to an area. Removing sticks, old silk flowers and raking up leaves around grave markers and bushes are the tasks you can expect to do. The cemetery is a source of pride for our community; any help provided is greatly appreciated.