What does it mean to be the mother of an Eagle Scout? It means that you give up a summer of sipping lemonade and disappearing into a good book. Instead, I spent my "summer vacation", driving trailers filled with wheel barrows and shovels. Dug dirt. Hauled brick. And became the project's water boy!
However, despite all the work involved, it has been an awesome experience watching my son work on this project. The skills and experience gained in pursuing this Eagle Scout Project are priceless.
SPECIAL NOTE: In addition to this being Joshua's Boy Scout Eagle Project, Cole Stern (Joshua's good friend from synagogue) decided to get on board and count this as his Mitzvah Project. Subsequently, Cole has been by Joshua's side every step of the way: from the first presentation to Congregation Brith Sholem's board members... to the laying of the last brick! It has been awesome to watch these two young men work so well together. What a great team.
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS:
The purpose of the this project was to renovate Congregation Brith Sholem's front yard, by replacing the dirt & weeds on the south side of the yard with a new patio area. The patio will consist of red brick pavers, decorative rock, and xeriscape plants. Funding for the project was obtained by selling engraved red brick pavers for $25 each.
Off... To A Slow Start - July 12, 2010
To begin the project, we spent hours at the synagogue measuring the excavation site. Some of the issues we needed to take into account: where to dig, how deep to dig, and how to build in enough slope that water will run towards the street (instead of the synagogue). To get this all right, entailed literally hours of work before we could begin digging.
We also, had to arrange to have the entire area "blue staked" so that we didn't dig up telephone lines, cable wires, gas mains, or water pipes.
Ready, Set, Dig! - July 14, 2010
Bright and early on a Monday morning, we drove two cars of Troop 1 Boy Scouts down to Ogden to dig. We spent three hours doing the initial excavating. We were clever enough to serve the boys breakfast before hand... so the digging crew had lots of energy.
By the time we had to leave, we felt we had made a sizable dent in our excavation work.
TO BE CONTINUED... Eagle Project Part 2
