Valley Gardening: Concrete can be beautiful — if it's a ramp for Peyton

What a great week! On this past Tuesday, our great community came together to build a concrete ramp for Peyton Sanchez. It started with Charlie doing the initial excavation, and then Mike Van Iwaarden showed up unexpectedly and put down some gravel and rebar.

Absmeier Landscaping donated the concrete gravel and Alamosa Building Supply donated the concrete mix. And then here comes Tim Gallegos and his construction crew and they did all the work! And Peyton says, in his whispery voice, “thank you for inviting them to my house.” Peyton we are all quite honored to be able to do this for you and your family!

After all the work, folks gathered down at the Colorado Farm Brewery for pizza donated from Domino’s — thanks Jen! And for every pint that was enjoyed a gracious benefactor donated that amount of money to Peyton. And then the Codys donated half their profits. It was a great evening and everyone left feeling good about what they had done that evening!

As if that wasn’t enough, I had a visit from a member of the Veteran’s Coalition and they are going to help me get flagpoles installed in Veteran’s Park — so wonderful. We might be doing a couple of bake sales to get the funds raised, but so great to have help doing this project.

AND — at city council on Wednesday, council voted to extend the hours at the Rickey Recycling Center and to change the half-time position to full time, where the employee can now work 40 hours and get benefits, etc. I hated the idea of the city hiring a 30-hour employee because that’s usually how the big box stores work. It shouldn’t be how the city operates — in my humble opinion, anyways — for what it’s worth.

I am thankful that the hours are going to be extended and I am hoping that this means longer hours on Saturday and opening at 8 a.m. on Sunday. Early Sunday seems like a great time to get your yard/garden work done and then get on to golfing, swimming, fishing or whatever. I am not a church goer (Sunday, although I think I live a very Christian type life. My Sundays are spent mostly beautifying the earth, and that is pretty spiritual to me.)

Speaking of swimming, Splashland will be open Memorial Day weekend. The gang has been working really hard with applying a new paint to the entire pool and will also be starting swimming lessons the beginning of June. I still have all the respect and admiration for Leroy Polkowske and Scott Erickson (RIP) for purchasing the pool for our community! You did it on your own, without grant money — you just did it!

The drought continues. The City of Alamosa will be educating folks on voluntary water restrictions these next few weeks. I am hoping that the worst offenders of wasting water are the first to pay attention and heed the advice of the city. There won’t be any tickets or fines — yet — but if folks don’t pay attention to odd and even days of watering, that may change in the future. Honestly, I would have to say I have mixed feelings about the odd/even watering days. In my mind it would be better for everyone to water deeply every three days. And again, mow HIGH!

I have seen a couple of yards in my driving around this week that look absolutely gorgeous. I am going to knock on doors and try and find out the secrets to share with you next week. Hopefully folks will share.

I hope to make some progress in Mom’s Garden this week. If I am lucky, I will get that mustard weed taken care of on the north end and be ready to add the soil conditioner that has been donated. I wish I had the boulders/rock that was removed from the little garden by the Monterrey Café to help finish out this area. My solution is to move some of the rock in the back of the garden to the front — pretty tedious, but nothing I’m not used to.