Contact the appropriate board member if you have specific time or skills to offer.
We’re planning regular Friday afternoon work parties starting May 9.
Come and give a hand. We’ll keep this page updated with tasks that can be done now. We are gradually collecting tools, but if you have ones you like to use, feel free to bring them.
Interior Cleaning
Keeping the kitchen clean, mopping floors and wiping down surfaces.
Washrooms.
If you’re coming to clean, you may like to bring your own rubber gloves, buckets, brooms etc.
Exterior: Turning shingles
The cedar shingles on several sections of the exterior wall have been removed, flipped around and nailed back on. They will in time fade to silver.
This is a great and long-lasting alternative to scraping and painting the flaky shingles. Talk about re-use and recycle!
We plan to continue this work. It’s fun to do as a group, but it’s also the kind of task that one person can work away at. Tools needed: wonderbar (carpenter’s pry bar), hammer and ladder, available on site or bring your own.
Contact David C at email hidden; JavaScript is required.
Scrape, prime and paint exterior window trim
This is a project ready to happen as soon as the weather is warm enough. We have the primer and paint. If you have them, bring sanding blocks scrapers, masks and safety glasses. We have some.
This will have a huge effect on the look of the building.
Building planters
Flowers and vegetables growing in planters along the building at the edge of the parking lot will add beauty and proclaim loudly to visitors that things are growing at The Blockhouse School.
Contact David or Lloyd if you’d like to work on this project. (See contact page)
Community Garden
If you want a plot to grow your own vegetables, contact Heather (email hidden; JavaScript is required).
We have started a Community Garden in the field near the backstop. We’re working lasagna-style: taking sod from the planned paths and putting it into the bed areas to increase soil thickness. Then we’ll add lasagna layers – leaves, manure, cardboard, straw, etc. to make the beds. There will also be some levelling of the paths so that they act as swales, distributing water in times of excess rain.
Tools: spade and/or garden fork; edger is useful for cutting sod.
Sheetmulching recent plantings
There are a few plantings such as grapes that have not yet been sheetmulched. We have lots of corrugated cardboard boxes and leaf mulch. The cardboard can be topped with leaf mulch and held down with bricks as necessary.
Contact Heather at email hidden; JavaScript is required.
Mowing and weed whacking
Contact email hidden; JavaScript is required.
Pick up manure and woodchips
Tools: truck and/or trailer, shovels (in shed) if needed
Getting manure and woodchips to the site is a major bottleneck in our ability to develop the gardens. If you are able to help, please contact David Cameron or Heather Holm.
Please leave materials near the toolshed, on the side of the school nearest the road, past the backstop, as that is where we’re using them most intensively at the moment.
Lloyd Nauss in Mader’s Cove (email hidden; JavaScript is required) has horse manure and from time to time also woodchips available for pickup as he opens up his pasture. He can load your truck or trailer.
Patty at Hinchinbrook Farm (next door, through the woods) also has horse manure to share with us.
hi
This page is a great idea !
cheers
I just wanted to ask that when we decide to bring things over to the space. That the things like furniture and drapes be clean. If they smell musty and mouldy, I really wonder if we need them. I think all of us want the energy in the space to be clear and healthy.
I agree. There are enough of us who have had our health weakened by mould.
If washable things are not too musty, the must can be removed by soaking with a cup of white vinegar in the wash water and then washing with detergent. This also works for anything scrubbable, like tables or chairs. I also have mold allergies and would be willing to assist with this, if any things show up.
🙂