Saturday was neighborhood clean-up day!
We moved to SW Virginia from the much more densely-populated northern part of our state, so our neighborhood looks a lot different.


Even our small corner of Wirtz has a property-owners association, though. When we first moved here, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that we didn’t engage with it very much, but as Covid has lifted and folks have started meeting again, I’ve been trying to get out and take part in neighborhood events.
This includes cleaning up the neighborhood common area.
Since we live on a lake, our common area comprises a community dock, a boat ramp, and a steep road that extends down to those facilities. They needed some tidying, so I grabbed my garden gloves and boots, and headed over.

I was joined by Bruce, our POA president, along with Mark, Mark, Curt, and Bob. All very nice guys. All of whom rolled up in golf carts (Jim and I do not have a golf cart or ATV, which puts us in the minority among our Franklin County neighbors). Curt unloaded sort of a chain saw on a stick (I knew someone with a chain saw would show up — I’d never owned a chain saw until we moved here, but that was one of the first pieces of equipment that Jim made sure we had) (there are a lot of trees and branches that fall into local roads and I’ll tell you what, these folks and their chain saws are unparalleled in getting those impediments out of there). My job was to follow Curt down the driveway as he trimmed the trees and throw the branches and foliage deeper into the woods.
I tossed foliage for about an hour and got a nice workout and also dirty while the gents did the real dirty work with a drainage ditch, until Bruce announced we were mission accomplished. I wandered home, cleaned up, then headed into Roanoke for my Saturday chores (it was National Independent Bookstore Day, and the cupcakes at Book No Further were not going to eat themselves, after all).
As I drove out of the neighborhood, I saw the clean-up crew cruising through like a small non-political golf cart parade, and I know our neighborhood is in good hands.
