mulligant's blog

Workday 9 on May 24 helped us to put the finishing touches on the courtyard. We had a large turnout of parents and students. We finished staining the benches and lattices and moved them back into the courtyard. Students helped sweep, pull weeds and water. Shelly Pruitt took some students in to complete artwork to be displayed in the courtyard.

Today was our Open House and although we did not get as many people to visit as I hoped, we did get some new visitors to see what our project was all about. Dr. Kirk London, our Superintendent visited as well as board member Mark Jones. Angie Mendez from the Hays Education Foundation attended to see what we had accomplished so far with the money from our Foundation grant. We had a visitor from the Water Conservation District visit and share with us a teacher workshop opportunity this summer to which we hope to get some representation from our campus. We really want to visit with this group to share what we have learned during our project and to network with others for future development and learning opportunities. The HEB Plus Garden Center manager came to see what our project is about and was very excited to explore possible support from the Kyle HEB. This day marked a completion of one phase and the beginning of the next phase of our implementation. I will continue to document our progress on this blog site and welcome feedback from our constituents!

This was a fantastic day! We had a lot of volunteers show up and enough wheel barrows to get the job done efficiently! We had to lay weed barrier and move in 8 yards of crushed granite, 1 yard of large river rock and 1 yard of small river rock. We also got most of the lattice and benches stained and the white board hung. The transformation is amazing! Monday morning when I can down the hall, there was a row of kids with their faces pressed against the windows and lots of positive comments. When I saw some students in the courtyard in the afternoon, I stuck my head out and asked them what they thought. They said it was beautiful and they loved it! We are having an open house Tuesday May 27th to share it with the public. 

Classes have been going out to use the courtyard more now that is is looking great. In fact Mrs. Jones asked me to create a sign up calendar so that we would not have so many kids out there at the same time. She went to take her kids out the other day and there was already 2 classes out there! That is a very good thing! Mrs. Swindle and Ms. Magnesio have set up the courtyard as one of their center stations. Kids are going out on a daily rotating schedule to water, sweep, weed and clean rocks to relay in some of the bed areas. The kids are really excited about being a part of the project. They love how when they go out the chickens run up to them to see if they have food with them! We are trying to instill in the kids a sense of pride and community spirit and an understanding that this is their courtyard.

This workday was comprised of the Mulligan family and the Jones family. We were disappointed but understand that it is mother's day weekend which, we are hoping, is the reason nobody came. Despite the zero turnout we actually got a lot done. Paul Mulligan set up a new Rubbermaid storage shed for holding our equipment. He also went to the church construction site and got more limestone rock from their trash pile to complete the edging. Mark Jones put his muscles to work with the wheel barrow and brought in the loads of rock and mulch. Kerri Jones and myself laid weed barrier in the cactus garden and spread the mulch.

Despite a rainy evening last night, today was a fantastic workday. The weather was cool and the ground was soft but not soaking. We didn't have many turn up to help but those who did worked very hard! We had a student volunteer from Lehman High School working on some community service hours for church. Kerri Jones completely cleaned the pond which had become overgrown with algae. Stacey Magnesio worked hard at building out the rock edging around the cactus area and it is looking fantastic. Art Sedillo from 4 A's told Kerri that we could come help ourselves to what we needed at his business and we could have whatever we could load in her truck.

We have a workday scheduled from 9:00 to noon. If we have to cancel due to weather it will be posted here.

Today went pretty well but we didn't see any dramatic results at the end of it as we did the first 2 days. We had fewer adults today but we had more kids. A lot of people have already left for spring break or have family coming in so I new we may have a few less people. The people who were able to attend today worked hard and the weather was perfect! We moved the chickens for our work time to keep them safe. We finished cleaning and relaying the rock for the center drain. It looks really great and we were able to start on the third drainage path. We did a lot of weeding on that really hot, dry side. There was still lots of bermuda and Johnson grass. We then laid some heavy weed barrier on the edge and laid rock to define the area. We ran out of barrier though and had to stop work on that part. Angie Sunley brought some really nice succulents from her yard that she transplanted. We also got the rock laid around the Texas Sage plant area and it is taking shape.

We had our second workday yesterday, February 23rd. We did not have as many people as last workday due to a lot of prior commitments but the people who came really worked hard an accomplished a lot. Our primary focus was to get the pond installed. Additionally we needed to continue to remove bermuda grass, sift the existing river rock, divide and transplant ornamental grasses and crinum. Mr. Farmer installed a new thermometer and set up our new hose and hose reel. The Leal family worked hard to divide the ornamental grasses and transplanted them into new spots. We added a few of these and some crinum around the pond area.

Our first workday was held on February 2nd 2008. It was a beautiful sunny day! We had a great group of teachers, parents and students come out to volunteer. Mrs. Stewart brought muffins for everybody to snack on. We had a group of volunteers work on moving rocks and pile them up to the sides. The purpose of this was to make cleanup a little easier. We will re-lay the rocks at a later time. The church at the corner gave us permission to have some rocks from an excavation pile by their construction. Ms. Magnesio and Joel Mulligan went down and loaded up a bunch and brought them back for us. These rocks will be used to surround a small pond area. The overgrown shrubs got a haircut and they will hopefully start growing out nicely in the spring. We also tried to remove as much of the bermuda grass as we could. That was a tough job! Thankfully, Mr. Farmer went and got his tiller which helped to break up the ground much easier. We now need to tarp some of those areas to kill off the remaining bermuda grass.