8 November 2008

Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,

Yesterday began with lovely fog at the cemetery - our headstones, trees, and enclosure peeking through the mist. Also, it had rained a few days earlier, making conditions a bit muddier than usual. There were 7 volunteers tackling the job of preparing the cemetery for winter. Glen and Sal of Regional Parks met us at the cemetery with the dump truck and tool trailer. They carefully carted two of our damaged stones (Martha Thompson Small and Joseph McReynolds) to their truck for transportation to North Bay Monument for repair.

In the time since our October workday, Regional Parks cut into sections more of the downed tree trunks left over from the SOD tree removal. Unfortunately, Regional Parks' chain saw broke in the process. Although they were unable to finish the task, the chain saw held out long enough to cut up more than we volunteers could haul to the dump truck. We will continue the removal at our next work session.

Besides hauling away the tree sections, we cleared another area of the cemetery for a future GPR scan, restored the logs lining our pathways that we moved for last month's GPR scan (the scan generously performed by Norcal Geophysical Consultants), cut away tree suckers, pulled up acacia invaders, and removed extraneous flags, trash, and debris. We filled yet another large dump truck with our gatherings.

I have attached a few pictures of our activities. In the second picture, my husband Larry (in the red cap) is holding a green bottle he found. Do any of you know what it is? It seems to be old glass, as it is wavy with bubbles in the glass. It was formed in two pieces and is seamed. It looks like the initials "CVP" are stamped on the bottom. Also there is a cork inside. The bottom is round - so it is not able to stand on its own. We speculated that it must have been set in something - perhaps one of the old Italian wine bottles that had a wicker surround.

The final picture shows the cemetery as we left it - peaceful, serene, and ready for winter. Once again the holidays are fast approaching, and we will suspend workdays until 2009. Please continue to send me any information you find on Spring Hill or its inhabitants. And, Happy Holidays!