Chop Chop

What is the staying, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry…”

The plan for today was to spend 5 hours the Brookland Kisok at 12/Newton to have 2 young landscapers remove the dead crape myrtles, the weeds that grew into trees pretending to be crape myrtles and locate any rat nests. (Thankfully none). We estimated that time based on many site visits.

And then it comes time to do the job and you realize that nothing is what it seems. Grass and tree root structure is taking up 90% of the dirt, and there’s hidden pieces of metal from old signs growing into bark.The chainsaw chain broke twice and these two guys had to go old school George Washington and chop it by hand. In my head we’d be in an out, done and on to the next thing or as I often say: “Chop Chop!”

Not today.

We started at 1030am and finished at 730p – with no breaks – and now have to add a round 2 in order to till and break up the massive root system in the strip before our community partner Casey Trees plants the new trees. (more on that later.)

So while this post today isn’t about running for ANC exactly, its semi-adjacent in that, I am a Brookland Civic Officer serving for the last 14 years consecutively working on neighborhood projects like this one to re-beautifying the kiosk and prep it for our First Annual Holiday Evergreen Lighting which will happen on Dec 3rd. It took 3 years from my initial idea to get to this point, with the last 10months of meetings and planning and navigating all the puzzle pieces and people to make it happen.

And it is happening. And I’m thrilled to have been able to contribute this to my neighborhood. I hope that it brings joy and bees and butterflies and more safety and that Brookland finds this a center point to gather or to just look at pretty wildflowers and an evergreen.

Even tiny contributions can add up and make a difference to community — and so does knowing how to work with groups of people in our city, and establish positive relationships in order to make something come to life.

–Elise for ANC5b03

ps. I’m no longer a fan of crape myrtles and will be chop chopping at least 1 of mine down and putting in a redbud.