Springbok Community Service
Date: 1st October-8th October, 2017 and 29th October
Venue: Iris House,
Address: Stikland Admin Old Paarl Road, Bellville, Cape Town, 7530
Troop: Durbanville/Kraaifontein Sea Scouts
Report Back(Jonathan Hillier)
First 20 hours Day 1: Sensory Garden maintenance and beautification: When I arrived at Iris house I was greeted by the groom, Jonathan, donning a stylish gray flat cap. He proceeded to give me a tour of the work that needed to be done around the property He showed me and Alex, who arrived in the middle of the middle of the tour, where the equipment was and once finished resumed his work leaving us to our own devices. We began by inspecting the sensory garden and I gave Alex a quick run down what we would be doing. The first job we took on was clearing the path ways between flower beds that had become overgrown with grass that crept between the bricks. Although this was a relatively simple job, it took quite some time as the grass shoots were rather stubborn. After a short while we were greeted by Andrew and James who arrived to help and immediately got stuck in. Once done, 4 hours later, our work made a noticeable improvement on the aesthetic of the sensory garden. It suddenly seemed much more neater. We paused shortly and enjoyed biscuits, muffins, water and apples played out by Ashley. At this point the water was so greatly appreciated it is hard to describe. We then moved on to weeding the large island opposite the parking lot. This decision to weed this section instead was made after we learned that the groom who lived on the property had recently removed most of the weeds in the sensory garden. We did do a short inspection of the sensory garden and removed the weeds that we could see. Once we had been weeding for about half an hour the heat began to get to us and our work speed slowed to a growling but continuous effort. Once 2'o clock came we were than glad to get home and into the shower!
Some of the work we did: Clearing of the paving:
The large area as you enter the property which we decided to weed instead. Before and after:
Day 2: Sensory Garden maintenance and beautification: The first thing we did when we arrived was go over the weeding that we had done the previous day. This did not take long as we had weeded pretty thoroughly the previous day.. When John, the groom, came out after had finished going over our weeding, he informed us that he was supposed to help us with the paving as Jacques(The estate manager with whom we were supposed to be paving) was not there and that he first had to muck the stables. We proceeded to offer our assistance and we cleaned the stables under his guidance, which meant: 1) picking up feces by hand(with sweaty gloves ; ) 2)Racking and shoveling the shavings(which the horses sleep on for a shocking 2 hours a night) on to a wheel barrow and disposing of them. 3) Sweeping the concrete until it was immaculate. 4) Pouring diluted chemicals on the floor and giving it a very good scrub(finaly removing the stench) before letting it stand for 10minutes. 4) Pouring their old drinking water on the concrete and sweeping it off to remove the soap. (twice!) 5)Fetching new shavings to line the stable floor and spreading once the floor had dried.
Today we also moved the tables and chairs and trampoline over to make space for John’s house that was to start construction on the 4th of October.
Once this was done, John(The groom) instructed us on the paving of the stretch pictured below: Before
After
Unfortunately, as we had spent the day doing helping muck the stables and paving, we had not finished the beautification of the sensory garden(Specifically, the making of the tire minions, which as we were informed were meant to provide a space for us to plant our donated plants.) John also mentioned that if we had the time there was more paving that needed to be done. Day 3: Gardening and General Maintenance
On the third day we painted the tire minions, pictured below. (we made two and repainted two), which were not painted previously due to the events previously mentioned in my report.
On account of the fact that there was more paving that needed to be done, that we took relatively longer than anticipated painting the minions, and that the hospice was dumping on the day I decided to rather paint the paddock fence the following day. (In hindsight this was not a good idea as the weather prevented any painting from taking place.) We cleared out the section behind the container and filled a skip with the rubbish:
Before After
Once this was done, I got permission from Jacques to pave another stretch of paving which they had mentioned the previous day. Jacques was more than happy to let us do the job on our own, and with the previous day’s lessons fresh in our mind, we got on it without a hick. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and had to leave the job for the next day.
The team in action:
Day 4: Gardening and General Maintenance As it was raining when we arrived the staff were opposed to us painting and we decided to rather pave another section that they said needed doing-this time without the oversight of John or Jacques. Instead, we finished laying the second stretch of paving which we started on the previous day. We also spent quite a bit of time finding bricks that fitted the gaps perfectly. (Jon and Jacques have kept the remainder of cut bricks from previous job to use fill gaps. If I dare add I think we worked better without the supervision. The weather did indeed clear up, but by this point the horses had been moved to the enclosure which we were meant to paint and no one was present to move the horses. (Sue was apparently in a meeting and John had a day off.) I am sure that there will be enough time tomorrow or on the last day to paint the paddock fence. Before and after:
Left, Another example of the superb finishing job between paved paths. I took quite a bit of time to find bricks that match perfectly but the end result was worth it! (Jacques said we would cut bricks to fill the missing piece.) Before the path could be laid we had to first remove quite a large layer of sand, level it roughly, then bury the irrigation pipe and re-level the sand. (This was, as you can imagine, quite a lengthy process)
We also filled our time painting the second coats on the the tire minions and helping clean the stables. Sue, the lady who started Iris House, also asked to help her clean the fountain, pictured to the right below, which had become incredibly dirty. We had to drain the water and clean the stones.
In the last 5 minutes we cleaned a section and packed the loose toys that were lying around in the sand pit in to two buckets from behind the container.
Second 20 hours
Day 5 By day five I felt quite comfortable at Iris House and upon arrival I immediately found Jonathan(The groom, not my alter ego). I then discussed the plan for the day with him. Jonathan(The groom) explained that in the next few days they will be putting in a roof over the courtyard(he also explained that both the snakes and ladders and the were intended to be painted in the courtyard). He reasoned would mean a lot of wear and tear and a mess all over the tarred floor, not to mention that we may be working between the workers . He suggested that we rather start painting the paddock fence(Which we should have started already) and, time permitting try paint a larger section of the fence than what we had planned and find other jobs to be done around the property. Jonathan also informed me that painting the fence had been already attempted and blotched by a company on Mandela Day. (John was still bitter about it as he had to clean up the mess made in 67 minutes for the next 3 day.) In fact to quote him,”If you want to do it, do it well, but if you don’t want to so it properly we would rather have you running in the opposite direction.” Nonetheless, in the end he was very impressed with our work. He literally started signing. Before we started we assisted John in fixing the fence. Jonathan pulled the old and rotting wooden beams from the fence and we prepared new beams by removing the nails stuck in them. Once Jonathan had removed a beam we also proceeded to remove the rusty old nails from them. Joshua, below, painting incorrectly after my fifth crash course.
Day 6 On the sixth day we did a second coat on the paddock fence, which ensured a good coverage of the wood and a neat white finish. We then proceeded to paint the middle stretch between the two separate horse pens. (Jonathan’s good mood continued and his mood was still noticeably good.)
The end result(Before vs After):
Day 7 I arrived at Iris a bit early on day seven. Once I had greeted Jonathan I proceeded to apply the second coat on the dividing stretch of fence between the pens. Not longer after I had began, Alex and James arrived. Alex had arranged(with my approval) to help the staff at Iris in their clothing sale. Asya, a girl who had been forced by her school to 18 hours of community service, came over to help in her place. Once we had applied the second coat we found Jonathan and he led is to the shed. Me and Jonathan had proceeded to look for the water based, exterior wall paint amongst the many gloss enamel tubs. My team and I then applied the primer followed by exterior coating. The painting process took exceptionally long due to the fact that we painted rainbow colors, with each slate having a different color to the adjacent slates. This meant that even more care had to taken when painting than usual so as to avoid spillage on other slates. Luckily there were no such accidents and we were able to put down our first coat without incident. As we were no longer painting the twister game I decided that we should rather leave the painting of the upright columns white(My idea to avoid the clashing of the strong colors.) Unfortunately no one present had phones to document us in action(Alex, who had been in charge of taking photos on the previous days had left her phone at home.)
Day 8 On day 8 we painted the upright column white and gave some of the slates a second coating where needed. As mentioned before the white was added to avoid the clashing of the strongly contrasted colors that would otherwise be hard on the eyes. We also added the black rims to our tire minions which some had been missing. Once the painting work was done we got out the weed eater and cleared grass section on your as you enter the sensory garden then cut it(I used an electric trimmer for the first time!). This helped to mildly improve the perceived neatness of the garden. We also helped Jonathan plant some plants around the garden. Examples of our finishing work:
The end result: Before(After we had removed the grass from the path):
After:
The path way after we weeded and neatened the section on the right. (Notice the painted wall, repainted minions(And newly added one), straight neat grass line, the new plant at the end of the path way and the removal of the logs and the neatly, and neatly packed toys.) Before:
After