Skinker-DeBaliviere cleans and greens during Blitz

May 08, 2012

Skinker-DeBaliviere cleans and greens during Blitz

Thanks to volunteer Becky Homan for the photos and the story.

Brightside’s Blitz 2012 is nearly history. But for some in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood, last Saturday’s last day of the Blitz clean-ups came with some cool surprises. Gardening gloves got dropped through the mail slots of people who donate to the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council. What a great way to start a morning of weeding and alley clean-ups!

Folks like Anne Posega, below, started Blitzing early with shovel and rake to clean up debris along the her alley fence line.

Anne dumped leaves and weeds only into the yard waste dumpster behind her house.

Anne and daughter Emma also tackled big branches that they’d pulled out from behind a trash dumpster. Branches need to be cut no longer than three feet and bundled for pick-up by the city during Blitz.

Elsewhere in the alleys, an old chair found a place next to a dumpster, for bulk pick-up on the Monday following Blitz weekend.

Someone was decorating a small retaining wall in another Skinker-DeBaliviere alley with collected stones.

Alley beauty also came in the form of volunteer natives, such as spiderwort, on the alley side of a fence.

But two lovely exotic hibiscuses were donated to a cul-de-sac planter by a mystery neighbor. They became the talk of the neighborhood, online.  Kim Gladstone finally fessed up: “It was me and my son James. :),” she wrote. “It’s the least we can do.  This neighborhood is the best!  I can’t guarantee they will flourish but we are giving it a go!”