The old rugged - make that red - cross

In to the lives of all affiliated with a church must come an occasional work day. St. Andrew's first of the season was after services today, involving roughly 10 people and two Corgis plus an end-loader that made the trek in from the country on a flatbed bearing a load of dirt for the big planters we'll start dealing with on Tuesday.

The major project was turning the two big crosses on the west and east ends of the main part of the church from white to red to ensure that they're noticed. That was the intent of the builders of our little A-frame back in the 1950s. Underneath that pesky vinyl siding is the original redwood exterior against which white crosses stood out. When the siding was added, however, the crosses just blended in, showing up well only at night when spotlighted. Since the cross is the point, after all, we thought a few coats of Episcopalian red (look at many Episcopal church doors and church signs you'll see red) would do the trick.

Fred Steinbach, up the ladder, volunteered to do the heavy lifting here since he is both (a) fearless when it comes to heights and (b) a skillful painter. Suzy Miller is holding the ladder, helping to ensure that Fred doesn't take a nosedive into one of the planters. The two Corgis, resting elsewhere when this photo was taken, belong to Suzy and Mel. There would have been three, but the youngest managed to get his ear stepped on by a horse Saturday and still is recuperating.

The rest of us chased cobwebs and dust, cleaned out 40-year accumulations in various parts of the kitchen, scraped and painted trim, did some raking, refreshed the red paint elsewhere and, with the aid of a rope and a pickup plus considerable digging, removed a shrub that had declined for many years to behave itself.

All in all, it turned out to be a good investment of about five hours, including lunch. I wonder if the Narcotics Anonymous group that meets in the parish hall on Sunday evenings noticed. I'm going to check in tomorrow morning with the artists who gather there Mondays to make sure they're paying attention, too.