CLEANING UP

This morning the landscape crew arrived and got to work cleaning out the frost damage.  Some of the shrubs are looking pretty sad, but everything is neat and clean again, and the shrubs will most likely make a good recovery.  It may take a year or so.  This is the same Bouganvillea that I showed yesterday, with all the dead parts cuts off.  Just a bunch of sticks left, with a few green leaves at the bottom.

After trimming off the dead parts, a member of the crew neatly rakes up all the debris.

 Here are three of the four working together:

They turned around after I took the picture, so I explained what I was doing and that I had posted a picture of the damage yesterday, so this is a good follow-up.  The fellow in the middle said, "Can you take another picture?"  Of course.

So here's a last picture with a big smile from one of the crew.  They do seem like a cheerful bunch working together.

There's a lot of prejudice against people of colour these days.  I suppose there always was.  But the truth is that a place like our neat, cared-for gated community here could not exist without their willingness to do that work here.  I don't know what they get paid per hour, I don't imagine it's a whole lot, or if they have any benefits, but they are unfailingly cheerful and hard-working.  What's not to like about that?

When the garbage trucks come around every few days, young men like these fellows are literally running with the truck, trundling out the bins from the compound, hoisting them up to empty them, and running the bins back into place.  I can't help but admire them for the "heart" they put into their work.  AND WE NEED THEM!