Shades of Life: Mormon Helping Hands Adventure with Christopher

First off, I'm sorry I'm so behind on my blogging. There just never seems to be enough time (no one can relate to this problem, right!?) I have 20 or more blogs to add of fun adventures thus far this year. Hopefully in the next few months I'll be able to get caught up if I do one every few days . . . A girl can hope, right?! So stay tuned.

Christopher and I had a very excellent adventure in May when we participated in the Mormon Helping Hands Service Project in Norco, CA. Norco is actually the city north of Corona where I lived for 11 years, (hence the name, "Norco"), which also borders the western part of Riverside where I live now.

I had invited Christopher to go with me to this California-wide LDS service project months in advance. We met bright and early at 8 am on Saturday.

Here is an excerpt from the local paper describing this project:
"With California's park and recreation facilities suffering from the effects of budget cuts and maintenance cutbacks, volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will spend Saturday painting, pruning, mulching and working on trails at parks.

In the Inland area, each stake, which serves a geographic area, has one or more projects for the "Mormons Helping Hands" event. More than 80,000 pairs of helping hands are expected throughout the state, according to a church news release."

We were very thankful it started so early because it was one of our hottest days in May. We were sweating within minutes of starting about 8:30 am.

Here is Christopher modeling the vest which all church volunteers wear. It was so neat to see so many members united in service, not only where we worked, but as we drove throughout the area before and after we finished. Seas of yellow vests were everywhere! : )

Our project was to clean the 1-2 foot tall dead weeds on the outside of this fence. Here is what one small section of the miles of fence looked like before we started. Luckily we had hundreds of church members fanned out over a large area, some as young as 3-4 and others in their 70's.

The fences are adjacent to the horse trails (in dirt) which overlook the Santa Ana River below.

It was such a beautiful area, and exciting for me, as I never knew this area existed; I love to explore new territory. I keep planning to take a bikeride or walk in the area. Hopefully soon.

I was so proud of Christopher. He worked really hard, not lollygagging or complaining, and continued working when many others stopped.

Boy, was I was thankful he was so strong. It was fun to watch him work! HA! He did the hard work while I either raked the dead weeds or put them into bags. That was a big project and exhausting as well. And, boy, were we hot and dirty!

While we worked, many different horseback riders rode by below on the lower trail next to the river.

It was such a beautiful area and it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, even though I-15 was only a mile or so away.

There were many hundreds of bags of weeds. I kept worrying about the LDS volunteers who would be coming by later in trucks to pick up and dispose of these bags. What a tough job that would be. In this picture, you can see the close side of the fence is free of weeds. We couldn't remove the weeds on the other side of the fence since we couldn't get to them safely.

On the way to clean up these horsebacking riding trails, we passed an alpaca farm in the middle of a rural neighborhood right by our project.

Norco is also known as the "Horse Capital of the World" or a slogan similar to this. Riding trails and signs are everywhere; it's not unusual to see riders in the middle of town.

Crosswalk buttons are mounted up high for horseback riders to push to cross the streets. Horse supply stores dot the main street.

Reminders about horseback riders are on the streets.

And of course, hay is everywhere!

Christopher and I had a really nice time together working and sweating in the Mormon Helping Hands Service Project. I can't wait until next May when we can do it again! : )