Infrastructure

We took a walk to Hammock Park this morning. The day was mostly cloudy again, the temperature was in the mid 70s to low 80s, comfortable for walking.

Just across the entrance to the church is Andrews Chapel, one of the oldest churches in the area, dating back to the late 1800s.  It's a popular spot for weddings, and unlike many churches, they don't discriminate against same sex couples. The chapel welcomes "all faiths and orientations," and they make a point to say so in their signage on site and on their website.

A few yards from the church is the entrance to the Hammock Park Butterfly Garden. The website will show you all sorts of flora and fauna found in the park, especially butterflies.

All beautiful things have an underlying infrastructure and dedicated people that keep things working. You don't really notice or appreciate what you can't see until something breaks or lapses into disuse. Friends of the Hammock (volunteers) help preserve the park, educate the community, and plan for its future.

The Dunedin city workers also do a great job keeping things working. Just in the last week, they have been trimming palm trees, grinding the bike and walking paths to smooth out the bumps caused by underground tree roots, painting markers on the trail, and repairing water fountains, not to mention putting up barricades around every playground, pier, and beach access to keep folks from congregating during the pandemic. For a small town of 37,000 people, it has a lot of assets and the supporting infrastructure and maintenance (and volunteers!) necessary to keep it going.

And then there is home maintenance. We woke this morning to a busted sprinkler riser. Sprinkler parts tend to break at regular intervals, each in its own way, so repairing them becomes an interesting challenge. It always seems more complicated than it is. You just have to resign yourself to digging it up to inspect it, driving to the hardware store, buying three times as many parts as you think you need, then coming home and piecing the parts together until you get the system working again. Oh, and you will always get dirty and wet before it's all over and inevitably track mud into the house. Below are the before and after pictures.