City comes through with beautiful fence

The City has surrounded two sides of the court area with a beautiful wood fence that keeps people from falling down the steep slope on the West side and also reduces the number of times we need to chase down an errant dig.


Stephan and Kurt await the next game. The fence has extra rails to keep the ball from leaking through. Kurt is next to the net pole pads that would be installed later in the evening. No sense wasting daylight when there are games to play.



George approaches in expectation of a good set from Mike...is he already checking out holes in the defense?


The Dave-hauser in mid-set...

Play Resumes!

No photos or videos, but on one of the stormiest days of the year, Dave, George, John, Jason, and Kurt moved 8 logs, cleaned up the remainder of the construction mess, and played three games in the wind and rain. Marco came by to remove the caution tape, give us the approval to play, and later he installed temporary pole pads that will serve us until we receive the fancy yellow ones in a couple weeks.

We've now settled on noon October 18th for the grand opening ceremony.

What the heck is going on!!!?

As you can see from these photos, either we've been vandalized or run into a snag with the City.


When we last met with City representatives, one had suggested that there may be safety issues, so we were suspicious that this is his method of informing us of a problem. Sure enough, concern over the net standards (poles) not being padded is the issue.

Although we've seen no documentation that padding is truly required and we know of many courts that also don't have pole padding we already have some nice pads on order, so hopefully this will put only a temporary halt to our fun. Those of us unable to play due to injuries really don't find this hold-up too concerning.

We may not be able to play, but another work party scheduled for tomorrow in the rain is sure to achieve even more beautification.

October 1st Work Party

Dave, Chris, George, and Gregg were joined by Stephan, Jerry, Cliff, and Willie for a fun evening of digging and log moving. Half the logs are in place, but I have no pictures of the finished product because it was too dark for photos.

The guys worked hard, but enjoyed the camaraderie of a team project. Willie and Jerry showed up for the first time. Their initiative, strength (and youth), and effort was a big factor in the evening's success.

With another group event to move the remainder of the logs, we'll have the borders finished well enough to enhance safety and visual appeal. Speaking of those subjects, we met with Dan from the City and Eric and Bill from PenMet Parks about site improvements around the courts. Proposals include extending the attractive wooden fence from 96th along the west and north sides of the court, regrading the banks on south and east sides to create a nice park setting, replacing the messy, ugly birch trees with something more appropriate for a nice park, and restoring the starting hill for the BMX riders.

First step was to do a little digging along the border to make a nice straight, level place for setting the logs.


Then it was time to start placing logs.

At first, our heros displayed great strength in hefting these monsters to their new home.

Later, the geniuses discovered a method that the Egyptians learned a couple milenium ago...

Ah...success at last as a log makes it to its final resting place.