One evening, after Meeting for Healing, a small group met to brainstorm about a parking lot for the meeting, building on the suggestion by Phil Klein that it be near the north boundary of the property. I set things up: put tracing paper over the quarter inch grid paper mounted on foam that showed the hundred year flood plan line which Walter Morris had prepared.
Then I left Dick Beardsley, Nina Kaharl, and Connie Ray (substituting for Judy Shea) and went home to find information on how many spaces we needed and how many could be grassy. Bill came back with me, and were were delighted to see the progress. Nina traced the critical info and shifted the paper to show the north boundary. Connie cut out parking places to scale, and Dick sketched in the drop-off loop and the linear parking with a turn-around a the end. Bill made a makeshift compass to draw loops of the specified radius. It was exciting.
Next we will see how the plan fits with curves of the land and existing trees. We want a buffer zone 7 feet wide along the north boundary, so we are thinking about planting shrubs. We have scheduled a workday for Saturday, September 29 to work on the buffer zone.
In the meantime, the brawniest air potato vines are starting to put out little potatoes, so we are clipping their wings. The Beautyberry bushes are blooming. With recent rains, the pond has standing water and singing frogs.
| Jean Larson, clerk of the Building Committee. | |
This diagram shows the northeast corner of the lot, and the squares are 20 feet on a side. The red areas would be paved, and the green rectangles represent grassy parking. We were surprised to see how much room the parking will take, but presumably when it is in place (and in its proper color!) it won't seem to dominate the meetinghouse quite as much as it does here.