The PlayTrail is Boxerwood’s little gem. Every year hundreds of children and families enjoy the sound of the babbling brook, the shade of trees, the clanging of dishes in the mud kitchen and the joy of playing in nature. As one of the PlayTrail’s guardians, I like to add something new to wow the kids each year. This month, with a little help from our friends, we transformed a key element from last December's award-winning parade float into a musical instrument installation.
Moving a tree (even a man-made one) is no easy feat. It is quite large and rather heavy. (That’s the way my engineering professor husband likes to build things). The fabricated tree also needed to get into the PlayTrail and be secured to something so it wouldn’t fall over. Thankfully, VMI cadets came to Boxerwood earlier this month to do some volunteer work. We are so grateful for their work in moving this music tree and for setting it up with some chimes and bells.
The cadets also helped get the PlayTrail circular creek cleaned out and running again. This is not a pleasant job and involves moving big rocks and scooping out decaying sludge. There were a few repairs that needed to be done, but together we got the creek up and running.
Even our resident frog, “Prince Charming” (pictured in the slideshow) was happy to be back in the clean creek. Thanks to all this inspiration (and perspiration) we can now start our busy spring season with lots of joyful children! Bravo, VMI cadets!
