(no subject)
Here's something I'll bet no one else did last night...
Two nights ago a dude came by to discuss my Grandpa's headstone. It's all ordered and whatnot but now needs to be set up. As we were finishing up, Grandma asked the dude how one could clean off the mossy lichens that grow on gravestones. Apparently the best way to clean gravestones is with TSP (tri-sodium phosphate, available at a hardward store near you) and a soft brush. Never a metal brush, which will scratch the stone's finish.
Last night, after supper, Grandma and my Aunt and I set off for the Saltcoats Cemetary. I find cemetaries terrifically interesting, and this one is filled with multiple generations and brances of my Mom's family. In addition to flowers (to lay on graves) and scissors (to deadhead the peonies planted on family graves, bit of a tradition there) we took a bucket of warm-water TSP solution (1 Tbsp to 2 L water), two scrub brushes (the spud brush and the scrub brush from under Grandma's sink), latex gloves, and a bucket of rinse water. Aunt and I scrubbed my great-grandparents' graves, which now look like new. We also did a quick scrub for Grandma's first fiance, who was killed in WW2 (he's buried in Italy, but there's a marker for him here). I discovered that Grandma lost both her fiance and her mother in the same year, 1944. Scrubbing lichen off graves feels like you're not only honouring and remembering the dead, but also kind of doing something nice for them.
So, last night I scrubbed my great-grandparents' headstones. How was your night?
Two nights ago a dude came by to discuss my Grandpa's headstone. It's all ordered and whatnot but now needs to be set up. As we were finishing up, Grandma asked the dude how one could clean off the mossy lichens that grow on gravestones. Apparently the best way to clean gravestones is with TSP (tri-sodium phosphate, available at a hardward store near you) and a soft brush. Never a metal brush, which will scratch the stone's finish.
Last night, after supper, Grandma and my Aunt and I set off for the Saltcoats Cemetary. I find cemetaries terrifically interesting, and this one is filled with multiple generations and brances of my Mom's family. In addition to flowers (to lay on graves) and scissors (to deadhead the peonies planted on family graves, bit of a tradition there) we took a bucket of warm-water TSP solution (1 Tbsp to 2 L water), two scrub brushes (the spud brush and the scrub brush from under Grandma's sink), latex gloves, and a bucket of rinse water. Aunt and I scrubbed my great-grandparents' graves, which now look like new. We also did a quick scrub for Grandma's first fiance, who was killed in WW2 (he's buried in Italy, but there's a marker for him here). I discovered that Grandma lost both her fiance and her mother in the same year, 1944. Scrubbing lichen off graves feels like you're not only honouring and remembering the dead, but also kind of doing something nice for them.
So, last night I scrubbed my great-grandparents' headstones. How was your night?