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Crews with the St. Joseph Parks Department are working longer days in an effort to trim-up the city.
“The entire month of May being one of the wettest on record it has effected our ability to get out and keep our Boulevard system and our Parkways and the small parks all mowed and kept trimmed like we like to,” said Jeff Atkins, Parks Dept. Superintendent. “With everything being so wet and muddy we’ve been unable to get our equipment out there.”
He said because of that some areas of the Boulevard and other parts of town have started to look a little shaggy. Atkins said with a break from the rain crews have been working 10-hour or more days to get caught up.
“The areas that they’ve gone through now are really starting to shape-up and look a lot better,” he said. “After getting so tall it’s still going to look a little ragged…The next time we come through it’ll be dried up enough we’ll be able to feather it out and it will look like everybody wants the Boulevard to look at that point.”
Atkins said normally crews cut grass on a nine day cycle from Hyde Park north to Krug Park and then start over. Small parks are on a eight day cycle. But with all the rain Atkins said both of those cycles have been disrupted.
As of Thursday morning he said crews were already about 50-percent caught up with mowing.