We just bought a Rainbow Bridge

Peoria, IL(Zone 5a)

I haven’t been in the pets forum for awhile because I had a hard time seeing the losses of so many peoples pets which upsets me.

I thought I would pass along what I have been up to lately. Recently there has been a local issue over a 50 year old Pet Cemetery here in Peoria Illinois. The previous owners let the taxes fall behind and the County took possession of the property. It went up for public auction and the newspaper article about it had interviews with a few elderly people who had pets buried there. They were all worried that someone would buy the property and tear out the cemetery to build on it. I don’t like to see people worry about things, especially at their ages. So my partner and I called about purchasing it since it did not sell at the auction. One person had made contact about it before we did and they were sent the contract and had two weeks to sign it and send in their payment of $645.00. We were in line after them. They did not follow through so we were mailed a contract, received it yesterday and have signed it and sent it back with our payment.

The paperwork for Pet Haven has been lost so the chances of ever being able to bury anymore pets is pretty slim since we do not know how full it is or who is where. My main objective in buying this is to protect it and give piece of mind to all that have their pets there. It is just under an acre in size with a small creek that runs through it dividing it. 2/3 is the cemetery and 1/3 looks like it has been used for many years as a soil fill dump site that is overgrown with tress that goes across the front of the property. You have to walk across a small bridge over the creek to get to the cemetery. We plan on restoring the cemetery by cleaning it up and resetting the sunken headstones. I will take from my garden to add to it.

This will cost us considerably down the road to maintain it and pay the property taxes on it but I think it is worth it for what we are giving to the community. Now I have to buy a riding lawn mower & trailer for it to cut the grass. I hate cutting grass! I have been removing all of the grass from our house so I wouldn’t have to mow it and putting in all flowerbeds. We will be losing 2 of our 6 dogs to old age this year which will be rough on me. My partner is a manager at one of the most respected cemeteries here so I hear all about it and peoples losses, which does bug me. So I take all of the things that I do not like and buy something that entails all of them just to do something good for others.

I will post some photos of Pet Haven starting with the bridge.

Frank

Thumbnail by franknjim
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