By accident (aka MOM!) today I found this post IN DRAFT FORM, written back in 2015! It could not have found at a better time, and MOM led me to it!
Feeling unsettled, trying to find something to apply myself to, I accepted a little help from the Green Goddess and settled down to write with my new Apple Pencil. I wrote of MOM, memories of magical moments that illuminated my life. I was quite pleased with the result and, as part of learning this new method (Nebo) of capturing my thoughts, thought to export the results to work with them in a program better suited for working with text. Nebo offered to send it to my blogs! Wow! Well, I had to try that! Then I went to the blog I thought I’d sent it to, but it wasn’t there, so I tried another one — that’s where I found this draft, long forgotten! (I wonder how long till, and where I’ll find the new one; hopefully sooner than 7 years later!) Thanks, MOM!
Having been gone and back a number of times over these 7 years, I’m back again and was asked if I had any pictures from the beginning of the Butler Urban Farm that I could share. I remembered these pictures but couldn’t find them, hard as I looked! It’s so good to see them now, and to share them with you! This is what I wrote back then:
The Red Garden (working name, to honour the women who once frequented the area) was prepared, irrigated and is now about 85% planted! A community garden, located at the intersection of Clapperton and Wilson, is across from the Food Bank in North Kamloops. 6000 sq.ft. of land not used in over 43 years is now under cultivation thanks to Glenn Hilke of JUMP Kamloops, Butler Motors, the City of Kamloops and Councillors Dudy and Cavers, the Food Bank and other corporate and community entities, and the volunteers that got their hands dirty! An amazing amount of work accomplished with little more than desire and cooperation. We wished for more volunteers but we worked cooperatively with what we had – the secret of success in any unpaid-for endeavour!
This garden is a taste of what Our Heart Gardens will be – plants planted and seeds sown by donated labour for the residents of the community who will tend it and feast on it all year, with any surplus going to community programs and the Food Bank. The need to shelter our crops and our people may become more clear as the summer progresses – the weather has been cool with an occasional shower for the most part but there were times when it was so hot that I was glad I could leave! And it’s only May. Oh my.
The opportunity to put my hands in the soil has, once again, reminded me of the calm that takes over once I get close to the Earth. Everyone I’ve talked to agrees, and I tell them that it has been scientifically proven to be true – there’s a bacteria in fertile soil that relieves the symptoms of anxiety and clinical depression for 24 hours with only 15 minutes exposure. By bringing it indoors with us, we will all benefit – it’s never the wrong medication, you can’t overdose and everyone enjoys it.
Our Heart Gardens 