Sunday morning and it is community service day. This is not imposed on me by any judge, but rather a commitment I made to myself a couple years ago.
The neighborhood association that I am a member of, actually on the Board of directors for, does a lot of neighborhood clean up. In the Urban community it is important to keep on top of that. We go out once a month or so and work on cleaning a few alleys or working in a community garden or planting some trees. The last is fun. It is called Guerilla Gardening. Not approved by the City, but done with the hopes to make the city a greener place.
Today we are attacking a section of land that right now is weeds and concrete. A house was there, it burned down, the city tore it down and has left the spot vacant for many years now. We are going in to break up the concrete, dig up some ground and put in some community garden boxes. These are large 5 x 10 wood frames that allow us to put in a good topsoil and then plant vegatables.
Our neighborhood has one community garden already and it is a succcess. Neighbors can pay $15.00 and plant what they want in some of the boxes and then reap the benefits from the 'community' ones that usually have basics like tomatoes and cucumbers and such.
We got some of my husbands fathers tools. He has this great rod that Jim called the concrete cracker. I think it is actually a railroad tie "Gandie" a rod that is round up top and then becomes square ending with a wedge. It was used by RR workers to wedge under a railroad tie and lever them into place. There were about 8 Frat boys there and they were sledgehammering the concrete. The rod helped and it was neat to see it being used. That may sound odd, but I was just glad to offer it to help out.
I went back in the evening and they made some real progress. We should have a garden in just a few weeks.
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1 comment:
Haha wow getting everyone together for community service seems like a great idea. I live in a gated community in which everyone basically keeps to themselves. There is no real shared area except the street or the sidewalk but we can't exactly tear that up without bringing the cops down on our heads.
Sometimes it makes me a little sad that we all seem so far apart even though we're just a few feet away from each other, but i really can't say anything because i haven't done much to meet and greet.
I hope that everyone in your community contributes and has a great time with the garden + community service =)
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