Things are Dumping

I hit the brakes, screeched to a halt, right there on the Hannegan, just north of the Nooksack River bridge. What did I see? Gold. Yes gold the kind of stuff that grows great vegetables and other things. Tons of river silt being scooped up by the County, Whatcom that is.

I asked the traffic control gal “Where’s this all going?” Response, “I’m not sure.” “Who’s in-charge here?” “There in that truck over there, ask Brian.”

I did.

Fast-forward…a couple hours…

After some form-filling, protocol stuff which Rana at Sonlight had to endure, we started to receive on our garden plot wonderful loamy silt river sediment. This is the stuff of legend…rich, flood-plain soil and organics that keep much of the world alive.

So we should have within the next couple days around 45 cubic yards of this river silt on our site.



Thanks to the Whatcom County Public Works folks: Brian, Orv and Christy.

And more thanks to the City of Lynden Public Works folks: Laurie, Jean and Mark.

And still much more special thanks to Rana at Sonlight for dropping everything on her schedule so she could make scads of phone calls, run down to City Hall, faxing forms here and there, rush out the “dump” site, making all things connect and wonderful. All this so we can have our dirt and play in it.

Thanks Rana and friends.

Jeff and Community Garden Green-Thumbs

So Fun…So Inspired!

There we were, Saturday February 21, 2009, 11:30 AM, in New York Pizza, the 29 of us. There we were casting vision, dreaming child-like thoughts (sugar-plum dreams), what it would mean for people like us to get together around a community garden. What a time we had!

If only we could snap our fingers and all those sugar-plum ideas were NOW and a reality. But they will. I think all of us sense that if that should happen, without all the planning, preparation and hard work, it would be accomplishment without community. More of a commodity, something transferred vs. beauty and common interest stuff that ties good people with good cheer – TOGETHER.

So we refuse to snap our fingers. Instead we choose to get our palms blistered with hard work, bumping into each other, shoulder to shoulder – building something that will be a joy to us AND our neighbors.

But for now: no fingers, no blisters, just green thumbs. Click on the first picture below. If you squint and strain your eyes hard enough, you will see that ALL of us have something in common. Our green thumbs. Hey!! What a concept...“Green-Thumbers”


Keep clicking to enlarge each picture.



Who won the Oscar for their "hamming" performance below?






To recount some of our dreams and details for this new life together in OUR GARDEN, here they be:

• We will be organic
• We will co-learn together and teach each other
• We will share as much as we possibly can (tools, seeds, etc.)
• We will have fun
• We will not only grow our own veggie plots
• We will grow at least a squash and a corn communal plot for all
• We will have plot sizes like 4X4’, 10X20’ and 10X10’, and our communal plots
• We will plan and plant the rest of the garden to be a thing of beauty
• We train ourselves and encourage our community join in on the learning
• We will draw the youth into this venture
• We will assist those elderly or handicapped to join in with us
• We will take field trips to Hovander together
• We will thank Sonlight church for the use of their land
• We will just hang out in OUR GARDEN and talk, sing, dream more and have a great time!
• We got to get to work and make all this happen.
• Did I miss anything? Surely I did!

So what are the next steps?

Ten of us said we’d work as a short-term organizing team. This so we can pull together more detail plans, logistics and resources to get things off the ground. Look for me to call upon this group to “take things up a notch!” (who said that?!)…baam!

Watch for more postings for calls to action or being informed of what’s happening.

A personal note: After we all separated and went our own ways, I went home, poured a homemade stout in a glass, went out into my greenhouse at home (it was so nice a warm), sat on a bucket...and buzzed with the sense: "I want to celebrate"! No the beer caused not the buzz. It was thoroughly a moment of: I wanted to just shout for joy that all these good people are new friends of mine! They have this desire to make our little world in our little town a tad bit better-together. This is so good. Thank you my new and dear friends!

Jeff

PS: The one who really figured out the "Speeking...Spelling" thing, well you get the golden "ha-ha" star for the day!

First Meeting Draws Near

As of noon, today Thursday, Feb. 19, we have a total of 26 people who said they will be attending our first organizing meeting. This is awesome! There are a total of 18 households who form this first initial burst of excitement. Let's keep it going!! We would have more people there Saturday, but 2 of the households can't make it -- this time.

Below is my proposed Agenda for this first meeting. I feel it is always good for people to know what sort of direction such meetings are headed, before you show up. This way you can be better prepared and know what is likely to be discussed or decided.

I hope the below is something that energizes you, and helps get our community garden going!

* Introductions
* Short stories of personal gardening experiences: Good, Bad or Ugly
* A description of overall plan at this stage: Role of Sonlight, Role of the Community
* Expressions of “What you dream this could be?”
* How do we take things from here?
* Do we need an organizing group or committee?
* What sort of things do we need to consider while forming this garden?
* How about a name?
* What have I missed that you want to talk about?
* Fill out the “Sign me up…”
* Next meeting
* Let’s go look at the land!

See you Saturday. This is going to be fun!

Jeff

Get Ready, Get Set....Go!

The bees are buzzing. The birds are singing. And residents along Aaron Drive (Lynden WA) are eagerly awaiting the start-up of a new community garden. Everybody and everything is happy, happy a garden is coming!

A local church (Sonlight Community Christian Reformed Church) is freely offering the use of 3/4 of an acre of their land to their neighbors to be used for growing food.

How awesome is that!

Over 320 north city residents are being invited to an informational and organizing meeting to start up the garden. See the flyer to the left.

On Saturday, February 21st, interested residents who received invitations by hand or through the mail are encouraged to gather and start planning the community garden.

This will take place at the New York Pizza and Pub (Bender Plaza) at 8874 Bender Rd, Lynden. Please RSVP PLEASE RSVP to let me know if you plan on attending...this way we'll make sure we have enough pizza and pop.



Central to making this a truly "community" garden, this has to be a "community" effort. Sonlight could have not only offered the land, but could have taken over this effort by designing the program themselves and THEN offer it to the residents.

Yet they decided it better to join in with the community in a cooperative way, so as to build up the neighborhood's capacity to do such good things TOGETHER!

So, starting Feb 21st, this joint venture begins.

For now at least, this effort will be for the benefit of those residents who live on or adjacent to Aaron Drive. Once these residents get the ball going, then they will be able to decide if there will be enough garden space for other Lynden folk.

If you have questions, call me at 318-1851.

Oh yes...the picture at the top of this blog, yep that's the land we will be developing into our community garden.

Okay...start the imagination process...can you see the beauty of it all...can you see young and old, working side by side, having more fun than you're supposed to!! Of course, they'll be having fun...I'll be weeding.

Here are more pictures and perspectives of what it looks like right now.
















Thanks,
Jeff