It Ain't Always Fun

Day 130

My older son and I went to the community garden today to volunteer. To tell the truth, it was not our most uplifting act of kindness. This is the first year of this garden, and it off to a rocky start. As a matter of fact, most of what we did today was pick up rocks. The soil was donated and apparently has very little nutrition for the plants. Not much is thriving here, the plants the boys put in several weeks ago won't budge beyond two inch seedlings.

I had imagined when we started volunteering (The Seeds of Kindness, May 15 ) that, by this point in the summer, our time in the garden would be spent doing a little weeding and a lot harvesting. But like much of life's plans, it hasn't turned out that way. The trick now is trying to maintain my 10 and 11 year old's interest in and commitment to community service. We had told them that our work would help provide food for those who need it, but it's clear that not a whole lot of folks will be fed from the garden...this year.

And that's our hook. We are are putting in the time this year and it will help for next year. The garden coordinator M, who was hired after the initial planting, is working hard and has amazing ideas for the future. We tell our guys we will keep going to in order help M. make his plans come to fruition. And they are cooperative, if not enthusiastically so.

While it preferable that kindness and enthusiasm go hand in hand, I must grudgingly concede that they are sometimes mutually exclusive.