an old-fashioned barn-raising

Some days I love my job. Well, actually, most days I love my job. But yesterday was especially nice. If you've been reading for awhile, you know that, in addition to teaching, I also work in long-term care. And this summer, I'll be doing an "Eden Alternative Intensive" with the two facilities I work for. This weekend, we had a gardening party to kick off the summer events.

At this facility, we have a courtyard that sits right in the middle of all of our buildings. It is grassy and sunny, but not much else. Just a big blank space waiting for something to happen to it. For a long time, we've been wanting to do something creative with it, and this weekend we finally did.

We found some raised bed gardens online, then ordered a bunch of them. Then, we went to Home Depot and bought a big pile of dirt. Then we invited some of our residents to come out on Saturday and help us build the garden beds. (That was the best part.)

I assumed that the garden beds would be extremely easy to put together. They were pre-fab kits. Just line up the cedar boards and bolt them together. Each bolt had to be screwed into the wood, though, so it took a lot more work than I thought. But that turned out to be the best way for us. It took a few hours to get all of them put together, but we needed everyone's help and that's always a good thing in a long-term care community.

Let me show you what I mean. I overheard one of the gentlemen in the photo above say to the other, "It's great to feel useful today. One of the worst things about growing old is feeling useless." He couldn't see me, but I was smiling from ear to ear.

Amazing what we could all do together, and even better to see how healthy it was for our elders to be needed. We were a community, raising a barn together, and everyone was important. Imagine the untapped energy we have sitting in nursing homes across this country!

And this is what the courtyard looked like when we finished. Hopefully, we'll see some plants soon!

Posted: Sun - May 2, 2004 at 10:08 PM

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an old-fashioned barn-raising

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