Patch of Earth

So, we don't have recycling here in our little town, but we do our best.

This is a picture from our back yard. The black can on the left is for cans and plastic that we take to the closest bigger town. The white barrel in the middle collects rain water (the barrel a gift I received when I made vows from one of my dear CSJ sisters). There is a hole on the top with a wire mesh strainer over it and the water just flows in. I can attach the hose to the spout on the bottom or just let the water run into a bucket. I washed my car and watered my garden with rain water this afternoon. On the right is our compost. It is a mix of food scraps and lawn stuff. Hopefully, eventually, it can be used in the garden.

Our garden is a small patch of earth. I hand dug it with the help of our neighbor who was out watching that afternoon. We have tomatoes, beans, zucchini, squash, cantaloupe, peppers, and cucumbers. Only a few plants of each since our little plot is small. Yesterday was actually the first day since I planted the garden about three weeks ago that I had to water. We have had so much rain. We've actually had a little too much rain for the liking of the tomatoes, but I think they'll make it. If not, at least I had fun getting my hands dirty in the earth.

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Last weekend was clean up day in our county. Volunteers met at 7:00 a.m. and were assigned streets as groups. Our church group had cleaned two streets at religious education the Wednesday night before (a story for another night), but Sr. Kate, our friend Clare and I were out nice and early for another assignment. It is amazing the amount of trash that was collected. Lots of McDonald's Happy Meal bags. I was doing well until I punctured the tip of my finger on some broken glass (No I was not picking up the glass, it was under something else I was picking up and the weeds were too high to see it. Yes, I've had a tetanus shot recently and my finger is just fine.). We finished up with hot dogs and soda at the fire station. Maybe next year we'll have somewhere in town to recycle our soda cans.

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--Sarah