Loads of Learning anyone?

Well,
I am accustomed to thinking lots and often,
but there are just SO many new things and places and people and dynamics and lessons to experience here.

For one, blasted city driving--no wonder everyone is so stressed out here!! It's a shenanigan to get ANYWHERE. And nothing is "just down the street." I stop and go and stop and go and get lost and turn around and get distracted and miss the turn and stop and go, and then I'm finally out of the parking lot. Needless to say, I take it pretty slow : )

For two, I completely dig diversity--it is so refreshing to be around so many different colors, languages, and cultures.  I am enjoying being able to have loving and mature conversations about those differences with people that I learn from. I have a renewed desire to never deny my white-privilege and to make strides in actively fighting discrimination.

I am reminded of this diversity when I dig in the dirt. At first, you think, "oh yeah, big deal. It's just dirt, it just looks....dirt-y." But with a closer look, all the differences in soil, rock, random items that may or may not belong, and insects bring a reality of diversity. These variations make up what the soil is, and it would be different if one part were missing.
A simple metaphor that makes me appreciate and treasure differences.
(If in reading this you have been reminded that you haven't had an interaction with someone different than your norm for a while, I encourage you to challenge yourself. Visit a new restaurant or church or festival!)


Onto the part that makes my big heart beat a little quicker...
Making a garden work in a tough place like the Badlands is not only possible and probable, but is being done!
And my head runs wild with all the possibilities that I hope to implement one day:
**serious rain water gathering (it is dry like crazy then all the sudden rains for days) in natural low places, off roofs, and creating catching places.
**raised, no till beds (a layer of cardboard to stop weeds and retain water, 4 inches of leaf mulch, 1 inch of ash, 2 inches of compost/soil) done on the ground, in tires and wooden boxes-really, anything with at least 6-10 inches of depth. A 4x4 bed utilizing square-foot techniques should be able to produce enough for one person per year.
**Keyhole gardening!!! This is a HUGE resource in sustainability. It begins with a metal trash can that has been poked through with several holes. Around the can, layers of dirt, rocks, ash, straw, compost, etc. are built up in an oval as high as possible with an "entrance" to the can left clear. The can is used for composting organic material (veggie and fruit scraps, most paper, manure, leaves, etc.).  With all these components together, a space and cost effective garden is made! Worms spread the nutrients and rocks help retain moisture in the soil, even in dry places (like Pine Ridge!). The keyhole garden can produce for up to 16 people every year!

I am excited to learn about these very practical and effective ways of helping people eat well anywhere I go.
It is hard that food desserts in urban areas really have been created.
So many of our health issues are because of the continual shock our bodies go through from the things we consume (imagine pouring chemicals on a plant potted in styrofoam-we would think it a miracle if it actually thrived, let alone, survived! And yet, we expect out bodies to perform and endure whilst we consume everything but the unrefined vegetation we were made for! Okay, soap box ended-call me selfish, I just want YOU around for a long, long time!).
And it becomes a very complex issue when people are trying to pay bills with minimum wage (or less) jobs and can just never quite catch up enough to be able to afford fresh, nutritious food. Which then leads to long-term illnesses leading to more expenses. And quickly, people are living oppressed in vicious cycles.
I hope to use my knowledge to intervene in these cycles.

So,
A list of things I love and hate, you can discern between the two for yourself:
-City plots that look real green that are probably actually bulldozed piles of house rubble covered with a layer of topsoil enough to grow grass
-Learning how to build a fire and cooking on it, right in the middle of a crazy, trafficky, urban scene
-Principles of Permaculture
-great letters from a great best friend, and all letters from all friends, of course
-unexpected phone calls with a great best friend
-farmers markets
-poison ivy (yes, I got into some and it broke out on my neck and arm and the middle of my back, for the love of Pete! I learned about it though-you do break out where the oil touches your skin, the thinnest places first, but then your lymphatic system picks it up and carries it causing your immune system to react which causes the days, even weeks, of breakouts in random places! Ahhh! I've been using WitchHazel, and I've heard tea tree oil too)
-close-to-daily bike rides with my Baby (she's a Specialized Crossroads!)
-Rebel, the cream kitten that sits on my lap for meals at the garden (shhhh...don't tell my mama, but I might sneak him home with me come August : )
 -officially graduating as an official CASA volunteer, officially
-placing 2nd in the "Driving Miss Daisy heat" during the Summer Staff Challenge on 40mph go-karts in real jumpsuits and real helmets having signed a real waiver
-sharing lunch breaks outside of the cubicle in the sunshine beside a man-made pond with Creator-made geese
-my mama coming to visit me tomorrow!

So, there is plenty going on up here. I am still humbled to be in the midst of it all, and am enjoying getting to know so many different people, even though I am tired.

To end, I will relay an analogy that has been reoccurring in my world the past month.
At the beginning of the week, I started a dig-hole to gather dirt for use in the raised beds and soon I began to hit the afore mentioned rubble.  I was a bit irritated at having to stop so often to pick rocks, brick, glass, and other debris, but I put them in respective piles without much further thought.
In beginning the keyhole garden a few days later, I was set with searching the plot for rocks and knew exactly where to begin-at my pile I had somewhat begrudgingly, very apathetically built.
I was reminded, for the hundredth time, that each step builds on each step until an entire process, journey, or garden is finished.
I was comforted, for the hundredth time, that the small moments of embracing the Spirit in Obedience are significant in a chain of events that I cannot yet see the end of.
I was encouraged, for the hundredth time, that I am held, directed, and fought for by the One who loves me most.
And it was a beautiful, hundredth moment of learning just one more thing.


Isaiah 28:10 "...For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little..."