There is so much to tell you all!!!

Sitting in my room next to my window and listening to the rain, I cannot help but be thankful for the moisture that this rain storm will bring to the earth, to its growth.

 From my bedroom window!

Even though today I don't have to water the gardens, still, there is so much to do yet today... but first, let me fill you in what going on these couple of days:

 Two day ago,  I went home for memorial day to spend some time with my family. It took me 30 minutes to drove home. It was such a lovely day spending time with my family. Home is truly a place where I found myself most comfortable and real.

We had an amazing dinner and after dinner, my parent and I just sat around the living and chatted. We talked about family, its place in society and its practices today. I remember those times when I pull out of my drive way and head back to school from my home, I will slow down my car and at times even to a halt. I will think to myself, sometimes I will shout it out within the car, "Why I have to leave this place? What made me have to leave home? What is so worth while that it can force me to leave home?" I been questioning the way how our society tell us young adults to leave home after college and not go back to it; the way society tells us to leave for good for our own best interest after going through a education that teaches us mostly things that we do not need. Why? Why do we as young adults have such pressure on us to tell us not to go home after higher education but to go out and compete with others for material goods in this capitalistic society.

Lets image for a second, if the world is perfect, there will be no reason what so even for me to leave my family after my college years. I agree that we need time to be on our own as young adult to learn things that only can be learn on our own like self discipline and independence, but I also agree that we need to go back to our family, our local community to teach and contribute what we learned while we were alone. We need to bring back what we had discover on our journey. If the world is perfect, there will be no reason but my own self interest that force to leave home for a new home somewhere else. If the world is perfect, all that I had gain on my journey of becoming an adult, need to be bring back and share with all the people who had given me so much during my early childhood, my family and my local community. But you are right, the world is not perfect now and that we as servant of the world at time do response to the callings and go away from our home to share our gift and talent to a part of the world that need it, but all I am saying is that we need to be hesitance to think that it is only right for us to leave home and go, for I truly believe that deep down, most of us don't want to and it is not a bad thing, not an act of settling, but only natural, humanistic and in a sense, true to who we are as a human.

My lovely family

Yesterday was a tired some day but fulfilling. 

I first ran around downtown and water all the gardens, they are all doing quite well. There are new plants coming up in the newest garden that situates in a neighborhood full of abandoned houses. There is 13 brush bean plants, 4 cucumber plants and 5 squash plants. It is exciting to see a new garden coming up.

Bean coming out

Bush Bean

3 of the bush bean seem as they had been eaten by other insects or animals. 

Squash

Cucumber

 When I was at the garden by the busy intersection, I was approached by a lady. It turns out that she is a student at University of New Mexico trying to get his doctrine degree. She is currently doing her research here in Grand Rapids where she grew up. Her name is Christy. The focus of her research is about gardening, community and sustainability. She told me I was the first guerrilla gardener she ever had met and that she would like to come garden with me sometime soon and gain experience of it. I happily agreed. I am so excited to learn more about gardening and sustainability from her. 

She actually was in the area because she signed up to volunteer over at the community garden next me my garden. It was the first time I saw people working on that garden. The garden looks great. I met the lady who is the head of the project, Nacy and one of the volunteer, Alberto. Alberto been looking after the garden that I had planted by telling people not to mow over or walk on it. What a great man. I am grateful. 

Here is the community garden. 

With water always been an problem, I increased the numbers of containers that I carry from 5 to 10 containers. It works well. 

All those new containers still need to be painted. 

Today, I also finished retouching all the "red boxes" and made signs for them in the studio. Tomorrow I will be distributing them all over down town, When I have all the location, I will put the map on this blog and my other blog, http://thetruelibraryproject.blogspot.com/ 

Touching up the "red boxes" and making the signs for it.

My working station

My studio

Wow, there are so much information I just gave you... 

Hope you enjoyed the post. 

I am so excited to see how all these project come out!!! 

Hope all is well with you all

All the best

Patrick

There is so much going on... so no blog entry tonight...

Sorry, there is just so much going on...
so much to do tonight yet...
so no blog entry tonight...
but please come back tomorrow...
I promise it will be full of stories!!!

Wish you are all well!!!

Patrick

The red boxes are ready...

Today, I went water all the gardens, everything looked OK.
Tomorrow supposes to be thunder storming all day... I am glad for the rain that the plants surely needed. 

I finally finished painting all the boxes. They are ready to be put out in to the world and be a part of the experimenting the new way of learning and teaching. I am so excited for them. I still had to find venues for them to be hosted for the project. I probably will not do this tomorrow since tomorrow is the Memorial Day and most of the shops will be close. So I am planning to do this on Tuesday.

Putting the primer up

All 12 of them lining up to dry!

My studio with all these white boxes.

Start to put the red paint on them in the afternoon.

When I was making and painting the boxes, I felt so in peace. It was like time was going so smoothly. I felt so purposeful. There must be something about creating things that makes us human feel satisfy. To see something being form, being shape, and be a part of that process is truly a beautiful thing.May be when human is creating, the action of creating made us realize our own origin, the time when we were created. It is always comforting no matter what to have a sense of how we came about. Also, maybe when we create, we are able to better connect with our creator and better understand him be this mutual activities. Through our own creation we can see from our love to our creation and transfer to knowing our creator's love for us and it is such a comforting thing to know that we are loved.

On my way back home, I got pulled over by a police women. I was worry and nervous as I have no idea what I had done wrong as I thought I was following all the rules. I thought maybe the fact that I was not wearing my a shirt that is the reason, but the true reason is that I had a broken right head light...... 

My rear mirror when the police car was behind.

Thanks for reading. 

Wish you all a great Memorial Day! 

Keep in touch. 

Patrick

As we yearn for our inner nature with nature and community...

 As I went on a exploration expedition yesterday in downtown, I encountered pictures after pictures of true humanities. I saw how human beings' yearning for nature and community in this concrete jungle that we built for ourselves.

I think it will be so hard to prove that we humans dislike being with nature. I think we all love being with nature, bath in the warm sun, put in awe by a sun rise, amaze by the majesty of a thunder storm, in love with the beauty of all kinds of animals... We are human and we are part of this nature. It will be also very difficult to prove that we do not like to be a part of a community or to feel belong and love. Then why had we built ourself such a system, such a city that it lower our opportunities to these 2 things that we love so very much. 

So many times in history that human tried so very hard to distinct themselves from the animals. They tried so hard that they decided to distinct themselves from the animals by doing what animals cannot do: to defeat and to control nature. We had destroy and alter the nature because we so caught up in our what so call "progress" or simply our project to widen our distinctions from other animals. Oh silly we, wouldn't you agree that the best distinctions from other animals is that if we humans decided to care for this world as a volunteer without the law of nature force us to do so as it force all other animals to do so. What if we distinct ourself by being the sole animal in the planet who consciously caring the nature as all animals do so unconsciously? What if we distinct ourself by coming together and form community not for mutual survival but for mutual love and caring? I agreed that we are so different from animals, but the worth while question should be in what areas are we different and in what areas are we so similar. 

human do enjoy being with nature and being within a community of friends and neighbors. But we had built such a structures that won't allow us to do all these things that we love the most. The society give us a job that last 8 hours a job, a city that give us 1 hour long car ride between work and home, a education system that take our children away for 7 hour a day, 5 day a week, a way of life that give us excuse and tool to be disconnect from nature...... 

I don't know much about it all, but I do certain that as human, we love the nature and the presence of other human beings, so I think our life style and habitat should celebrates these characteristic of our beings and not limits or suppresses them.  

your friend

Patrick 

A overview of the gardens!!!

Yesterday was another sunny, fair temperature day! I am loving it all.
I went all over the place to water all the gardens, they were looking a bit dry.
I did not go watering for 2 days since the thunder storm since I was hoping the rainfall will be enough to keep them moist and luckily they were. But I think from now on, I should not take such chances again.

Right now, we have 4 gardens around the downtown area. Let me show you.

one is by a local hospital:

33 potato plants are in those 4 rows. 

35 pumpkins are now here. 

The second gardens is on the side of the road: 

one of the two flower bed in this garden, it is actually not doing so well. There is still no vegetation coming out, so I might replant this flower bed today. 

This is the second flower bed in this garden, it have some carrots and 6 potato plants. 

The third garden is by a very busy intersection:

There are 74 potato plants here, 2 cucumber plants, 2 squash plants and 46 corn plants. 

There are 41 watermelon plants and 2 cantaloupe plants here. 

The last and not least is a garden in a neighborhood full of abandoned homes: 

one row carrot and one row of bush bean, they have not spout yet. 

2 circle of cucumber and 2 circle of squash, they are not yet spouted. 

All plant were looking great in the garden that by a local hospital. I think the enormous amount of sunshine lately really helped the potato to grow, they are growing so fast.

They are surely grow fast, some of them are even reaching a foot of height!

Five circles full of pumpkins!!! 

The plants over by the busy intersection are also growing very well. 

Beautiful row of corn!!! 

Just a post to let you get a overview of all the gardens we have now. 

hope you enjoyed!!! 

keep in touch!!!

peace

Patrick 

This entry is not really about any social experiment, but just sharing with you a beautiful picnic!!!

Yesterday, Corrie and I had the best picnic ever!!!

It was such a beautiful time that we shared in a city park with a picnic basket. It felt so right to sit on the ground, share a meal, converse, laugh, tease and wink. Everything just seem so right.