Wednesday, August 8, 2012Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2006. If Mattie wasn't playing with Legos or trains, then his other favorite options were tinker toys and remote controlled cars, boats, and helicopters! As you can see in this photo, Mattie made a garage for his remote controlled car out of tinker toys. Mattie was very partial to his creations, and therefore, he wouldn't build them just to take them apart minutes later. No, in fact, many of Mattie's creations stayed assembled for days, until his next big project was underway and he needed our living space for creativity!
Quote of the day: Life is a classroom -- only those who are willing to be lifelong learners will move to the head of the class. ~ Zig Ziglar
I remember when I was living in Boston and going to graduate school, Peter introduced me to victory gardens. I have to admit I had no idea what a victory garden was back then, since I had never seen one growing up in New York and in California. Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany during World War I and World War II to reduce the pressure on the public food supply brought on by the war effort. In addition to indirectly aiding the war effort these gardens were also considered a civil "morale booster" — in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown.
Why am I telling you about victory gardens? Because today my friend Joy invited me to the garden she planted at her temple. The garden reminded me of the victory gardens I saw in Boston. Joy planted, cultivated, and nurtures this garden, which in this summer heat is a feat! All the vegetables she generates (which are a substantial amount!!!) are donated to a local food bank. So today, I felt like a lifelong learner in action!
I met Joy when our sons were in preschool together. It is fascinating what two years at Mattie's preschool accomplished for us.... it was a school where Mattie blossomed and had his happiest years, but it was also a school in which we created a lifelong community. A community who was instrumental to us when Mattie was healthy as well as when he had cancer. In fact, many of my wonderful friends were moms at this preschool, and are now strong supporters of Mattie Miracle. Joy, myself, and our boys spent two preschool summers together, the boys swam, ate, played, and shared ice creams together. While the boys got to know each other, so did Joy and I. I will always look upon those summers fondly, and we both laughed today over the mention of Dairy Queen. An ice cream store that both Mattie and I loved!
I am so happy that Joy reached out to me to reconnect, because I enjoyed our breakfast together, and I most certainly loved her garden. Gardening is therapeutic for Joy as well, and I absolutely loved the peace and serenity of her space. Her garden has a beautiful pond near it with geese, birds chirping away, and even a resident grasshopper! Despite the heat, we chatted, picked vegetables, and tended to the garden. Taking me to her garden was a special, meaningful, and very personal gift. But the gift did not end there. After we collected vegetables, we then took full bags to the Manna Food Center. Manna is the main food bank in Montgomery County, Maryland, and nearly every county nonprofit organization relies on Manna to provide essential food to their clients. Not unlike the victory gardens during the wars, today's pickings were also a "morale booster" because it made you feel productive and satisfied to know what we gathered will help those in Maryland who need food.
You should know that Joy's garden is filled with the following (ALL PLANTED BY JOY!!!):
tomatoes
zucchini
yellow summer squash
string beans
eggplants
green peppers
cucumbers
Some of you maybe curious to know that in total we picked 28 pounds worth of vegetables from this garden today!!! I know this for certain because Manna weighted all the items! Below are some of the photos I snapped, and as Joy knows, I travel no where without my camera!!!
This is a photo of the vegetable garden from outside the fencing. The fencing does a great job at keeping out deer and other critters.
This is one of the banks of tomato plants. The fragrance from these plants were intoxicating!!!
Here was a zucchini just ready to be picked!
An eggplant cutie in the making!
We picked a whole bag full of tomatoes. This bag alone weighed 18 pounds! 
The green bean plants in this garden were prolific producers. But you had to look carefully and thoroughly otherwise the beans were easy to miss on the vine!
We picked green peppers, zucchinis, cucumbers, and summer squash today! 
When I returned home, fluttering around one of my petunia plants was our resident Pipevine Swallowtail. This butterfly visits us often and when he does I think of Mattie. 
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