First Few Photos!

Adorable little sign we put up the first week. The demonstration gardens are in formerly little grassy areas that students congretated in a lot during breaks. We're trying to make a gradual shift away from that, so the students don't feel like we stole their space

The set up for the raised beds. 48" wide, and 2 sets of anywhere from 98" to 102" depending on how good the wood was. We're using cedar seconds from the local sawmill. Trying to keep as much in the local economy as possible.

The first few beds. The sides are reinforced with some rebar stakes. In order to keep that hazard to a minimum, I had the idea of putting the piping on now to cover the stakes. We'll drape the fabric for the hoops over the piping to retain heat in the colder months.

Another view of the beds. The science classes all meet in that building in the background. 

A few of the starts from Katherine's house. They should be ready to go once we finally get the soil from the broken down truck. More on that and everything else that can possibly go wrong in a future post. 

Getting From Here to There

DISCLAIMER: This post is a bit of a reconstruction of lots of starts and updates I never posted between August 10th and now. Apologies if it's all over the place--that's exactly where I've been.

Last week we had National Orientation in the bay area. Eighty service members, 12 fellows, the professional staff, and various mentors/facilitators spent about a week going over rules and regulations, and also doing a fair amount of bonding and singing by the campfire. It was a great taste of what was to come in the other two sets of orientation.

I have completed one-third of the drive out to Arkansas, and am consumed by the worst combination of boredom and utter and complete madness of all the things I have to get done. It was the same leading up to leaving on the drive this morning. I felt so overwhelmed by figuring out what to pack into the car, what to keep for safekeeping in California, what to set aside for donation/garage sale, and how to squeeze in time with all of my friends and family before I leave. I realized that I have a tendency to sort of shut down if I get overwhelmed, and it keeps me from making ANY progress.

Two-thirds of the way out, I stopped in Amarillo, TX. Got some brisket and pulled pork, because you can't not have barbeque in Texas, right? Took a quick dip in the hotel pool, and fell asleep. I woke up way later than I had intended to because of a cell phone alarm clock confusion. Luckily, my Aunt Lisa had been keeping up quite the communication about our respective trips, and she woke me up with a text around 9:30. I still made it to Little Rock by about 6:00pm, so no harm, no foul.

In Little Rock, there was one day of training/orienting with the service site. Then I had 36 hours in Yellville to meet some people and work in the garden before two days of training/orienting in Fayetteville with the host site. Don't worry if you're confused about all the different sites and training sessions. I'm still figuring out the best way to describe the sort of flow chart going on here.

Fayetteville is an awesome little city. Yellville is a really nice little community that I really haven't had time to explore yet. I've met amazing people from all over Arkansas, and I'm ready to get settled.