A Harvest of Love and Fellowship

A Harvest of Love and Fellowship

Fun was had by all.

July 21, Love Garden along with Love Fellowship Baptist Church put on a Garden Party, to celebrate a successful garden year and to reach out to the community on behalf of the church. Through the constant efforts of Morning Bear and Pastor Phillips our garden, Love Community Garden flourished this year.

click on all pics to enlarge.







In our garden, we not only harvested a wide variety of vegetables but fellowship with our neighbors and the church. We have over 20 raised plots, and as many gardeners. During the season, Morning Bear had been working with the Parks and Rec. dept. and the summer classes they give at Nelson school. That effort also paid off. We saved two garden plots for them and they came and had such a good time that we became part of their class. Every Monday morning they trek across the street and come learn and enjoy our garden, their plots and each other. Next Monday will be their last class for the season.

At this point I would like to give credit to Vicki from the Health Dept. who helped Sheppard the funds and paperwork so we could afford the lumber and dirt for the raised beds and we are able through the grant money to put in a well that we are in the process of hooking up now. This will save the church from paying for the water we use. The Church will still have to pay for the electricity to run the pump.

Last Sunday Pastor Phillips gave a sermon I’m told about how he needed help in reaching out to the community, he could not do it himself. He asked his congregation to become his disciples in the outreach effort. The Garden Party proved his ability to preach the Word. Gardeners brought dishes to pass and the Church members brought dishes and helped set up tables and chairs. Donations were gathered from neighbors for the meat and fun. The rest was all volunteer stuff.



I took pics of the Garden Party, but I’m sorry to say once the food was available I didn’t take any more till the very end. The point is that this event spread like wild fire through the neighborhood and soon there were long lines at the food table. I would estimate easily 100 people showed up altogether.

I brought along my buddy Marion from the Nelson Community Association whom I help now and then with his food pantry. He had donated the apple juice we served and also the potato chips. The smile never left his face as he stood there and watched all the people. He has worked his adult life for things like this and he was happy.

The Chronicle had been to our Love Community Garden earlier in the week and was invited to this Party. They came. They are also coming Monday to see the Park and Rec kids in action. They are talking of putting this all together into a feature article in the Chronicle. I took a pic of her taking pics so I could prove I scooped the Chronicle. Lol.



There are too many people involved in this to name and that is the beauty of it. We all get what we get out of it. I’ve been eating fresh green beans and radishes and big carrots fresh picked from my plot every day for at least a week now. I have onions almost ready. I already picked my lettuce three weeks ago. My tomato plants are flowering like crazy and have just started to pop out the beginnings of the fruit. I also have some parsnips coming along.

We have three larger 8’x8’ community shared garden plots where we have already picked strawberries and squash. In those we have parsnips, sunflowers, beans and a lot of squash plus a start of rhubarb and other things I forget.

The rest of the individual plots are as varied as the people they belong to. Collard, Curly, Mustard and Georgia greens. Plenty of tomatoes, well the list is long, with carrots, peas, beans you name it.

Enough talking, they say a picture is worth a thousand words; I’ll let them finish out the blog. After the Party Jody and Morning were back at it watering the garden. We each have a night of the week we are responsible for watering the garden.





Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Monday GOP Muskegon Meeting

click to enlarge all pics



We had our regular monthly GOP business meeting. Topics included finalizing plans for our Grand Old Picnic Aug 8th at Pamona park, setting up our GOP booth at the County Youth Fair in Ravenna. (scroll down my side bar to "Calender of Events" for details). Ken and Kay Punter as they have done all along volunteered to set up the tent and displays then open the booth every morning and close it at night. Kay passed around a sign up sheet for volunteers to man the booth. Below is the schedule, if you want to volunteer to fill a slot call me at 231-728-3455. Feel free also to show up and help out whoever is there at the time. The more the merrier.
-----booth schedule-----

The Muskegon GOP Fair Booth is located across from the steer/dairy barn and in front of the rabbit awning for 2009. The Fair is at the Muskegon County Fairgrounds on Hts. Ravenna Rd.

Tuesday, July 21st
2 - 3:00 pm Senator Van Woerkom (contact: JHankwitz@senate.michigan.gov)_
3 - 4:00 pm Senator Van Woerkom (contact: JHankwitz@senate.michigan.gov)_
6 - 7:00 pm George Richards grichards922@gmail.com____________________
7 - 8:00 pm George Richards grichards922@gmail.com____________________
8 - 9:00 pm George Richards grichards922@gmail.com_____please close booth

Wednesday, July 22nd
9 - 10:00 am Jim Riley jambork@aol.com________________please open booth
10 - 11:00 am Jim Riley jambork@aol.com______________________________
Jan Koens muskegoncountygop@gmail.com_________________
11 - 12:00 am John Dantuma jdantuma@ureach.com______________________

Thursday, July 23rd
8 – 9:00 am Jim Riley jambork@aol.com_________________please open booth
2 – 3:00 pm Frank & Pat Uriarte uriartemusk@comcast.net_________________
3 – 4:00 pm Frank & Pat Uriarte uriartemusk@comcast.net_________________
6 - 7:00 pm Bob Carr 728-3455 glhotdogs@verizon.net____________________
7 - 8:00 pm Bob Carr 728-3455 glhotdogs@verizon.net____________________
8 - 9:00 pm Bob Carr 728-3455 glhotdogs@verizon.net_____please close booth

Friday, July 24th
4 - 5:00 pm Bruce Privacky privacky@hotmail.com_______________________
5 - 6:00 pm ______________________________________________________
6 - 7:00 pm ______________________________________________________

Saturday, July 25th
1 - 2:00 pm _______________________________________________________
2 - 3:00 pm _______________________________________________________
3 - 4:00 pm _______________________________________________________
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I also told our meeting that I had set up a "flag giveaway" titled "Always a Winner with the GOP", I got the idea from the Oceana County Republican meeting I went to last week. I donated 200 small 6" flags that I will stick in a 2" thick styrafoam board. Passers by will be able to pick a flag for free. On the bottom will be a color code. The color will determing which prize you will win. 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.

Benson Drugs in downtown Muskegon on Apple ave. donated over 300 pieces of candy and Marion donated 50 bottles of water which I will try to divide up into 188 roughly equal 3rd place prize bags. Next Rep.Goeff Hansen is donating the money to cover 10 second place prizes and 2 first place winners.

Benson's sold us at cost (better than half price) 10 solid balls with a light that flashes when bounced for our 2nd place winners; I really liked them, I hope the kids will too. I then found two stuffed elephants for the first place prizes at Wall Mart. They are about 18" in legnth and come with a nice CD all about elephants put out by the BBC. As I said Rep Goeff Hansen is donating the cost of the balls and elephants. This promo for the GOP is free of charge to the GOP. That should be fiscally conservative for everyone. lol




Rep. Goeff Hansen also attended our meeting and got to talk with everyone, he is becoming a regular in our midst. Also showing up and giving us a talk was Jay Riemersma who is running for Pete's seat the 2nd US House seat. I did like the part of his talk where he talked of a Republican Rennasance in 2010. I believe we as Republicans need to hear about positive things like that and not act like we are already beaten, or ashamed of being a Republican.




Ken and Kay Punter were there to set up the Youth Fair booth as I mentioned. I did see Ken talking with Jay and Goeff and Farhat after the meeting. I can only assume it was about a possible run for office. I'm keeping an eye on Ken.

After the event we loaded up Ken's truck with the booth and other stuff for the Fair and I followed them out there to help them put it up. We got out of there around dark.

That's it for now.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Love Community Garden makes the front page.

Love Community Garden makes the front page.




The Muskegon Chronicle has printed a feature story and a related story about our Love Community Garden. The story is nice and shows how a garden, church and neighbors can make something work.

-----link to cover------
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2009/07/neighbors_students_learn_sense.html
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And the related article
------link-----
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2009/07/nelson_elementary_students_learn_value_of_growing_own_food.html
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The headline for the under story should of read; “Love Garden a success in spite of County Health Dept.” How Jill Montgomery had the nerve to be quoted for the article and not Vicki Webster is beyond me.

For me the real story as I’ve blogged about in the past was that when Pastor Phillips, Morning and I when told we had up to $12,000 to spend on our garden; we rejected the amount as foolishly high and that we didn’t want or need that much. We originally settled for $1500 for the lumber and dirt. As Paul Harvey would say; “now for the rest of the story”.

The $12,000 has now shrunk to $8,000, why exactly is still a mystery. Meanwhile Pastor Phillips and Morning Bear, with and through the Health Department have managed to spend another $2500 or so leaving $4,000 roughly. We did have a well put in to cut down the cost to the church for the water they were supplying us. The well was around $1500. I busily stuck my head in the work and was a guilty party by omission.

This balance of $4000 will get eaten up I have a feeling shortly. Pastor is talking about rain gutters on the church to collect the water, using the very bestest of Politically Correctness; “to be eco-friendly”.

Funny thing the Health Dept. originally told us we could not use the well water we were using last year from across the street because it wasn’t drinkable. Now with the magic, nearly religious incantation of “Eco-Friendly” we not only can use our new Non-potable water from our well, but we can use water from the acid rain that gets to run over all the bird dropping on the roof and down through the gutters. I guess when push comes to shove the Health Dept. is more worried about “Eco-Friendly” than “Health Friendly”. If you know anything about grant writing, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

I started working and helping out last year before there was any talk of grant money. I did it to show that people are still capable of doing things on their own, even in the neighborhood where I live. I was happy to help Morning Bear out with what I could time and a little money wise. Government intervention isn’t mandatory. Gardening isn’t mandatory for anyone who wants to unless they don't want it bad enough to work for it. Then the whole Jill Montgomery grant writing, we’re going to save the world thing happened. I compromised and took the British Conservative model that said well if we are stuck with government programs, let’s make what we have more efficient. To make it more American I also said if we pare it down to the bare necessities, (the $1,500) then I could live with that.

It’s all understandable, the thing that isn’t is that I’m still volunteering my time and effort to help the Health Dept get rid of the rest of the money. I’m even putting my own money out there to buy stuff then doing the job of putting the stuff up for free. Hey I wasn’t born stupid but I seem to pick it up without trying. I’ll finish the electrical thing and hope I get my money back, then let the “Garden Entity” hire what it needs. I have a plot that is mine; I’ll call it good to keep care of that.

When asked who that White guy is, they’re told I’m a Republican. So the word for better or worse is getting out there; but to paraphrase what I hear from the politicians around my neighborhood, “I wish they looked more like me.” Now I’m going to have to start fighting for some, what Aretha would call “r e s p e c t”.

The one good thing is that people are enjoying gardening and learning about it. The food is getting to the people that need it. The Park and Rec kids had a good experience. The cost however is getting too high in my book; and the idea of self sufficiency and not government aid has been lost.

But ---- The seed has been planted.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative.

Update on Love Community Garden

Update on Love Community garden.

Went to a meeting with the powers that came up with the grant money and who will dole it out. This grant was in the form of a lump sum to be split up as the writer of the grant saw fit following certain guide lines as set forth in the proposal. The money is to be split among a couple gardens and neighborhood parks and rec.

I had intimated earlier that our part of the “group” may get up to $12,000 total if approved. That was indeed too much. Our garden group is made up of neighbors who will do the work, headed by Morning Bear, and the Love Fellowship Baptist Church Headed by Pastor Johnathon Phillips (sp).

It is the Church’s land and Pastor Phillips has been working on the neighborhoods behalf a long time. Morning Bear has come up with an enlarged plan including more top soil and raising a lot of individual 4x8’ garden plots with black good dirt. Also a few wheelchair accessible ones.

Pastor Phillips, Morning and I agreed that while the amount is too much, we will take what we need for our original plan after getting assurances that Big Brother will not intervene in our efforts. The rest we will put back into the “group’s” kitty. Whether that gets spent wisely is for others to determine. We did what Governor Sanford of South Carolina did. His quote is below in relation to what they will do with the stimulus money.
-----quote-----
Our office is going through it with a fine-toothed comb, looking at what makes sense to reject versus what does not.
---------------
Next a link to Politico where the quote came from.
-----link to quote------
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/19167.html
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We too asked some tough questions and found out what we needed to know and decided to come up with a fair price for what we needed, not a pie in the sky give us everything approach. Love Community Garden worked well last year, with little private money. Food was given to seniors who were homebound. There was a nice harvest of food and goodness, enough to go around. We now have 16 people on our list for the garden and some extra money will increase our size to fit the extra need.

Lowell from the City’s Parks and Rec. I think will appreciate the extra money we decided to do without. I hope the money makes it through the maze to him. As I said it is up to others to use it wisely. It is up to Love Community Garden to make it happen. We are getting on top of it.

BTW at the last City Commission meeting I found out about a new City of Muskegon Chapter of the Lions forming calling itseld "Blue Sky". It's purpose to start up a Youth Center at the empty City Fire Station. Clara Sheppard gets the credit for making this possible. The Lion's will be an integral part of the mix. The plan is getting the backing of the National Lions. Pastor Phillips is part of that effort also. I have done what I needed to do to get on board, to help where I can.

I hear that our County Republican Party will also get behind that. I applaud this effort. I will find out more at our next County Board Meeting. As explained by the Lion’s representative, the youth of the community will have the chance to be taught building skills. The goal is to teach basic electricity, plumbing, and carpentry skills. Ie the work ethic. Ie an alternative to banging the streets.

On a positive note. Good things happen when good people do something.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative.

High Flying Weekend -- Back to Earth Monday.

High Flying Weekend -- Back to Earth Monday.

My father was a pilot of a B-17 flying out of England during WWII. I grew up with all the WWII stuff Dad brought back; knapsacks, goggles, oxygen masks, all kinds of pictures and other stuff. From all the movies of the time like “12 o’clock High”, I would have nightmares about being stuck in the bottom turret of the B-17 as it had to crash land.

I had only ever seen one in my life; and that was at a distance. I had missed all the air shows in Muskegon. Well, Executive Air along with the Yankee Air Museum brought a B-17 to Muskegon. They gave me a chance to actually get in one and fly. The price was out of my range but I did it anyway.

My fellow blogger The Muskegon Pundit was instrumental in ginning up local support. The rides were expensive but with Gordo’s help they not only had enough support for a flight but had Three. Thanks to Gordo for helping me make my childhood dream possible

Below is Gordo and HoneyBunch waking up with a cup of Java. Next the B-17 as it taxied up to us.

Click on all pics to enlarge.




I would like to say a few words about the crew that put this on. To start we had a continental breakfast set up on the runway. This introduced us to the idea that this was going to be a friendly and non formal type of thing. No cavity searches here. This was set up by Executive air.

The “Yankee Lady” crew and the Yankee Air Force museum in Ypsilanti, MI" crew were all low key and very friendly. They not only appreciated our money but our interest as well. I bought a coffee mug, tee shirt and hat.

Once on plane the feeling was the same. We sat where we were told; I was lucky and was given a seat right behind the Captain’s. Once airborne we were allowed to walk around and we rotated up to the nose section actually under the cockpit. What a view.




That is the Bomb sight in the nose and those shiny things in the next pic. Are the 50 caliber bullets snaking out of an ammo. box up to the two machine guns left and right of the bomb sight in the nose.

They also opened the bomb bay doors and we could all look down!!



Talk about bringing back my boy hood dreams. A big WOW is all I can say.

The rest of the Pics are pretty self explanatory; the guy in the red shirt is me and the guy next to me is Gordo. The hardest part of this post was narrowing the 100 pics down to just these. The photos of the land below remember, were taken from the cockpit with my arm against the Captains chair, right out the window he was looking through.














************************************************

After that I changed and picked up a 50’ bucket lift from Redi-Rental and went to work taking down the rest of the tree, part of which had “brushed” my fellow PD and friend’s house on 5th St. in the Hts. I’m putting this in just as another example of the high flying I did this weekend. Lol. This was also pretty informal, but a lot scarier. I had never ran one of these before or been up that high, outside of a building and not on solid ground. Sat. we managed to clean off all the branches except the very top ones which we saved for Sunday. Believe me I said my prayers that Sunday.

Any way with Larry’s help we managed to get the job done without wrecking either house, or fence or garden or wires.

The neighbors made a party of it; grilling up some good chow which they shared with us. The last thing Sunday we all got together to pull the 20’ trunk the direction we wanted it to fall as I finished cutting it. What a thump it made as it fell right where we wanted it to.

Click on pics to enlarge.









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Monday back to Earth

Monday morning 10:30 marked our last visit from the Park and Rec kids coming from Nelson school to our “Love Garden”. The Love Garden run by Morning Bear, facilitated by Pastor Phillips and the Love Fellowship Community Baptist Church and all of us gardeners; put on a special picnic for the kids. We broke the kids up into groups of 5 and they picked a handful of lettuce, then an onion and a carrot which they took to a cleanup area, where some volunteers from the church cleaned off the veggies and the kids put them in their own bag with their name on it. We’re hoping they take them home, some will; all had fun.

Morning Bear out did even herself Monday. She harvested local mulberries and the rhubarb from the garden and baked two of the best pies I’ve tasted in a long time. She also made up some mulberry jam or syrup to put over angel food cake. Along with that were celery stalks with peanut butter, with apple juice as a refresher.

Keep your eyes open for the Muskegon Chronicle. They had a photographer , which I reported on, come over last week. Monday they had a writer and a photographer that stayed all day. They will be doing a feature article on our Garden.

A warm thanks to our two neighborhood police officers. They pulled up on their bikes and were there; helping us a lot by helping get the kids over to the garden. There was a scheduling mix up and a couple of uniformed officers tended to smooth things out efficiently. It was nice to see the police taking a hands on approach and it was obvious they were there to help us.

Again click on pics to enlarge and they are self explanatory.











Thanks if you stuck with me for your patience with this long post.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Ps. My daughter Liz Carr is a professional Disc Golf player. The World’s is in Kansas City this year for a week long tournament. Over 900 players from 12 countries will be playing on 11 different courses in and around KC. Liz is ranked on the tour this year at #10.

Last year the World’s was held for the first time in Michigan, Battle Creek to be exact and she came in 3rd. This year’s event started Tuesday and she is tied for 5th after one round. As in regular golf, the tour is long and global. Liz has several victories so far with the best being in the Lexington Tournement. She has 5 rounds of 18 hole golf to play yet. I’m wishing her well.

Link to Liz’s spot on Team Disc Craft
http://www.discraft.com/team_carr.html
PDGA link
http://www.pdga.com/

Went To a Garden Party

Went To a Garden Party



I went to a garden party last night put on by the gardeners of Love Community Garden and the crew from Love Fellowship Baptist Church. Pastor Jonathan Phillips had the honor of grilling the hamburgers and hotdogs. Morning Bear the garden organizer along with people from the church helped set up the tent and tables. (and no Hughes wasn’t in the corner wearing Dylan Shoes)



This was a lower key affair from the earlier parties, I would guess 20-30 people came and enjoyed the day.

Below is a pic. of our new sign I just put up the night before.



One of the major new additions to the garden was our rain water collection system.
The pic. below shows the 55 gallon drums laying down together and dug into the hill. From them runs a buried flex tube snaking up the hill to the church connecting to the new gutter system on the church.




This gutter system will serve two purposes once completed. First it will of course collect the rain water to help us water the garden and second it will draw water away from the foundation of the church and hopefully help the water seepage problem in the Church’s basement.




Paul engineered the barrel collection system and Mike Johnson brought in a backhoe to dig the trench from the church down the hill to the barrels. CAPEK workers are putting up the gutter and fixing the eaves plus a lot of the digging and general clean up.

A new family moved in the precinct and we snagged them as they were walking by. They stayed and enjoyed the meal and their new neighbors.

There was Love and Community last night in the garden in the neighborhood.



Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative