Solano Community Garden

Hello,

My name is Kristine and just recently I attended the Solano Community Gardena service learning project. I'm glad I was able to attend this, because this has opened my eyes a lot. When I first walked into the garden, it didn't seem like a garden. It looked like a HUGE area of junk, but it was only a matter of time until I saw the real beauty of the garden. When the director Al was explaining to us about the animals we might see I was very shocked. I knew that there might be squirrels, raccoons, and bugs, but when he said "if you see a snake scream so I can come and measure it, but if its the LARGE snake don't scream I already know how big he is". When Al said this I immediately thought "hhhmmmm I don't know if I want to do this anymore." Don't get me wrong I love animals and wild life but I had shorts on and I wasn't trying to get bitten. It also didn't help, that when Al was saying all this, a squirrel ran behind one of the trees an startled everyone [perfect timing]. One of the main things I remember Al and I talking about was how one animal being dead can affect the whole food pyramid. I don't remember the whole story, but I remembered the important parts. Al said "Remember when we were killing all the wolves?, Since there were not a lot of wolves the animals they ate were becoming over populated and they were eating more animals. Because the wolves weren't able to eat, they weren't able to prevent the food pyramid from changing. So because we killed the wolves we were messing up the food chain." From this I realized that just the little things can make a big change. I'm glad I participated in this, because if I didn't I wouldn't have known what I learned at the garden. I also picked peaches. That was a fun experience because it was something new, and the peaches and strawberries that we picked were THE BOMB! I tasted collard greens, cilantro, and chives. I also smelled lemon grass, spearmint, and I saw parsley.

I feel this service learning project had to do a lot with our unit, because it shows how little things can affect what we do in our world. I also feel we need to watch what we do to keep our world from getting even more damaged then what it already is.