“Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.” Walt Whitman.
We looked through photos of our gardens and property over many years as we moved here in October-November 2014. My goodness, how much we have changed and made several new garden plots surrounding our property. Our neighbours walked along our shared road off the State Highway road daily; even the parents of their children come home from school/going to school. They noticed our daily changing of landscape, new plants and trees in our property when their children saw and heard many native birds such as fantail birds, kingfishers, ducks, finches, swallows and many more. Through the Winter season, we do not do much gardening, and we do a lot of tidying up, chopping wood, trees down for firewood, and storing in a large barn.
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched — they must be felt with the heart.” -Helen Keller.
Do you realise there is excellent therapy in the garden when you feel down, grieving, dismaying or taking a timeout from work? If you hate walking, running, and weightlifting, why not exercise in the garden?
I have enjoyed this throughout my life since I came home from travelling overseas for many years and taking a break from work in the city of Hamilton and Waikato. I must remind myself to take it easy when doing physical work in the garden because I have a disc spine degeneration radiculopathy, and on my right side has an early set of arthritis and partial nerve damage from the shoulder to hand.
“You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.” -Maya Angelou.
Each day, the staff of our workplace help out with food parcels, referrals to Budget Advice agencies, Mental Health and Addiction agencies, and so on. The people I support are people with disabilities, D/deaf people, D/deaf people with disabilities and Deaf seniors; I help them with home visits, literacy lessons, referrals to job brokers, posting newsletters, and so on. I am a deaf advocate and deaf historian/linguist/researcher. The main issues are poverty, financial problems, failing the assessment over equipment, no jobs available for them and, of course, our human right to access and equality in everyday lives. I found many families with children and people with disabilities (including D/deaf and D/deaf with disabilities people) struggling to buy food due to high prices in the supermarkets.
Whenever I asked them if they knew how to grow vegetables or fruits in their garden or the pots, their answers were a big NO. Mm, their replies were the landlord said no, there was no idea of growing in the containers or the garden, no time to do growing, sore back or knee and so on. Most People with disabilities are unable to reach the ground, their physical can be challenging to maintain the body to stand balance while weeding or planting, and many barriers are preventing them from doing gardening.
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” -Winston Churchill.
Today there are many options of ideas and making accessible by improving the heights, making it easy to reach for something, finding the right garden tools, using the seeds from ‘shop bought’ vegetables and fruits, throwing out waste foods by digging a trench for food scraps into compost/fresh soil and so on.
I enjoy visiting our gardens daily by walking around, pulling out weeds, or removing dead-headed flowers. We do have a greenhouse to grow brassica vegetables and potatoes there. We are tidying up the strawberries garden by putting fresh topsoil with blood and bone fertiliser and coffee grind from the local coffee shop.
‘Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.’ -Harriet Tubman.
Life in Eureka 