Day 1725 - Gleaning

For a while now, we've been looking for ways to involve Ruth in some sort of volunteering or community service.  This is harder than you might think!  I went around a few times with Food Not Bombs before being told by the woman hosting that she didn't want kids in her house. We set up a whole kid-friendly thing for the class a friend and I taught at the Baltimore Free School... only to show up with Ruth and have them, oh wow, the place where the classes meet isn't lead-abated.  And I'm currently waiting for a couple food serving places that don't just rule out kids on their website to even call me back.  After talking to one of their coordinators when I went by to help write Christmas cards for people in local prisons, I've got high hopes that if the Pleasant Hope Church resurrects their social justice committee, Ruth will at least be able to come and hang out - but the goal has really been to get her involved in something she can contribute to in an age-appropriate way.

Well, we may have found it! On Saturday, Ruth, Melissa, and I went out to Zahdraka Farm in Essex to do some gleaning with Gather Baltimore.

For those of you who may not know what gleaning is, it's a tradition (with deep roots at least in Judaism, though I'm sure it has other resonances) of gathering food from the fields that was not harvested/sold, and distributing it to the poor.

Gather Baltimore is a keen organization that has been around for a bit, but (so they told us when we were out there) is only recently scaling up and organizing to have regular volunteers. It started out as a couple of guys and their friends collecting unsold food from the Baltimore Farmers' Market, and has rapidly expanded. They're now partnered with (among other places - but as one guy told me, they need to work with places that can accept literally tons of food, which not every small service organization can) the Franciscan Center, Our Daily Bread, and Movable Feast, and the guy who started the whole thing is currently an Open Society Fellow.

From the start, Ruth was a fan of the set-up. We drove out to the farm, and as soon as the organizers got there, there were donuts for her.  You can't beat carbo-loading while helping those in need.  Seriously, Ruth has turned down the offer of almost anywhere else I will take her for lunch when we're hanging out ("do you want to fly to New York City on an airplane and go to Le Cirque?") to go to Dunkin' Donuts.

They started us on gathering russian kale, and Ruth was eager to help.  Cutting the stems was a little hard for her, but she loved getting to help by piling the cut leaves into the bins.

(I can't fix the weird picture placement. It's a blog. Live with it).

Ultimately, Ruth hooked up with the other little girl there (who was "five and nine-tenths") and they proceeded to smash their boots through every ice-frosted puddle of water within half a mile.  By the time we were done with the kale rows, as you can see, Ruth was pretty thoroughly be-mudded.  We hadn't thought ahead to bring a change of clothes, so the cold mud and soaked-through boots meant that we needed to head out.  But Ruth had fun, as did Melissa and I, and we're looking forward to going back the next time they have a volunteer day.

Next time, we'll bring waterproof pants and/or a change of clothes!

Day 844 - Kinder Farm Park

A few times now, we've taken Ruth out to Kinder Farm Park. M had taken her there for the first time because she was looking for a place - following Ruth reading about these things in a Dora book - that had cows, a silo, and a windmill.

But in the end, Ruth preferred the goats.

From 21st Century Digital Kid

From 21st Century Digital Kid

From 21st Century Digital Kid

Day 900 - Chickens!

From 21st Century Digital Kid

This is where we get our chicken from. Ruth hasn't made the connection yet, but she does say "Chickens is delicious!"

Some other kids at the farm realized that the turkeys (not pictured, but one is reserved for our Thanksgiving table with Grammy and Grampy) would gobble back en masse if you shouted "gobble gobble" at them.

Day 920 - At the Farm

Yesterday, we went out to Weber's Cider Mill farm with Ruth and some of the other families from her Y class (note to self: if you want to make a killing, have the only pick-your-own apple place inside the Beltway). Lots of fun was had - Ruth spent much of the day running at top speed toward or away from one of her friends, shouting "NURRRRRRYYYYY" (the poor kid's name is Larry, but when I try to correct Ruth, she says, "I think his name is Nurry.") or "ADEEEEEEEEYYYYYY." We also went down the slides a few times, ate a dozen cider donuts, Ruth wolfed down M's lunch again, and everybody danced (except M).

From 21st Century Digital Kid

Ruth and Nurry just finished dancing to a song the band was playing. I wasn't quite fast enough with the camera phone to catch them dancing.

From 21st Century Digital Kid

From 21st Century Digital Kid

From 21st Century Digital Kid

Ruth and Larry running through the struts for the fake gold-prospecting set-up.

From 21st Century Digital Kid

L to R is Ruth, Addy, and Larry (I don't know who the blonde kid in the background is). Khadim was also there, but I don't seem to have any photos with him in them.

It was also fun to meet some of the other parents. Turns out they have a lot in common with M - Addy's Mom works for EEOC, and her dad is a lawyer with the SSA. We also found out the source of the plaintive "Larry's not here anymore" that we got a couple times from Ruth the past week - he'd been in Puerto Rico with his parents (his Mom's from there). I want to say that Khadim's Mom also did something health-related, but I'm blanking now. Anyway - it's nice to meet some other parents, even if M and I have so far not had much luck converting "parent friends" into friends we see outside of our kids interacting. Kamil's mom and I had discussed W. African politics at the park the other day - she's from Nigeria, but a doctor at JHU now - and she was one of the organizers of the outing, but they didn't show up. Oh well.

I do have some more photos, but I can't find the camera right now (these are from my phone) - I hope I didn't leave it at the farm - so they'll have to go up later.