A Mano a Mano Day

It is often said that when one volunteers one receives more than what one gives. That proved to be true yesterday. The first event of the day was to act as a co-host for a prairie style garden along the fence at the Mano a Mano office site that was part of the Frogtown (a neighborhood in St. Paul) Garden tour.

My co-host, Ellen, is a major volunteer for this garden. She calls it prairie style because all the plants in the garden were donated from gardens by other volunteer and so not every plant is truly a native American plant. But is has turned out to be a beautiful garden.

The garden tour ended at 2:00 and I came home for a bite to eat and a nap. Then about 4:30 I headed off for a picnic for those of us from my church who do activities to support Mano a Mano. The hosts for this event live along Turtle Lake in Shoreview.

Last year I had missed this event because I was in Poland. Thus, I was searching for a place new to me. When I finally got there I found one had to drive down a lane away from the street. The house is built at the edge of hillside that leads down to Turtle Lake. The drive in was beautiful with wild flowers in the fields along the lane.

It was an evening of good food, great conversation, and thankfully few mosquitoes.

When I was leaving, and driving down that lane again, a deer ran across the lane in front of me. That causes me to wonder how on earth our hosts manage to have such nice flowers and also a vegetable garden.  Deers are usually all over those things.

All and all a very good day. And surely with all the good fellowship during the garden tour and then the evening event, I got more than I gave.