Green or Environment Heroes come in all shapes and sizes with a variety of good works they do. Anyone that has even an occasional thought on how to improve our environment is placing a step forward for humanity. Inside our Dioceses, we have so many working for our planet. They work on Earth Day, Environment Day, Global Recycling Day, World Water Day, or just any day of the week.
We have our own Rev. Marian Lucas Jeffries that has championed the environment before coming to the Parish of Blandford in 2012. She did her pastoral visits on her bicycle during good weather. The Parish Garden was started. She founded DEN, the Diocese Environment Network.
There is Carol Aylard who week after week edits and formats the DEN newsletter. Every week, not monthly, we are kept up to date on Nova Scotia and PEI environment news. By the way, anyone can get that newsletter just ask at [email protected] or check out the page at nspeidiocese.ca/den.
There are the Raging Grannies, members of Kairos, the Ecology Action Center or Random Acts of Green to mention just a few more green heroes.
My personal favorite green hero comes from my own village. It is 11-year-old Paityn Gates. You may have heard me brag of her before. At nine Paityn started gardening in an egg carton planting kit the Parish of Blandford made up and gave away as an Earth Day project. That grew to a box garden by her birthday last summer.
The one line from our conversation last year that struck me was when Paityn told me. “I like to help people, to help out in groups and I can’t do that now. My garden is a bit like plant people that I can help.”
Her mother Amanda mentioned that her garden was her “bit of shine” during gloomy Covid days.
Maybe that is why so many of us either enlarged our gardens or just started gardening again.
Paityn’s parents saw the importance of her garden. This year her mother Amanda found a greenhouse kit. Daddy Kyle made two long box gardens and surrounded the whole space in deer proofing fence. Even little brother Cameron helped to shovel off the new potting soil.
The garden was planted. Paityn watered and weeded and tended to her plant people. And they grew. They grew and grew and grew some more. Red and Green Lettuce, Swiss chard, tomatoes, green and yellow beans, peas, and cucumbers grew in abundance.
After long days of summer fun finishing off with soccer practice at night, Paityn would come home to do garden chores. Buckets of water were runoff and slowly carried up a long hill to her garden.
Earwigs got into the Swiss Chard. The beans just won’t stop producing. A wild rose bush grew in the greenhouse. All in all the garden thrived and Paityn learned valuable lessons.
Paityn didn’t forget friends and relatives. Her cousins couldn’t get over how much better fresh beans tasted compared to the ones in tins in the store. Her little brother grabs beans, peas, or cucumber for a snack these days.
Will gardening stop here? Unlikely! Already Paityn is thinking of what else she can grow. She wants peppers and watermelons next year. Better still she wants a way to gather the rainwater running off the greenhouse roof to reduce those buckets being carried up a hill.
Paityn will go through life knowing how to garden, how to make food to feed herself, and improve upon what she presently has learned. At some point, she may teach others
From a handmade planting kit for an Earth Day project to a fenced-in garden tended by one young lady in the community is a huge jump. Green heroes come in all shapes and sizes for a variety of good works they do. In the Parish of Blandford, we have a green hero. Her name is Paityn.
