(By Jean Love)
On Saturday, February 25 the Bethany 4-H Club dug and planted the 2017 Bethany 4-H Club Butterfly Garden at Oak Springs Villas. The parent advisor of the 4-H Club, Ms. Valerie Queen, had ordered a butterfly garden kit that included bulbs and roots of several kinds of butterfly host and nectar plants. To get them in the ground as soon as possible, we met at Oak Springs Villas at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday and broke ground. Almost as soon as we started, a giant swallowtail butterfly came floating among us in the cool air like a blessing, settling in the sun on the grass near us for a while.
A videographer, Ms. Jaha Wilder, founder of The Young Journey Foundation, came to record our ground-breaking ceremony.
During the day, there were 8 of us working: Mrs. Metria Adams, Mr. Adams, their son Caleb, who is president of the Bethany 4-H Club, their daughter Baushah and son Jordan who are also members of the 4-H Club, and Jean Love. Residents of the Villas would come by to greet, thank, and encourage us from time to time. Ms. Ida Herrera, who had come to visit a relative at Oak Springs Villas, walked over to us in the morning, picked up a shovel, and started helping to remove the grass. By noon we had removed all the grass from the area we had marked and had begun double-digging. Mr. Adams kindly brought us a hearty lunch, and after a bit of a rest, we had the energy to get back to work. In the afternoon, Ms. Connie Boyer, the manager of Oak Springs Villas, joined us to help finish the digging, spread mulch, and water. Mr. and Mrs. Adams followed the diagram that had come with the butterfly garden kit to help us lay out the bulbs and roots, and at 5:15 p.m., we were planting the last one.
What a joy to be outside working with a delightful group of people, all hands in the dirt, from early morning to late afternoon, watching the sun move west across the sky and the shade of the trees move east on the ground. What a huge sense of accomplishment to have started and finished this big project in one day. Now, all we have to do is watch the garden for signs of life and dream of butterflies to come.
If you would like to learn more about this project, please contact Jean Love, CAMN volunteer working on this project, at jloveelharim@gmail.com. If you would like to participate in helping the Bethany 4-H Club maintain and keep track of the 2017 garden or help plan and create the 2018 Bethany 4-H Club Butterfly Garden at Oak Springs Villas, please contact Mrs. Adams at 512-909-6593.
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