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     I have been thinking over all the gardens I have worked on, and dealt with in my life.  At present, I have a 4 X 8 ft. raised bed outside near the barn, and planted this with swiss chard, green beans, borage, Italian white sunflowers, cosmos, pac choy, and lettuce.  Some of these have already bolted and gone to seed.  I pulled the last of the green beens the other day, had eaten them with my partner at least 2 X, and picked off what was left.  We ate one more bunch, and I froze 5 packs of them for future use.  The swiss chard has fed us several times, and still stands.  The pac choy, lettuce, & borage have been pulled out.  Planted more beans and more lettuce.  This is the first time for many years that I've had a garden.  By the way, the gold finches have found the cosmos, and are eating the seeds.  The borage attracted the honey bees.  When my kids were younger, I had gigantic gardens & worked in the garden every day, canned tomatoes, etc., and froze gobs of stuff.  My life is different now.  The kids are not under my roof now, they have families of their own, but I don't see them growing gardens to feed themselves.

     On the other hand, I have been fortunate in working for many years with mentally ill clients.  I shared much with them as I was a case manager who was responsible in many directions for my group, and often the entire building.  There were many times when I would be driving down the interstate in the company van, with 5-6 mentally ill clients, with the radio playing, some of them singing along, with my feeling sometimes that I was only the chauffeur.  However, eventually I could see that by my interest in them, that they were growing as people.  We would go merely to Goodwill stores, or to shop at Big Lots, but when we were all there together, it gave me the satisfaction that I was meaningful in their lives.  I became burnt out and tired, after working full-time with my "gang", but after retirement, I missed the camaraderie that we had.  I had to leave, but now have returned to work part-time only, with these "mainly dear" folks, in another capacity.  This is just another are of my "garden".