Praying for spring At the Jimtown Department of Agriculture

Young Jimtown Dept of Public Works superintendent Lee Robin Braid helps wrap the greenhouse under the Mayor's supervision.

The Jimtown Department of Agriculture (a sub entity of the Jimtown Dept. of Public Works) is preparing to feed itself for another year.

A long winter breeds dreams of things that grow like an old pogey boot breeds bacteria.

And so the expansion of our agricultural efforts continue.

On a recent, rare and precious warm and calm day, we wrapped the Jimtown Greenhouse in plastic. Soon a furnace will be installed, along with tables and little pots of dirt with seeds in them.

Presumably, plants will sprout from the dirt pots.

Our mayor is attempting to instruct us here in Jimtown in the joys of turning dirt into food.

To that end, AJ Sears has seven gardens around Jimtown, none of which are on his own land.

He coordinates the planting and assigns us all tasks, which are followed at random and sometimes not as diligently as they could be.

The mayor seems to have appointed himself this instructional task after a recent summer when he showed up at Jamie and Cori's house with a tractor to bushhog their backyard.

Apparently, there had been a pitifully neglected garden back there.

Though this intrepid journalist had never been able to differentiate it from the weeds.

So last summer, the Dept of Public Works was called upon to help manage a large potato garden, a tomato garden, three mixed vegetable gardens and two small greenhouses.

The deal being that anyone who wants the dirt food, can go pick it from the plants whenever they want.

This summer the only expansion appears to be the greenhouse, located at Grumpy Goat Orchard at the head of The Jimtown Road. The main focus will be on management and on training for the Jimtown Dept. of Public Works on caring about the diligent removal of weeds and whatnot.