A Gardening We Go

We're well underway over here in Scotland-we've officially gotten our hands into the dirt, transforming what Colleen referred to as a 'dank hole' into a nice little garden at the YWAM base. We're splitting our time between two sites-the Seamill Centre, YWAM's missionary training school, and the village of West Kilbride, which is just down the road a piece, turn right at the pub and you can't miss it.
 Midgies & Rain
As far as the weather goes, it's been not too bad, considering where we are. Over all, Scotland's west coast is an interesting place for gardening. If the weather is agreeable (which it usually isn't), you race outside and start to work, only to discover that your presence has been anticipated by a swarm of tiny, ravenous gnats called 'midges', or 'midgies' which have a painful & itchy bite that turns into a red welt. Since the midges like to come out either before or after a rain, you can avoid them by heading out to work as soon as the skies open, and water buckets down. So which do you choose? I think we'll opt for midgie weather, with lots of chemical/clothing options for deterring them. I'm partial to the bandanna worn bank robber-style over the nose and mouth, and long-sleeves.
It's going to be an amazing week, and we're gearing up for a lot of projects, both in the village and at the YWAM base. Some of the things we're looking forward to are: working in the community orchard, building an insect hotel, helping conduct a wild flower survey of a meadow, putting on a compost workshop for the YWAM base, preparing the landings for a new bridge and buying cultivated heathers for the Seamill Centre's entryway. Also on the list are things like ditch-digging, bramble removal (blackberries, in California vernacular), and cleaning up an area that is often used for unsavory activities by the local NEDs (Non-Educated Delinquents). Not as pretty as the above list, but helpful to the Environmental Group, which is our goal. Another goal has been to be a link between the local village and the YWAM base. This is already happening, and we all feel quite good about that.