Journal Entry By Susan

Today’s day of work started out a little differently. Instead of going to the garden first, Jenny and I went to the office to plan out our next garden-related agenda. That didn’t really happen though. We worked on something else that was just as important.

It was really early, around 9 a.m., but we were already up for some researching. Chelsea Garden Center had promised Hester Street Collaborative some donations of plants for the garden weeks ago. They haven’t arrived yet and it was getting pretty hard to be patient since I wanted to plant them. We thought the problem was that it was hard for the Garden Center to contact Jenny, the one who convinced them to contribute to the garden. Or maybe the problem was the transportation of the plants. My job was to research on van/truck rentals with enough storage room at an affordable price. I had some help from William, Dominick and Jenny, but still we couldn’t decide on a vehicle. Well, this could wait until later since we didn’t even know the amount of plants we were going to get.

In the garden, the mosaics were a big issue. Everyday we always trying to take another step in finishing the mosaics. When I arrived, I immediately started work on the mosaics. In other words, I cleaned the tiles by scraping off pieces of cement glue sticking out that prevents us from filling spaces with pieces. I used a hammer and “the claw” together. It was hard work. I had to twist my wrists in different angles. It tired me out. While I was cleaning, others were trying to finish the river mosaic and the pieces that contrast against it. We were concentrating, so there wasn’t a lot of conversation going around.

At the end of the day only Jenny, Jesenia, Le Wen, Zi Yi, and I were left in the garden. The garden was a mess, but by each of us taking on a certain task, we were able to finish in about a half an hour. I know that seemed like a long time, but for us, it was pretty fast. The mosaics seemed more complete and cleaner than before