Sometimes, we enter relationships expecting to be able to fix someone. I think Stefani thought she would fix my affinity for indoors and my corresponding disdain for outdoors. I maintain that converting me into an outdoorsy fellow is a fool’s errand, but Stefani persists. Gardening, an indoor-feeling outdoor activity, is one of our most successful compromises. In the last couple of years, we have been looking for secular community in our not-very-secular town. We became aware of a small community garden operated for free by a local Lutheran congregation.

I live in a micropolitan hellscape. There’s no pedestrian access. I take my life in my hands when I bike to work. The city is full of big box stores and cultural nothingness. Despite an ongoing battle between a number of different cultures and communities, there is a sense of neither community nor culture. But there are random agricultural and industrial areas mixed into neighborhoods. So I took some pictures of it. I hope you enjoy this gallery.