Every semester Yahya is required to fulfill 10 hrs. of environmental community service for a total of 20 hrs. per year. I recently discovered a wonderful resource that connects volunteers with community organizations needing help. So, yesterday he and I ventured out to an Urban community farm garden, Tricycle Gardens, in another part of town in order to lend a hand as well as begin to accumulate service hours.
Well I thought the work would be simply watering plants, weeding, working with the compost etc. No way. We were in for a huge surprise when we found that we would be preparing a recently acquired vacant lot to planting by hand! That means instead of using a tractor or even a tiller, the ground had to be broken up by human muscle due to the rocky terrain.
That was some work. Yahya and I basically were in charge of picking up the rocks, placing them in a wheelbarrow, and dumping them in an out of the way location. This reminded me of a punishment for the “naughty” boys in the private high school I attended. They had to move rocks from one place to another and it was called rock pile.
Well at least I got to spend some time outside in the beautiful weather as well as spend some quality time with Yahya. I think this was an activity we will remember for some time. His next assignment is in another garden but I think it will be a little less labor intensive and allahu alim.
Islamic Homeschooling in the River City 
Assalamualaykum,
It does sound like punishment, but someone has to do the work! A reminder of what many farmers round the world have to go through just to survive, subhanAllah. glad you got a lot of positive out of it.
Wa alaikum as salaam ummrashid,
And that is exactly what the lesson we both got out of it. The fact that this is part of many others normal work, subhannallah.
Alhamdulillah, it was that hot out!
Assalaamu Alaikum Umm Tafari
I really enjoy your community and learning. It looks so much practical and you are indeed blessed to have such a great environment to make use of. Really a different way of learning Maashaa Allaah!
Wa alaikum as salaam Umm Maimoonah,
Great to hear from you, maashaa Allah. Can’t wait to try out more of this sort of thing as they children get older.