Being a farmer in the city is much more than knowing the needs of your crops. It’s also knowing the needs of the community, being a good neighbor and dealing with the Porta-Potty when someone decides to push it over.

On a chilly harvest morning this fall Danielle and I walked onto the land to discover that someone had had some fun on the land the night before. This just added to a continuing saga of the ‘mysterious life of the city gardens at night.’ For Danielle, this was not a first. She obviously wasn’t happy about the situation but kind of regarded it as something that is scheduled to happen at least once a season. I, on the other hand, felt violated that this would happen to US. This is how we’re compensated for being a good neighbor?! We’re constantly trying give back to the community and in return, we get spilled poo.

After a brief episode of neurosis, I got over the whole ‘good neighbor’ thing, wrote it off as simply a thoughtless act by hooligans and decided to deal with the situation. An interesting twist to this story is by this time we had three volunteers working diligently on the land ignoring the ‘big purple elephant’ in the garden.

Honestly, it wasn’t bad at all. The Porta-Potty tipped over so that its contents actually stayed contained inside the blue chemical dungeon. All there was to do really was right it back onto its base. Danielle and I did this after we thanked and bid farewell to our volunteers.

Getting the plastic throne room upright was easy enough, however there was one more step to rectifying this debacle. Stepping into it was like stepping onto one of those bongo boards (basically it’s a plank balanced over a cylinder). Presented with the task of getting the thing stabilized, with minimal splashing mind you, spurred a personal moment of brilliance. I deemed that the best way to get it back into its molded footprint would be to hit it at the base with a sledge hammer. No, I’m not kidding. It is just like our resourceful equipment shed to always offer a viable substitute if the exact tool desired is absent. In this case, the viable substitute was… a pick axe. So we picked it up, approached the defenseless handy house and prepared for battle. Danielle went first. She wound up and gave it a good WHACK!, resulting in a truly awesome report that sent me into uncontrollable laughter. After a couple more repetitions like these we decided that hitting the poor Porta-Potty with a pick axe was a stupid idea and simply pushed it back into place.

So, although this story did not have a suspenseful climax or moral about growing food or serving your community, I offer you this. The colorful image of Danielle and Yours Truly poised for battle with the Porta-Potty armed with a rusty pick axe. Just imagine if a youth walked up right then! Or better yet, Pat!