Category: Thoughts From the Porch

Bad Weather, Community, Down On the Farm, Farmers Markets, Food Justice, Gardening, Gratitude, Health, Neighbors, Non-Profits, Opal's Farm, Service to Others, Social Justice, Spirituality, Springtime, Storms, Thoughts From the Porch, Unity Unlimited, Inc., Urban Farming, Volunteers

What’s Your Impact?

gregoryjoel

It’s severe storm season in North Texas. I pray everyone stayed safe through last night’s intense thunderstorms. There were reports of a tornado and the warnings hit here right before bedtime, so I stayed up late until after the storm passed. Fortunately, our area was spared the bulk of high winds and tennis ball-size hail that so many saw. That wasn’t the case for many of our neighbors. I’ll be leaving in a bit to check on the farm. At least I won’t have to irrigate today. Spring rain is fantastic for the farm – severe storms, not so much…

We couldn’t be at the Cowtown Farmers Market yesterday morning, especially since it was Cowtown’s Spring Festival. Fidelity Investments and their Associate Sustainability Network have been coming to the farm to volunteer on the last Saturday of the month for two years now and they’ve been such a wonderful partner to Opal’s Farm, providing tools and financial support as well as strong backs and willing hands. They brought their largest group yet and many hands make short work of all the work springtime demands of the farm. We thank them so much for their commitment to service for the Opal’s Farm community.

We’ve been blessed with so many wonderful volunteer groups over the years. One of the questions I’m often asked from both volunteers and future donors regards our community impact. To be perfectly honest, I can tell you how many pounds of food per acre we provide, how that translates into the number of meals, or the other quantitative metrics we put on a spreadsheet, but that’s not the whole story. The real impact has to be experienced. It’s one thing to see numbers on paper. It’s quite another thing to see the faces of our neighbors so happy to see us providing fresh, healthy produce that hasn’t been in the neighborhood for a long time.

We opened Opal’s Farm Stand at the corner of Rosedale and Evans three weeks ago. The weather hasn’t always cooperated with us, but yesterday afternoon was a gorgeous, albeit windy, Saturday. We had more folks come by the farm stand and the overwhelming response to our presence was pure joy. Three of our senior citizens came by and were thrilled they could use their SNAP benefits to get twice the amount veggies for their dollar with the Double Up Food Bucks program (Thanks Texas Health Community Hope for making this possible!). I can’t tell you who has been more blessed by the program – SNAP recipients or me – especially when I tell them we’ll be there every Saturday afternoon from 1 PM to 4 PM. We love being part of our community.

No, numbers on paper don’t tell the whole story. I want our volunteers to know that every weed pulled, load of much laid, tomatoes trellised and pruned – all the things that seem so trivial – really do have a huge impact on the community. They represent one more healthy, organic, nutritious veggie on the tables of our neighbors instead of the ultra-processed empty calories provided by local dollar and convenience stores. Healthy food makes healthy people and that impact goes far beyond what can be shown on a page.

Thank you all so much for your help and please know that the time you spend at Opal’s arm is making a tangible difference in the lives of your neighbors – and we’re all neighbors!

Community, Composting, Down On the Farm, Events, Faith, Food Justice, Gratitude, Non-Profits, Opal's Farm, Service Organizations, Service to Others, Spring, Thoughts From the Porch, Unity Unlimited, Inc., Urban Farming, Volunteers

Spring(ing) Forward

gregoryjoel

Good Sunday morning to all from Opal’s Farm! It’s been a great week at the farm. Volunteers (almost a hundred of them) came from Bank of America on Friday, and I’m simply amazed at the job they did. The farm looks great! Beds are prepped for more Spring planting this coming week, tomatoes are trellised, compost and mulch laid down, and you won’t believe the pile of weeds that were pulled. Thank you to Margo, Eric, and Aaron for getting their respective teams for putting this day all together. Thank you so much to Bank of America. They’ve been such a good friend of Opal’s Farm and the National Juneteenth Museum as well.

We didn’t have Opal’s Farm Stand yesterday due to the much-needed rain we had yesterday. However, the farm stand will be open today from 1PM to 4PM at the corner of Rosedale and Evans. We have a good selection of produce this week with even more coming as Spring moves forward. We hope to see you all there.

Anniversaries, Culture, Events, Friendship, Gifts, Gratitude, Grief, Spirituality, Thoughts From the Porch

Happy Anniversary Fort Works Art

gregoryjoel

Fort Worth’s Near Southside held Gallery Night a couple of weeks ago. Fort Works Art, which represented my son Jeremy several years before his death, held their tenth anniversary on the famed Gallery night. They curated many of the artists who have been a part of the last ten years and included some of Jeremy’s work. Jay Wilkinson, Jeremy’s former business partner and family friend, and a phenomenal artist, painted a grand portrait of Jeremy as “The Painter” and took a moment for this picture of my grandkids and himself in front of his piece.

Top: Jay Wilkinson and our grandkids in front of Jay’s work “The Painter”

Below:Jeremy’s piece announced the 10th anniversary

I just want to say thank you for an incredible evening for Margaret and our family. It’s a happy reminder of Jeremy’s place in the Fort Worth art community and that he’s not forgotten but lives on through his work and his friends. Five years after hissing passing I still bear the grief with comes with such a loss,  but days like this remind me of the joy he brought to others as well as his family.

Thank you for showing some of Jeremy’s work

Belief, Bible, Christian Mysticism, Christianity, Easter, Events, Faith, Grace, Gratitude, Hope, Jesus, Love, Quotes, Recovery, Resurrection, Spirituality, Thoughts From the Porch

Remembering the Stone

gregoryjoel

A blessed Easter morning to all! I’ve been thinking a lot about Easter this past week. It was never a religious holiday in our home when I was growing up. My Church of Christ upbringing prohibited the celebration of “religious” holidays if the specific date wasn’t mentioned in the Bible. I pointed out to them that we knew when Easter was because of the Hebrew calendar and Passover celebration. They simply said the Bible didn’t say anything about “celebrating” Easter. Henceforth, since there was no such thing as a liturgical calendar (way too Catholic- those heathens!), Christmas and Easter should be relegated to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny with no mention of Jesus. It wasn’t until many years later that my own spiritual journey led me to a much different view of such things.

Easter and the resurrection of Jesus began to take on true spiritual meaning for me some twenty years ago. That’s I found recovery from the alcohol and addiction that had plagued me for many years. I’m not one for “war stories” about the years prior to December 1, 2005, but suffice it to say that failure, degradation, separation from all things spiritual, and loneliness had become my way of life. Not for the sake of having tried to leave those ways behind, mind you. If I had a dollar for every time I quit or tried rehab, I’d be a wealthy, but probably dead man.

In the twelve step programs I’d tried they all talked about hitting bottom and I was there. A friend once asked me where the bottom was. When I replied I didn’t know, he said that it’s wherever I “put down the shovel”. So, I did. I simply quit digging. That’s when I learned what Easter is all about – resurrection.

I certainly don’t have all the answers nor the right to advise others on their spiritual life and a relationship with the God of their understanding, but my experience is that resurrection is real. I was dead, but now I’m alive. I’m alive because God loved me long before I loved myself. Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead on that first Easter morning to offer new life to me.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Pexels.com

I used to wear a cross necklace as if the cross and the crucifixion were the most important things to remember. I’m not talking smack about cross necklaces, but I think I needed a new perspective on my reality. It wasn’t the cross I needed to focus on (although that was a necessary step in the process), but the stone that was rolled away from the tomb to allow a new, resurrected life to rise for everyone. Unfortunately, a stone is a bit too big to wear around my neck. I should know. I wore several for a long time, just not the same reason…

Today I want to be an Easter person, a resurrection person. I’ve been blessed in more ways than I could ever imagine, and I get a chance each day to be a blessing to others. I can even love others and accept the love and grace of not just my friends, but of a loving Creator. It’s the new life I always dreamed of and could never have on my own. My prayer is that we all focus on the stone and the new life that awaits us all each day.

“We humans mistrust, murder, and attack. Now I see that it is not you that humanity hates. We hate ourselves, but we mistakenly kill you. I must stop crucifying your blessed flesh on this earth and in my brothers and sisters.

Now I see that you live in me and I live in you. You are inviting me out of this endless cycle of illusion and violence. You are Jesus crucified. You are saving me. In your perfect love, you have chosen to enter into union with me, and I am slowly learning to trust that this could be true.” Fr. Richard Rohr

Community, Down On the Farm, Farmers Markets, Food Justice, Non-Profits, Opal's Farm, Praise, Relationships, Service to Others, Spirituality, Thoughts From the Porch, Uncategorized, Unity Unlimited, Inc., Urban Farming, Volunteers

Spring is Here?

gregoryjoel

Welcome to the first day of meteorological Spring! I’ve always considered myself a more astronomical Spring kind of guy but given that this has been one of the hottest winters on record for North Texas I’ll claim this as the first day of Spring 2026. The two-week forecast carries beyond the last predicted frost date so I’m going to gamble with some Spring planting before the rain finally comes. It’s also been one of the driest winters on record so I’m loving the rainy forecast for the latter half of this week.

Opal’s Farm has only been able to make a couple of market dates in February because of some freezing damage to our winter crops earlier in the month. The greens and root crops have started coming back and new plants are about ready to harvest. We’re hoping to have a great selection of veggies for the Grand Opening of Opal’s Farm Stand at Rosedale and Evans later this month.

We also started the Taste the C.U.R.E. program at the end of January, so I’m now taking two Saturdays to teach the growing portion of the program for our Fort Worth folks (we’ve expanded the program to include Stephenville this year!). We have some great students this year and they’re hard at work on their garden plots so we can begin planting this month.

Unfortunately, new growth and expansion also created unexpected problems – mainly staffing of both classes, market stands, and volunteers on Saturday morning. I can’t be in two places at once so Opal’s will be hiring a new Saturday market person in the next month. I’m still working on the details of the new position and will open applications in the next couple of weeks. Thanks to Texas Health Community Hope for making that financially possible for us!

Texas Health Community Hope (formerly known as Blue Zones Fort Worth) has been a sponsor of Opal’s Farm since day one. They’ve helped Opal’s in more ways than I can count. Their support has taken many forms; grants, community farm tours, volunteer days, marketing, and the Double-Up Bucks programs. I hope they know how blessed and how grateful Opal’s Farm is to have them as a partner and supporter. I couldn’t do this every day without them.

We Love Our Volunteers

Yesterday, I also had one of our other incredible partners out for a Volunteer Day – Fidelity Investments. Fidelity started volunteering with Opal’s two years ago and the volunteers have come back over and over again to work at the farm. They also set up monthly volunteer Saturdays for the remainder of the year! I had such a great group yesterday. They mulched most of the bio-intensive section, weeded, and planted onions (My back loves them!). I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in a couple of weeks.

If you’d like to volunteer at Opal’s Farm, please sign up on our website (www.unityunlimited org/opalsfarm or call the farm at 817.602.8225. If you’re looking for group volunteer days, please hurry as Spring dates are going fast!