Earlier this week, I got a call from my dAd. He said: get dressed and come pick raspberries with me.

Um, okay.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801913928/" title="Picking berries in the Community Garden by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8286/7801913928_77a12b47cd_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Picking berries in the Community Garden"></a>
My MoM and dAd are supporters of all things local. They own a small business in town--an antique store--and know just how important it is to support small businesses, people's dreams and the development of the community as a whole because what goes around comes around.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801910116/" title="Community Garden raspberries by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8302/7801910116_b1693f2a25_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Community Garden raspberries"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801901550/" title="Raspberries by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8286/7801901550_f5336eb077_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Raspberries"></a>
Across the street from the antique store, there's a community garden. Whitman College owns the land and a number of years ago--five maybe--turned it into a garden space. My uncle has a little plot of land there and my dAd helps him keep it up.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801897672/" title="The Community Garden by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8446/7801897672_fa0fe4134d_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="The Community Garden"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801917914/" title="Sunflower in the Community Garden by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8428/7801917914_dc38449cae_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Sunflower in the Community Garden"></a>
Now for those of you unfamiliar with the idea of a community garden here are the basics. You join the garden and pay a small yearly fee to belong. You're given a piece of land and you can grow what ever you'd like on this plot. What you grow is yours. Thus land that would otherwise be untended and growing weeds--in other words and eyesore--is growing vegetables, flowers and sometimes even fruit. Moreover, you get to meet new people who live in your neighborhood and make new friends based on your common interest--gardening.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801881500/" title="Community Garden and red peppers by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8291/7801881500_b35b0c83e9_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Community Garden and red peppers"></a>
Anyhow, my dAd is on the community garden email list and received an email that said: the raspberries need to be picked. Please pick them. These raspberries grow along one of the garden fences and don't actually belong to anyone. Thus they belong to the community garden members as a whole.

So I hurried down to meet my dAd at the community garden to pick raspberries in cool(er) morning air. Then I picked cherry tomatoes both red and yellow ones while my dAd harvested and cut back a chard plant.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801877316/" title="Community Garden and me by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8289/7801877316_fbd8bc3740_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Community Garden and me"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801922150/" title="Me in the garden by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8291/7801922150_564ebb0585_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Me in the garden"></a>
At the end we took some photos of me and some flowers and I admired a sign about the history of the land that the community garden stands on. The Walla Walla Creamery is the creamery that my father's family ran and later renamed Shady Lawn Creamery. The creamery is no more but my dAd's antique store stands in the same building that housed the creamery for 100 years. It's pretty amazing that this building has been in our family for something like four generations and that my brother, sister and I are the fifth generation to grow-up and live in Walla Walla.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801926396/" title="About the land that is the Community Garden by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8428/7801926396_067927022e_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="About the land that is the Community Garden"></a>