The grey clouds broke apart to give way to sunshine at the garden party to honor some helpful Boy Scouts at the Common Ground Community Building on Saturday morning.
The temperature slowly rose and the breeze blew as people gathered at Common Ground to enjoy the new features added to the community building courtesy of some soon-to-be Eagle Scouts.
"The community garden was here when we started a couple years ago, but this year we added the lending library and also what we are calling a sensory garden," said Kristen Hilty, of Common Ground. "We had a lot of help doing that and we are going to celebrate the Boy Scouts and the Eagle Scouts specifically who helped get that going today, and the people who helped kind of design the garden."
The sounds of the live entertainment's guitars were briefly interrupted by the passing cars, and between their songs, guests could be overheard complimenting the scouts for their new additions.
The smells of blooming flowers hung in the air outside, while inside church and community officials prepared dips and dishes with and equally appeasing scent. Some of their food's ingredients came from the free produce of the older community gardens on the premises.
The community building now has a small lending library, similar to models seen at littlefreelibrary.org. This one is baby blue with a box for books and a small bulletin board for community announcements. It was built by Joel Kling, with help from others.
"It is like a take a book, leave a book thing," Kling said. "This little free library organization is a nationwide-wide thing were people make a library box in the community. We have people fill it and then kids, or whoever, can come and take a book and return it when they want to ... so like every week sometimes new books will just appear in there."
It took Kling more than four months to build the little library, and the hardest part was getting the book box to fit in the structure just right. He said his favorite part was installing it and pouring the concrete where the four-by-four support boards ran two feet into the base.
The sensory garden is located in front of the building before the library. It was designed by Don Whitener for people of all ages to enjoy.
"It is all about seeing, touching and smelling," Whitener said. "So there is a variety of plants we have in here that will allow kids to do that. This was phase one. My overall vision is to not mow any grass here at all. We are going to have garden from the sidewalk all the way to the parking lot, but we are going to do it in sections."
Whitener's garden is all perennials, so they will not have to replant it every year. The plants will continue to grow back bigger, stronger and better, he said.
"We periodically drive by here to see what is going on because of the garden," Whitener said. "We were here the other night and there were three kids playing in it. What more could you want?"
He was helped by soon-to-be Eagle Scout Nathaniel Cook. Cook laid the ground work for the garden.
"Before Joel could start on his lending library, I had to dig up three to four inches of soil," Cook said. "And I had to turn over and put in some compost bins, and then put sod and a whole bunch of mulch down to prepare for Springtime when Common Ground wanted to plant flowers."
Cook was the only scout in uniform that day, he had a firm handshake and a calm seriousness about him. He said the project took a couple hours and when he and others finished their project they came together to help others. For instance, he also helped with the lending library and the new raised beds that are currently housing sweet potato plants that were ravaged by deer.
The scouts that helped were all honored with a plaque on the garden. Cook and Kling were on the plaque along with John Kerr, who helped build the trail between the community and sensory gardens, and Allen Fortenberry, who built the new raised beds for the sweet potatoes.
"I am really, really happy," Cook said. "It brings a great since of pride to get experience things like this. It is not an everyday experience and you get to help the community, and you make people smile... I am just happy to be a part of it."