Positive Possibilities "Watermelon Sunday" by Josephine Laing It all started with "Watermelon Sunday." Frank and I used to  take cookies or peach pies to our new neighbors, the students, on our  block every September to get to know them. But then he and I began  exploring the raw vegan life style in an effort to increase our level  of health (no sugar or processed grains) and to reduce the amount of  suffering in the world that we were directly responsible for. (You  know, factory farms et all.) But regarding our student neighbors, as  the old saying goes, "If you give respect, you get respect."  However, it's actually much more than that.   Cal Poly takes in the cream of the cream.  These are all  amazingly brilliant young people, each one a gem.  And getting to  know all of those who live on our block has enriched our lives and  has allowed us to delight with them in their late night friskiness  and share with them their deep heart difficulties and pains.  What  else is life about if not sharing the ups and downs with those we  love? So we feel very blessed and truly enjoy these colorful and  varied neighborly relationships. But back to watermelon Sunday.  So, not wanting to participate  in cookies and pies anymore, I needed another option.  Well, at the  farmer's market, if any of you have not experienced our most  delicious, local "Dry Farmed Watermelons," do not let another year go  by without indulging yourself.  They come in late summer. Frank and  I can polish off a whole one in two days kept in halves in the  fridge. (If you live alone, share one with a friend, or enjoy a five  day feast all on your own.) Anyway, we went to the farmers market  and got ourselves a whale of a watermelon and then went around  amongst all the neighbors with little slips of paper inviting them to  come for a slab of watermelon between 3:00 and 5:00pm. on the next  Sunday afternoon. We wrote each name on the separate invites at the  door asking them to be given to the roommates so all were invited and  everyone could come and meet their new neighbors. We also have a few  seniors on the block so the party turns out to be a nice mix of generations.  After we've all had our fill, I give a garden tour, dig  and hand out a few fresh and dirty potatoes, show off my medicinal  herb collection which includes stevia, the sweet leaf, and pennyroyal  and tansy, both of which will bring on a late period, (always an ear  catcher.) Then if this sparks an interest, we consider consulting  with the landlords and then planting a few bare root fruit trees and  tomatoes in the students yards. Urban and orchard fruit tree plantings are in a serious state  of decline worldwide and yet fruit trees produce the most food per  acre of any plant and begin producing within a year or two after  planting.  And we all know about tomatoes, the poet Pablo Neruda got  it right when he said that in summer their blood runs in rivers down  the streets. Sometimes we get really into it and put in salad beds  with a variety of greens and several types of lettuces, and most everyone loves to plant chili peppers. We've had artichokes,  blackberries, pomegranates, peaches, nectarines, plums, cucumbers,  apricots, pears, potatoes, yams, tangerines, limes, oranges and  lemons. One household even got a duck and some chickens.  So we've  had eggs.  And then we've had cilantro, boy did we have cilantro and  parsley, same thing, and arugula too.  The kale and collards are easy  to grow and green beans and sugar snap peas are too.  And we've had  flowers: roses, sunflowers and cosmos, marigolds and black eyed  susans. Of course some of these student gardens have their bicycles  and beer cans too. And sometimes the weeds get very high and blow in  the breeze and we just pull the vegetables out from amongst them, all  tucked in their beds together. So that's how we do it.  Of course some of it is hit and miss.   That's always the way it is with gardening. But Frank and I check in  and help with the young trees at pruning and disease or pest time and  sometimes we even get a spare eggplant or too. And if someone's being rowdy in the street, if I didn't know  who they were, it's almost a little bit scary especially if it's late  at night.  But if it's just Christopher, then it's great and I find  myself smiling at the fun and bouyancy of youth. Josephine Laing As an eco-feminist and a practicing medical intuitive for the past 25 years, Josephine Laing sees the emerging role of women in our culture as an essential element in our human transformation away from the dominator model of society into a golden age of peace which celebrates life in all of it's astounding creativity and diversity.