Stretching Into Retirement

I have previously written about the unrewarding volunteer work I had been doing at the Public Library.  I started about 6 months ago and based on that recent volunteer luncheon (which I also wrote about), the scattered approach to their needs for me, and my sporadic personal schedule in the coming months, I called and told them I was going to put volunteering on hold for a while.  I may go back, but right now I am looking for something that "gives as much as it gets."  This may be unrealistic and selfish, but I am at the time in my life when I really need something more fulfilling and something where it is clear they need me and with at least a little social element.


So in the process of looking for a challenge, I recently signed up for the Master Gardener classes.  (In the U.S. this is a University based extension program involving an environmentally sustainable approach to working with commercial or hobby planting and landscaping.) 


What was I thinking?  Have you seen their class textbook (in the photo above)?  It was written by committee (mostly PhD professors) over several years of learning from prior classes, I am guessing.  The class meets two evenings a week for two months, has a quiz at the beginning of each class on the instruction from the prior class and covers an encyclopedia of stuff including history, policy, botany, pathology, geology, chemisty.  This will surely stretch my aging retired brain.  In the end it requires at least 40 hours of leadership-type of volunteering before certification.  Since I am new to this community, I am already intimidated by that requirement.  I also have to come up with two references...I guess that means my neighbors, because I do not know anyone else here.  


Oh well, I hope to get to know more people, have something to point to as an accomplishment, share what I learn with the next generation (esp. grandchildren) and certainly will learn more about gardening and landscaping.  Right now my brain is spinning with trying to understand the vocabulary:  positively charged ions, adsorption, desorption, lithosphere, anion, phloem, meristems, etc.  ( I am not showing off...just glad the final test is open book!)