South Park Putts Out

At Lettuce Link we've been lucky to have a stellar intern crew. Today, we're featuring the writing of Bea, a Whitman College student who infused Lettuce Link with her artistic talents this summer.

When I first started my internship at Lettuce Link, I joyfully volunteered for my first project: the construction of a mini putt-putt golf hole. At first it seemed like an odd task – I thought my internship was about farming, not mini golf construction.

But I learned that as part of the National Night Out Against Crime, the group South Park Arts organizes a mini-golf course each year, and this year they had invited Lettuce Link to sponsor a Marra Farm hole.

As a naive, over-excited college student, I was ready to jump to any height for my awesome new internship. Conveniently ignoring the fact that my construction skills were somewhere between rusty and nonexistent, I began making lists of materials and costs.

In the first couple of weeks, I filled my office hours with brainstorming, and assumed that one day soon I would proudly display the completed project on my desk.

What I didn’t know then was that in the weeks to come, in between my time working at Marra Farm and the Seattle Community Farm, I would end up hauling electric drills and large pieces of wood as part of my daily commute.

Since my commute was two hours long and included multiple buses and a ferry, this was no small feat. As much as I loved it when a suited business man came up to me on the 7:05 am boat to tell me that the wooden two-by-four hanging out of my backpack was a safety hazard, I was a bit overwhelmed by the increasingly large scope of the project.

After several late nights finishing the construction, I could almost take a sigh of relief…almost. Yes, I had finished the construction process, but my plans were not complete – I still had to paint the hole. At this point, I was kicking myself for having such extravagant expectations for the project, and was just ready to be done with it. It took me five hours to complete the painting.

Finally, the hole was ready. We transported it (rising to the task of wrangling a large, unwieldy structure into a small car) to the Putt Putt event, where it delighted and challenged our mini-golfing South Park neighbors all evening.

Despite the unexpected challenges with the project, I survived it all. And, if I do say so, the Putt Putt golf hole looks awesome.

Thanks, Bea, for all your hard work on the project. We agree, it looks great! Check out the South Park Arts Facebook page for more pictures of the event.