Sowing seeds of self-growth: Muhammad Khan finds community in volunteering
DENVER — For Muhammad Khan, Colorado soil is a far more formidable foe than the loamy pastures of his home in Lahore, Pakistan. Still, welcoming the challenge, Khan flicks seeds over his green thumb onto the frozen topsoil of his backyard and hopes for the moisture of late March snows to brace his garden against the approaching summer sun.
Khan’s green thumb may seem haphazard, but in reality he is placing his trust in a fine-tuned ecosystem of his own creation. The bees he keeps tend to the flowers; his chickens till with their talons and the woodchips that he orders by the truckload trap heat and water, revitalizing the earth beneath.
He deems himself “the caretaker,” and he has the zoo to back it up: two dogs, one parrot, seven chickens, an aquarium of fish, two hives of bees and, for now, a tolerance of grasshoppers. Japanese beetles, not so much.
Khan’s day job — or “paid job,” as he puts it — is that of a digital advertiser at Adcellerant, a digital marketing company. His passions lie elsewhere, in the environment and community involvement.
