It’s a quintessential spring morning at the University of Georgia’s State Botanical Garden. The sun is starting to peek out from behind a patchwork of pale gray clouds, warming the air.

It’s an idyllic setting for another session of Meet Me at the Garden. This pilot program, delivered by the education teams at UGA’s Cognitive Aging Research & Education (CARE) Center and the State Botanical Garden, wants to “expand the bubble” of persons living with dementia and their caregivers through interactive education and sensory activities.

From 6 a.m.–noon, six days a week, you can find Clancy Bolton at work on his farm in Commerce, about 20 miles north of Athens.

Farming is part of Bolton’s heritage, so it may not be a surprise that at age 23, when his peers were going into office jobs, he decided to start a farm of his own in 2014.

Today, his age still surprises people, but the number belies his years of experience. Bolton has been running a tractor since he was 12, and he’s worked on several farms, including four years at a large organic farm.

Turning the corner into my grandmother’s store room was like walking into an old-world apothecary. Floor-to-ceiling shelves displayed jar after jar of green beans, squash, okra and stewed tomatoes; relishes and salsas; jams, jellies and preserves. These one-quart Mason jars were the cornerstone of our holiday meals, and it never once occurred to me until years later why we didn’t have that same room in our home.

My grandmother was one of a generation of Georgians who grew and canned their own food, a staple of Southern foodways. Once thought to be a dying skill, canning is just one more tradition that has been rediscovered in Athens.