"Hands-On Loving" "I need a pickaxe," mutters Nancy Brown, part-time horticulturist at Longview. In the greenhouse room (three sides and the roof are glass), she’s just getting settled, arranging houseplants, but she’s also doing some planting outdoors, so pickaxes and shovels figure in her thoughts. So do things like the proper height for tables in the greenhouse and the need for a garden club at Longview. Brown has enormous devotion to her job and the residents she works with, perhaps in part because her own mother once lived at Ithacare. She offers one or two organized activities a week at Longview, but residents are also welcome to wander in anytime and to bring favorite plants from home. All her activities, she says, are really "hands-on loving with the residents." She knows how much plants mean to some people. "There are many strands," she says, "that make up the strength of the cord that people hold on to." She also has plans for bird feeders around Longview. Asked how she’ll defeat encroaching squirrels, Brown says firmly, "The squirrels are welcome, too."