Earth Heroes You Never Heard Of

 

I just stumbled upon this website with little bios of not-so-famous folks who are making a difference in the world and books I have missed that sound like amazing reads!

 

http://www.wholeearthprovision.com/news/category/birthday-bios/page/2/

 

I was searching for and Andy Goldsworthy book called A Collaboration with Nature and found Whole Earth Provision Co.'s post about his birthday, the paintings of Church and several ecologist/writers/activists I haven't heard of before, but who I want to learn more about.

 



Resources for Eco Designs

Doing some research for a wetland/woodland design and I found these great websites with fun designs for waterways, stormwater management, and creative reuse of materials:

http://ecologiadesign.com/author/ecologiadesign/page/2/

http://www.metrocouncil.org/environment/Water/BMP/manual.htm

Come Out Tomorrow Fall Arts Fest

Getting packed up for the Art Fest! It's going to be HUGE!

 

Chili Cook Off, Live Bands, 200 art vendors, dancing,

lounges, ETSY, it's going to be amazing!

And no rain!

 

http://fallartsfest.blogspot.com/

Woodbury Fall Arts Fest

 

http://fallartsfest.blogspot.com/

 

 

I'm so excited to be participating in the Woodbury, NJ Fall Arts Fest on September 29th from 11-6 pm.  The location looks beautiful and the music and vendors will be amazing.

 

 

I've been busy getting prints made and framing new images taken at Bartram's Farm, the Spring Gardens Community Garden and the Ambler Arboretum.  As a grad student at Ambler, I get to walk the grounds in every season so I began photographing the woodlands and formal gardens with my square format camera during breaks in classes.  It's a beautiful setting to study in.

 

 

 Philadelphia, Bridge

 Spring Gardens Community Garden, Lamb's Ear

 

Dingman's Ferry, Fern Forest Floor

 



 Bordentown, NJ

 

 Smithville, NJ

 

 New Garden, Cucumbers

 

Burlington County Farm Show

 

 One of my new clay pieces                          New terrarium creations

 

Lots of local trips to farms and small towns, as well as camping and hiking will influence my booth, as well as the terrarium making we are engaged in for my Forest Ecology class. I also worked in a clay studio again this summer and some of my newest pieces may make an appearance at my table as well. 

 

And as halloween is getting closer, I'll be selling photo cards I made using pictures I took in Charleston and here in my neighborhood near Girard Ave.

Garden Pesto on Crostini

Pesto Time!  This is the second batch from the basil in the garden.  I have 4 plants of different sizes and I've been picking off all of the top leaves every other week for more pesto.  I use the basic recipe I learned years ago and guestimate the amounts.

Basil Leaves (large handful)

Fresh Grated Parmesean/Romano Cheese

Pine nuts (bout a quarter cup)

Olive Oil (enough to help the blade turn freely)

Garlic (2-4 cloves)

Salt and Pepper

New Biking Challenges

I recently joined the Bike Philly Challenge on endomondo.com with the Temple Ambler team and it has been a huge motivator to do more biking, even in the heat and when my schedule seems to busy to get out there.  You can log your biking trips under transport or exercise, draw exactly where you rode and it tallies your mileage and you can chart your progress on graphs and with other members.

India Point Park, Providence, RI

The ramp to the path, behind steps

It inspired me to plan a trip to Providence, Rhode Island just for biking and I found some beautiful trails, but getting to those trails proved to be a bit dicey and confusing.  Each person we asked had different directions on how to get to the trailhead and they all said, "It's a little confusing, but then you follow the signs and you'll eventually find it" It ended up taking us over an hour of following bike path signs that led us in the wrong direction, calling the bike shop, and finally we happened to be in a spot where we saw a biker taking the path up an over the bridge to get to the trail.  There were kiosks with nothing posted on them and trails that led nowhere and we decided ultimately, the bike path was designed for drivers who parked in the adjoining lots, not for bicyclists who were traveling from town out to the paths.

Wrong way path away from East Bay

Not very informative kiosk

When we finally made it to the East Bay path, it was so beautiful!  Great views of the water, rocky islands, lighthouses, marshes, railroad tracks, smooth paved paths, great people, varied terrain and ice cream! http://www.traillink.com/trail/east-bay-bike-path.aspx

East Bay Path

Beautiful Views

Ice cream pitstop

Headed back to Providence

Woodland Window Box

The Norris Square Neighborhood Project www.myneighborhoodproject.org

is hosting some amazing events for the community this month and next.

Gardens Gone Wild

Sometimes a cultivated community garden plot or park space goes to seed and you're left with something like this:

John Collins Park on Olmstead's Birthday

At lunchtime the park a popular place for downtown workers to take a break.

Mayor Nutter discusses the impact of Landscape Architects and the goal to build more pocket parks

Vegetarian Food Truck at Temple

$5.50 for all of these wonderful veggies (in a large,very hot bowl of noodles and broth), and you can add a drink and dessert for under $10, (the vegan chocolate cupcakes are killer).  I think everything was vegan, but you can check when you go.  Right up the street from Temple's Bell Tower on 13th street, above Polett Walk on the right.  Only open mid-day M-F.

Philadelphia Flower Show Temple Ambler Wins Best In Show

Today was the first day of the Flower Show for the general public and I worked the first shift at the Temple Ambler display, Aloha Aina: A Return to Life with the Land

 I was excited to see the display after watching the students build the displays and grow the plants, forcing the trees to flower in the green house and packing all the supplies in the box truck to bring to the show, not to mention building the display at the Convention Center for a week.

So I was really proud to see they won Best in Show Academic Education and Best Acheivement: Incorporating Food, Water, Shelter and Food into a Natural Landscape.

Two Dishes in One: Curried Cauliflower and White Bean and Cauliflower Dip

 I've been getting a free subscription to Everyday Food with my points from Recyclebank (where recycling gets you points you can use for discounts at restaurants, for free items, for points to donate money to greening programs at schools, etc.) and though I don't love all the advertising, I do love the issues like this one showing easy ways to save money by wasting less food, buying in bulk and cooking in batches.  They have a feature where they give you a menu for a week that shows how you can use the leftovers to make new dishes.

 I saw this curry chickpea recipe had cauliflower in it, and so did the white bean dip from the previous issue, so I made them both in one night.

What Makes a Neighborhood

Great local color and history

 My design class has been focusing on one neighborhood in Philadelphia and researching the neighborhood's history, the current uses, the projects planned for the space and the community members and their opinions on what is and could be happening there. We're reading Image of the City by Kevin Lynch at the same time, where three cities, Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles (circa 1960) are examined for their successes and failures of imagability and what people who live there think of the cities, remember and love. It's an interesting thing to think about what makes a neighborhood great and what makes it miss the mark.

 

Historic details and architecture

Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education Bird Count and Hiking

Last weekend I attended my first Bird Count at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education.  We joined a group in progress, in charge of one quadrant of the nature space, we had to keep our eyes peeled for any flickering in the trees or shrubs and our expert birder helped us identify and keep track of what and how many we found. There was a surprising variety of species for the middle of Winter in Philadelphia, but he said this was the southern migration location for many Northern birds.

Birding guide helps our group spot species in the meadow

My sister in her new owl hat