young garlic

young garlic, originally uploaded by kt.ries.

Winter

It is cold now and hard to imagine that it will ever be warm again. The small green things in the garden reassure me: spring will come.

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Have been chipping away at a real-live portfolio web page and am pleased to say it is at least 40% finished. Hoo-ray. You can check it out here.

In other news, here's a photo of a lady with a kitten who appeared at my bank one afternoon this summer. She kept talking about finding the kitten all smooshed on the side of the road and how she just couldn't leave it to die. The women at the bank were swooning, especially the police woman. I think the kitten may have been a little brain damaged. Look at that sweet face...can you see it?

This woman and her brain damaged kitten in the bank are the sorts of things that I like about Knoxville. Just a hair off color and in places you wouldn't expect it.

God bless us, every one.

Moment, Not Mint

The good stuff, originally uploaded by Smashimus.

I like the declarative vibe and the typography in this piece very much. Seems full of inside jokes too. Take it to the streets folks.

Oaxacan Food

Pork Rind Childhood

I think the memory or idea of food is often more satisfying that the actual thing itself. In honor of food memories and Mockingbird Events' Street Food Dinner tonight, here is a drawing about my memory of pork rinds at the Monteagle flea market.

Great Hope

Earlier this year I ordered six fruit and nut trees from the Arbor Day Foundation. You pay to become a member and then you get a discount on live trees...and they come by post!

They are bare root trees, which I read are less hearty than burlap root balled trees or container grown trees. No matter, they arrived on Saturday in a triangular cardboard mailer: 2 pecans, 2 kieffer pears, 1 plum, 1 redbud, and two free forsythia shrub (i.e. branches). We've had a large pecan sapling (~5' tall) leftover from the Tour de Plants and I decided I would plant it in a large newly established median space between 5th and 4th Ave.

The Tennessee Dept. of Transportation has just this summer finished a large interstate overhaul called SmartFix-40. In it's wake, the interstate on ramps are safer, we have noise barrier walls, and there are several recently disturbed areas passing through succession. TDOT planted several trees (magnolias, dogwood, etc.) but they must be heavily fertilized as the surrounding soil is junk. It's mostly clay and full of rocks: no good for young trees and nearly impossible to dig a deep enough hole for my pecan tree.

So instead, I planted the small and sad little bare root pecans from the Arbor Day Foundation. I mixed some of my compost into the clay and surrounded each tree with leaf mulch (also left over from the bike ride). Now I wait.

And wait. And wait. I will return to check on their progress in a couple weeks. The plane in which they are planted has a strong slope and I fell asleep last night dreaming of terraces, sedums, and paths. Maybe after I get my Masters in Landscape Architecture. Ha.

Here is the one of the trees on site.

Legacy

legacy, originally uploaded by kt.ries.

This photo comes from Saturday afternoon when we happened by Legacy, an excellent vintage store, now emptied to make room for storage (great idea, Jeffrey Nash, use a retail storefront to store your crap).

My bitter feelings towards developers (with more money than sense) aside, this is a good example of how the visual gets at things that words cannot. I like images that reward the penetration of the gaze. Look closely at the photograph and find the owner standing at the back of the store. It was probably one of the last times she'll stand in a building that has been her life for decades. I almost felt as if I shouldn't have been there witnessing her and it.

Instructional Test