Good Omen

This was one of the first things we saw when we got to Jess Wilson's farmstead home in Monteagle. I took it as a good omen.

Carson Fisk-Vittori

My friend Blaise recently pointed me to the website for Carson Fisk-Vittori. It's beautiful stuff. Go and browse.

Summerset, Carson Fisk-Vittori, 2010
Archival Inkjet Print

Untitled (Tasty Tunnels), Carson Fisk-Vittori, 2011
Ant food gel, plant food get, harvester ants, plexi, shrub

Skulletons in the Garden

The Future is Always Wide Open

There are certain life lessons I have to learn over and over again. In no particular order they are:

Be patient.
Be still.
Be kind.
Do not worry about things you cannot control.
Know where you're aiming before you fire.
Do not talk about important things when you are hungry or tired.
Good shoes and good food are worth the money. 

In particular, I find it hard not to worry about what work I will find in the coming months as my stint at Beardsley Farm winds to a close. While I've enjoyed the radical change of pace and the knowledge I've gained at a demonstration farm, I miss teaching. I also miss making more money. There, I said it. I want to pay off my student loans AND eat well. Can't do that on an AmeriCorps living allowance.

I don't know if you've heard, but this is not a great time to be job searching. (And I'm one of the lucky ones!) With that in mind, I began to imagine what I would like to do if money were no problem. It is this: I would like to establish an Urban Land Scouts program in which we could work with students daily on both the land-craft elements of the scouts and the critical thinking and making that fuels reflection and greater awareness. Since my time at the Outdoor Academy, I've joked about wanting to start things like The Katie Ries Farm School for Young Ladies, but now I find the joking falling away as I consider what it might actually take to realize an established Urban Land Scouts program.

An established program, even an after-school program, is a two to five year goal. What I can do right now is this: Urban Land Scout Camp at CAC Beardsley Community Farm. I'm partnering with Schools of Influence Education Foundation and CAC (the parent organization of Beardsley Farm) to try and pull this camp together for this July! What's more, we're trying to get it funded so that our campers can attend at no cost to their families. We've generous local sponsors (like the Tomato Head, Cruze Dairy Farm, and Community Television of Knoxville, among others) and will be asking individual donors to step up and donate whatever they can. I know that money is tight, but this project won't cost much and it will give a lot to people in our community-- both by supporting Beardsley Farm's work and by increasing educational access for sixty Knox County students. If you would like to read or disseminate our one-page proposal of the project, you can find it here.

So there you are. The Future remains unknown and daunting, but I've got this project in my sights. Please stay tuned for when I come asking you for money to fund the project. Ha.

Before I Die

My dad sent me a link to this neat project. Let's put one up around Market Square.

Before I Die

Violet Vinegar

I'm trying to cook more and cook better. So far, it's slow progress. Who knew? Violet vinegar is hardly cooking, but it was satisfying to make and even more so to use (although I am currently underwhelmed by the flavor). My two kind friends, Rachel and Christy, helped pick violets in Morningside Park. Thanks ladies! You can usually find violets in moist shady spots. Some have whiter flowers. Those are fine to use too.

I found several recipes for violet vinegar online. The gist of them is to put clean picked violet blossoms in rice vinegar for a while. One recipe mentioned that leaving the jars to sit in the window would increase the spiciness of the vinegar, but I cannot speak to that (yet). So far mine tastes much like the original vinegar, but now it's a pretty color.

You should pick only healthy young flowers. Gather a lot. Let's say at least a half a brown paper bag full. Rinse and drain the flowers gently. Pick off any stems. Put the mound of flowers in a glass half pint jar and pour the vinegar over them. Let set. Ta da, vinegar made purple.

This is on the first day. As time wore on, the vinegar turned color and the flowers lost theirs.

Wisdom from my Momma

This is not original to her, but she quoted it to me on the phone yesterday and it rings true:

You can either be right all the time or you can be in relationships with people.