A couple of weeks ago I headed to my favorite local music store for Record Store Day. I always block off my schedule because I love all the extra things the record store does on this special day. Lots of bands put out special promotional items and the stores have special things like bands, food trucks, and good sales. Also, if you want to fight a crowd, you can get there early and take a chance on getting a special tote filled with goodies from the Record Store Day org. I did it last year, but this year I just wanted to relax at the event!

The day before, I happened to see online that some of my favorite artists were giving away a limited amount of their CD to certain stores. It has been about a year or so ago that I saw these artists, Daniel Martin Moore & Joan Shelley, come into CD Central and perform a concert for their duo-album, Farthest Field for a small crowd. They’re really talented, super nice, local Kentucky artists, and were nice enough to sign the album I purchased.

Since I already had a copy, I didn’t intend to pick up the free one. But after striking up a conversation about Daniel and Joan with the owner of the store, I ended up with a copy anyway, which was totally awesome. I pondered what to do with it, then decided that I would give it away and pay it forward.

So thank Daniel Martin Moore & Joan Shelley, and CD Central for passing this along in the first place.

To Enter: First, sign up to receive emails from my blog. Then go here to Ol’ Kentuck Recordings, check out info about the album, listen to a few of the CD’s songs and leave a comment below to tell me which song is your favorite and why.

Winner will be randomly drawn from the comments. Make sure your email is in the form when submitted. Giveaway will close on May 31st at 11:59pm. Winner will have 72 hours to respond with address info. Another winner will be drawn if not done so. If you live locally, it would be nice to have you pick up the CD in person, otherwise I will ship it to you. Giveaway is done on my own and done in no way to advertise for anyone as their request.

However, there’s some fruition going on in my cupboard right now. A few weeks ago it was still quite chilly outside. One weekend it rained a lot and the next day there were warm temperatures and lots of sun. All of the yellow speckles known as dandelions bloomed overnight. I was at my grandmother’s with my mom, and we were outside walking the dogs in the yard. I noticed how all these spots of yellow had appeared! I had been wanting to make dandelion wine for a while, and I decided on a whim to go ahead and pluck all the blooms I could. I first read about dandelion wine in a music magazine, Arthur (May 2008). So there was me, my mom, and grandmother all picking the blooms off dandelions. I’m sure the neighbors were wondering what we were doing.

What you will need…

• 3/4 gallon dandelion blooms
• 3 pounds sugar
• yeast & yeast nutrient if you have it
• water
• 4 oranges
• sharp peeler
• 2 large pots
• knife
• siphon or large turkey baster
• wine vessel or mason jars

A gallon of blooms was all about we could collect before getting tired. After getting home that night, I went through and cut off as much of the green parts of the bloom as I could. This is supposed to make the wine less bitter. I then followed this recipe from Jack Keller’s Winemaking page. I used a combination of recipes #1 & #2.

I had 3/4 gallon of blooms after removing the green parts, which is 3 quarts. I used a plastic ice cream bucket to measure them. I brought 1 gallon of water to a boil, stirred in the yellow blooms and turned off the heat. I covered the pot and let it sit for 48 hours, stirring a couple of times each day. It smelled like wet grass, but didn’t smell bad (I was a little worried!).

After the 48 hours I used a sharp peeler and peeled 4 oranges very thinly. I saved the juice from the oranges in a separate bowl. I brought the dandelion juice to a boil for 10 minutes. I used a mesh strainer to strain the juice from the blooms into a separate pot. The spent blooms went into the compost. I cleaned the pot and added 3 pounds of sugar, having it mounded in the center. I added back the dandelion juice and allowed the sugar to mostly dissolve on its own while cooling off. Once mostly cooled (around 110 degrees), I stirred to dissolve the rest of the sugar, added the orange juice and yeast. It smelled like honey! I followed the back of the yeast packet instructions to see how much to add. I barely had to add any and it was tough to measure out the small increment. The packet costed less than $1 at my local liqueur store that sold alcohol making supplies. I didn’t find yeast nutrient though. I asked my friend who makes wine, and he said this yeast is fine, it is just a slower fermenting yeast and made for floral white wines.

I didn’t have a large glass vessel, so I bottled the wine in quart size mason jars. I allowed it to sit for a couple of weeks. I could see all these bubbles in the wine moving to the top. After a week, I could begin to see sludge on the bottom of the jars. The instructions says to rack the wine after the liquid is clear. Racking the wine simply means to clean off the clear part of the liquid from the debris that falls to the bottom (fruit debris/dead yeast). I thought it looked pretty sludgy, so I went ahead and racked it. I did this after 2 weeks of sitting. When I opened the jars, it smelled like champagne! To rack, I poured off the tops into a clean pitcher (I slightly sterilized the pitcher with really hot tap water). I used a turkey baster to draw out as much liquid from the bottom without mixing up the sludge. You typically use a specific siphon for this. I then cleaned out its original jar and sterilized it a bit (hot tap water) and poured the wine back in after drying with a clean towel and the jar had cooled off a bit. I don’t think you have to do this step…but again it’s supposed to make it more pure and less bitter.

The directions says the wine will be good for drinking after 6 months of sitting, but will be best after a year. I suppose I’ll be able to drink this next Earth Day! That is if I did everything right! Could dandelion wine be the answer to all of our weed problems? Maybe I’ll read Ray Bradbury’s fiction novel “Dandelion Wine” while sipping the wine!

I am going to be hosting a class with IF called “Humans, Design + Nature“. The class is going to be an outdoor sensory experience where we will walk through the botanical gardens and talk about topics such as biomimicry, eco-geometry, and the human/nature relationship. We’re going to cover how humans have replicated nature with design, things like the Golden Ratio, and also how humans connect with the natural world through art, culture, architecture, and with our senses. I’m asking people to bring a sketchbook because you’ll want to take notes and sketch things we see along the way. You register online at: IDEAFESTIVAL

After looking through the book, I realized how pretty simple but yet gourmet all of the dishes were. I came up with a menu of Mulled Wine, Caramelized Pears, Buttered Carrots, Pigeon Pie, Potato Leek Soup, Bread, Lemon Cakes, and Goat Cheese with Strawberries/Crackers. One interesting feature of the book is how each menu is divided among the houses from the show: The Wall, The North, The Vale, The Riverlands, The Iron Islands, The Reach, Dorne, King’s Landing, and Across the Narrow Sea. Each region has its own specific fare. There are also two versions of each recipe; the traditional more rustic version and the modern version that’s a little more sophisticated.

There was one contingency, and that was I wasn’t going to cook any meat at this Feast of Fire & Ice. I chose dishes using many of the same ingredients but in different ways. This made the meal very economical. At a quick calculation, the total food purchased equaled to around $80. This meal fed 11 people (doubling each recipe), with enough seconds and leftovers for more. It even included plenty of wine!

The South: Caramelized Pears

The South: Potato Leek Soup

King’s Landing: Buttered Cumin Carrots

King’s Landing: Vegetarian “Pigeon” Pie

King’s Landing: Lemon Cakes

Everyone had a grand feast while watching the show. They noted that they liked the ‘Pigeon Pie’ the best, although some said the carrots and some said the lemon cake. They really didn’t even notice or care that it was all vegetarian. While reading through the cookbook I also realized that there is an official food blog, by the chefs and authors of the book. There is also the blog, Game of Brews to follow as well.

I think most of us kind of resist change. Even if we want change, we know that it takes work or entails something irksome like a rumbling stomach. People seem to get upset or just complain at the slightest changes, like the weather. But we should know that it is only temporary. Feelings are temporary, the way our body feels is temporary, and our interests can even be temporary.

It is drastic change that often disrupts us and leaves us shaken. People entering and leaving our personal life, moving homes or to a new city, our body’s condition and tolerance. We all have witnessed people who have gone through forced change or chosen change. Sometimes our course is to change a little bit over time, or through one big herculean effort. Underneath everything anyone ever does, even the stupidest of things, there is belief it is going to make things better.

If we ever follow any artist, we usually notice how their work changes over time and in much correlation with what is going on event wise. Lately the word, metamorphosis, has sprung into my mind. I began thinking about this oboe work I once played called Six Metamorphoses Over Ovid by Britten written in 1951, which is based on the books written by the Roman poet Ovid in AD 8. Many works of music, literature, and art have been based on Ovid’s piece including Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. Metamorphoses means ‘transformations‘ and we often think of it when we think about caterpillars changing into butterflies.

The season is transforming into spring. Even though it snowed today in my city, people are beginning to think about spring fashions, spring cleaning the house, doing a detox diet, and embellishing on outdoor activities. But we can also think about what we do on a daily basis those 360 days. It can be hard to break habits of spending too much time with television, the internet, toxic people, shopping, or sitting and doing nothing. I know I have felt this way as of late. Really, I would like to spend more time creating. I know I must change my habits. We can always initiate change instead of waiting for it to just happen. Sometimes we just get tired and we have to push ourselves to do something different. Somehow, our minds tie change & risk. We will never get anything different if we don’t do different. There are a few significant areas in our life that we often witness change.

Relationships

People come and go in our lives. This is often a signal of change, and that we must learn something from it. Even if we know some of them a very long time, we can always count on meeting new people and loosing some. You make new friends when you’re out in new places. You may stay friends forever, or one may take a different direction in life. People change, and therefore relationships with people will usually change too. This doesn’t always mean you take separate paths, it just means the relationship changes. Just because there is change, doesn’t mean you have to give up a relationship. However, sometimes the change in people is so great that the relationship must fade and the person moves on to something else needed.

Employment

People are having to reinvent themselves all over again. People are tired of red tape, crappy bosses, stress, and the doing the same repetitive thing everyday. We are dynamic creatures and we are learning that more worthy it to do what we like instead of slaving. Our jobs, careers, employment, are temporary. What we do becomes who we are. Sometimes our job doesn’t keep up with who we are.

Lifestyle

At the core, our lifestyle equals all the time we spend. Living life is an art form. Some do it in an eclectic manner, some gracefully, some just disjunctive. We constitute our lifestyle by how we spend our time through our career, through our fellow humans, what we eat, if we keep things tidy or messy, where we prefer to live, what type of transportation we take, what activities we do. How we spend our time tells us what we value. It’s time to question what you’re valuing. Society makes certain lifestyles appealing because it helps society fit into a defining flow. This flow makes it easy for the rest of society to determine what we want and need. What does it mean to have a lifestyle that doesn’t fit into society? How are we living and conforming to what we believe we should be doing just because that is normal? Changes in our lifestyle happens when our body and mind is out of the rhythm of flow. Many of us don’t realize how far we are from flow because it has just been too long.

Landscape

I hear a lot about how our environment shouldn’t influence how we feel or think. I think that’s crap, especially as a designer. There are all kinds of studies about how our environment influences our work productivity. Maybe a zen master can be in peace anywhere, but the typical person is going to be influenced by what their senses are determining as pleasing or uncomfortable. Why else do we listen to music, go see art, go on vacation, toss leftovers after a few days, and decorate our homes. We can learn from the zen, by not letting every little thing bother us. However, we need contrast in our lives to witness the good. Change is all about having contrast. We are on a constant search for something fresh. How we go about that determines our character.

Patti Smith is a true product of her time; growing up on the East Coast and moving to New York City in her early 20s. Her young life was spent filled with news about Andy Warhol, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and other stars of the time. She also witnessed those who got beaten with drugs, disease, and poor living conditions. Patti kept her head on straight as she searched for employment in book stores and her writing, as she loved literature, mainly poetry.

Just Kids refers to her and her companion Robert Mapplethorpe, eventually an underground photographer, who remained life long friends even after their lives went separate directions. Patti writes about their companionship through stories about their outings in New York City, their numerous living situations, encounters with other famous and infamous, and also through their art. They looked out for each other while they struggled with money and their artistic endeavors. They also each built upon each other’s success and made each other famous.

Perhaps you know Patti Smith’s song: Because the Night

Patti is mostly known for her work in her band, but she is also a poet and visual artist. Robert was a visual artist and also a controversial photographer. Much of his early work revolved around sexual experimentation and nudity, and while taboo, exposed culture that few dared to address. He was also an artistic photographer in portraits and with florals. He is known for his black and white photographs. As I look at them, I love their simplicity and their playful with light structure. Patti was the one to encourage him to turn to photography specifically. She is the witness to his struggles with artistry, and he was the witness to hers.

Patti is an eccentric and has a humble view on life. But you can sense through her artistic nature that she has a deeper sense of reality. She had no qualms with being who she was, at least it is perceived that way. She wore what she liked and listened and observed those around her through their successes and failures. Patti was famous at a time of underground art and music, post modernism, a post psychedelic era, and the rise of punk.

Photo by Robert Mapplethorpe

“Patti, did art get us?” Robert asked her.

We should think about those who lived for their art

*click on photos to find original source

I usually get, ‘well that’s an interesting combination! Are you going to play music in your garden?” or “You could create outdoor theaters!”, which is only a scant more applicable. (Actually, I wanted to go to graduate school to study acoustic ecology. While I got into two schools, that was the year everyone who heard my name took on drastic budget cuts and I could not afford $30K/year+) Other times I get recommendations to go to the local nurseries where I could get a job watering plants and mowing lawns. It’s is like no one hears the word ‘architect’ in landscape architect, or they reference it to landscape design.

When I get to thinking about it, sometimes I wonder if I should even say that I have a degree in landscape architecture, as it seems no one knows what it is or it’s completely misconstrued as to what it is, therefore immediately thought of as unqualified for position a, b, c. Really, it’s not their fault that they do not know.

Myth 1: We Know Nothing About Plants

What is more frustrating is how I get tossed around as to how I’ve been educated. A few weeks ago, I did go to a high end reputable nursery for a position they were hiring for. Everything they wanted, retail, plant knowledge, design, floral…I knew about and had experience. However, when the owner, who was a horticulturist and semi-designer interrogated interviewed me, he asked questions like if I knew what ‘digitalis australis’ was. I did not, but I could say that it must have originated from Australia. He continued to beat me up about my knowledge in plants. I was probably the most plant oriented person in my program and had the most background in working with plants. However, this horticulturist still had made up his mind that I knew nothing about plants as a landscape architect, no matter how many plant classes I told him I had taken and how much I had studied on my own or did in my past employment. I didn’t get the job. It only paid $9 an hour anyway.

Myth 2: All We Know Are Plants and Lawns

On the opposite end, designers of all kinds don’t think I know anything about design or graphic design. They think I know a lot about plants, how to take care of all of them, which fertilizers the lawn needs, and maybe the slightly more knowledgeable think I know how to orient the best of the best in front of someone’s house. While that is good and true, only some landscape architects do that for a living, and they usually are just landscape designers and probably really only a self trained horticulturist who decided to learn a little design. While I can design someone’s garden and would actually enjoy doing that for someone, a landscape architect is more than that.

So what is a landscape architect?

Here are a few projects we designed in school that were realistic.

In my first year in design studio, we had one project where we designed a backyard. We outlined planting beds and put in trees, but that was all we did with plants. It was mostly designing where to put features we thought were pertinent like pathways, gazebo, firepit, fountains.

In second year of design studio, we visited some vineyards and designed our own vineyard. We did have to consider the ecology of grapevines. We designed an urban park on a site located downtown, and we analyzed a transverse section of the rural urban fringe in our city.

In third year of studio, we each designed a tiny home, did an extensive walkability audit of our city, designed a solution to the American lawn, designed an urban transit center, planned a new transportation system in a city, and designed a new passive park.

In fourth year of studio we had two semester long projects. In the first, we designed a trail head for the existing Legacy Trail in our city, and completed a series of 10 documents (grading & drainage, layout dimensions, electrical & lighting, planting plan, etc.) all drawn in AutoCAD. The 2nd semester long project was a hands on service learning studio working with a nearby community in designing a new comprehensive county wide revitalization masterplan. The program I graduated from was also a 5 year program to complete only an undergraduate degree.

Here are some snipits of various projects in my portfolio:

Bicycle Transit Hub

Urban Food Crisis

Passive Park in Georgia

Trail Head Drainage Plan

Construction Materials Dimension Drawing

Real life photo imaging design in Photoshop

Design concept for mixed use center

Cross Section of Lexington

Rudimentary Sketchup Model of office complex

How We’re Trained

A landscape architect can do an array of things. We learn design principals just like an architect would. We also learn graphic design and how to use design software. We learn about plants, soils, forestry, ecology, and other science oriented things. There are classes on landscape architecture history, creative thinking, theory, and engineering. We also learn about communities, social interaction, government laws and policies, socio-economics, planning issues, and how to preserve and increase a sense of community through design. Some people may go on to get their masters in urban planning or ecology which helps define where they want to go with landscape architecture. Some may even open their own landscape design company. Some may forgo the outdoors all together and just become a graphic designer, or any other type of designer.

The Endangered Landscape Architect

A landscape architect is pretty versatile in their knowledge. We really have to know a little about everything. However, to be called a landscape architect, one must work under a licensed landscape architect for 2 years, pass an exam, and attended classes to gain continuing education points every year. Just like a lawyer, CPA, cosmetologist, or architect. This is one reason we are loosing landscape architects. Since the job crunch, many graduates are having to go into other fields to find work, since there is only a small amount of practicing landscape architects hiring. There is simply too much competition, even at the small percentage of landscape architecture students nationwide. Many jobs and projects are also located overseas. America isn’t keeping up with advances in planning issues and sustainable design. Businesses should be soaking up all the landscape architects they can. Many are also giving up their title because it is expensive to maintain a practicing license and many are not able to keep up with it due to layoffs.

If you want to know what variety of boxwood to plant by your roses, you can most easily find out from your horticulturist or landscape designer. But we depend specifically on landscape architects for much larger issues. We plan such places as neighborhoods so they do not flood, college campuses and shopping centers so they move fluidly and don’t ruin the landscape, transportation networks through cities and states, urban parks and plazas, to revitalize the water’s ecology in a town, and to plan growth within a city.

Projects that needed a landscape architect:

Gas Works Park in Seattle

High Line of New York City

Paley Park in NYC

Daylighting Streams

Celebration, Florida

Distillery District, Kentucky

• 1 C self rising cornmeal*
• 1 C flour
• 1 1/4 C milk
• 2/3 C sugar
• 1/3 C oil
• 2 TBS melted butter
• 2 eggs

*if you have plain cornmeal, add 1 TBS baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt

• Mix in following order: butter, sugar, oil, milk, eggs, cornmeal, flour
• Bake at 350 degrees in 7″x11″ pan for 20 minutes or 8″x8″ for 25 minutes

(click on image for easier access to product links)

MOUNTAIN OCEAN’S SKIN TRIP LOTION {}Organic Body Care Recipes Book{}Earth Therapeudics Body Bristle Brush{}THE BODY SHOP HEMP HAND MIT{}HAIR LOCK & BODY BUTTER{}KISS MY FACE SHAVING CREAM{}Nubian Heritage Soap{}FOODS THAT KEEP YOUR SKIN HEALTHY{}The Body Shop Hemp Hand Protector{}SWEET ALMOND OIL

I have finally a body care routine that I feel works for once. I remember putting on copious amounts of lotion only to find that my skin felt the same or ever drier. I then turned to natural products, and began findings things that worked. Even then sometimes I was dumbfounded by what could work even better to relieve dry skin, itchiness, and would make my skin irresistible. Now I’ve found a way! Men, these rituals can be used by you also, so stay tuned.

I’m not going to brag a lot here, but my skin is pretty soft and rarely feels dry, except sometimes my hands. I used to always be itching after I shaved, but even that’s gone now too.  Your skin is your largest organ! It pays to take care of it because your skin is also taking care of the inside of your body for detoxification  The weight of your skin alone is 8 to 10 pounds and is your largest organ.

Some of the body products I make myself like scrubs, masks, and lotions. This book, Organic Body Care Recipes Book, has been a really great book. I love reading it! She tells you all about the skin and has all kinds of recipes. Her products are easy to make, and most of the ingredients can be found in your grocery or health store.

The first thing I do before showering is use to use a dry bristle brush. Earth Therapeudics Body Bristle Brush. I use this brush,  it’s only $6, and is toteable. You can brush yourself in 1 minute if you’re in a rush. This not only opens your pores by cleaning dead skin cells off, but it also stimulates your muscles, gets blood flowing, and tones your saggy skin. If that doesn’t convince you, then do it because you’ll have super soft skin. It feels great too.

Once I get in the shower, I use Nubian Heritage Soap. This is the best shower soap I’ve ever used. Not only does it have good ingredients, it will last you forever like months. Its consistency is like honey and a little goes a long way. Their soaps are really concentrated in smells too! They have scents for men and women and have bar soap and lotion to match.

Sometimes if I don’t get to use a dry brush, then I use The Body Shop Hemp Hand Mitt with soap.

If I had to stick with one product, it would be this one. Kiss My Face Shaving Cream. Again, it lasts forever because a little goes a really long way. I’ve never gotten itchy using this cream like I did with shaving foams/comparable creams, or even a cut. I’m sure it’s great for a man’s face too. I get it in mint.

For moisturizing I use either a body oil with a carrier oil as the base, such as Sweet Almond Oil or a light lotion, such as Mountain Ocean’s Skin Trip Lotion. I don’t dry off and use the oil in the shower. If you have dry skin, the body oil is the way to go. Using it also helps dry nails. I could use it everyday, but I use it at least once every few days. I make my own using carrier oils such as sweet almond, jojoba, grapeseed, and apricot, which are the most common. I also add it to my bath water and when I get out, the oil is still on my skin, ready to go! Which carrier oil used depends on what you’re using it for. For body oil, you want it to absorb kind of quickly so you don’t have to worry about it getting on your clothes. However, massage oil, you want it to stay outside the skin for longer so you can use it throughout the massage. Here is a good guide to carrier oils. I simply add essential oils that are safe to use on the skin. Consult a book (see book link at top) on essential oils to know which ones are safe. You want to make sure they are essential oils, not fragrances (like from craft stores or home stores). Here is an online guide to making bath & massage oils from Design Sponge.

When my hands need something more, I turn to these. The The Body Shop Hemp Hand Protector works pretty well and dries quickly. When I really need something more on my hands, feet, or elbows, I go to this lady’s fair traded shea butter. She makes it locally in my city and it has worked wonders for people. It can be used on the hair and nails too, Hair Lock & Body Butter.

All in all, your skin has two sides. The outside and the inside. All these things mostly treat the outside (even though it all gets absorbed quickly into your body!). We need to treat its real health on the inside with foods and water. Foods That Keep Your Skin Healthy

Lately I discovered bok choy in my Trader Joe’s grocery store and have cooked it several times in the past couple of months. It’s an easy vegetable to cook and it goes well with other sauteed vegetables. The other day I scored some cheap shrimp at the grocery, so I came up with this oriental dish for some early spring weather. It only takes about 20 minutes to make.

• 1 lb 36/40 shrimp (raw or cooked), thawed
• 1 head of bok choy
• 2 garlic cloves
• cooking oil
• 2 green onions
• 2 carrots
• red pepper flakes
• 1/2″ knob ginger

• Cut root end of bok choy off and rinse thoroughly. Steam bok choy until leaves are slightly wilted.
• In a large pan, add a 2 TBS cooking oil, saute pressed garlic, red pepper flakes, minced ginger, sliced carrots, and green onions over medium low heat. Cook until carrots are slightly soft. Add bok choy and saute for a minute.
• Push vegetables to one side of pan.
• If you purchased raw shrimp add to pan and cook until pink through, 2-3 minutes each side. Once shrimp is nearly through, mix vegetables and shrimp to coat with oil and seasonings.  Even easier, add pre-cooked shrimp and toss with vegetables to heat through.