We live in the wild wonderful world of remix and always have.  But it’s only recently with the blossoming of the digital age providing infinite opportunity to alter things that this truth is beginning to emerge in world consciousness.

Remix is a term that’s been around for years, but its usage seems to be on the rise. I see it cropping up all over the place in my reading—particularly in literature from makerspace and digital circles.  Remix is a piece of media, which has been altered from its original state by adding, removing, and/or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, or photograph can all be remixed with something else.

Looking at things from a philosophical as well as a literal perspective, everything is a remix—most especially human beings since we are a remix of our parents’ genetic codes.  Awesome to ponder isn’t it?  On the one hand we are not original because we were made from old stuff of our parents that was already around—and yet we are unique variations occurring only once.

That old saying “ . . . there’s nothing new under the sun” really isn’t true because anything that has been altered, however slightly, or made again (even on an assembly line) is not exactly like any other thing, even though it may appear to be so. Indeed, it is another entirely new thing under the sun. While we are remixes of our parents, and we may resemble them, we are nonetheless not the same. 

Everything Is Both New and Old Under the Sun

Despite the insane drive to apply the cookie cutter of standardization to carve out a new world order spawned by the Industrial Revolution begun in England in the 18^th century and carried forth in full force in the USA throughout our 20^th century mass production factories—the sameness and any comfort or security we may have derived from these activities of mass production have been largely illusionary. 

Perhaps at some level we knew what we were doing when we shipped our factories out of the USA.  Perhaps our leaders thought we had to make way for the digital age (even though digital doesn’t require a lot of space).  Still regardless the wisdom of that decision, few would argue that it may have been a tad hasty to sweep the remains of the Industrial age out the door before we had at least thoroughly remixed its salvageable elements with the new ones from the digital age. 

I guess that will always be a point of debate but there is little debate regarding the downward spiraling economic hardships such decisions have caused the majority of the American people for the past 25 to 30 years.  The devastated urbanscape of many cities today look like a set from a Mad Max movie that took place in a world left behind after an apocalypse.

Old with the New is a Critical Requirement for Makerspaces 

Makerspaces, if they are designed well, include opportunities for makers to learn how to use new technology as well as how to use old tools—such as blacksmithing, welding, wood carving, pottery wheels, needle and thread, pencils, paper, etc.  Mixing the old with the new often creates something new that would never have been possible if the maker did not have a broad exposure to various tools and technology.

The nano-material, Graphene, was made possible by Scotch Tape and a lead pencil

Scientists from 3M created Scotch Tape in 1930 by combining DuPont’s impermeable cellophane with another recent discovery, masking tape.  Seventy years later in 2004 Scotch Tape solved a problem in the lab that led to the creation of Graphene a nano-material (a category of materials that encompasses products up to 100 nanometers thick—one inch equals about 25 million nanometers).  Graphene is stronger than steel and more flexible than a rubber band.  It conducts heat and electricity.  It is transparent, almost weightless, and impermeable to bacteria and gases.  Truly, Graphene is a wonder material of the 21^st century that will no doubt result in the creation of many new fabulous products.

The discovery of Graphene was made possible with Scotch tape and an old fashioned lead pencil.  In 2004, two physicists at the University of Manchester laboratory (Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov) discovered they could peel off thinner flakes of graphite from the lead pencil by peeling off a layer with Scotch Tape.  They were able to peel the graphite back to a layer composed of a single atom.

Science and Art Work Together in the Makerspace and the World

In addition to mixing old with new, Makerspaces remix science and art.  For so long we kept the disciplines of science and art separate.  A Makerspace environment makes sure to include both disciplines in its environment.  Today we make music with DNA code. There are even businesses now cropping up all over the internet that will isolate a person’s genetic .signature and translate its sequence into musical pitch and rhythm.  Your DNA song. [Source:  https://www.yourdnasong.com - accessed January 25, 2017]

The Organic and the Inorganic Can be Remixed

Scientists have been storing digital data in DNA since 2012 when Harvard geneticists encoded a 52,000 word book into snippets of DNA.  DNA has many advantages for storing digital data.  For one thing, it can last hundreds of thousands of years.  Storage is no problem.  A single gram of DNA is capable of storing 215 million gigabytes of digital information.  [Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/dna-could-store-all-worlds-data-one-room accessed January 26, 2018]

Emperor Tulips – courtesy Journey North Test Gardens

Garland Community Garden becomes one of two gardens in the entire state of Texas to participate in a citizen science project to measure global warming in the northern hemisphere. 

On Saturday January 6, 2018, members of Loving Garland Green planted fifty tulip bulbs and joined 237 communities across the Northern Hemisphere who participating in this citizen science experiment to measure global warming.  The Garland Community Garden and a garden in Lufkin, Texas are the only two gardens in the state of Texas to participate in this experiment.

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Is Global warming real?

There is no argument that our planet has undergone climate change since the beginning of time.  It is true, as many of the naysayers to global warming point out: Throughout history the climate of the Earth has changed. For example, in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat.  The abrupt end of the last ice age took place about 7,000 years ago. That event marked the beginning of the modern climate era and human civilization. These climate changes can be attributed to very small variations in the orbit of the Earth that change the amount of solar energy planet Earth receives.   

However, I join with the overwhelming number of qualified scientists who agree that Global Warming is a fact. The following excerpt from Skeptical Science along with information from NASA scientists sum it up for me: 

Authors of seven climate consensus studies — including Naomi Oreskes, Peter Doran, William Anderegg, Bart Verheggen, Ed Maibach, J. Stuart Carlton, and John Cook — co-authored a paper that should settle the expert climate consensus question once and for all. The two key conclusions from the paper are:

1) Depending on exactly how you measure the expert consensus, it’s somewhere between 90% and 100% that agree humans are responsible for climate change, with most of our studies finding 97% consensus among publishing climate scientists.

2) The greater the climate expertise among those surveyed, the higher the consensus on human-caused global warming.

And here are few facts from NASA scientists that seal my concurrence with these scientists: 

• The current warming trend is proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia. [ Source: IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Summary for Policymakers ]
• The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated and accepted as scientific fact in the mid-19th century. Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA. There is no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases will unequivocally cause the Earth to warm in response.
• Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.[ Source: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page3.php
  

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Loving Garland Green Plants Tulip Bulbs in the Garland Community Garden—Jane Stroud, President at left; Charles Bevilacqua center and Burgi Bartlett, Board member – Garland Community Garden January 6, 2018

Loving Garland Green Launches its first Citizen Science Project for 2018

January 6, 2018,  Loving Garland Green joined hundreds of other people across the northern hemisphere who have planted Red Emperor tulip bulbs in Journey North Test Gardens to monitor seasonal change in a scientific way.

This spring, when the tulips emerge and bloom, Loving Garland Green will report our observations and data that will then be added to a larger body of data from other test gardens to reveal the relationship between climate, geography, and the arrival of spring. Specifically, we will be reporting:  

1) the date our garden was planted (January 6, 2018) 

We planted this tulip bed according to exact instructions from Journey North:

            -raised bed at  least 8 inches deep

            -plant during first week in January (based on USDA Hardiness zone)

            -plant Red Emperor bulbs

            -plant 50 bulbs

            -plant each bulb 7 inches deep

            -space bulbs 4 to 5 inches apart

            -put a little bone meal in bottom of hole before planting

            -provide protection from critters digging up the bulbs

2) the date the first tulip emerges

3) the date the first tulip blooms

237 of these test gardens have been planted across the northern hemisphere.  Garland has one of the two Tulip Test Gardens planted in the state of Texas.  Go here to read our reports as they come in:    http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/tulips_spring2018.html

Garland Texas and the Garland Community Garden in particular, are on this page of the 237 gardens participating in this citizen science project.  Loving Garland Green, the official stewards of the Garland Community Garden, participate in many citizen science projects each year.  For example in 2017, our organization tagged and released 98 Monarch butterflies to enable research on Monarch migration.

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 Permaculture Repurpose Principle in Action

We put a mesh to keep rascal squirrels from digging up our bulbs over the top of our cedar-sided raised bed (one of our many ongoing donations that we receive from generous local Garland residents).  Jane (our smart retired microbiologist President) repurposed wire coat hangers to hold the mesh in place. Strategically cutting the hanger in three places will result in three clips to hold things in place—such as critter covers and irrigation hose and I’m certain that you can think of more uses. Cut each of the sides of the hanger about a quarter of the way up each of the sides of the hanger.  The bends will serve as the hook for two of the clamps.  The hook at the top of the hanger will serve as the hook for the third clamp.  The longer end of the wire is inserted into the ground to secure the clamp.  You can easily with your hand squeeze the hook/clip part to fit the thing you are attaching it to—whether it is the wooden side of a raised bed or an irrigation hose or a wild child or pet.

Burgi Bartlett, Loving Garland Green Board member holds the three clamps that can be made from one ordinary coat hanger – Garland Community Garden – December 6, 2018

My Christmas Tree 2017 - a Volunteer Cedar that grew too close to my fence

CHRISTMAS TREES AND ME

As I look at my life I'm reminded of that old nursery rhyme, "Solomon Grundy" which stands well as a comment on the brevity of life.

Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end,
Of Solomon Grundy.

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It seems like we spend the first part of our lives accumulating things and the last part in getting rid of them through a process we now call "down-sizing." I guess all in preparation for our final downsizing to a handful of dust. Mercifully I haven't become as morbid as my Great Aunts who put relatives names on masking tape and then stuck the tape to the bottom of objects throughout their homes. Thus when they passed, everyone would have assigned mementos to take home after the wake.  

However, for at least the past 10 years and perhaps longer, I've been telling myself that I'm not having a Christmas tree that year.  There is no point as I have no children at home, and most of my grandchildren are of the age when they prefer to stay in the privacy of their bedrooms with their electronics.  Still I persist in finding an excuse to acquire a fresh Christmas tree, although I've made a few concessions along the way.

To date, there has never been a Christmas in my life without a fresh cut tree in my home.  This year (2017) was no exception.  My excuse was that I must have one for the annual Loving Garland Green Holiday Party in my home.  [I've used that excuse now for the past five years.]   

However I came closer than ever before to not having a fresh tree this year.  In case you are one of those with the fake trees, you may not have noticed but the price of Christmas trees has gone through the roof this year.  Just about the cheapest one you can find will cost $54.  I can remember when that price could have purchased a tree so tall that you would have to trim the top in order to fit the star on the top of the tree.  Well, no more.  It would cost over $100 to have such a tree this year.

With the firm decision to not have a tree in mind, I did make a concession and put some lights in my yard for the first time in my life.  I noticed that it was not without positive influence as a week later, my neighbors on either side of me also decorated their homes with outdoor Christmas lights.  Like  me they too have never had lights in their yards either.  HMMMMMM  I'm not saying but that reminded me of my father who often told my mother (to no avail) that we were absolutely not keeping up with the Joneses. {Remember that expression?]

Then yesterday when I was taking out the trash in cleaning preparations for the Christmas Party, I looked at the volunteer cedar coming up through my fence with a new appreciation.  As the old cliche goes, I killed two birds with one stone:  I satisfied the Garland Code Compliance monitors by removing unsightly wildness from my yard while at the same time attaining my fresh-cut evergreen for 2017.  I put it in a homer bucket with plenty of water, covered that with my Christmas tree skirt and set on top of a large empty plant pot turned upside down.

At first, I had the high-flown principles of having a "natural tree" and determined to decorate with branches of holly, rosemary and pine cones but that resolution did didn't last long.  By early afternoon, in addition to all the natural decorations I had added lights and other Christmas decorations from years past.

The party was a huge success.  It was a potluck with the best food ever--Much of it wholesome and tasty but all of it tasty.  A great fellowship with great friends.

The holiday season officially began for me on Wednesday December 6 as I attended the Garland Noon Exchange Club’s annual Christmas Party for children.  It was an honor and pleasure to be a small part of helping 166 kids create some happy Christmas memories along with the Southern Belles, South Garland Football players, Naaman Forest Performance Choir and many Garland volunteers from various service organizations in our community.  December 6 was an especially appropriate day for this event since December 6 is the feast day of St. Nicholas who was the fourth-century bishop of a Greek province.  His reputation for piety inspired the tradition of leaving gifts for children on St. Nicholas Day.

The good heartedness of “giving back to others” permeated this event at all levels:  the adults from the Noon Exchange Club of Garland who organized, hosted and raised the funds for this event; the adults from many service organizations and individuals who assisted them; the youth from various high schools in our community who entertained and also assisted the younger students for whom the party was hosted. Then even the young guests themselves got into the act of giving back to others.  They colored and decorated cards and wrote messages of appreciation that will be sent to our troops overseas.

Volunteers from the Noon Exchange of Garland and other community service organizations at the Children’s Christmas Party hosted by the Noon Exchange Club of Garland – December 6, 2017

Some of the many student volunteers who entertained the children and assisted with making the event memorable for all

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December is also the month for saying good-bye to the flowers in our yards—except, of course, for the pansies.

Tonight (Thursday December 7, 2017) we are looking forward to our first hard freeze here in Garland as the temperature is expected to drop to 23 degrees.  That means, of course, that most of the flowers in my yard will be droopy and on the way to the compost pile in a few days.  I ran around this morning taking photos of them.

Here in Garland there is no such thing as “the last rose of summer”.  Our roses usually last into December.  The photos above I took this morning (December 7, 2017).

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GARLAND COMMUNITY HOLIDAY LIGHTING FESTIVAL

Next year, if you can’t make it to Rockefeller Center for that tree lighting ceremony, I recommend you stop by the Garland Texas square for our tree lighting ceremony.  I’ve been to both and I’m equally impressed.  But even if you missed all the fun and pageantry of the 2017 tree lighting in Garland tonight, you can still stop by any night from now through January 1 to view our beautiful animated light show on our downtown square.

Fireworks and Christmas Lights—the holidays could not be more exciting than they are here in Garland, Texas.

Experience the magic and beauty of the season:  Visit the Garland downtown square any evening between now through January 1, 2017.

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Speaking of lights, Charlie and I decorated my plum tree and a wire deer that a friend found curbside a few years ago and gave to me. That’s Santa Clause hanging on to the deer’s tail. December 7,2017

What’s more fun for Cub Scouts than an Easter egg hunt?  Unearthing sweet potatoes in the Garland Community Garden November 2, 2017

Cub Scouts in the Garden November 2

Sweet Potato Lessons

Children are the biggest fans of gardens.  Perhaps children love growing things so much because they too are growing. Few things rival the enthusiasm of a child in the garden.  We closed out October with our Children’s Harvest Festival and we began the month of November with more children in the Garland Community Garden.

On Thursday, November 2, we entertained a local pack of Cub Scouts after school in the garden.  These young boys had the opportunity to harvest sweet potatoes and they were very enthusiastic about the process.  They assisted in overturning two large containers of sweet potatoes and dug through them finding the potatoes in soil.  In addition to harvesting the potatoes, the cubs were taught how to care for their potatoes after bringing them home.

A dad gets into the act showing the Cub Scouts how to grind teosinte by hand.  The Cubs learn that thousands of years ago, it was not that easy to prepare food. November 1 – Garland Community Garden

Teosinte Lessons

Following the sweet potato harvest, the scouts learned all about teosinte, the ancient mother of corn. We have a patch of it growing in the garden.  The history of modern-day corn began with teosinte at the dawn of human agriculture, about 10,000 years ago.

Teosinte doesn't look much like modern day corn, especially when you compare its kernels to those of corn.  The teosinte “cobs” are tiny with only six to 12 kernels. The cob itself is only about three inches long. However, at the DNA level, the two are surprisingly alike. They have the same number of chromosomes and a remarkably similar arrangement of genes.  The cub scouts enjoyed the opportunity to grind some teosinte kernels—in the same way that the ancients did and experienced first-hand all the work the ancients had to do in order to prepare their food.

The scouts were served organic popcorn and organic blue corn chips along with bottled water.  Our local Garland Noon Exchange Club provided the refreshments as well as the sacks and handout materials.  We are so grateful for their support of the children of Garland.

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Brothers in the Garden November 2

After the Cub Scouts left and dusk was approaching, a father and his two sons stopped by the garden.  I was still loading up the truck with the materials I had used for the Cub Scout event.  These two brothers (ages 6 and 4), as often is the case with children, had hounded their father to stop at the garden they drove by.

As it would happen, we had a lot of green beans that needed to be harvested.  I gave each of the boys a sack and showed them how to pick beans. Each bean they found elicited additional squeals of delight from them.  Between the two of them they picked enough for dinner for their family of four.  It was their first experience at bean picking/grocery shopping at the garden.

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Hayden in the Garden in November 7

It was already dark when Charlie and I drove past the Garden—6:30 or 7:00 pm.  We noticed a truck with its bright lights turned on the garden.  In the light we could see a man and a little girl down there so we stopped to see what was happening.  The man told me that he was driving past with the daughter who wanted to stop.  Hayden ( about 8 or 9 years of age) has been down at the garden many times.  Her dad said it was dark and no.  Then Hayden began to tear up.  Dads are usually suckers for their daughter’s tears so they stopped, even though it was dark.  The father explained to me why they were there and then introduced himself as Randan.  Turns out that Randan is a singer and guitarist that I had written about in one of my blogs about MarketPlace here in Garland.  I showed Randan and Hayden about the garden with the assistance of my phone flashlight and found some sun gold tomatoes for her to pick. 

Special moments in the garden like these are priceless, but they are all a part of why I too love the garden so much—it’s a great place for great experiences.

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Photo from November 2016 Leaf Awareness Campaign – Last year We collected 713 bags at an estimated total of 21,290 pounds.  This may sound like a lot, but unfortunately 713 bags of leaves is tiny when measured against the bags of leaves that are likely taken each year from the homes of Garland residents to the Hinton landfill.  Given our approximate 80,000 households and estimating low at five leaf bags per household, we send close to a half million bags of leaves to the landfill each year.  Essentially what we are doing is removing potential soil from our community and sequestering it in a landfill where it cannot be used for many lifetimes—if ever.  It’s not a smart thing to be doing.

NOVEMBER IS LEAF AWARENESS MONTH – Our Second Year

A lot of people in Garland still mistakenly think the bags of leaves they put curbside are picked up by Garland Environmental Services and mulched.  We know because we’ve asked a lot of people.  Bags of leaves left curbside in Garland are taken to the Hinton landfill where they are added to the landfill mass.  This is not the best choice.

The tree limbs and shrub trimmings left unwrapped on the curb in Garland are picked up and mulched and made available to the citizens.  Perhaps this is where the confusion comes in.  People just assume because the City picks up the tree branches and mulches them that they do the same with the bags of leaves.  They do not.

We love Garland.  We also believe that people need to know the truth in order to make the best decisions—for themselves and for their community.  In regard to leaves, the most environmentally responsible decision is to recycle the leaves where they fall—either by simply leaving them alone, or by composting them and then using the compost to enrich the soil in the yard by replacing the nutrients and minerals that were used to make the leaves.  We are losing soil in our urban areas at an alarming rate. 

It is a serious ecological mistake for our city to carry an estimated 12,000 tons of leaves to the Hinton landfill each year.  Ideally leaves should remain very close to the place where they fall.  Decaying leaves are nature’s way of building new soil and replacing nutrients taken from the existing soil to grow those leaves.

This can be achieved simply through a public awareness campaign to:

1) Educate people that the leaves they put curbside go to the landfill. (Many of our residents mistakenly believe these leaves are recycled by Environmental Waste Services.)

2) Educate people regarding the better choices they have available to them.

When you have your leaves hauled off—whether it is to a landfill or to a recycle center such as they have in Plano Texas with their Texas Pure Products—you will still at some point in time need to replace nutrients and soil by purchasing it.  You will also deepen your ecological footprint by driving to the recycling center to pick up the soil (thus burning fuel for the trip and adding strain to the infrastructure and pollution to the air).

We are literally shipping the future soil out of our yards and to a landfill where no one can use it.

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Although we recommend you mulch the leaves and use them in your own yard, we prefer that you don’t leave them curbside for the landfill.   You can bring them to the garden and leave them beside the green fenced compost area.

We will pick up a few leaves as we have time and drive by homes but Loving Garland Green does not offer a leaf pickup service—although this would be a great idea for someone who had the acreage and wanted to go into the garden soil and compost business.