meganerinmiller

First major tomato harvest of the season

2011-07-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

So, the tomato plants are doing WAY better than I thought they would. To the point that they have taken over half of our patio in a giant, delicious tomato jungle. The cherries are especially tasty... so excited to eat these all summer long.

... and my first lemon cucumber!

Backpacking Tahoe - Slideshow

2011-07-28T22:51:00.000-07:00

Backpacking Tahoe - Panoramas

2011-07-28T22:26:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a great backpacking trip with my mom and sister. Here are some panos I made. It was really beautiful.

First tomatoes of the season!

2011-07-10T16:51:00.000-07:00

First harvest!

Can you believe it? It's like a jungle out there. With tomatoes hanging on every vine!

Green Zebra's are ripening!

Lots of cherry tomatoes...

Secret plums

2011-07-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

I just discovered a hidden plum tree deep inside the hedge out in front of our house. I only noticed because a beautiful, delicious red plum dropped into my garden all of a sudden. "Are plums falling from the sky?" I asked myself. On further inspection I confirmed that there is a completely hidden, malled, and disformed plum tree hiding among the hedge...

Where I collected some plums

following the tree trunk down the hedge

I should have noticed earlier from fallen fruit on the sidewalk

Really. It does not look like there's a plum tree in there!

inside our yard where the plum fell. rather poetic.

June Patio Garden

2011-06-19T00:06:00.000-07:00

Amazing blossom opened today!

Succulents in bloom

Happy succulents

Rex loves being outside!

Litting purple flowers on my cat mint

Strawberry blossom – it opened up an hour later in the sun

Tomatoes on the vine

Tomato blossoms, waiting for that big fat bumble bee to return...

Beautiful iris in bloom

Cucumber blossom

Strawberries reaching to the sun

Lemon cucumber hiding in the leaves

Baby tomatoes on the vine

Rex rolling on the pavement... what a goof ball...

It's a sticky affair...

2011-06-18T23:35:00.000-07:00

First jam of the season! Strawberry Preserves, with a hint of cinnamon. Strawberries from Full Belly Farm. There is nothing as divine as the smell of boiling strawberry jam...

9 baskets of fresh berries yielded 8 8oz jars and 8 4oz jars. Mmmmm!

WindowFarms at San Mateo County Fair

2011-06-11T22:50:00.000-07:00

My WindowFarms display at the San Mateo County Fair is located in the sustainable living section in Redwood Hall. I was so excited when I found this IKEA frame solution for hanging the display! It allowed me to screw the hooks directly into the top shelf of the display, and attach strings etc. where needed to properly suspend the WindowFarms.

Here are some shots of the prep-work. I built the frame and tested the WindowFarms first, then the day of installation, I prepared the plants by rinsing off the dirt from the roots, placing them in the net cups with hydroton, and loading them up in my cooler with water for transport.

Highlights from the San Mateo County Fair

2011-06-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought - people still exhibit their chickens, jams, homebrew, cakes, cookies, plants, flowers, and quilting? This year I am displaying my WindowFarms at the San Mateo County Fair. Today I checked out some of the rest of the fair, and here are just some of the highlights – or more accurate, characters present at the fair.

our beautiful world...

2011-04-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Symmetry

2011-04-21T07:37:00.001-07:00

Symmetry from Everynone on Vimeo.

The Birth of a Word (TED)

2011-03-31T20:29:00.000-07:00

Wow. This is just amazing!

The Pomplamoose Revolution

2011-02-25T16:27:00.000-08:00

What a fantastic article in the SF Gate weekly that I picked up last night on my way home at the Caltrain station. I am so proud of and excited for Jack and Nataly! The article does a fantastic job of telling about how they got started, major breakthroughs along the way, and how "a band with no CDs, no record deal, and millions of fans is changing the music industry." Kudos to you, Ian S. Port!

Seeing them on the cover is particularly exciting to me, as I have always hoped they would get picked up by the media and known that their creativity and talent would get them there!

Here are two fake Rolling Stone covers I designed as a project for class in December 2008, featuring the amazingly talented Jack in his home studio:

J&N: Love you guys and miss you!

February garden: chard, parsley, chives

2011-02-20T19:07:00.000-08:00

First additions to this season's patio garden~

Plum blossoms - it's spring!

2011-02-16T07:44:00.000-08:00

Whether or not the calendar says it's spring, these last couple weeks of hot weather have definitely made it feel that way! The plum trees in the driveway suddenly began to burst into beautiful blossoms this week, though with this week's rain and wind many of them have just ended up on the ground. Either way I am sure there will be a bountiful number come summer for more jam!

Transplanting + cuttings from succulents and cacti

2011-02-15T14:50:00.000-08:00

Last week I took cuttings from several of my succulents and cacti. This is not too hard to do – here's how: Using a clean sharp knife, slice off a stem or branch at a node area. Let the cutting dry out and seal for several days (if you don't, it can get infected when you plant it). Get some cactus/succulent potting soil and bury the end of your cutting ~1 inch in the soil. Water very gently.

If your succulents go crazy, and start getting lots of dried up leaves and filling your pot, you can transplant them to a larger pot, or divide up the plant into smaller pots and let it grow more. Enjoy the pics, and happy Tuesday ~

Transplanted succulents

Transplanted cacti

mom and baby succulents, transplanted!

More transplants

Cascading Tower of Psychedelic Color

2011-02-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

This is a fun painting experiment! (really think they could have chosen more fitting music for the video though...) Wonder how specific the artist gets with choosing the order of the colors...

Rainbow graffiti machine!

2011-02-07T13:37:00.000-08:00

robo-rainbow from mudlevel on Vimeo.

David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization

2011-02-06T23:09:00.000-08:00

This is a wonderful talk by information visualization designer David McCandless ("Information is Beautiful"). His book is very interesting and inspiring, as is much of the infographics movement (of which I am taking part), and look out for more posts in this vein as I am taking an Interactive Infographics course this semester, and saving tons of links to my Delicious feed.

Yuba River

2011-01-23T20:18:00.000-08:00

Michael and I spent our third anniversary up in Nevada City at a wonderful vacation rental in the woods with a hot tub, and only 5-minutes drive to the beautiful Yuba River. We had a great hike along the river mid-morning, and took a lot of photos. The river valley was shrouded in mist and moisture, and it was overall a very magical time.

During our hike, when we reached the end of the trail before turning back, we stumbled onto a campground area that was evidently mating grounds for ladybugs. It was a rather BBC Life moment, and what a discovery out of all that blue water and mist, to see such vibrant red. Amazing – and kind of gross – I wonder if they return there every year... (scroll down for my picture, though it does not do justice to the magnitude of rocks, trees, and campground literally covered with ladybugs.)

Squishy Chewy Delicious Sourdough

2011-01-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

Above - the dough before proofing overnight in the fridge.

Below - the finished, beautiful loaves!

Thank you Michael for getting me a subscription to Cook's Illustrated! Their 24-hour Sourdough recipe helped me break through my bread barriers, and make fantastic sourdough! mmmmm!

Google Presentation tools - super cool!

2011-01-05T15:33:00.000-08:00

Look what you can do now in Google docs!

Bringing Colour to Life - a very neat ad

2010-12-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

The ad itself is at the end of the video. Some really beautiful imagery!

Canon Pixma: Bringing colour to life from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

Bottling Beer!

2010-11-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

Yvonne and I bottled our 5 gallons of Oatmeal Stout yesterday. It was an adventure figuring out the siphon. Once we got it going though, it went really fast, and I am impressed with how easy the home-brew community has made it. Instructions and equipment are really easy to understand and follow, and the barrier to entry is low with simple easy first-time recipes - really fun and affordable way to make beer. In two weeks, we'll open a small bottle to see how it's doing, but probably more around mid-December the beer will be ready for a holiday party!

Filling and capping bottles

Finally figured out we had to start the siphon above the carboy to make sure we had no air in the tube.

Five gallons of beer, for ~$30 of ingredients! awesome!

Halloween Awesomeness 2010: Xena and Gabrielle

2010-11-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

"Her courage will change the world..."

Linnea and I made the most awesome Xena and Gabrielle costumes for Halloween. It was super fun and a great creative outlet. I made mine primarily from a pair of leather pants, tinfoil, and shiny fabric, held together with staples, and decorated with sharpies. Linnea's is an orange skirt, a brown bra, and strips of fabric, beads from a belly-dancing outfit, and a kick-ass belt. We strolled through town with the theme-song playing from my iPhone.

neat lite-brite animation!

2010-10-26T17:22:00.001-07:00

not the biggest fan of the music, but the animation is cool!

Tilt Shift Coachella

2010-10-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

This is a wonderful example of the tilt shift effect. The more I see this effect in action, the more I like how it elicits an effect of "big-picture-perspective" - something we all need sometimes. Enjoy!

Coachelletta from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

Post-Harvest Thoughts

2010-10-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

This last weekend Michael and I cleaned up the patio garden. All the vines were withered, the last few tomatoes clinging to life, ripening in the October sun, my pepper plants squeezing the last bit of heat into the reddening skins... and lots of dirt! The cats helped me dig out my pots, remove old roots and dead leaves, empty and clean containers getting ready for a fall planting. My sister and I are sharing a bunch of seeds from Territorial Seed Co., and I think I'll try some leafy greens and carrots maybe. We'll see how it goes.

I am definitely already missing my fresh tomatoes! Here are some pics from summer harvest (though I didn't take pictures every week, this was typical throughout August and September):

I probably picked 6-7 lemon cucumbers over the summer. We made a lot of cucumber salad - adding ours to the ones we were getting in our CSA box.

Flying saucer squashes! Growing a squash was new for me this year, and to be honest, wasn't that productive in the small space. I got 4-5 little squashes over the season.

Pasta ingredients!

We made a lot of pasta this summer with homemade sauce. Delicious.

I ended up with a month where this kind of weekly harvest was typical from my nine tomato plants.

Happy harvest! Hope you are enjoying fall and the delicious food it brings to the table...

Turkey Stock

2010-10-11T23:58:00.000-07:00

10 lbs of pressure!

The best thing to do with a left-over carcass of a 24 lb turkey is to make stock! Today I used my pressure canner for the first time (for something that actually required pressure cooking!), and made 6 quarts of thick, delicious turkey stock for stews, soups, and other dishes this winter. Even though the processing time says 25 minutes, getting that much water to heat up take forever!

Keep an eye out for more canning posts coming soon, thanks to my mom giving me a huge bag of apples! Applesauce? Applebutter? Apple juice? or... perhaps the best option, apple pie filling, ready to go when you need it!

Canadian Thanksgiving

2010-10-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

Michael and I hosted Canadian Thanksgiving for our friends for the third year in a row yesterday. We had 13 of our good friends over for potluck, and cooked a 24 lb turkey! I have never seen such a huge bird! Here's some photos of the adventure.

Stuffing the bird!

Stuffed.

Parsnips looking pretty.

Ready to go in the oven!

Oops... doesn't fit in the pan...

Cooked!

The full spread after everyone had their first round... we had so many leftovers!

iPad light painting

2010-09-15T15:48:00.000-07:00

So the iPad can be used creatively!

Making Future Magic: iPad light painting from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

Harvesting time

2010-08-18T21:36:00.001-07:00

This is a weekly (or more often) harvest right now from my patio garden! Lots of cherry tomatoes, and this week starting to get a lot of larger heirlooms. Lots of serrano peppers... we've been making curry! Did you know that adding a tomato, finely chopped to your coconut curry makes it taste really good?! Yum. Not in this picture, but also getting eaten lately: lemon cucumbers, lots of herbs, arugula.

Summer dinners...

2010-08-18T21:33:00.000-07:00

BBQ sausage, scalloped potatoes, garlic chili broccoli (I know... not in season...) and my favorite, Downtown Brown from Lost Coast Brewery (my home town!)

Homemade pizza! mushrooms, heirloom tomato slices, onions, basil from the garden, cheese curds from farmers market... mmm

Blackberry and Cherry Preserves

2010-07-31T21:30:00.001-07:00

Two 8oz. jars and 6 4oz. jars of blackberry preserves. They taste like blackberry pie.

Cherries and blackberries raw-packed in syrup. Delicious over ice cream, pancakes, granola, and other treats. Mmmm.

Summertime = Pasta time

2010-07-26T21:53:00.000-07:00

Summer time can be represented by so many things - sun, heat, watermelon - but for me, it means fresh pasta, and fresh pasta sauce. For those of you who know me, you know I love my pasta. And there is nothing that tastes as good as a fresh sauce made from vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes.

Yesterday I celebrated summer by making fresh spinach fettucini with a mushroom and heirloom tomato sauce.

First you make the dough. Semolina flour, and some wheat flour, with several eggs and puréed spinach. This is the hardest part - beating the tough dough into a malleable ball of soon-to-be-pasta. Once you'e got a ball of dough, you refrigerate it for 30 minutes, and then roll it out slowly with the pasta-roller until they are as thin as your finger nail.

Once it goes through the fettucini cutter, you dust it with flour and toss it so that it doesn't stick together.

I got a few large fresh heirloom tomatoes in addition to our basket of cherry tomatoes from Full Belly Farm this week to make the sauce. Seeing the bright and sunny colors of of the baskets of tomatoes at the market this weekend almost made me cry with joy. Oh how I love my tomatoes.

I make a sauce in this order: onions, butter, garlic, balsamic vinegar, red wine, mushrooms, tomatoes, fresh basil.

The spinach fettucini boils in only a few minutes into a springy, delicious al dente.

YUM. Happy summer everyone!

Lemon Cucumber

2010-07-26T21:36:00.001-07:00

I have three of these beautiful lemon cucumbers ready for a pickin'. This one is the size of my fist, and as yellow as... well, a lemon. Michael and I like to make a Japanese-style cucumber salad - with rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and a spoon full of sugar.

Our new kitteh, Lizard!

2010-07-26T21:25:00.000-07:00

Queen Elizardbeth for long, Lizzy for short. We picked her up two days ago from Palo Alto Animal Services, the same place we got Rex. They are really great. She is very tiny, and cute, and playing, and loving. Today she and Rex finally made friends and cuddled and cleaned each other and played.

The cutest face

Rex and Lizzy cuddling

Firefox... yur doin it right

In the cube...

About to stalk Rex

I can has canned fud?

Big brother Rex watch Lizzy eat her kibbles

Rex and Lizzy playing

Kibbles are yummy!

Firefox Tab Candy!

2010-07-23T23:02:00.000-07:00

An Introduction to Firefox's Tab Candy from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

More Strawberry Jam...

2010-07-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

Just made 16 more 40z. jars of strawberry jam... oh dear oh my! yum.

Photos from my Patio Garden

2010-07-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

My patio garden is in full production right now, and I am on the brink of being overwhelmed with produce.

Heirloom tomatoes, growing in the sun...

Tomato blossoms in the morning sunlight

Ripening cherry tomatoes

Squash blossoms reaching up to the sky

Veins on the squash leaf

In the morning, the squash blossoms open up to 5-6 inches wide, beautiful, spectacular yellow. Within a few hours, they are pollinated and close forever. The only time to see them in bloom is early in the morning.

Serrano thai pepper

My sprawling and amazing lemon cucumber plant with so many blossoms and baby cucumbers...

Lemon cucumber blossom

My forest of chard, lettuce, basil, cilantro

Bell pepper blossoms

Golden Plum Jam

2010-07-16T17:51:00.001-07:00

I just finished an overwhelming batch of golden plum jam from the tree in my driveway (13.5 cups of plum pulp = 22 jars of jam! (10 8oz. and 12 4oz.)). Check out the process below!

First, I spent an hour pitting plums. It took forever. I ended up with 13.5 cups of plum pulp.

The first batch of jars boiling getting ready for jam!

My canning tools below, and the huge amount of sugar that goes in the jam...

Jam is cooking! This pot is HUGE. The picture doesn't do it justice...

My 22 jars of jam!

Plums galore...

2010-07-13T18:57:00.000-07:00

Plums from my driveway! and there's more where that came from... lots of plum jam coming my way!

My nifty, handmade plum-picker device! I knew a swiffer broom, an old meshless oil-splatter-guard ring, a leftover random piece of metal from IKEA thing, and duct tape would come in handy some day!

Rex Kitty - lazy sunday...

2010-06-20T16:04:00.001-07:00

Strawberry Jam

2010-06-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

Making jam is a lot easier than you may think, but it is not without a learning curve. Today, my sister and I made 7 jars of strawberry jam from a recipe in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (awesome!!!). It took us probably about a little over an hour to do it from start to finish, from cutting and mashing berries, to heating water and boiling jars, and then pouring and boiling again. Originally we made eight jars, but one didn't seal, so I am going to eat it. Can't wait to try new recipes for the apricot and plum trees on my driveway!

Dinosaur Habitat!

2010-06-20T15:07:00.001-07:00

Just made a fun photo of our entire dinosaur habitat, in case you were missing your dinosaur fix for the day.

My Patio Garden!

2010-06-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

This season I am growing all sorts of things on my patio, in addition to my inside WindowFarm. Here are some shots of my patio garden!

My dad helped me build this "plant drainage bench" as I am calling it - a bench I designed to be a light-weight structure that has a wire mesh top allowing containers to drain down below. I was planning to add a plastic sheet underneath that would then channel the water away off the deck or into a container to be re-used, but I am not sure that is necessary now. The idea was to get the containers off the deck where the pressure and water sitting there was peeling the paint, and to also make it slightly easier to access and water plants.

I have nine tomato plants - three cherry tomatoes, and six heirlooms (I don't know what variety). They are really happy in the sunny spot on the patio, and since I took this photo (6 days ago?) they have each grown 6-8 inches taller! Crazy! I already have some little baby tomatoes forming. I expect a bigger harvest than last year, and am planning to can a bunch of things this summer (especially as my driveway as a plum tree, apricot tree, loquat tree, and more).

Here's kind of a slanted shot - you can see lettuce and herbs at the bottom of the photo, a tomato, and then three reddish longer containers with bell and hot peppers, a lemon cucumber, some onions and random herbs tucked in between, and then more tomatoes! On the ledge, I have strawberries, basil, chard, and more herbs and lettuces.... mmmmm!

Cultural Addiction Collage Series #2 - Nature Mediascape

2010-06-17T14:33:00.000-07:00

Cultural Addiction 2: Nature Mediascape
Collage, acrylic, and ink on matt board - 40" x 61"

by Megan Miller, June 2010

After starting this piece in August 2007, it is now finally finished. This piece is the second collage in my Cultural Addiction series. The series explores various cultural addictions in modern society. The first collage explored our addiction to oil, transportation, and the automotive industry. This second piece explores the 'imagined world' of Nature as a mediascape, inspired by reading Arjun Appadurai's "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy." (which you can read online at that link!)

The idea of the "nature mediascape" is interesting to me, as it represents our yearning for a reconnection with Nature, and our idealization of Nature as pristine, pure, beautiful, and sublime. The piece depicts a man tattooing himself with images of nature. Creatures such as salmon, hummingbirds, whales, and places such as mountains, the jungle, waterfalls, the Grand Canyon, and images of the planets and the cosmos are all found on his body. These tattoos symbolize the desire and yearning to preserve nature (in the form of a permanent tattoo) and also the desire for direct and deep connection with nature. In the act of tattooing, the man hopes to establish a spiritual connection with the nature he is imprinting upon his skin – he seeks to be a creature of the natural world, owned by nature, and connected to it through visual representation. He himself becomes a signifier of the nature mediascape in his efforts to fulfill his desire for this ‘imagined world.’ Through this landscape of images, he seeks to transport himself to that other place. Through the act of tattooing, he hopes to redeem himself and fellow humanity for the wrongs done to nature by committing the image of idealized nature to his skin.

Check out the first collage in the series here.

My WindowFarm - All set-up at home!

2010-06-11T18:57:00.000-07:00

I just (finally) finished setting up my WindowFarms at home! Among the various plants I am trying are: spearmint, lemon thyme, cilantro, arugula, basil, parsley. If you are interested in making a WindowFarm, check out our open-source design community at www.windowfarms.org

Step into the sensory box

2010-06-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

ENVISION : Step into the sensory box from SUPERBIEN on Vimeo.

This clip is really fantastic - amazing what projection and sculpture can do. Makes me wonder if I had stayed in that world, what I would be doing with it? (probably something a little more than my bleeding walls...)

2010 Academy of Art University Spring Show

2010-06-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

Four pieces of mine were accepted into the Academy of Art University Spring Show, and one of them won 1st place, and another won 2nd place in the Design and Development Process category (site maps and flow charts, and walkthroughs and storyboards)!

Check out the show online here!

Logorama

2010-06-03T13:10:00.000-07:00

And have you seen this? Takes Baudrillard to another level...

The Machine is (Changing) Us

2010-06-03T12:34:00.000-07:00

This is a really great talk. (Michael Wesch's keynote presentation from Personal Democracy Forum 2009)

WindowFarms at Maker Faire 2010 win Make Magazine's Editor's Choice Award

2010-05-28T18:17:00.000-07:00

Last weekend (May 22-23), my team of San Francisco Bay Area WindowFarmers exhibited a 10-column set of WindowFarms at the 5th annual Maker Faire in San Mateo. Maker Faire brings together science, art, craft and engineering plus music in a fun, energized, and exciting public forum. The aim is to inspire people of all ages to roll up their sleeves and become makers. Our team thought Maker Faire would be the perfect venue to display WindowFarms, and we were right!

Check out photos from our exhibit!

Friday morning we took two cars full of plants, bottles, supplies, and our giant PVC frame up to the San Mateo Fairgrounds. We picked up our nametags and our Maker Faire booth sign, and carted our materials over to the HomeGrown Village. I was surprised that several of the staff setting up the event knew and recognized WindowFarms, and had been checking us out online before Maker Faire.

We spent Friday setting up and waiting for the power to come online so we could plug in our WindowFarms, and water our baby plants! They had a rough time, and the wind was something else. After securing our exhibit, we headed home for a good night's sleep before the festival.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early, and encountered the crowd before we even exited the freeway. They say that last year over 70,000 people attended Maker Faire, and this year they expected even more. We quickly found parking and headed in to man the WindowFarms booth. What an exciting day!

Over Saturday and Sunday, we had a constant crowd of between 10-30 people at the WindowFarms booth - a crowd of smart, enthusiastic, curious, and creative individuals, families, entrepreneurs, and makers. We ran out of cards in the first couple hours because there was so much interest, and we must have said our spiel hundreds and hundreds of times. I'm surprised we didn't lose our voices.

On Sunday afternoon, a Maker Faire staff stopped by our booth and awarded us the Make Magazine Editor's Choice Award - a fancy blue ribbon! Basically it means they thought WindowFarms were REALLY cool. We are hoping they will write something up in Make Magazine about WindowFarms, as we are right in-line with their mission, and it would be great for more people to read about our community and design.

Sunday evening, we carefully removed our baby plants from our WindowFarms, tore down our exhibit, loaded the vehicles, unloaded back at my apartment, and celebrated.

Look for more posts soon about our WindowFarms construction process and an update on how they are doing now that we are setting them up in our respective houses.

If you saw us at Maker Faire and want to get in touch, comment on this post!

Press from WindowFarms at Maker Faire 2010:

Art, Madness, and Electronics at Maker Faire 2010 (Wired)
Maker Faire 2010 in the HOMEGROWN Village: WindowFarms
Maker Faire 2010 Projects and Makers by topic
Photo on Flickr by BentWright
HOMEGROWN Village and Maker Faire Team Up Again to Showcase Makers in Food, Farming, and Modern Homesteading
Annual Maker Faire's ideas for sustainable food
Grow Food Vertically in Windows and Walls of your Home with Hydroponic Gardening (video - see below!)
Our Maker Faire Profile Page
Growing Ideas (South African Gardening Blog)
Urban Window Farm (photo from Jen_Hansen on Flickr)
Maker Faire Highlights on RefreshRenewExplore
Maker Faire Happiness

The Story of Bottled Water

2010-04-01T09:39:00.000-07:00

What a great eye-opening, really well done video! Check it out: http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/

The New Photoshop... Holy Moly!

2010-03-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

Life on the Farm - Walking Tour of Full Belly Farm

2010-03-28T21:55:00.001-07:00

This weekend, my sister and I went for a walking tour of Full Belly Farm, the farm that I get my weekly CSA box from. After driving an hour from Sacramento up highway 16, we emerged from the suburbs and small towns of the greater valley area to find ourselves in the beautiful Capay Valley. Winding roads, green rolling hills, oak trees, and organic farms. What more could we ask for?

The weather was beautiful. We drove up the gravel driveway to the Full Belly Farm welcome area, and along with 30 or so other visitors, we gathered to learn and celebrate sustainable agriculture. Most of us there were CSA members, and it was such a wonderful experience to see where all our fresh produce comes from, and to realize that it is grown with such care and joy.

Full Belly Farm has many orchards, in full spring bloom. I can not wait to get these peaches (now in pink blossom) in my CSA box this summer!

We were on site at just the right time to see the seedling tomato plants being planted in newly turned soil. My mouth was watering justing thing about how many delicious tomatoes we will be getting in the hotter months. We learned on the tour that during the summer, the tomato fields keep a higher level of humidity and heat than other crops, and that temperatures rise up to 105 degrees in the hottest months!

Above, the peas we got in our box this week, and below, some of the bummer lambs they are bottle-feeding right now. They had over 120 lambs born this winter on the farm!

Above, new greens just planted (lettuce, etc.).

Rows of grape vines line the hills near the orchard, and each row is a different variety of grape. Full Belly Farm also likes to promote pollinators while also adding color to our weekly boxes. The fields of flowers were truly beautiful.

Rows of flowers of all kinds to encourage pollinators.

This mobile chicken coop fenced in 250 hens, which lay delicious bright-orange-yolked eggs that I buy regularly each week. It was fun to watch Nelly the border collie herding the hens.

The apricots are already setting fruit, while the many happy dogs rest in the light shade provided by the orchard. Happy animals, happy plants, happy people!

Even after only a few months of subscribing to my CSA box at Full Belly Farm, I can't imaging living without it. The connection we get through our food to the farm is so dear to me, and really brings me back to my own childhood on my family's small farm (where we raised pygmy goats, horses, ducks, dogs, etc. and small gardens). There is something so healing about healthy food, dirt, and the hot sun. I can't wait to go back!

If you are thinking about joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), I highly encourage you to try, and Fully Belly Farm would be a great place to start, as they are year-round and have many drop-off points throughout the Bay Area.

Wired Magazine on the iPad

2010-03-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

This is really quite inspirational, and exciting - to see what the future of digital publications hold.

Window Farm!

2010-03-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

This is SO cool! I am totally going to try this as my next project. Check out the project online at windofarms.org

Jamie Oliver'd TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food

2010-03-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

I love Jamie Oliver.

Stone on Stone

2010-03-05T10:59:00.000-08:00

Stone on Stone [CLIP] from Rob Carter on Vimeo.

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass

2010-03-03T12:17:00.000-08:00

An extravagant Rube Goldberg style music video!
Though, this one burns your socks off, literally:

Photoshop Cook

2010-02-16T16:50:00.000-08:00

This seems like a dream I might have one of these days from too much Adobe software, and too much cooking on my brain:

My Full Belly CSA Box - Week One

2010-01-09T10:56:00.000-08:00

My First CSA Box Contents (plus flour!)

Today I picked up my first CSA box of produce from Full Belly Farm. I am so excited to start my first year of full seasonal eating of local food.

In case you are unfamiliar with CSA, it stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and over the last 20 years has become a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. Here are the basics: a farmer offers a certain number of "shares" to the public. Typically the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a "membership" or a "subscription") and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season. (From LocalHarvest.org)

Last spring, I read Barbara Kingsolver's amazing book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," and that was the beginning of my local food journey. Since then, I have grown vegetables on my patio, switched from grocery store produce to farmers market or farm stand only, and am embarking on my first year of eating from weekly CSA produce boxes.

Full Belly Farm is a 200-acre organic farm located in Guinda, CA, and supplies CSA members boxes of fresh produce throughout the year, delivered to convenient neighborhood locations in the East Bay, South Bay, and San Rafael, as well as in Sacramento, Davis, Woodland, and Esparto.

This morning when I went to pick up my first CSA box, I was utterly delighted at the friendly volunteers, the amazing freshness of the produce, and the extra items that were available from the farm (see the flour in picture? I'm excited to use it in my bi-weekly bread-baking). Though there will be a challenge to learn how to cook and utilize some of the vegetables that I normally would not buy (like the celery root above), I am thrilled to be directly supporting this farm and receiving amazing produce.

If you are considering a CSA box, I urge you to explore options in your area, and try it out!

Post-Harvest Thoughts

2009-12-21T16:23:00.001-08:00

My two cans of tomato sauce

Now that we have reached mid-winter, my thoughts turn back to my first summer of growing tomatoes. I started my parking lot garden in April and had a grand adventure moving mid-season, caravanning ~10 6-foot tall potted tomato plants to our new second story apartment patio. My tomato harvest came later than expected, and throughout the entire adventure I learned a lot about container gardening, transplanting, and growing food in your backyard.

What an amazing experience to start to understand the world of growing things, and more poignantly the art of growing food. I am already starting to think about what I will start planting this next spring, and trying to think more creatively about my patio garden.

For one, I am planning to find a few heirloom tomato varieties to try instead of standard hybrid seed varieties I found at Ace Hardware. I will try planting more greens, starting with chard and see how that goes. I will expand my herb selection, and start composting to provide organic fertilizer for my plants.

Stay tuned for how it goes!

My tomato harvest

A Citrus Time of Year

2009-12-20T15:30:00.000-08:00

This is a wonderful time of year to indulge in an over-abundance of citrus. Not only is it a good source of cold-fighting vitamin-C and anti-oxidants, but citrus brings color and flavor into the winter months when most other fruit is either imported from far away lands or canned, frozen, or dried.

This morning at my local farmers market, I picked up two beautiful (and delicious) oro blanco fruit in addition to some irresistible tangerines. Spanish for "white gold," the oro blanco is a pomelo hybrid developed in 1958. This bright yellow fruit is grapefruit-size and has a thick pomelolike rind and a sweet, almost seedless flesh.

Rex kitty!

2009-09-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

Michael and I adopted a kitty from Palo Alto Animal Services. The organization is wonderful, as are the people and animals - I would recommend it to anyone looking to adopt. Our kitty is four months old, and we have named him Rex (short for Czar King Rex, the Glorious Leader - after one of John Hodgman's 700 hobo names outlined in his wonderful book, "The Areas of My Expertise" (which, I might add is best experience via audio-book)). We have had Rex in our home for one week now, and he is delightful! He is a loving, careful, cuddly, playful, and curious cat.

First Harvest!

2009-09-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

I harvested my first bunch of cherry tomatoes today and am making a big stew in the crock pot. It is joyful to be able to watch food grow from a tiny seed into an incredible plant that produces delicious food. In addition to the tomatoes, I've been eating a handful here and there of strawberries - yellow ones and red ones - from my strawberry pot, herbs, and green onions. It has been a fantastic summer and fulfilling to have a garden, even if it is container-constrained.

Newest from Jack Conte

2009-09-04T11:12:00.000-07:00

Synesthesia - an amazing video!

2009-09-04T11:03:00.001-07:00

Synesthesia from Terri Timely on Vimeo.

Tour our new house!

2009-07-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

We are moving soon! Here's a tour of our new place!

Can't stop the dance

2009-07-02T23:14:00.000-07:00

Saw this by the SFMOMA parking garage...

my artwork w/ Jack Conte's music!

2009-06-29T11:06:00.000-07:00

Totally cool! Jack Conte is a great musician/videographer/creator. I'm privileged to be his album art for this song!

my parking lot garden

2009-06-28T13:33:00.001-07:00

This spring, I was inspired to plant a parking lot garden... that is, a garden growing in many pots out in my apartment complex parking lot. I have been reading an amazing book, Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and have completely fallen in love with growing plants, in particular, plants I can eat!

Growing up in Humboldt County, my parents ran a bed and breakfast inn for 16 years, and we had several gardens to grow food for the gourmet breakfasts they cooked every morning for 20 people. I remember going out into the garden as a kid and picking the spinach leaves off the plants, eating them crunchy and raw and loving them, then later in life wondering why people hate spinach?

We grew blueberries, raspberries, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, onions, strawberries, and more. We had ducks, and ate duck eggs for breakfast - more thick and intense than chicken eggs, and great for baking. We had a small pygmy goat farm and were the number one pygmy goat breeders in the county - In my childhood, I helped deliver over 200 baby goats, and encountered any number of veterinary disasters. We had horses, dogs (and three litters of pups), cats (and of course kittens), fish, - even an iguana!

Now in my city life, I am starting to feel the lack of connection to the plant and animal world, and severely miss that day to day lifestyle. In response, I am trying to experiment with ways to bring that back into my life here in the city, and this parking lot garden is one. I have recently discovered a local nursery in Menlo Park that is really wonderful - Roger Reynolds Nursery. They carry beautiful plants and are very friendly and helpful. If you are at all interested in growing a few things on your patio, I encourage you to try - it is an incredible rewarding experience.

A few tips for plants growing in pots:

Plain ceramic pots dry out quicker than plastic or glazed ceramic, and need more frequent watering, though they allow you to control the watering amounts more directly, and are better for plants that want a bit drier soil.
Put some gravel or broken ceramic in the bottom of each pot before putting in the soil - this will help with draining.
Protect seedlings from the wind and heavy watering (especially if your apartment complex has a gardener! He might spray your baby plants too hard - so catch him to tell him you'll water your plants)
Don't overcrowd your plants! Let them fill in a bit, and migrate them to bigger pots as they grow.
Pinch back the tops (and for herbs especially the flowering parts) to get your plants and herbs to grow out bushier. For herbs, this is great because it means the more you eat, the more it will grow! (well, unless you pinch back the whole plant.. which in that case, it would die.)

All you need to start is:

Some pots
Soil + gravel (for the bottom of the pot for draining)
Seeds or starters (you can even get these at Safeway these days! but try your local nursery or farmers market, or even HomeDepot)
A sunny warm spot outside
Water
and of course your time and love (which, I might add is not as much time as you think to grow edible food!)

Here are some pics from my garden:

One of my fifteen tomato plants that I chose to put in a larger pot to see how big it gets!

My tomato plants are going crazy!

Another of my fifteen tomato plants that I chose to put in a larger pot to see how big it gets!

Thai basil and curly parsley

Strawberry plants (the top one makes yellow strawberries!)

Strawberry and Italian basil +flat leaf parsley

Sugar peas!

Cilantro

Broccoli (I will be re-potting this into a much bigger pot soon!)

My parking lot garden!

Post-it Animation

2009-06-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

Cool stuff!

Scooter Revolution!

2009-06-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

Michael and I just bought a 150cc il Bello Flyscooter today! We are very excited to start off our summer with 90 miles per gallon, convenient parking, and more fun in our day to day lives (not to mention style!). More pics to come soon!

My Bologna

2009-06-06T23:46:00.001-07:00

I heard this on the radio this morning and it just made my day.

Pandora One

2009-05-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

I am very excited about Pandora's new desktop application, Pandora One and just wanted to send out a recommendation to subscribe to Pandora. They are a great radio service, and well worth the $36 a year fee. You can listen to your friends stations, theme and genre stations, and customize your own. I've learned about so many great new bands since listening to pandora a couple years ago.

My new camera

2009-05-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

I love my new camera, and the springtime flowers! Thanks Wyatt for teaching me an awesome photography lesson!

Kaleidoscope of Tap Dancing

2009-05-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

Very cool video of some kaleidescopic dance!
(made by a client of mine!!! Alley Oop Films)

this makes me proud of Stanford students!

2009-05-01T00:24:00.000-07:00

... and flabbergasted as to why she is allowed back at Stanford?

plants and food for spring!

2009-04-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

I've been loving food this year, and cooking more. I've started to bake all my own bread, make pasta from scratch, and have been really inspired by Jamie Oliver's beautiful and practical cookbooks: Jamie at Home, and Cook with Jamie. In any case - I decided to try growing some edible plants this year, and a few weeks ago had a planting day with my dad. Now I've got cute little seeds sprouting into tomatoes, broccoli, cilantro, peas and more. (we'll see if any of them make it to adult-hood...)

Tango, Zbigniew Rybczynski (1980)

2009-04-23T19:18:00.000-07:00

This is very beautiful. I am amazed at this animation, and wondering if it could be recreated in real life!

Dinosaur Plant Animation

2009-04-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

Michael and I made a stop-motion video of our dinosaur plant unfurling!

Meet our Fish!

2009-04-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

Meet our fish!
Obama (silver black and white) - bought on the day Obama was inaugurated into office.
Sunrise (yellow) - really stupid fish
Tequila (yellow) - obsessed with their reflections
Dot (pink) - what a bully! she is really obsessed with her spot in the tank.
Boris (red stripe) - the investigators of the tank
Natasha (red stripe) - red for ... Russia I guess? but more about Rockie and Bullwinkle
Jackie Chan (zebra) - survived MANY tank changes!
Jet Lee (zebra) - invulnerable and does cool tricks!
Bud (the sucker fish) - my favorite!!! he eats ALL the algae!

My latest book purchase

2009-04-22T21:34:00.001-07:00

I recently bought I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. I took a financial seminar from him when I was a senior at Stanford, and was encouraged and inspired enough to join his mailing list. Since then, his little prodding and hints have encouraged me to be brave in the face of money and take proactive steps towards saving without the angst and fear that I used to feel when dealing with money. I encourage all the young professionals, college students, and recent grads I know to purchase this book - it will most DEFINATELY make up for the cost of purchasing the book.

Visit the I Will Teach You To Be Rich Website!

How creativity is being strangled by the law

2009-03-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

Stanford's Larry Lessig on TED.
This is really great! It's worth re-visiting this discussion on a regular basis, especially if you are an artist or creative person living in this world of technology and media.

Mortal Engine

2009-03-26T20:25:00.000-07:00

Some very awesome interdisciplinary multi-media dance/projection/tracking... This kind of art is very inspiring to me... I hope we can see this kind of creativity more often...

The Mash-up of all Mash-ups

2009-03-13T22:34:00.001-07:00

Wow. Props to this guy, though I gotta say, Jack Conte takes it to the next level.

Update on life...

2009-03-05T22:20:00.000-08:00

I guess all you readers of my blog have been maybe wondering where I went! Good question... I thought I'd post a (cliche) update on life and just some of the things that have been buzzing around my brain of late...

Winter quarter is always the hardest part of the year for me. Usually it means an overly busy schedule, with an extended work-load, a myriad of important deadlines, and the stress of colder and sometimes rainier weather. This winter is no exception.

In my role as a student at the AAU, this is my first semester taking online classes, and it's been a bit of an adjustment. I am taking Usability (which is awesomely helpful and so much of what I tend to do already in my head, but now giving me the correct terminology and tools to do it professionally), and Sound Specific (which is making me face my fears of MIDI and electronic music composition and turning out to be actually pretty fun). My main issue so far with the online learning environment is not that it is disconnected or makes me feel isolated, but that it falls back on technicalities for grading (did you post your assignment before the system closes at Midnight? did you name your file properly? did you understand that multiple choice question right? did you get logged out?). Although there is something to be said for face-to-face interaction, if you can muster up your patience and boost your typing skills, the online learning environment is nice, as it lets you go at your own pace (within each week's schedule), and allows you to create thoughtful written responses to other's work or discussion topics.

Besides from my role as a student, this is my first quarter where I have been a real teacher! Next week marks the end of my 10-week Winter Quarter class at Stanford, "Technology for Artists and Writers." Myself and two other faculty at Stanford designed the course last year, and somehow got it listed as an English Class (of all things, the art department wouldn't cross-list an art-related course! go figure...). Over Fall Quarter of this year we fleshed out our course outline and pulled together course materials (mostly links on our website), and sifted through 60 applications from undergraduate students interested in filling the 14 spots we had available. We ended up with a small class of 13 dedicated artistic students, all of which are putting the finishing touches on their brand-spanking-new websites this week! I am so proud! It's been such an amazing experience getting to teach Stanford students, and to learn what it means to be a teacher! I am very thankful and hope to continue teaching the course next year.

At work (and yes, you are all right, I have too many things going on!!!), things have become rather challenging due to the economic situation. Stanford is being hit hard, especially groups that rely on new endowments, like us at SiCa, and we have had to make some difficult compromises. (BTW - if Stanford is getting hit hard, it makes me extremely sad for the rest of the organizations around the nation and world...) I've taken on new roles at SiCa (new in the official sense), and become the Communications staff for our organization on top of my original duties as Arts in Student Life Coordinator. It is a good chance, I guess, to re-think my job description and work with my supervisor to better adjust priorities and projects. Handling the transition has been hard with my other committments, and I have learned my lesson that life will throw things at you from left field, and you better be prepared to roll with the punches and stay optimistic and positive during the process. I guess the one thing that I've come away from this transition period with is that change is always accompanied by growing pains, and that it is always a chance to embrace new things, learn, and grow.

With all of these pressing responsibilities, I have had to accept the fact that I have very little social or free time, so I apologize to all my friends, and to my blog readers! I look forward to May, when I will be done with spring semester at the AAU, and mostly done with the annual madness that is Stanford. Until then, I'll try to emerge every once in a while... and let's all try to hang in there through these challenging times.

peace ~

Gesundheit!!!

2009-02-20T23:14:00.000-08:00

SO funny...

Improbable Research

2009-02-19T13:32:00.001-08:00

If you haven't heard of this, it's worth a look, especially for those who enjoy the more quirky side of science. Their website is here, and they have a YouTube channel with loads of interesting videos like the one below:

Listen to those darned stock charts sing!

2009-02-09T21:54:00.001-08:00

This is sickeningly funny - in a dark humor way.

The End of the World 2012

2009-01-26T11:24:00.001-08:00

hehe

Hawaii Vacation!

2009-01-24T16:56:00.000-08:00

Me and Michael had such a nice Hawaii vacation!!!

Our hotel, the Hilton Hawaiian Village

The view from our balcony

A fire dancer guy at a luau we went to

Honolulu from the top of Diamond Head

We ate authentic Hawaiian plate lunch food here.

Hanauma Bay

Nuuanu Pali Lookout

On the road!

Wow. I miss that ocean!

The jungle was cool!

Big waves at Sunset Beach on the north shore

A crab!

Up this river valley is the waterfall from LOST!

Beautiful sunset on our last day at the end of our roadtrip around the island.

Lemon Meringue Pie

2009-01-24T16:19:00.000-08:00

I made my first lemon Meringue pie yesterday! It was really fun, and definitely something you need a couple hours to do (especially if you are making your own crusts). I got my recipe from the Farm Journal Cookbook. Here's a nice online video showing you how to do it!

Pilobolus "Symbiosis"

2009-01-03T23:44:00.000-08:00

Wow - this is so beautiful. The music and the dance is incredible.

Northcoast Beach

2009-01-02T22:03:00.000-08:00

Sea foam bubbles

Iceplant on the dunes (Photoshopped!)

Beautiful grassy dunes

Dunes against the coastline

Dog prints in the sand

Beautiful sunset over the Pacific

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-26T16:27:00.001-08:00

Cool Type Animations

2008-12-18T18:51:00.000-08:00

Jack Conte: The Rise of the Video Song (2)

2008-12-18T15:43:00.000-08:00

Second version of the fake Rolling Stone cover featuring Jack Conte.