Verbal snapshots of the day at Maker Faire 2011

Some few of the very many Cool Things interacted with at Maker Faire this day, in no particular order:

“Here” said Aviva, “it takes six to make a block. Simple geometry puzzle.”

http://bloxes.com/

Geometry pleases me.

Natalie McKean’s scratchboard work and Santa Cruz roots;

http://nataliemckeanart.com/gallery.html

Monsieur Klutz Himself with a nice big booth of fun; as ever, http://klutz.com

The always delightful Kelly of Ceallach dyes, ably assisted by East Bay fiber-maven Brooke, and I’m so happy they’re using Square, because I got into a couple of skeins and 8 oz. of lovely superwash Merino from her solar dyeworks. Mmm Pretties! http://www.ceallachdyes.com/

Some utterly delightful stuff in the Bizaar Bazaar (that was Too Crowded in the middles though I love the tent setup. Came away with a Set o’ Magnets from birdversusbird

Sweet Maria’s Home Coffee Roasting looked interesting, and were selling green coffee beans and doing show-and-tell in the big food tent.

I love the color combinations this jeweler is getting up to: TQBdesigns

Shared kind words about Urban Gardener Mike L (Twitter @CanarsieBK) with the Back to the Roots mushroom kit folks who were there, doing well.

the Spindles and Flyers spinning guild was there in force, Dawn Jacobson plying long draw, Cookie spinning on her gorgeous hand-painted wheel, folks setting up new spinners with CD-and-dowel drop spindles, and showing items made from handspun yarns.

The lovely folks of the Peninsula Quilters Guild were there, with needles busy, and many items to show, and this year's raffle quilt...I won't mind if one of my six tickets is the one chosen. They do lovely work.

So much more to share, so much more than one can see in a day - we didn’t even get over near the model boats area, or the health expo they put in one big building. But better to post these tidbits and say goodnight, than never get to it at all.

Lovely day.Winderful show to make the brain to twinkle, and meet & greet old and new friends!

Some Autumn Gardening Fun: National Heirloom Expo, Sept 13-15

The first National Heirloom Exposition will be taking place Sept 13-15
in Santa Rosa, sponsored by Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.
http://theheirloomexpo.com/

For anyone interested in heirloom seeds, produce, livestock, and more,
this sounds like a fabulous event -- like an old-fashioned state fair.
There will be exhibits, events, speakers, demos, and vendors.

They are looking for gardeners who want to grow and display heirloom
produce (vegetables/fruits) or products (e.g. eggs, honey, pickles,
preserves, pies, etc.). There's likely to be an heirloom seed exchange.

And heads up, artistic types:
They are also looking for garden and farm-themed art for display.

Exhibitor form:
http://www.theheirloomexpo.com/downloads/heirloom%20expo%20exhibitor%20form.pdf

Philosophy

A great tweet from earlier today:

@GreatDismal: "Dance like nobody's watching. Love like you've never been hurt. Develop software like the end user has your home address."

Gardening Day

Today, we've dug and planted and uprooted, carefully sown some seeds in starter pots and carelessly scattered others to see what happens there...
In the back, against the mostly-south-facing back wall of the garage, are a row of tomatos, started earlier, in a row in their cages:

Rouge d'Irak,  Pink Beefsteak,  Costoluto Genovese, Green Zebra
A scattering of red amaranth plants between these and a little forward
Vervain, various basils, a Ronde de Nice courgette (Zuke), Calendulas moved from a hanging planter;
Yarrow, Thyme, 2 eggplants
Roughly in order from back to front and left to right.

We finally did in the bloody dock - not to be badmouthing the stuff, it's just red-veined. We're steaming the greens and tincturing the serious roots.

We have three big square planter boxes in the front yard, with strawberries and the spring flowers, to which we've added squash, that can leap out and sprawl over the juniper if it likes, 2 tomatillos, a yellow pear tomato for nibbling on as we arrive home; sunflowers, some in the boxes, and the ones that get really tall went into the ground next to the box nearest the front walk border of fortnight lilies.

I'm sort of catching up in logging these things in my journal over at Dave's Garden but I'm not sure anyone can see that log if they're not a member of that venerable website. So perhaps I'll be blogging on the garden more over here, with pictures. I do recommend http://davesgarden.com/ and its $20 nuisance-fee-that-weeds-the-trolls, for the plant files database and the conversation in forums there. It's where we learned about straw-bale planting in a swampy-by-adobe-cob yard we rented for a couple of years: the perfect solution for that place. A raised bed garden you plant directly in to; took plenty o' water by hydroponic-cognate fertilizing (fish juice, yay), and worked amazingly.