Picture-Caption Game

As we come to the New Year and a time best spent with friends and family, the best means I know of making endless hilarity in good company is something informally called the "Picture-caption game". It's a twist on the game of "telephone", and mercifully does not involve the television set.

For those who aren't familiar with it, it involves 6-10 people, and for each person a piece of paper, a writing utensil and a writing surface (books and magazines make good writing surfaces as well as good sources of inspiration for what happens next!).

1) Each person starts by writing a sentence. It can be about literally anything. No essays. Personal references to people in the group = acceptable.

2) After 1-2 minutes, pass the papers to the right, and the next person will draw a picture, detailing the contents of the sentence. Symbols may be used, but no written text.

3) That person folds over the the original sentence, and with only the picture now showing, passes the paper to the right.

4) The next person now writes a sentence, captioning the picture to the best of their ability.

5) Fold over the picture, and repeat, until you have passed the papers one fewer times than there are people.


6) Now the last person with each paper gets to unfold the paper and do story-time show-and-tell for the group.

7) Small children, poor drawars and poor spellers are known to produce some of the best results.

Lessons from a Corner Garden

The suburb of Brightmoor was a stop in City #3 of my grad school's tour of the American Rustbelt: Detroit. As far distant as Detroit is, the lessons from Brightmoor carry over to our own backyards, from my shared hallway shower to the city of Bowling Green.

Christmas morning 3:00 am brought the surprise of finding the shared bathroom in my apartment building occupied by street bums. It's not the first time and - given the timing of the police - will probably not be the last. But it's recalled to mind the story of another shared community space....

Brightmoor is not the backdrop I would have chosen for a life's masterpiece. The residences are run-down; perhaps two houses have historical value. But Brightmoor has become just that for a group of dedicated community members.

A brief bit of history:

The Brightmoor Youth Garden sprang up as a brainchild of Riet Schumack, originally of the Netherlands and more recently of Detroit. It also happened to be next to a notorious crack house. Riet never imagined herself as the organizing type, but she'd taken a class and the skill turned out to be essential. Neighbors kept watch until they caught the head criminal, not the stereotypical drug dealer but a well-off outsider driving a luxurious SUV. Since then - a rough year - the garden has provided a healthy after-school activity and income to neighborhood youth.

Now, among abandoned houses painted in bright murals, poetry scrawled across their boarded-up windows, runs a circuit of neighborhood gardens. Young adults would set up home in some of these same abandoned houses until such time as the neighborhood was able to buy them at auction. Even among the neighborhood initiatives was a valiant attempt to clear abandoned properties by expanding the Detroit city limits on goats. 

In our quest to improve the places we call home, how does one choose the canvas? Just how far does one go?

I don't pretend to have all the answers. But if we want to see our communities become resilient, it's helpful to distill a few key ingredients.

While it probably is good to start with a place that has its redeeming qualities - the soil isn't too rocky - the houses are solidly built - the crime rate isn't too high - looking at Brightmoor shows this can only be part of what it takes to work real transformation.

Where the ties to place fall short, bonds between people are the stronger force. More than that, I think, between people who have a keen sense of home, those with a keen vision of what's possible, and those with a bent for action. If I could guess, it starts with the people who have lived in a place a long time, built upon by those who settle in a place and desire to tap into that deep connection. A commitment to a shared future that includes the generations to come. As Riet, now a leader of what has become a neighborhood-wide effort, says:

"You need someone who is willing to settle down for the long run, who can get to know people, spend time finding the assets and listen to what people want [....] I plan on dying here."

This idea of living and dying among the people we seek to help is the radical concept behind the community development group of which Riet is a part. A strong vision is important. So is being entrenched for the long haul.

Yet one of the smart ideas in Brightmoor was to break the tasks ahead into manageable projects. While I like to think that one could gauge whether one has the resources to see a vision all the way through to completion, starting with little steps that carry their own reward justifies pouring in all the effort required.

It's a virtuous circle. While one vandal can undo much, a single flower-bed or Christmas wreath sends the signal that "This place is worth investing in."

As I'm evicting the street-people from our shared restroom, with a conviction that by the time my lease is up I will still be living here and they (or at least their drug habits) will not, I consider what it must take.

Deep dedication to place is one valuable piece. Strong vision is another. Community organizing and those who can do it will tie the two together.

A Pattern Language - A Preview

“If children are not able to explore the whole of the adult world round about them, they cannot become adults. But modern cities are so dangerous that children cannot be allowed to explore them freely.”

A Pattern Language is a book which seems to be following me around, which every time I meet it offers new insights. According to the authors, it lays the “basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building and planning” – stemming from a belief that the built environment springs up naturally from the physical and spiritual needs of the people inhabiting it, if guided by certain foundational principles. And that these principles or patterns, overlaid and interlocking, create a kind of poetry within the places we live.

The book consists of a series of short chapters on everything from practical matters – such as how far apart to space towns of 1000 people (“The Distribution of Towns”) – to the metaphysical – such as how to accommodate the complete lifecycle of a person within a single village (“Life Cycle”), or how to situate sacred space (“Holy Ground”). Then there are my favorites, “Dancing in the Street” and “Sleeping in Public”. And that’s just the first half of the book, covering topics greater in scale than a single building. There’s much, much more on how to construct patterns within a building itself.

For today, though, I will share from the chapter “Children in the City” because it speaks so well – I think – to the tendency amongst those who seek to live sustainably (and especially to raise kids in a healthy environment) to envision this life in the countryside. For those who cannot or prefer not to make this move, is there a way to incorporate this ethic into the city-dwelling life?

“The need for children to have access to the world of adults is so obvious that it goes without saying. The adults transmit their ethos and their way of life to children through their actions, not through statements. Children learn by doing and by copying. If the child’s education is limited to school and home, and all the vast undertakings of a modern city are mysterious and inaccessible, it is impossible for the child to find out what it really means to be an adult and impossible, certainly, for him to copy it by doing.

“This separation between the child’s world and the adult world is unknown […] in traditional societies. In simple villages, children spend their days side by side with farmers in the fields, side by side with people who are building houses, side by side, in fact, with all the daily actions of the men and women round about them:  making pottery, counting money, curing the sick, praying to God, grinding corn, arguing about the future of the village.

“But in the city, life is so enormous and so dangerous, that children can’t be left alone to roam [….]. The problem seems nearly insoluble. But we believe it can be at least partly solved by enlarging those parts of cities where small children can be left to roam, alone, and by trying to make sure that these protected children’s belts are so widespread and so far-reaching that they touch the full variety of adult activities and ways of life.

Bridge trail in Yorktown, NY: Photo courtesy of
Wee Westchester

“We imagine a carefully developed childrens’ bicycle path, within the larger network of bike paths […]. The path is always a bike path; it never runs beside cars. Where it crosses traffic there are lights or bridges. There are many homes and shops along the path—adults are nearby, especially the old enjoy spending an hour a day sitting along this path, themselves riding along the loop, watching the kids out of the corner of one eye.

“And most important, the great beauty of this path is that it passes along and even through those functions and parts of a town which are normally out of reach:  the place where newspapers are printed, the place where milk arrives from the countryside and is bottled, the pier, the garage where people make doors and windows, the alley behind restaurant row, the cemetery.”

– A Pattern Language. Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein et al. Oxford University Press: New York, NY, 1977, p. 294-295.

Indianapolis Cultural Trail: Photo courtesy of Visit Indy.

Does Bowling Green have something that might pass as the beginnings of this network, or that with time and intentionality might flourish to become one? How could it start here?

Rain Barrel How-To

Of all the easy projects out there, this one might not top the easy list, but it still definitely ranks.

The best part is watching one of these fill up within an hour of moderate rainfall. Of course it'd be best not to hook up until after the freezing weather has passed!

Plan where you'll position your barrel. A high place, directly adjacent to the garden beds you plan to water, is ideal. We put ours on a two-foot-high deck - raising it on cinder blocks would have been even better. Placing it near an existing downspout that can easily be diverted is important.

Get a barrel. You want to make sure these are food grade, as 55-gallon barrels can contain all manner of nasties. Ours had contained soda. As I recall, we contacted WKU, and they left us two (like contraband goods) in the spiral entry ramp to their parking garage.

Obtain fittings:

• Stainless steel hinge and latch (and their associated screws)
• 3/4" outside-threaded spigot (to fit your watering hose)
• 3/4" outside-threaded union (to fit your overflow hose)
• Two 3/4"inside-diameter rubber washers. 

Line up your tools:

• Hand-saw
• 3/4" wood bit or hole-saw
• Power drill with Philips head
• Staple gun.

Have on hand:

• Silicone sealant
• Two sections of garden hose - one at least 5-6 feet for overflow - the other long enough to easily reach the furthest corner of your garden
• 5x5" piece of window screen or similar
• Cinder-blocks if raising your barrel off the ground
• Two downspout elbows, if your barrel will be located to one side or the other of an existing downspout.

Cut the barrel open. For this I used a fine-toothed handsaw. A bit laborious. The hardest part is cutting it straight - sometimes a line in the plastic running around the top of the barrel can be used as a guide.

Cut out the holes for the spigot and overflow hose. Mark out where you'd like your hoses to attach to the barrel. The overflow hose should be no more than a couple inches down from the lid. The watering hose should be as close to the bottom of the barrel as practical, before encountering a lot of curvature, and allowing enough space for the hose to bend around any obstacles (including the ground) when attached to the spigot.

Fit the wood bit or hole-saw to your drill, and position the center of the bit in the center of your marks. Cut, keeping the drill as perpendicular to the surface as possible.

Attach the hoses. There is no actual way to reach inside of a 55-gal barrel to the bottom. I've tried.* The sources that suggest you can do this must be using small children (or cats?). Therefore this design doesn't call for any fittings on the inside of the barrel.
*If you figure it out, please let me know.

Coat a rubber washer with sealant as well as the threads on one side of the union (for this you may want gloves). Slip the washer on the sealant-coated end of the union (it will go between the fitting and the barrel) and screw this into the hole cut for the overflow hose. This is the most finicky part of the procedure because the fitting will try to cross-thread itself. Keep perpendicular: Patience = a virtue.

Repeat for the threading on the spigot.

Attach the lid. You should have two halves of a hinge and two halves of a latch. There are probably other more interesting latch arrangements but this is the one which suggested itself to me. Rotate the lid until it fits back on your barrel (like fitting the top back onto a pumpkin), mark where the two sides of your hinge should go and screw in. The screws will stick through the plastic on the inside - this is fine. Do the same for the latch.

Insert the leaf screen. Staple the 5x5" piece of window screen over the inside of the hole in the lid. This is to prevent your having to fish leaves out of your barrel later.

Position the barrel. Put the cinder blocks in place if using them, and by golly make sure they're level. Also double check the barrel is where you want it before you connect it, because heaven may or may not help you to move the thing once it's full.

Connect the downspout. We get to use our saw again, this time to do some permanent modification to your house! The idea is that you will be able to use the existing downspout but shorten it up and divert it to your barrel.

Cut the downspout a good foot or so above the height of the top of the barrel. Then cut another piece out of the leftover bit that, when connected with an elbow fitting, will reach from the end of the first segment nearly to the inlet hole in the lid of your barrel. Use one elbow to attach these two segments together, and the other to pour directly into the barrel.

Some considerations:

• The brass fittings used in the photos, while pretty, tend toward rust, so I wouldn't use them again.

Le finished barrel.

• We definitely didn't leave enough room between the spigot and the deck, so the watering hose didn't have enough space to bend. This could have been corrected by a) cutting a hole in the deck, b) raising on cinder blocks or c) inserting another union and a section of 3/4" inside-threaded pipe. This would also have corrected the fact that the barrel bulges when full, making it hard to turn the spigot handle.
• The barrel lid tends to warp a little. One might get sophisticated by inserting a rubber sleeve of some kind around the inside of the barrel or the lid so as to make a better seal.
• Or, since the warping has little structural effect, one might simply get a larger piece of window screen and fasten it around the entire top of the barrel below the lid, so as to at least make it mosquito-proof.
• Plants add a nice touch.

Three Things to Do with Zucch's

At this time of year and in light of durabili-hood, it makes sense to make use of what we have. So, for those of you trying to make use of leftover zucchini squash in your fridge (I know I am!) here are
three recipes you might enjoy!

Seriously.

Fried Zucchini
This one's super simple:

1 egg
some flour (I'm sure corn meal could also be used)
olive oil (a few tablespoons as needed)
several thin slices of zucchini

Whisk up the egg in a flat-bottomed bowl. Spread the flour on a rather large plate. Heat up a tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet on medium. (You don't want to burn your zucch's!) As it's heating up, douse a slice of zucchini in the egg with a fork, then turn it over on the plate to cover both sides with flour. When your pan is ready, fry the zucchini first on one side, then the other (it's an art getting them just right, depending how your stove burns, but after few blackened ones you will be off to a perfect golden-brown). Repeat for as many zucch's as necessary!
Best eaten that day while still warm.



Zucchini Pancakes
Okay - so I awoke from dreaming about avocado pancakes, but because of the plethora of zucchini at my disposal this was the creative output:

1 1/2 C flour (I had whole wheat on hand - which made this a little healthier and a little crispier than it had to be, but which worked well in this application)
3 1/2 t baking powder or 1 1/4 t baking soda
1 1/2 t salt
not quite 1 T sugar
1 1/4 C milk (I find water works just as well if vegan)
3 T oil
1 egg (or 1 more T oil if vegan)

oh! and zucchini

Shred the zucchini with something like a potato peeler. (Maybe a cheese grater would have been better, now that I think of it?) Mix the dry and wet ingredients separately, then pour the wet into the dry. Mix in the zucchini and stir until more or less smooth. Oil a skillet, scoop batter on by the ladle, fry and enjoy!
Tastes well served with plain yogurt, cranberry sauce ...even avocado if you're feeling inspired.



Zucchini Crisp
This one from a co-worker, touted as being "a good way to disappear a huge zucchini." I haven't tried it yet but I should - considering the recipe implied it was good shared with co-workers:

8 cups cubed peeled zucchini
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 cup (packed) brown sugar
1 cup oats
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter (or favorite vegan substitute)

Bake in greased 9x13” dish @ 375
Mix zucchini, sugar, lemon, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Pour into baking dish.
Combine brown sugar, oats, flour and cut in butter.
Sprinkle over zucchini.
Bake 40-45 minutes.

Tell me if you try these and have any luck, or share a recipe of your own!

A Collective Awakening

Reposted here from Kevin Burt - I searched and found the introductory paragraph to add to the

Image courtesy of Amazon.

context of the message. Overall, it sounds like a fascinating read, and I'm curious how the concept of mindfulness plays out in your lives - 

"The bells of mindfulness are sounding. All over the Earth, we are experiencing floods, droughts, and massive wildfires. Sea ice is melting in the Arctic and hurricanes and heat waves are killing thousands. The forests are fast disappearing, the deserts are growing, species are becoming extinct every day, and yet we continue to consume, ignoring the ringing bells [...].

"We need a kind of collective awakening. There are among us men and women who are awakened, but it's not enough; most people are still sleeping. We have constructed a system we can't control. It imposes itself on us, and we become its slaves and victims. For most of us who want to have a house, a car, a refrigerator, a television, and so on, we must sacrifice our time and our lives in exchange. We are constantly under the pressure of time. In former times, we could afford three hours to drink one cup of tea, enjoying the company of our friends in a serene and spiritual atmosphere. We could organize a party to celebrate the blossoming of one orchid in our garden. But today we can no longer afford those things. We say that time is money. We have created a society in which the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, and in which we are so caught up in our own problems that we cannot afford to be aware of what is going on with the rest of the human family or our planet Earth. In my mind I see a group of chickens in a cage disputing over a few seeds of grain, unaware that in a few hours they will all be killed.

"People in China, India, Vietnam, and other developing countries are still dreaming the "American Dream," as if that dream were the ultimate goal of mankind -- everyone has to have a car, a bank account, a cell phone, a television set of their own. In twenty-five years the population of China will be 1.5 billion people, and if each of them wants to drive their own car, China will need 99 million barrels of oil every day. But world production today is only 84 million barrels per day. So the American dream is not possible for the people of China, India, or Vietnam. The American dream is no longer possible for the Americans. We can't continue to live like this. It's not a sustainable economy."

- Thich Nhat Hanh, Spiritual Ecology: the Cry of the Earth, pp 26-27.

Edited by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee. Golden Sufi Center publishing, 2013.

We Are Not Alone

When we talk about durability, we're not the first ones to think along these lines.

Last month, a group of my fellow MBA students and I visited a string of cities across the American Rust Belt - the place where manufacturing supported thriving urban centers - until a time when manufacturing wasn't.

Site of the former Braddock coke plant, mostly demolished
with the demise of the local steel industry in the 1980s.

In the small town of Braddock outside of Pittsburgh, they say high schoolers, sure of a job on graduation at the nearby coke plant, were led out to a view of the river where their teacher had them watch the same coke plant implode in an act of demolition, an aftermath of jobs shipped overseas. "Now get back inside and open your books," they were told. "If you think you're going to get a job, you have work to do."

Abandoned 19th century church, now home of Braddock
Tiles, currently under renovation in partnership with
artists' collective Transformazium.

That was back in the '80s. We visited the town, where we saw the last remains of the abandoned factory building. A town where, after decades of their old churches standing blackened by soot, residents had not asked for a new coke plant to replace the old one. Instead, just now, small organic grocers and pottery studios, along with those that have done business for decades, are quietly reinventing the abandoned houses and derelict churches.

Ceramic tile artist Kt Tierney stands
before a model of the church
Braddock Tiles occupies and is
planning to re-roof.

I'm reminded of the boutique shops and businesses that have sprung up around Fountain Square, the family farms supported through area farmers' markets. It builds my hope in what one individual with a vision of durability can do. How much more so what a community of individuals can do.

The challenge lies in translating that single individual's vision into one backed by an entire community.

What do we mean when we say "a durable economy"? I think it's one where the people who live here - who care about the place they call home - have a say over whether the work comes or goes. They have a say over what it is doing to their community. And when met with success, unlike what happened heading into collapse in Braddock, they invest further in planting their roots.

The definitions can be many, but let's have the conversation, because we're not the only ones having it. Telling the stories of what has been done brings the reality we are seeking within reach.