365 Project #369 We Shall Overcome

Grenwelge Park in Llano, TX is a pretty special place. The park is located on the Llano River adjacent to the beautiful Llano Bridge. The river cuts through solid granite as it winds through the park.  It was the site of the first and second Llano Earth Art Fest and the third one will be the second weekend in March.

The festival has become a magical blend of Earth and Art, attracting stackers from all over the US and getting inquiries from as far away as Yemen.  Home of the World Rock Stacking Championship, the event has something for everyone, from stacking to art to music to food and activities. The stacks are works of art that are shared photographically all over the world.

After the first festival, a heroic undertaking in itself, a group of people came under cover of darkness and knocked all the stacks down in an excess of religious zeal. Within days, the community and visitors were repairing what they could and building their own stacks. Also within days, plans started for the next festival. 

Since the first and second events, locals and visitors come to the park for serenity, family activities and to stack. This past weekend vandals once again knocked down other people's work. We understand that this is an ephemeral art and it's the doing, not the keeping that's the point. But, still... On Monday, the community was repairing and stacking, BECAUSE THAT'S HOW WE ROLL.

This is one work that was destroyed after the first festival, that Marcus Hammons and I maintain at the park. Whoever built it the first time may be happy to find it's still there.

Update; a little further along

  

365 Project #300 Clean And Pristine

Last year at the first Llano Earth Art Fest, everyone involved in the planning and execution were determined that the festival was going to be about the Earth first. When it was over, Grenwelge Park was as clean and beautiful as it was the week before. Attendees, volunteers, everyone helped and, unlike other events and festivals, no paid cleanup crews were necessary. 

Today Don and I went to break down our booth. We tidied up behind ourselves, as had everyone else, and we picked up a very few tiny scraps of trash. I made a tour of the park with a trash bag in hand, to scoop up any stray bits. A couple of couples were enjoying the park and asked if I was collecting trash and handed me a plastic bottle. I told them that all the cleanup work was done by volunteers and one guy asked me, "Why would you do that?". I replied, "Because we live here". They liked that.

365 Project #182 Sun Splash Moon Dance

Today I attended and showed at Sun Splash Moon Dance, the celebration part of Llano EcoWeb Summit. The pictures below are by no means all of the lovely people who made the day, but they're the photos that turned out well. I left just before sundown, it was a long, very hot day, but I had a great time and hope to do more with Llano EcoWeb in the future.

365 Project #116 Fruit Flies!

'Tis the season again, the season when we get hungry for fruit and so do our little friends the fruit flies.  It seems every time I buy a pineapple, we have an explosion of fruit flies in the kitchen.  We found this great fruit fly trap using Apple Cider Vinegar and set it near the fruit bowl.  Leave it out for a week and it works like magic to kill the current crop and the following life cycles.  This video explains the procedure   To make the perfect size holes, Don lights a match, blows it out and almost touches the plastic wrap.

365 Project #70 Blue Paint Repels Bugs

I went to my friend's house the other day and noticed that the inside of her carport was amazingly clean and free of spiderwebs.  Then I saw her front and back porches looked the same and figured she had regular professional pest control.  No, no, not at all.  She had painted the ceilings of all her outdoor structures a sky-blue in order to deter mud daubers and it works for spiders as well.  Think it's just an old-wive's tale?  Here's the evidence, and an article, there were many to choose from  http://goo.gl/nukfXK.

365 Project #65 Recycle Trailer

We live way out in the boonies, so once a month, a recycling trailer is delivered to the local Community Center and Fire Hall so we can drop off our recycled trash.  We can recycle paper, cardboard, plastic, aluminum cans and metal cans, but not glass containers.  Why? Because it's cheaper to make new glass than recycle it.  (shrug) Oh, well.  Anyway, by doing this and keeping a compost bin, we rarely have more than one small kitchen-can-size bag of trash a week.  Not bad.

Project 365 #48 Bugs Eat My Garbage

I had a cold compost bin where I put all my compostable kitchen trash and it got a little on the 'wet' side.  It was a little worrisome and I thought I'd have to dump it, let it dry and start over, then I saw these little wormy things crawling in it.  Thank goodness my friend had just been telling me about Black Soldier Flies (BSF) and yes, I had them!

Since then they have been eating our kitchen garbage, and unlike a compost pile you never have to do anything, just make sure the container stays moist enough.  They do not like carbonaceous material so you don't have to worry about that.  Another thing you don't have to worry about is odor, once you get it going the food just goes away in 24-48 hours and doesn't have a chance to rot.  As a matter of fact, our smells pretty great, right now it smells like coffee and grapefruit peels.  You can put in meat, bones, grease, garlic, onions, and citrus, things that a normal compost pile doesn't particularly appreciate.  You never have to touch them if you don't like crawly things, but I scoop out some for my friend's chickens now and then.

We compost kitchen trash, but you can use them as a septic system for ickier things, too, like animal manure. For centuries they've been known as the Privy Fly, the larvae fed at the bottom of outhouses to keep down the refuse and repel harmful flies.  Keep in mind that they are not harmful to humans because their life cycle is;

• Adults which fly and have no mouth parts so they do not feed, their only purpose is to lay eggs.
• Eggs
• Larvae which crawl around, eat rotting organic matter.  They mature and crawl out of the moist 'food' to find soil to pupate and grow into adults.

There's a mountain of information on Google and YouTube for attracting and maintaining a Black Soldier Fly population, just be aware that Black Soldier Flies are plentiful in Texas and you probably won't need any more bait than a wet compost bucket with a lid that has a hole into which adult females can fly and lay their eggs.  It's useful to find a  way to keep them cool in the summer and not freeze in the winter.  You can go real fancy and make a special bucket or box so that the larvae can harvest themselves into a container, or real simple like ours.  It's cracked on the bottom and that's the drainage hole.

Black Soldier Fly, Wikipedia
Beneficials In The Garden, BSF
Black Soldier Fly Blog

Our Bucket

These grapefruit peels went in yesterday

Here's a video I took of them in action

365 Project #47 Pickup Artist

I live in a real pretty place, Buchanan Lake Village in Tow, TX.  On my drives to and from work I really enjoy and appreciate the scenery, that is until lately.  'My' drive has been spoiled by a lot of roadside trash and I don't appreciate it one damn bit.  Who's in charge of this sort of thing?  Somebody should be doing something abo...oh, well yeah, somebody could if they had a little bit of time now and then and a big garbage bag.

So I got permission from the local convenience store to drop a bag of trash in their dumpster once in awhile.  Two hours has improved my drive just a little, and it's gratifying.  So now and then, when I get the time and have a little energy reserve, I'll plug away at it.

You'd think surely that people don't just throw stuff out their vehicle windows, most of it probably just falls out or gets sucked out when the windows are down.  Nope, it's pretty consistent, plastic ice bags, water bottles, beer cans, beer bottles, cigarette packs, snuff cans, plastic bags.  Looks like people use the outdoors as their trash can.  Hm.

Anyhow, the world-famous Texas wildflowers will be out soon, and we'll be ready.  One person, one bag, one hour.  I can do that.

Here's my map

I like this guy's site.  I joined and I'm Road Trash Warrior #65.

I started a Facebook Page  If you'd like to join this VERY unofficial club, like the page, post where and when you picked up some trash and I'll put you on the Google Pick Up Artists Map.