Music Outreach Program

Lenora Romero with violin students, photo by Tomas Wolff

"Music Lessons for Everyone," a MountainView Telegraph article by Laurie Clark on iCreate, its mission, Music Outreach, and free violin and guitar lessons in Mountainair.

#Mountainair #CommunityGarden Fall Report

Garden Manager Joan Embree writes,

     Addie, Joan and Rebecca completed the official close-down of the 2011 "instant" Community Garden on Oct. 29.  We emptied our donated containers of their dirt, putting the dirt into our three existing beds, pulled the remaining plants, put them into the composting pile and saved some seeds to see if they will be viable next season. Then we re-dug the central bed, adding spoiled straw and cured goat manure with the soil from the pots and planted garlic in the central bed and covered it with straw. Straw bales on site were placed to buffer the bed from southwest winds, with three rosemary plants left in the bed to see if they could survive the winter.  Addie took the remainder to her hoop house to winter them over.

     Prepping for the 2012 season included making tentative plans for the location of 4' by 4' and 8' by 4' plots that will be available to individuals, families, community groups, and businesses.  We encourage those who "adopt-a-plot" to grow healthy food for themselves and their families, to sell at the Mountainair Farm and Garden Market, or to donate to local food banks. The Community Garden will provide water, manure, and gardening advice to those who sign up.

Captain Planet Foundation Grants

FD0760_NOFA_FY2012[1].doc Download this file

FYI ~ community based environmental education emphasis but not limited to school programs. Right up the iCreate and community garden mission alley but could also be fit for other environmentally conscious community groups with 501/3c status and an education mission

Captain Planet Grant Program

The Captain Planet Foundation (CPF) provides grants to schools, as well as community-based environmental and educational organizations — no grants are made to individuals or businesses.

Grants from the Captain Planet Foundation are intended to:

• serve as a catalyst to getting environmental activities in schools and communities.
• inspire youth to participate in community service through environmental stewardship activities.

 The Captain Planet Foundation primarily makes grants to U.S.-based schools and organizations with an annual operating budget of less than $3 million. CPF will fund unique and innovative projects that do not precisely match the grant guidelines but otherwise promote the foundation’s mission of hands-on environmental activities.  Applications that are outside of this description or do not meet the grant guidelines will not be considered.

November Peak Moment Newsletter

I've been posting occasional Peak Moment videos relevant to the iCreate mission, mostly sustainability. Who couldn't relate to "locally reliant living for challenging times"? Here's the November Newsletter. 

Watch for: Community Garden Report from Joan Embree, iCreate updates including but not limited to music outreach update (mostly pictures from Tomas Wolff); Christmas Land performances by Kay, Pegeen and Lenora, meeting rescheduling, overdue report from last meeting.

click to view complete newsletter online

November 2011 news

We're exercising our self-reliance muscles to build infrastructure in the winter encampment site for Little House, our RV home. We're dragging water pipes through the forested hillsides and building solar panel racks. Our work is accompanied by thrilling calls of circling red-shouldered hawks and curious cackling ravens.

This peaceful place and slower pace feels in stark contrast to the quickly moving events swirling around the Occupy Movement, as it draws attention to the egregious wrongdoings on Wall Street at the expense of the many. We valued Bill Moyers' look back to How Wall Street Occupied America, and Richard Heinberg's big picture Memo to the #Occupy Movement, in which he reminds: "Given the finite nature of our planet and its resources, the recent trend of global economic expansion was destined to end."

Legalize Local Investing. Sign a petition supporting HR 2930, which will legalize investment in small local businesses. It's advocated by Michael Shuman author of Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity, and Peak Moment episode 44: The Slow-Mart Revolution.

Ideas for Sustainable Living: Undriving

A PeakMoment video: applying it here would call for additional considerations. We'd need better roads and bike paths here. How would golf carts count? Waivers? A point system with bonus points for walking and super humongous penalties for flying? What about trips to Albuquerque? Car pooling with a community ride share system? Undriving - Changing the Way We Think Peak Moment 205: Be the first in your group to get your Undriver License ? it's great fun! You pledge to reduce automobile use ? yours or others'. Seattle founder Julia Field's creative project is sparking imaginations and creativity by changing how people think about getting around ? be it skateboards, sailboats, or just plain skipping the trip! Undrivers of all ages are jumping on the bandwagon, changing assumptions, and telling their empowered stories. (Janaia's outrageous Undriver License goes wherever her bike goes). [http://www.undriving.org] Join the Peak Moment community - subscribe to email newsletter at http://www.peakmoment.tv on the right side. More

Eat Your Greens, or Your Gut Gets It

Another good article on healthy eating, community gardens, growing your own and more leafy green vegetables from Tom Philpott at MoJo (Mother Jones online). This, along with gardening tips, other community gardens, growing your own, locavore and other "green" topics have become regular features. "Eat Healthy" or "Eat Healthy because..." seems like a good name for this one.

While Big Food rams its Tater Tots and frozen pizza school lunch agenda through Congress, we're learning more about the effects of diets high in starchy foods and low in green vegetables. And it's not pretty.

[MoJo columnist, Tom Philpott] pointed yesterday to a vast recent Harvard study finding that heavy consumption of potatoes—even in non-fried forms—leads to unhealthy weight gain. Now, from UK scientists, comes a study (press release here; abstract here) suggesting that green vegetables may have even more dietary importance than we previously thought. (Hat tip Atlantic Life.) The researchers subjected mice to a diet stripped of vegetables, and found that after just three weeks, the mice lost 70 to 80 percent of a kind of white blood cell called intra-epithelial lymphocytes (IELs), which, the press release states, "play a critical role in monitoring the large number of micro-organisms present in the intestine, keeping infections at bay and maintaining a healthy gut."

The researchers posit that a substance known as indole-3-carbinol, prominent in leafy greens, is responsible for maintaining these white blood cells. Take it out of the diet, apparently, and the cells die. Here's a graphical depiction of their findings:

Image: Babraham Institute

One of the researchers, Marc Veldhoen, remarked that, "since the new diet contained all other known essential ingredients such as minerals and vitamins,” the results surprised him. But .... [f]oodstuffs are complex .... Whole foods interact with our bodies in ways we are only beginning to understand.

Read the rest of Tom Philpott's Eat Your Greens, or Your Gut Gets It and follow his column at MoJo (Mother Jones online)

Announcing the #NMCentennial #Gardens Program

Something for #Mountainair #CommunityGarden or perhaps the Manzano Mountain Art Council (partnering with MPS) to consider. Please note  that "priority will be given to both limited-resource communities and to projects that demonstrate strong collaborations and community support." 

Centennial Gardens - Call for Proposals
The New Mexico Centennial Gardens Program is an initiative of the New Mexico Centennial Foundation, working in partnership with state agencies and private partners. Thanks to the generosity of the Coca-Cola Foundation, the NM Centennial Foundation is able to provide grants to support school and community garden projects in New Mexico in 2012. Grants will be available at levels of $2,500, $5,000 and $10,000. To be eligible for a Centennial Garden grant, applicants must be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization or nonprofit K-12 school that is developing or currently maintaining a garden project that will help communities engage with fresh fruits and vegetables. Garden projects may be at any stage of development; planning, construction or operation. In selecting grant recipients, priority will be given to both limited-resource communities and to projects that demonstrate strong collaborations and community support. Relationships with food banks or other outlets to distribute food to New Mexicans in need are a plus. To download the guidelines and application please visit the NM Centennial website or call 505-984-2012. The application deadline is January 13, 2012.

The #gardening Daily, Monday, Oct. 31, 2011

In this issue, Dirt Lovers Diary and Manure Tea articles look particularly interesting ~ or maybe that is just my taste for unusual titles. Seriously though, the first (DLD) links to an article, "Wintering Plants for Next Season," relevant to current gardening concerns. 

Do you have tips for wintering plants in the New Mexico high desert or know a local gardening wizard experienced with local gardening conditions? Please share them with us. Besides blogging them, iCreate could assemble a collection local gardening lore to publish on line and make available to all. 

Sat Oct 29, Music in Mountainair: iCreate Recital

Pueblo Art-Deco Ceiling, Shaffer Hotel Dining Room, Packs Cafe

RMJ Photography 2008, on Flickriver

iCreate's Music Outreach program will hold its first #Mountainair recital Saturday October 29, 4 pm at Packs Cafe in the Shaffer Hotel. Performing in public is the final program completion requirement. Performances by students completing certificates include a solo by Wyatt Greene and a trio of five songs by students from the adult class. Depending on yesterday afternoon's lesson, additional students may join the recital playbill.

iCreate thanks Alita Garcia at Pete's Carpet Thrift Story on Broadway for donating lesson space and would like to recommend supporting this new business (or rebirth of an old one made over ~ Pete's Carpets + Thrift Store) to our iCreate friends and supports. Shop local and support Music Outreach's program and free guitar and violin lessons in Mountainair

Kay working with a Music Outreach student at Off-Center

(cross-posted to Mountainair Announcements and iCreate NM)

A Guitar Lesson

Via Stephen Downes' OLDaily, a very different part of my life from the #Mountainair NM community blogging part. #change11 and other #MOOC/s are experimental, innovative mind stretching online learning experiences. Worlds do intersect. Techies and Luddites find common cause. Serendipity and synergy happen upon us unawares. Only unawares and unanticipated. 

This fits the music outreach side of iCreate that tends to get short end of blogging... thereby recalling me not just back to music but other creative projects. Another experimental course, #CMC11, Creativity & Multicultural Communication comes to mind. 

                                                     Guitar Lesson 5

        Dean Shareski, Ideas and Thoughts, October 18, 2011

---

Stephen comments, 

Dean Shareski and some of his students are trying to learn things and documenting the results. His guitar lessons are interesting, and I quite like his students' non-traditional learning:

• Cole...learning Japanese
• Nicole...learning crochet
• Hillary...learning meditation
• Edgar...learning Assassin's Creed
• Courtney...learning to draw

It's interesting that it doesn't matter what they are learning - by documenting their progress, they are not only improving their learning, they are - over time - learning how to learn. And I like what Shareski is doing, modelling the process, and not just talking about it.


[Tags: Project Based Learning, Online Learning, Ontologies]

#NMSU ACES Master Gardener Project

For the #Mountainair #CommunityGarden and local gardeners: nmsuaces just uploaded a video. I'm waiting on garden pictures from our master gardener but won't let that keep me from posting in the meantime. seed 2 need master gardener project More

Preparing for the Unexpected

Another food security and sustainability video from peakmoment Soccer Mom Prepares for the Unexpected Peak Moment 203: "I have a ball preserving food with my friends!" And at the same time Kathy Harrison is making sure her kids can eat if storms knock out power or roads. The author of "Just in Case: How to Be Self Sufficient when The Unexpected Happens" gives practical tips on storing food without getting overwhelmed. She looks at dehydrating, canning, and root cellaring; finding and preserving local food, and buying food at discount. For Kathy, preparedness is an empowering, community activity. More

#CommunityGarden Field (literally) Trip

#Mountainair Community Garden Manager Joan Embree writes about scheduling a gardening field trip. Although addressing garden volunteers, local gardeners and prospective volunteers are also invited. 

Sunflowers from the Southern Fields

Greetings, all,

     

We talked about making a road trip to see how the "big girls" do community gardening at the Rio Grande Community Farm.  I have finally been successful in talking to someone there and found out that the garden is open for volunteer work Tuesdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to about 2 p.m., so the coordinater would be there to show us around.

     

Do we want to schedule a visit to the farm to see what goes on there and how it's done?  If so, when would we like to make the trip?  Oct. 29? (That's the same day as the Cibola Halloween Party.)  Nov. 5?  (Art Center Community show?)  Nov. 12?  (Tuesdays are all booked on my calender.)

     

Let me know what would work for you.

                                                                                                                                   

Joan Embree

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Here's a food blog~ or close enough ~a day late for Blog Action Day 2011. This is Mountainair: what's a day or so among friends. Besides, we've been blogging #BAD11 topics regularly and will continue to.

Blog Action Day 2011

Find a food pantry

... if not for food, then to help feed the hungry by donating, volunteering or, preferably, both.

The application Findafoodpantry.org is still in beta. If you spot a problem, please tell them about it. The database currently contains information about 10183 food pantries across the nation. Whether looking for help or a place to volunteer or donate, it has never been easier to find a food pantry in your community.

Both St Vincent de Paul and the Nazarene Church in Mountainair run local food banks for emergency assistance. Are they listed? If not, should they be. Whether or not listed, you know about them: so support them. The Promised Land, Danielle Clarke Director, sponsors the RoadRunner's mobile pantry stop in Mountainair. I haven't checked up recently and should, so add that to the list.

Tentative community garden plans for 2012, as yet unconfirmed include something resembling "plant a row to feed the hungry." How's that for doubling up on ambiguity? A good idea that need not be limited to the community garden ~ one for any gardener in the community with room for an extra row.

'via Blog this'

Autumn Gardening

Praxxus55712 just uploaded a video: EZ Autumn Composting with Leaves! Autumn isn't the end of gardening season. The gardening adventure never end and never ceases to be FREE, educational and just plain FUN! Join me in the backyard for a fantastic day in the sunshine. I have a bag of leaves and a very cool idea on how to easily improve your garden soil. Leaf compost attracts worms like a super magnet. Worms in your garden will mean crazy good soil for your next growing season.  ps: How is your autumn going so far? Are the leaves turning or have they already fallen? More

iCreate Music Lessons Relocates

Free lessons for all ages through iCreate's Music Outreach Program, now at Pete's Carpet Thrift Store, 118 West Broadway. Practice instruments available, donations accepted. Everyone welcome

Schedule:

Tuesdays, 3-4pm, guitar lessons

Contact:

Kay Stillion, 847-0448 

Lenora Romero, 847-2419

Cross posted to iCreateNM & Mountainair Announcements

Fall Gardening...

Want ideas on when to do what in your garden, now that it's Fall? The Common Ground community garden website (arid if not as much so as NM but same latitude and still Southwest) provides three different ways of learning, all under "Garden Tips for Los Angeles County":

1.  Monthly discussion – Why each month is the best time to do all the different things that need doing.  Each month's information is separated into Edibles, Ornamentals, and General.   
2. Monthly Checklist – Specific activities and listing of which plants that apply
3. Six-month Overview – Outline by topics such as soil, irrigation, composting; also includes the monthly checklists at the end.

 Manager and Master Gardener Yvonne Savio also writes about and photographs her Pasadena garden for an every-other-Thursday Southern California Coastal and Inland Valleys Regional Report for the National Gardening Association.  You can subscribe by going to the website and clicking on "Free Newsletters" in the upper left corner.

 

Children of the Corn: Tuscarora Indian Reservation

A story about heirloom seeds and heritage agriculture well worth reading....

"

"This corn...has been grown by the Tuscarora since they lived in what was not yet the Carolinas, and for who knows how long before that. During the four-year Tuscarora war ~ which killed more than a thousand American Indians and settlers before its end in 1715 ~ the corn traveled with the Tuscarora in their episodic exodus from the South, through Pennsylvania, and into New York, where the tribe was adopted as one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois [the oldest living participatory democracy on earth] in 1722. Tuscarora corn flourished until the boom in highly mechanized industrial agriculture that began in the 1950s and then, like so many breeds and crop varieties across the country, it dwindled until only a few families were still growing it in the traditional way."   Natural selection Strings of Tuscarora corn, 40 and 50 ears to a braid, hung from rafters, "The way to assess Tuscarora corn is not to gauge its difference from the genetically engineered corn being grown in fields a few miles from the Tuscarora Nation. Gauge its difference instead from the species — or species plural — from which maize originated as long ago as the oldest bristlecone pine. It is a long way, geographically and temporally, from the tiny ancestral ears of Mesoamerican corn to Tuscarora corn. Embedded in the ear I was holding was not only the tremendous adaptability of Zea mays but also the will and the needs of a people, expressed family by family." T: STYLE   | September 21, 2011 T Magazine: Children of the Corn By VERLYN KLINKENBORG An Iroquois tribe's heritage seed survives the ages.

Briefly Updated + Edible Education [video]

Meeting changes: 

• Today's Community Garden Workday and Fall Planning session at Mountain Arts on Broadway site has been postponed to October, but Joan E, Kristine and Addie will be at the garden around 10am to do some tidying up and planning extended beds. Volunteers and visitors, as ever, are welcome. Today might be a good day to drop by and ask questions.

• Due to the Shaffer Hotel closing Thursday (no more Packs Family at the helm), the iCreate board will meet at Lenora's.  Since the meeting is not being held in a public location, this one will not, as per usual policy, be open to the public. If you have questions about iCreate or wish to suggest items for the agenda, call Kay Stillion at 847-2301. Agenda items include: music outreach donations and thank you notes, new location for Mountainair classes; grant plans and deadlines, community garden and SEEDS project

Associated Links: I embed links just in case anyone reading is interested in following them. Today's links added to the video notice strike me as being of particular interest. The Edible Schoolyard is a lovely site, definitely worth a visit, and certainly related to SEEDS, the community outreach and sustainability components of the iCreate mission. Joan Embree will certainly be familiar with Chez Panisse and its foundation.

UCBerkeley 

Edible Education: The Politics of Food

Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH, Paulette Goddard Professor in Dept. of Nutrition at NYU 

Sponsored by The EDIBLE SCHOOLYARD PROJECT with support from Stephen Silberstein and the KNIGHT FOUNDATION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALISM Live Stream and sponsored by BON APPETIT Management Company Instructors MICHAEL POLLAN and NIKKI HENDERSON (People's Grocery).... More