SWCAMBORNE

Last Friday I bought a sculpture for the pond area from Malen Pierson of Recycled Visions.

The artist and the heron

snacks

This is a great “Great Blue”

Malen’s Postcard

One of the hopes is that this heron shaped art will keep the herons away from the pond. We shall see…    Thanks to Malen for creating this piece of art that makes me smile every day and to Nurit for buying it for me for my birthday.

In the June National Geographic Magazine which came last week they had a beautiful illustration of a dead zone that occurs along the gulf coast:

Good illustrators are extremely underrated in our photography based society. National Geographic does give their illustrators credit I hope that they pay them well also. This drawing by Hiram Henriquez was so good it explained the issue of dead zones much better than writing or photographs ever could.

The scion of the artistic Wyeth family, N. C. Wyeth, started as an illustrator for movie posters and book dust jackets before he became a famous painter. His original illustrations now sell for tens of thousands of dollars. When he was drawing them commercially they were used and then discarded. The specific idea here is to find a few of the brilliant illustrators still working today, like Henriquez, and buy some of their original works.

“The reflexive contrarian is the most useless of citizens.”
Jonah Goldberg

in National Review 5/5/08

Author of Liberal Fascism

This is one of the great ideas that I wish I’d had. An artist named Ari Kletzky has been putting up signs around LA naming the traffic islands a National Park. There is one of the signs down my hill:

www.islandsofla.com 

Kletzky and his idea were featured in an LA Times story last week.

It reminds me of “The Roundabouts of Derby” which were featured on a calendar my brother Tom gave me a few years ago. I still cherish the calendar. although I couldn’t find it for this blog.

I’m thinking about contacting him about the “Great Pyramid of Gates” One of my great project ideas that I’m having a hard time getting off the ground.

This one appeared at the top of the horse trail where it intersects the Mount Wilson Toll Road:

it was cleverly situated to make the clump of grass work as hair. The ancients are a mysterious people. The other documented dirtogylph.

Obama and Hillary favor the farm bill that takes billions from taxpayers and gives it to rich farmers.  No more politics as usual?

McCain opposes the farm bill because it is “welfare for the rich.” According to a spokesman “he is concerned the bill contains too much corporate pork and not enough to incentivize the free market to lower food prices,”

I’m with McCain on this one.

US agricultural policy is one of the few causes of world poverty that is in our control.  This bill will cause suffering in the third world.  Anyone who was really concerned about making the world a better place would oppose the farm bill.  And on the other end of the spectrum anyone who thinks that capitalism is a better system than statism would oppose this bill.

Bagged lettuce was one of the great inventions of the late 20th century. It made it easier to have salad and less wasteful.

At most markets bagged lettuce has taken over a big section of the produce department and there are at least four competing brands.  A clever brand manager will try to distinguish his product from the competitors.  My idea for how to do this: “Vitamin Enriched Bagged Lettuce”

It would add back some of the nutrition lost when the greens are prepared in advance and would allow consumers a choice that says “I care about health and convenience.”

Another good idea.

The top of the poster

Our screening of Beyond Borders in NYC went very well. Dave, Jennifer and Liz did a great job of getting the publicity out. Over 200 people attended on a Thursday afternoon. We also have a bunch of new inquiries for screenings and distribution deals.

Part of the success, of course, was that we used a handout postcard.

More about Beyond Borders publicity

This picture of Morning Glories is from San Antonio, Texas. As people who read my blog know, I can’t resist the urge to take pictures of flowers. This is especially true of Morning Glories. When Nurit and I were courting there was a very old garage on the corner of our street in Palms that was covered with Morning Glories. I took lots of pictures of the beautiful flowers covering the doomed building and it always made me smile. Now whenever I see Morning Glories I’m reminded of those days that were so filled with hopes and dreams. And I smile thinking about what a wonderful life we have had so far. Morning Glories make me happy.

What makes you happy?

Last weekend we planted the vegetable garden.

before

Three tomatoes, a red pepper, three basil, two zuchinni and in the back a row of sunflowers from seed.

week one

After the first week I had to use snail bait. We haven’t had any sun to speak of. Usually we plant and love the garden until it begins to produce and then we go out of town, it gets over grown and we lose interest.

The sunflower seeds were saved from the sunflowers with the largest heads from 2007 and 2006. For about a decade I have been replanting each year with seeds taken from the largest flowers from previous years. This behavior falls into the “why ask why” category.