Friday, June 4, 2010

Both the gardens is fine!!!

Dear readers, 

They are OK, as for now. I went back to the gardens today and to my surprise that no real harms were done to two gardens. The one by a very busy intersection was simply untouched. The surrounding of the garden were nicely mowed and it looks so good. The one within a neighborhood full of abandoned house also survived without much serious destruction. I am grateful.


potato rows









Potato rows are looking so good!













This is the garden within the neighborhood fill with abandoned houses




There were couples of foot print on the garden!














even though the gardens were not destroyed, I think I am going to return them back to nature. It means that I will no longer consuming gasoline and waters to help them grow. It means I will no longer weed around them and destroy native plants. I am going to let the nature take it back. I am going to let them fight their own battle with the weeds and take care their own survive with the unpredictable rain patterns and weather. As I blogged yesterday about my internal conflict about if I should continue to consume more energy and water to grow vegetation that I do not need to survive and I had decided that I do need to plant and in order to return many of the wasted private land back to the nature. But I decided to no longer to intervene with nature and let the plants to grow on its own odd and chance with nature. I decided no longer to create, in a sense, my own habitat (by growing food that I can gather later, which is a very unrealistic picture of our habitat of today), within the human habitat that I was trying so hard to experiment with. So I will continue to plant the seeds and return our wasted private land back to nature, but I will no long water or fertilize them with any human effort. I hope by doing so I will more true to the core idea and core intention of the project.

It is truly troublesome to me yesterday as I realized that one of the biggest components of my project, which is the gardening project, might be proven to be unnecessary and needed to be eliminated. But I have to do what I have to do to continue to be true to the experiment. If you have any comments, please do so. I will greatly appreciate it.

The garden is safe from man, and now we just have to wait and see can it survive within the law of this nature.


Thanks for tuning in!!!


Patrick
Posted by A Thankful One at 4:04 PM 2 comments

Thursday, June 3, 2010

The gardens is in dangers of being destroy!

Dear readers,

Today is a sad day. Two of the four gardens might been destroyed at this very moment.

Today, I woke up early, feeling a bit tired but well. I headed over to two of the local coffee shops to pick up some coffee ground for today's planting. I was planning to plant some bush beans, carrots, cucumbers and squash. The sky was still gray while I was on my way to the gardens.

When I got to the garden that situated within a neighborhood that full of abandoned houses, I know something was not right. I saw 3 push lawn mowers and 1 riding law mowers at work around my garden. I know that they were sent by the organization that own the property.








Here is two of the workers 



Even though I knew what is going on, I still picked up my fork and seed and proceed to do some planting. Within 5 minutes, one of the workers came to me, kindly asked me what was I doing then. I explained to him that I was gardening in a lot that is being wasted by its idleness. His name is Victor and he understood my project and supported it. Since he was not the boss so he suggested to help me speak to his boss about my project and to see if it is possible that they can leave my garden alone. It was not successful and his boss said to him that I am only wasting my time to try to grow a garden there. 

I don't blame the workers since they were sub contracted for this project, it is not their choice to do this. Victor was so curious about what I was doing. He asked me how long it take for different plants to grow to maturity and I gladly answered him with all his questions. I was grateful for his curiosity. I wonder what would he do if the pressure of life wasn't on him; would his curiosity would had lead him to become a farmer or a gardener.  

Since the lots that contain my biggest garden also within the boundaries of their landscape services, I know that it is possible that they will also destroy it, so I set out some big wood log around my garden, not to stop them as they are quite easy to move out of the way, but just to notify them that there is a garden and they can choose what do they want to do. 
 


I place the rocks and the wood sticks to show the boundaries of the garden




placing tree log to show boundaries. 



Instead of my initial desire to stay and document the destruction with my camera, I decided to use the time to explore more empty lots to garden on. I wonder at this very moment did the gardens survive. I hope they do. I am not too sad, since it was expected that something like this would happen. It is all a part of the experiment.

  As I was wandering the city, a surprising thought hit me hard: why am I gardening when the waste of the city can feed me well. I thought to myself that I can eat well just by dumpster diving, reducing the waste and save water from gardening. I don't know. To be honest, that was a troubling thought since I do enjoy gardening and it was a great part of the whole program. But suddenly such prominent feature of the experiment seem unnecessary. I am not saying gardening is bad, but in this all too wasteful society, all too imperfect society, that I don't need to garden to have enough food to survive, to survive sustainably. So I am confuse about the question if I should continue to consume more water that I don't need to survive or should I just stop gardening and just dumpster diving. I don't know... I am still trying to figure it out. But to turn wasted land to a land that produces does interest me. but maybe I can turn a wasted land to a land that produces without consuming clean water. May be I can turn the land to a playground or something else. I need to give it more thought. I will let you all know when I thought it though, but if you have any though or advise, please comment to this blog entry. thanks. 

Some what-can-be-their-last-pictures from those 2 gardens:












The beans














Potatos









Thanks for tuning in again. 
I will let you know tomorrow about the situation of the gardens after I revisit them. 

have a good night. 


Patrick
Posted by A Thankful One at 9:07 PM 0 comments

I went to google map and made a map of all 12 "Red Boxes" location...

Here is the address:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=113454072977582005556.0004882597878c40a59b5&ll=42.965373,-85.67836&spn=0.007443,0.019355&z=16


hope you enjoy being a part of it!!!




Patrick
Posted by A Thankful One at 4:55 PM 0 comments

HURRAY!!! All 12 of the red boxes had a host and the project had began!!!

Today I ran around East Town a bit and catch up with few more restaurant and coffee shop and found a host for the last 4 "Red Boxes"!!! I am so excited!!! And I know that couple of them already had people's writings in them. I am so grateful. Thank you everyone!!!

Here is the list of the location of all twelve "Red Boxes"!!!




1.  
Bitter End Coffee House 


 On top of a book case next to the cashier counter.








The signs on top of all the boxes




2. 
Grand Central Market LLC













A man picked up the book and start reading, but he did not write anything down, which was a bummer. 




3. 
Schuler Bookstore







Right inside the front door! 




4. 
Local Mocha







When you walk in the door, right on your right side. 



5. 
Go Java Coffee












6.
The Sparrows Coffee House







Facing the front door.





7. 
Marie Catribs's 













8.
Common Ground Coffee

 
In the reading room.




9.
Gaia Cafe
209 Diamond Avenue Southeast, Grand Rapids, MI‎


Image from: http://lifeisfare.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/img_6720_gaia.jpg





10.
Kava House













11.
76 Coffee, (aka. Morning Star Coffee)
 What a spot for it!




12.
Wealthy Street Bakery Inc.
608 Wealthy Street Southeast Grand Rapids, MI 49503-5432 






 


There they are, all 12 of them. Please go and check it out. 

And here is a link to a google map that I made with all 12 location on the map already:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=113454072977582005556.0004882597878c40a59b5&ll=42.963583,-85.660057&spn=0.029772,0.077419&z=14


I hope you will enjoy being a part of this great experiment!!! 

Thank you
have a great day

p.s. I copied this blog entry to a page which you can find at all time on right hand side column of my blog.


Patrick




Posted by A Thankful One at 3:31 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

9 of them found a home and 3 are still orpans...

What a busy, busy, busy day and it is still not over yet, but I enjoy every bit of it.
 I woke up earlier than I should accorrding to the time I got to bed last night. One and a half toasted left over pancake and a cup of coffee; I was ready to go again.

I copied over the instruction page to all twelve books, researched on all the coffee shops in the area and took off to my studio to pick up my "Red Boxes". I placed a book and a pen in each of the "Red Boxes" and I was ready to find a home for each of them.


The 12 boxes that I made is for an new project. I am planning to situate all these boxes in different places throughout downtown and East Town. Inside the box I will situate a book and a pen. It will be the same concept as the book that I carry around where people can write down a piece of knowledge that they have and at the same time to read what other write. This 12 boxes will be like a little knowledge station, a place where people can read and learn at the same time. Hopefully through this new addition to the project, it will generate more interest and more accessibility for people to learn and to teach. 




All two of them










A pen and a book inside each of the "Red Box"




The instruction page. 





I went around with all those "Red Boxes"to all the places that I had scouted out as their home. As I said, 9 found a home. 



1.  
Bitter End Coffee House 


 On top of a book case next to the cashier counter.








The signs on top of all the boxes




2. 
Grand Central Market LLC













A man picked up the book and start reading, but he did not write anything down, which was a bummer. 




3. 
Schuler Bookstore







Right inside the front door! 




4. 
Local Mocha







When you walk in the door, right on your right side. 



5. 
Go Java Coffee












6.
The Sparrows Coffee House







Facing the front door.





7. 
Marie Catribs's 













8.
Common Ground Coffee

 
In the reading room.



The # 9 is at Wealthy Bakery now, but they had not promise to host it for me yet since they need the permission of their boss. 

I still have 3 more "Red Boxes" and I still am waiting for couple more place to responses back and couple more people that I still need to talk to. Hopefully by tomorrow at noon, I will find a home for all those Red Boxes.

All the address that was posted is a link to google map. If you click it, it will take you to the google map page of that address so that you can easily find out where all these "Red Boxes" are. I hope you will follow one or more of these boxes and enjoy what inside all of them. 

I am so excited about them all, and when all twelve boxes have a host then I will post a complete map with all their location. Can't wait to see what inside those books!!! 

Thanks again for tuning in and supporting me. I am so thrill to able to share this with you all. 


have a good night. 
Patrick
Posted by A Thankful One at 9:52 PM 0 comments
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