This entry is not really about any social experiment, but just sharing with you a beautiful picnic!!!

Yesterday, Corrie and I had the best picnic ever!!!

It was such a beautiful time that we shared in a city park with a picnic basket. It felt so right to sit on the ground, share a meal, converse, laugh, tease and wink. Everything just seem so right.  

There is a thunder storm in the area... everyone rejoice!!!

For about a hour today, there was a great big strong thunder storm pass by the area. I was so thrill even though I was hoping it will last longer, much longer. It was the kind of thunder storm that come not with those dark depressing clouds. The heavy rain drops come crashing down from a bright sky. It was so majestic in a way. I was so thankful for the rain, maybe even as thankful as when I was a kid from Hong Kong when the school will shut down due to flooding from heavy rain storm. The rest of the ride, I was thinking about the gardens. I bet they enjoyed the rain!!!

It was such a good day to have the rain storm since I just fertilized 2 of the gardens with some coffee grounds. The rain surely would had helped the soil to take in the nutrient.

Dark, rich, smelly coffee grounds!!!

As I laid down to take to picture... 

What excited is that there are even more new plants coming out... the new tally is:

87 potato plants

35 pumpkins

3 rows of carrots

27 watermelons 

1 cantaloups 

2 cucumber

1 squash 

36 corns 

The 2 cucumber that we have is the first two we have:

One of the first two new cucumber!!!

The boxes are done... what a busy day!

The boxes that I was building is done now. There are 12 of them and they are looking great.
Now I just have to have them painted and they will be ready to be use.

The use of the boxes is for a new project that I am planing. If you had checked out another one of my blog that call "The True Library Project", it is here: http://thetruelibraryproject.blogspot.com/

Here is the description of "The True Library Project":

This is a blog that work along side my other blog:

www.athankfulone.blogspot.com

It is a recording of another social experiment I am doing. 

This experiment is call "The True Library Project"

I want to challenge the way we learn and teach today. 

I want to challenge the way our education system is today. 

I want to experiment a new way of learning and teaching, a new way of exchanging knowledges and insights. 

I hope this experiment will give me new directions and insights into this issue. 

The project will requires me to go around and ask anyone, strangers or friends alike, to ask them for a piece of knowledge and I will write them down in my note book. As I go to people and ask for their knowledge, they will be encouraged to read what already be written in the book, knowledges that other had written. This project will provides a platform and a place in which people can learn from each other and at the same time able to contribute to others' knowledge. People can continue to come back to me to farther contribute or to read what is new in the book. It is an ongoing process of knowledge exchange and sharing. 

I wonder what it will be like if we all carry a book like this and we pass it around all the time. Will we learn more??? I don't know yet or I might never know, but hopefully this project will give me new thoughts about this subject matter.

The 12 boxes that I made is for the same project. I will situate all these boxes in different places throughout downtown. 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. 

here they are: 

Here they are!!

I still don't know what color it is going to be... any suggestion!!!

I am very excited about the project!!! Now I need to spend time and figure out what kind of places I should place all these boxes.! 

Keep in touch

peace

They are coming out!!!!

Wow, yesterday when I water the gardens, I cannot believe how much the gardens had change.

Different plants in the gardens are coming out. Let me quick give you a tally of all the plants that now I have in the gardens:

64 potato plants

34 pumpkin plants

8 water melons plants

1 cantaloupe plants 

2 squash plants

26 corns plants 

This is my gardening log book, it record everything about my gardens, from how many plants to all the fun stories that happened through gardening. 

The gardens are growing well and I can't wait to see them continue to grow!

This is a potato plant. They are growing fast. 

Close up of a potato leaf

Pumpkins 

Corn! what a beautiful color it is. 

Another corn

Cantaloupe.

Watermelon. 

Do you still remember the garden that I planted by the road side. You can see it on one of the entry on my blog," 4 police patrol car passed by and 3 passed without a word... but the last one... The garden was being disturb by humans' foot print. I though it won't last long and I have been slowly giving it up. But yesterday when went and check on that garden, I could not believe what I saw. The carrot is growing and a couple of the potato are coming out too. Wow, I need to give plants more credit than I had been giving them. 

Potato 

Those strong potato pushing their way out of the dry crust. 

Small carrot plants.

Water shortage is still a challenge. One trip with 5 of those 5 gallons containers is no longer enough to water everything sufficiently. I need to make a decision if I want to increase the amount of water that I can carry in my car so I can water everything or I will no longer water. A part of me want this project to totally rely on nature. I am trying to decided if I want to just leave all those plants alone without ever watering them again to see how climate and nature will interact with those plants. Since if a real nomad find food that not from their planting but from the total wild, so a part of me want to be true to this characteristic and let the plants be wild, totally away from human activities. I still don't know what to do yet. 

The two bean plants that my friend Anna planted in one of the garden are dying, and I am trying to rescue them but I really don't know will they continue to grow.

Beans on the plant!

They are drying up due to last 2 really hot day. I been giving them extra water and hoping that they will survive. 

Thank you so very much for reading. 

please keep in touch!!!

By the way, it is only 67 days away from the day when I start living as a nomad in the city. 

keep in tune!!!

have a great day

A morning of cooking, a sign of thankfulness and a lot of wooden boxes.

I don't know if you remember or not that I am currently renting a studio space out of this old warehouse. I am currently getting ready and in preparation for a project and it requires me to build about twelve little wooden boxes. They are about 8"x 8"x 8'. I will explain the project a bit later when the boxes are all finish and they are at where they belong.

I been building my boxes with the help of good friends who I just met in this last month. They are Ryan and Mono. They share the studio space that just next to me with a staircase separating us. They both been a great help to me from teaching me how to build a wooden box to letting me work in their wood workshop with all their tools. I am so thankful for them. I asked Mono how can I ever repay their kindness and he with a great smile told me that if I really want to pay back the favor in someway or another way, he would love to have to cook him some Chinese food. With a smile on my face then too I said sure. What a simple man he is. Food is quite powerful in our time or really, in all era of human existence. It is what we need to survive; it is what we give one and other to show thankfulness; it is something we glut over; it is the most common activities for people to gather together... Food is a part of human's life, well being and community.

 So this morning I woke up and get some work done around the house and I headed to a local grocery store to buy what I need to make the Chinese food. I made stir fry vegetables with peanut sauce and a container full of white rice.

Such exchange of goodness really encourages me. It is such a beautiful thing to do, to be willing to goes out of one's way to helps and understands another person. It is so wonderful. Human are meant to be with other humans in a community and the sharing of goodness is a big part of this relationship between humans, the exchange of goodness and kindness.



here is the recipient for the sauce and some pictures:

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (do not use old-fashioned or freshly ground)

2 tablespoons soy sauce

4 teaspoons minced garlic

1/2 cup hot water

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

2 teaspoons sugar

3/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

Hmm... it was so delicious!!! It is also beautifully colorful too!

The tool and the onion that I used in the process of cooking that meal. 

Here is some of the pictures of the wood shop, Mono and the small wooden boxes: 

Here he is, like a second father, he take real good care of me. 

The working tables of tools and wood. 

Here are the boxes... 7 down and 5 to go. 

I am back in the sun and in the soil!!!

Hi everyone,

I am finally back on my knees with a pair of dirty hands, touching the damp soil, feeling the heat of the sun and bearing the weight of the shovel. I felt great.

I got back to this new lot that I found last week in one of my exploring expedition. It was such a beautiful day with rare clouds. It was a hot day but the heat made me felt even better about my work. I sweated a lot but it felt great. The lot is a bit rocky and sandy so it might proves to be a difficult lot to plant. I planted a row of beans, a row of carrot, 2 circles of squash and 2 circles of cucumbers.

You see that book? that is my gardening log book that tell me all about my plants and their history. 

The squash and the cucumbers

With this new garden, I am officially declared that I don't have enough containers to carry all the water that I need for all the gardens. I need to find a new method to carry all the water. I will keep trying. 

After putting in a new garden, I went back to a older garden to watered and to my very much surprise, there were 21 potato plants in the garden. It must be the long rain of the last couple day gave the last encouragement that those potato plants need to come out of the ground. 

A potato plant!

Even though the potato plants are doing well in both of the garden that they are at, other plants like watermelon and cantaloups still had not come out yet. I am a bit worry. I will check on them tomorrow for sure. 

After I watered and documented the gardening experiment, as I was walking back to my car when a gentleman waved me down and asked me for the reason why I would plant on public places instead of a safer space like the community garden right next to my garden. I told him that the purpose of the project is to turn the wasted private lands into something that the community can enjoy and the people within being benefit. He really like the ideas. I made two new friends!!!

A delicious lunch after gardening!!!

It was a great day to be alive and gardening. I am so excited!!! 

thanks for reading and I hope you will keep in touch with us!!!

Hi, everyone... I am still alive...

Hi,
everyone, it been too long since I update my blog and stories about my experiments.
It been a bit busy for me over this last few days.

Even though I am a part time student with only one exam, it was still quite a busy time for me last couples of day. Also with college getting out of its spring session, many of my friends are leaving Grand Rapids to go back where they came from for the summer, so I went around and said goodbye to many of my friends, so some of my projects have been put aside for a bit.

Even though I been quite busy with many end-of-school-year events, I was able to start on a new project that I am so excited about... since I don't have pictures of the project yet and that I have to run to see an old friend tonight, I will tell you all about this new project tomorrow after I take some pictures of it tomorrow afternoon.

This is just a post to say hi to everyone and let you all know that I am still alive.
Oh, got to run now... Come back please tomorrow and a new post with loads of interesting things will be here. Thanks for keeping in tune with this blog, I really appreciate it.

Wish you all a nice day
Peace.



Oh, you got to check out this song, it is a song that i listen to everyday. It is very inspirational!!!
It is call "One Day" by Matisyahu. I hope you will love it!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRmBChQjZPs