mountainFrugal Journal

[guitarplayer]

about a decade ago I have been introduced to a concept of 'wild garden' which boils down to selecting species that will do well on their own and just planting them in most suitable places. But maybe this is so far from conventional gardening that it does not qualify anymore. I am almost sure @mF thinks along those lines anyway and would plant plants places to give them a chance if presented with an opportunity.

A non edible example from my past: we got a wee Christmas Tree in a pot as a Christmas present once. After Christmas we had promptly planted it near the house where we lived (this was a few years back, it survived the first couple of years, need to go and check it out).

In some frameworks, all living stuff is part of community so this would qualify as community building

[mountainFrugal]

Have you ever considered creating a whimsical ornamental garden? I can see how Square Foot Backyard Vegetable Gardening would be totally boring amateur hour compared to what you've done, but gardening in general is almost an infinite field.

Thanks @7. I have not considered whimsical gardening, but DW is now in charge of the garden. I can help with labor if needed. We are now mostly focusing on planting shade tolerant and fire safe species of native plants. There is quite a variety, but they all also have different requirements for water. The soils here are volcanic and drain fairly quickly. We have built up some great garden mounds the past few years, but we are lacking the hours of direct sunshine to grow any good produce. We have tried varieties that were developed here through some selective breeding, but the lack of sun, and being shaded under another plant causes them to come out spindly. This is called shade avoidance. Plants can tell when they are being shaded by other plants because there is a shift in the red to far red ratio of light. There is a specific protein that can detect this shift called phytochrome. It interacts with growth hormones for the plant to elongate. If the signal does not go away then it triggers early flowering. This is combined with very cool nights with mountain downdrafts. Flowering early with colder nights is a recipe for flower abortion. We will try to find a copy of that book. It looks interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade_avoidance

DW grew some cherry tomatoes 2 summers ago. She planted them in 5 gallon buckets and moved them around throughout the day to capture more sunlight. Hardly worth the effort! We had thought about moveable sun tracking robots that roved around with the buckets on top just because that would be fun! haha.

@guitarplayer - We did try this. Basically scatter a bunch of seed and just see what happens. What happens is without constant watering during the dry months everything dies. So we have been focusing on building soil from the compost bin. The density of plants is also a concern WRT to fire safety. Dispersed plants that are not just standing dead grass are better for not spreading a potential fire right up to our house.

There is a community garden that is about a 15 minute walk, but there is a wait list.

Also, to be clear, I think that gardening is a very worth while activity and that growing successful produce on your own plot is a fun practical challenge. It is the thing that I think I aught to want to do, but at this point, I am almost completely uninterested having done it so much. If we were to move and had more sun then I would consider it again. We have been scheming for doing other "production" though like meal worms, red worms, and/or crickets. That will be a next summer deal.

[guitarplayer]

Yep totally, use the environment what it is best for and give it a nudge here or there to give it a steer where you want. A sort of coevolution but yes the environment is and will remain the big guy.

I just got a phone call to learn we got a raised bed in our local community garden, let me go and write about it in my journal.

[mountainFrugal]

Quick check-in. I am in the middle of (some might say procrastinating) a large ink/watercolor piece for the opening.

Darmera Update- Our remodel is complete!


This is the classroom from two different angles and the back warehouse/studio space. We need to build some drawing tables back there. The back studio is also where I will have a bike repair workshop.



The front gallery came out great. We are doing a soft opening this weekend with some out of town artists who are hanging art. Then our grand opening is in 11 days! Artists are hard to wrangle!

The opening show is themed: "Life By The River".

I will post some photos of the art after the opening.

[loutfard]

Congratulations on a milestone achieved. This looks like great progress!

[Western Red Cedar]

Well done! Looking forward to a future update with photos of art on the walls.

[mountainFrugal]

Thank you @loutfard and @WRC. We are so stoked to open the doors next weekend. From a WOG perspective, my fitness cluster took a huge hit the past few months. I am looking forward to long exercise sessions and more time with DW on the weekends.

[guitarplayer]

Well done @mF! Good you keep in mind recovering other clusters.

I spent this morning doing hand written journaling and one thing let to another so that now I am rereading (again) your initial posts from pages 1 and 2. Thanks for posting.

[mountainFrugal]

Thank you @guitarplayer. Are you doing hand written journaling exclusively now or just experimenting?

We had most of the art/photos hung for the soft opening. 3 more pieces are coming in this week for the full opening. Overall, we had a steady stream of folks come through for the soft opening. Business partner and I are excited that the artists were excited about the space and the project as a whole. From a MVP (minimum viable product) perspective we also got a lot of good critical feedback ranging from little details of our class offering sheet to multiple suggestions for some sound dampening in the classroom. We knew a few of these things going in, but the fact that people brought it to our attention means they care enough to do so and we should address the issues.

We also made our first gallery sale this weekend. A few linocut prints I did earlier this year. Next up, Mars colonization!

[mountainFrugal]

# WINS
We completed our remodel and did a soft opening!

I completed the advanced suspension, wheel building, disc brake, and dropper post certification classes. Another 8 days of great instruction at United Bicycle Institute. I built a set of wheels from scratch that passed at 84.5 out of 100 possible points. Anything over 75 points is deemed a passing/sell-able wheel-set in a shop by DT Swiss. It was hard working under a time crunch and I got dinged because I went up to working tension too soon on my front wheel and had a radial hiccup just under 0.4 mm that was hard to get any better (80/100). My back wheel was much better because I took more time to set it up (89/100). The instructor comment was "Nice job. Add some spoke freeze and enjoy." Only a few students out of 12 passed this class.

On the suspension side we worked on 6 different kinds over the 4 days including brand new Fox forks. The tech inside these small compartments and the abuse they go through on a regular ride of a recreation rider blows my mind. It is amazing that they continue to work at all without regular maintenance. The higher end suspensions degrade in performance slow enough that it might not be apparent to the rider. So much engineering and physics to continue learning!

# IMPROVEMENTS/INSPIRATIONS
Musical inspiration: "Camera Talk" - Local Natives. I listened to this album a lot when I was engineering/building a camera rig to get 3D growth information over time (4D) of plant architecture during my postdoc. This was a second rate scientist project that I enjoyed immensely, but only got a few middle author publications out of. I had this album on for the gallery opening. Endless fucking around in the studio/bike shop/workshop is starting next week.

We went to a wedding between 1st gen immigrant friends from Eastern Europe and East Asia. Their families are all very smart hustlers. Love it. As an example, at age 8, the bride taught her grandma US history and worked on her English so she could pass the citizenship test (100%!) thus helping additional family members put down roots in the US.

The wedding was on a Tibetan Buddhist sanctuary in the redwoods near Santa Cruz. There is a really ornate Stupa built in the middle of the woods that we hiked to. I have no personal connection to this line of Buddhism, I just like that things like this exist. We passed by a building where monks were throat singing. There was a really interesting auditory resonance coming out of the building.

# NEW DIRECTIONS
I am working on the transition from scientist to full-time artist/teacher/gallery manager. A fun transition with many bumps and lots of solicited and unsolicited feedback. The soft opening with the artists was further fuel to this direction. Two of them have been waiting for something like this, but did not have the background skill-set to build it (conceptually or physically). I very much look forward to learning from them.

One of my 5 year goals was to have a "Graphic Watershed" show in 2026. After doing some larger format pieces for this opening, I think it is more likely that I could I do a solo show later this year or early next year. We are talking 10-15 quality pieces. I just need to think about how these fit into the zine/blog schedule/themes and then start going larger format more frequently. My single submission for "Life By The River" is a 22x30 watercolor and ink. I am waiting on the frame to arrive. Another business owner in town offered to help me mat it. She has a framing side business. "First one's free" applies to framing and quality handshake drugs

# DRAWING
I made a nature scavenger hunt zine for my friend's wedding. I designed it to slightly alter the cover and now it is part of my zine portfolio. I was accepted to table at my first zine fest based on the current portfolio. I had my first larger format issue printed. They arrived and look great.

I filled an entire sketchbook in 8 days with design drawings at the suspension/wheel classes. This is design drawing quarter after all working towards a large format bicycle repair zine in June.

I finished a tri-fold brochure for the non-profit. This was mostly layout/design work with minimal illustration (background for the cover). They already had graphics and text that they wanted to use, I just needed to edit it down to this format. Easy peasy.

# OUTDOOR ADVENTURE
Various stats.

One highlight was riding the Santa Cruz demo forest flow trail system located near the wedding venue. I rode this a number of years ago, but now I am much better at MTB and technical climbing to get up to the top. Hauling ass through flowy bermed trails down a steep mountain of redwood forest is pure bliss. This is also a good moving EMDR exercise. This is on par with powder skiing medium spaced trees down steep terrain on low avalanche days. Physically delicious. Pure Type 1 fun.

# WORK
Newsletter. Zine printed. Paid personal and business taxes.

I finished my first two bike repairs and bought liability insurance for the repair business.

# SOCIAL
Redwood wedding.

We attended a work quitting party of an artist friend. Onto brighter pastures. Her friend gave her a huge monstera plant as a gift.

DW and I had a ravioli dinner with our retired couple friends. The wife in the couple has a number of old recipes from her Italian grandmother. We did a savory chicken filling and butternut squash. Yum.

While I was attending the bike classes I got to meet up with @berrytwo and @bicycle7. We walked around for 1.5 hours and chatted seamlessly before parting ways for dinner time. Delightful humans. (note: @berrytwo does not own a whip as far as I know, but I could not put this out of my head in this illustration for some reason. @bicycle7 is training for his trip )