CRAFT at Windsong Farm

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CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) was held this past Sunday at Windsong farm in Honor. The farm has been in the same family for over 100 years and is still run by a member of that family, Cindra Moore. At the farm she focuses on her personal food supply along with herbs. Her herbs are grown both as food and can be used for medicinal purposes. Some can be heated for herbal teas, made into oils, or eaten directly with foods. There were many plants that she explained in detail, some that help with the common cold, to one more specific plant called Pleurisy that helps with the lung ailment of the same name along with other respiratory conditions.

In addition to having herbs for practical use, Cindra had an interesting take on the relationship between her farming and ritual. This sense seemed to inform how she planted her gardens spatially with the land, what she grows, and how she goes about the harvest and cultivation. We ended the afternoon with some fresh kale from her garden, and lots of other yummy dishes brought by folks who attended.

—Dulcee, ISLAND summer intern

Hog Breakdown and Charcuterie Workshop with Steven Grostick

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Saturday, October 1 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm at Epicure Catering, 5530 N West Bayshore Drive, Omena, MI The ultimate workshop for the foodie homesteader! We'll will start with a hands-on hog breakdown from primal cuts of meat into cuts for charcuterie. Then, using simple cooking techniques, you will learn to preserve meat in your own home through salting, smoking and curing. This craft has been practiced for hundreds of years and is easier than you think. Some salt, a little time and you have all you need to enjoy the art of preserving. Techniques will be discussed in detail. You will get plenty of hands-on experience, as well as freshly butchered pork to take home to complete the curing process on your own. Steven Grostick is award winning Executive Chef at Toasted Oak Grill and Marketplace of Novi with more than 15 years of experience as a progressive culinary professional. Steven studied and trained under Chef Brian Polcyn for 11 years, during which time he assisted in testing recipes for the book Charcuterie, the Art and Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing. Cost is $195, which includes a gourmet lunch featuring pork by Epicure Catering, a copy of Charcuterie, the Art and Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing, and an equal share of freshly butchered pork to take home. Each attendee will need to bring their own knife. Pre-registration required by Monday, September 26th. To register and for more information, contact Yvonne at (231) 480-4515 or yvonne@artmeetsearth.org. In partnership with the Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference With support from: Epicure Catering, Hillside Homestead, The May Farm, Rising Star Wellness Center, Eden Foods, and Organic Valley.

Gifts of Time: Ingrid Norton on Her Residency

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Gifts of Time: Ingrid Norton on Her Residency
May 18^th-June 2^nd, 2011

My third day here and already a blur of thought and reflection, the work spooling out of me, the wonderful attention of reading, the thin wispy trees and subtle changes of light, the clarity of thinking about my life, the way Detroit settles and is so deep and real to my memory.

--Journal Kept at Hill House, May 2011

The depth and yield of my days at Hill House stagger me. Hill House is where I finished the rough draft of a novel and where I printed and read through the manuscript for the first time. Each day at the residency was dense with thought and creation. Journals from my two weeks at Hill House contain obsessive notes about my own novel-in-progress, dissections of the half dozen books I read while there, descriptions of walks in the woods and of Michigan’s tumultuous spring weather, recollections of meals I cooked, and memories and ideas I reflected upon. Each day, I discovered anew the rich current of work that flows from dedicated space and time…

A huge thunderstorm broke forth after I finished drafting a dramatic scene. Doors slammed with the changing air pressure. I ran out to my car to retrieve a Sherwood Anderson novel before the downpour began. Inside, the lights flickered and then went out completely. I stood out on the deck listening to the thunder and watching long shots of lightning blaze through the blackened air. That night, I read myself to sleep by candlelight.

The next day, returning from a walk along the Jordan River, I scraped the title of my manuscript, BACK IN D, into the dirt road that leads to Hill House.

My hunger for concentration was fortified by the small, harmonious pleasures of the house itself. On another morning as I chopped ingredients for an omelet in the kitchen, the way a difficult chapter should resolve came into my mind. I jotted it down in the open notebook I’d placed on the counter and, after eating, carried my notes upstairs and began an afternoon of work.

That moment--the notebook beside the cutting board--symbolizes for me the subtle and renewing creative process that occurred at Hill House. When distractions are dispersed, each moment begins to merge with one’s work. To support that process is its own generosity and art. I remain astounded at how wonderfully Amanda and Brad Kik (and the whole ISLAND team) cultivate the residency program and labor to promote wisdom and community in northwest Michigan. Hill House resounds with creativity and love: that is true of the large principles of sustainability, local food, and attentiveness to region which animate the space and program. It also manifests itself in countless small, considerate details: the fresh local food, stack of regional maps, readied printer, extra guitar picks, and carefully chosen library of literature and cookbooks.

Most salutary to the experience is a sense of trust. To be given freedom to work is a tremendous gift. It is essential--but also extremely rare. To vouchsafe one’s energy to artistic creation--whether of literature, art, or music--is a demanding and uncertain proposition. It requires negotiation, sacrifice, and invention: Not only on the page or canvas, but in the prosaic domains of scheduling and finance; in the intricate arena of one’s relationships and mental states. There are many forces that act to circumscribe ambition, blunt imagination, and discourage risk. It can be difficult to feel one has the world’s permission to devote energy to projects of uncertain outcome. Even in the most nurturing of circumstances, an artist continually pushes against the grain to find time, space, and self-belief. By clearing the usual obstacles, the residency at Hill House creates terrain open to reflection and endeavor.

One’s great task is to carry that energy forward. As I prepare to rewrite the manuscript and take on new projects over the coming year, I am aware of needing to steel myself and gather all the support I can. I’m deeply fortunate to call on Hill House’s bounty of time and trust as I continue down that long and wending road. Equally comforting and enlivening is the knowledge that as I embark on new ventures in my own work, Hill House continues to spread its light and expand its mission.

We're hiring!

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Institute for Sustainable Living, Art & Natural Design (ISLAND)

Position: Events Assistant

Overview: The new ISLAND Events Assistant position supports the work of the Events Coordinator. The position is responsible for a wide variety of activities related to events and workshops to support ISLAND’s mission. ISLAND hosts over 100 workshops and events each year, designed to build community and self-reliance skills and provide cultural experiences for the community. Examples include the green world (growing shiitakes, organic gardening, animal husbandry, raising bees), the real home ec (cheese making, fermenting, brewing, canning), tinkering (welding, cordwood building, carpentry), and arts and music (concerts, film series, book binding).

Time commitment: Averages 32 hours per week. Flexibility in schedule and willingness to work some evenings and weekends is a must. Position runs from January to November 2012 (the position after November 2012 is contingent on funding).

Location: The ISLAND office is located in Bellaire, Michigan. Events and workshops are held throughout northwest lower Michigan. The Events Assistant will both telecommute and work from the ISLAND office.

Salary: $10 per hour. Some benefits, like paid days off, are available after six months of employment. As much as we’d like to, we are unable to offer health benefits at this time.

Main Job Tasks & Responsibilities

• Planning, managing, executing and evaluating events and workshops
• Work closely with the Events Coordinator

Education & Experience

• Bachelors degree or equivalent work experience
• Knowledge of and passion for ISLAND’s mission
• Basic knowledge of non-profit structure
• Proficient in email, word processing and spreadsheet programs (i.e., Google Docs or Microsoft Office)
• Prior experience working in a team environment
• Prior experience organizing events

Key Competencies & Requirements

• Ability to plan, organize and meet deadlines

• A reliable car/method of transportation is necessary for travel to events and workshops
• Must have reliable and regular access to email, a personal computer and a cell phone
• Excellent attention to detail
• Excellent oral, written and interpersonal communication skills
• Ability to thrive in and be highly productive in a self-directed work environment

Application Instructions: Interested candidates should submit the following application materials via email to Amanda Kik, Co-Director, at amanda@artmeetsearth.org:

• Cover letter
• Resume
• List of references

Applications materials received by November 11, 2011 will receive first review and preference for first round interviews. Position will remain open until filled by the right candidate.

For more information about ISLAND, visit www.artmeetsearth.org.

To ISLAND

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To ISLAND
From Moheb
Re Hill house


December now, October then, 2011

Dear Amanda and Brad,
Bellaire, Traverse City, Petoskey,
Poor Mancelona and East Jordan, even take pity on Charlevoix,
Hello little Jordan River, Grand Traverse Bay, grand Lake Michigan, hi, reader

Quite an audience~
I do miss it there! I barely left the hill house during my stay, but the entire region is so vivid in my mind; I don't know why exactly but I'm moved to remember all the places, floating in bigger places, and how they're peopled. In part it has to do with the writing project I was working on at the residency, about the gray-green area between nature and culture especially characteristic of the Great Lakes region. So I wandered about the whole area a lot, every day in fact, even though I was practically always just roaming around the log house up the hill there from Graves Crossing, pacing down from the loft where I worked onto the back porch to the porch swing or right out into the yellow woods with house-shoes on to shuck the leaves a few minutes before drifting back in to the computer.

The area's called Northwest Lower Michigan in deference to the Upper Peninsula I believe. This past October was a beautiful time to be there - so mild but vibrant. The first nine days were perfect and identical in every sense - the light and sky looked the same, the air felt the same, the trees and brush smelled the same, the birds and road sounded the same, and my cooking tasted the exact same. Then it rained. And within a couple days a wide view appeared where before birch and maple and a couple other trees' leaves I didn't know had spent their one year aloft. It was a view to the west where I could see a long ridge, and I always imagined Lake Michigan was right over it, though in fact it was almost two hours past. But the closeness of thing is so proportional to its size I think, and Lake Michigan is felt all over northwest, lower, Michigan. I made a habit of stepping out back to watch the sun set over that ridge into the unseen lake almost every day around 5:30, before giving another hour of work a go, thinking of dinner and internet.

Really the most notable thing, the only thing about I wrote in the log book, is this other ridge, the top cliff-side of the hill that Hill House is on, about a 7 minute walk through the woods due south. You keep the place directly at your back, walk in the trees, hit a little gravel road, walk up, and there, there’s a clearing with a drop and beautiful vista that seemed almost purely metaphoric and moving in ‘perspective.’ What else is there to say?, except I even baked and slept well, and most importantly, didn’t fret when I didn’t work. The process behind creating work is volatile and needs neither pampering nor depravity, and it’s easy to err on both sides. I’m really thankful to and encouraged by ISLAND’s residency in part just for its balance of support and warmth, independence and straight-forwardness.

The challenge is really then redefined for the artist-in-residence, who’s free to be more grounded and accomplish what they want in quiet deals with themselves. I don’t know if I was extra-ordinarily ‘productive’ in my time at Hill House, but I’ve never come closer to that place where you can sustain a real creativity without a bad preoccupation with the final product – special thing; and I’ll continue to call up the place of that place and hope to get back there again.

Sincerely,
Moheb

Preserving your city. Are you up to the challenge?

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A new book is coming out about Detroit's Architectural History. This one is written by a woman who married into the Taubman Family (real estate magnate).

What is interesting is that are hundreds of book on Detroit's architecture; but this book will combine modern day scenes, current buildings and what they looked like at the turn of the century and now.

I'm betting this book will be gobbled up(no pun intended) by land developers. What better way to get an introduction into the city and its landscape than for someone who is passionate about the city to give a view of the city by showing her finds from 3 years of walking and exploring every street and neighborhood of Detroit. Yes. She walked up and down, escorted by police at times, and driving her own car and not escorted on most of the trips. She ruggedly camera in hand met the streets and people of Detroit.

I bet this book will be on the best sellers list once it comes out. Here is a link to the book Detroit 138 Miles to be released on Amazon on December 31, 2011.

Ok so why am I sharing this? Here's the deeper message. Have you thought of documenting the history of your own town? All it takes is committment and passion. I can surely say that there are only a couple of books on my city: Inkster, Michigan. The challenge is out for someone to drive and walk each street of Inkster, take pictures and tell its story of how it once thrived. Show the world the Inkster they never knew.

Each city has a story. I believe the story of Inkster is its people, primarily African Americans, and their entreprenurial spirit and efforts to survive in a place unknown during the post migration of masses amounts of people from the south during the highlight years of the development of the Auto Industry particularly Ford Motor Company. (circa 1940- 1950)

Are you up to the challenge?

It took her 3 years of intensive research to do Detroit. It should take about One year to do Inkster's history block by block. Who knows? You may just find me out there walking each street one day at a time.

Willie C. Williams

Movers, deputies refuse to evict 103-year-old woman

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Movers, deputies refuse to evict 103-year-old woman

This puts a human face on business practices. It's easy to sit from your ivory tower and do the paperwork to have someone evicted. But it's another thing to be the one who has to do it.

I wonder if the bank staff who processed the eviction papers looked at all the details(like the age of the home owner). I wonder if she discussed this with her supervisor. I wonder what the supervisor said.

Fast forward. No eviction.

I wonder if the bank will change their policies about eviction. I wonder if the human element will become part of the decision making in the future.

Business is about the customer; and while we have to do some things which seem "heartless", it behooves all these corporations and business people to use their imagination and creativity and come up with other ways.

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Well first you start with a room then create a vision. Read on.

25,000 dollar homes. 2012. What will your vision be?

A new year goal for you and your family. Here's a link to the type of homes which can be found for Twenty Five Thousand Dollars. Some in our area have more or less bedrooms. But can you form a vision? Do you have a Plan? (my favorite question).

You're in an apartment. Your landlord is not responsive to your needs. You don't even know if the landlord is in foreclosure?

Think. What if I buy a home for 25 thousand dollars and make some minor improvements to make it comfortable for a couple of years. And then, sell it later or rent it out. Next home: A more expensive home in a nicer neighborhood....can you dream? will you vision?

This is where home ownership begins. One small lovely home(fix it up the way you want) Surely you can afford under 200 dollars for a mortgage payment. Set a goal of making one new improvement each month. Just because your home is small or is not in the perfect neighborhood, surely you can beautify it with the latest colors, the latest counter tops. Pull up the carpet, bare the wooden floors, shine them up. Order some rugs from overstock or QVC.

What about furniture and decorating? get some magazines or visit some home decorating blogs,  cut out some pictures of beautiful rooms. Then, search online for tips and tricks on taking old furniture, repainting it, re-using it and stage it like the pictures.

For ideas, have you seen Mr. Goodwill Hunting. He stages rooms and homes for under three hundred dollars. Surely you can do the same?
Click here to go to Mr. Goodwill Hunting.

What I'm doing with this post is giving you an idea...a vision? It's 2012 and time to begin your planning and visions. Start small, build up. Make your home a smaller vision of what you want in life. See your home as an impetus to begin change in your life.
Who knows what awaits you next?
Call me,
Willie 1-313-274-3141. Let's begin your vision for 2012.

This is a vision board. What will yours have on it?

Picture of vision board by Ron Sonbilum's photo stream on flickr, which can be found here.

Here's all the Homes in Inkster, Michigan and Call me: Why?

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Sometimes I forget, because I live here, that many of you aren't  familiar with the town of Inkster, Michigan where I do business. So I'm enclosing a link where you can see all the homes. Take a look around. There are prices for all budgets.

That said, let me tell you why my company is called Red Carpet Keim Will Cooperate. Of course the Red Carpet Keim are trade names for real estate company. But what you may not know is about the Will Cooperate. When I first started in this business I had a saying on my building which said I will help you help you. Sounds redundant right? Well here's the deal.

You would be surprised how many people in this day and age think I should just give them a list of homes and send them them on their way to look at them and then purchase them from others. Well my friends, that is not how real estate works. Did you realize that you can have ANY real estate agent sell you a home. Because you see the signs in the windows or in the yard doesn't mean that is the only person or agent that you can buy a home from.

If this were the case, there would be only a few businesses in business. There are different types of real estate agents: some list, some sell and hopefully some do both. But the real estate person of your choosing  can sell you a home. We as professional real estate agents just need to be clear who we are representing. Some times you can find an agent to represent you in a transaction and they will do all they can to help you get the home of your dreams. Then there are agents, unfortunately , may only want to sell you what they've listed.
You see professionals want you to get the home you want. They will work with the listing agent or sales agents to make that possible. This in no way hurts your transaction.

So pick the real estate agent of your choosing. Do business with them and know they should help you to get the home for which you qualify.


Here is that link. Go house hunting and then, I hope, you'll give me a call.
Willie

Money and Time: Which do you value? How does it relate to real estate?

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Recently added this to one of my profiles. Can you guess why? 

The essence of real estate, just like for most business related fields is about money and time. The interest rates change based on money and length of time. Your home depreciates or hopefully doesn't based on how much you paid and what the value of the home is in real time. The list goes on. But the same is true in life. When you're young make the best use of your time; your money goes farther. A dollar's worth from 20 years ago is not the same as today. The lesson is to value what you have in each moment because overtime the worth will change. Don't put off tomorrow what you can easily pay for today. Do you hear me?

A Perfect Get-Away

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Terry Jenoure
November 9 – 21, 2011

I was so hungry for this time alone. So, when my plane connection was cancelled due to bad weather and I had to stay at a Detroit airport hotel for two days, I was more than a little disappointed. Two days later, my irritable self followed me to the Residency. But when I walked inside the cozy furnished log cabin I was completely transformed. The next 10 days were perfect!! It was the privacy that I loved most. After many years as a musician, professor, arts administrator, visual artist, and writer, I had decided to make some major changes in my life. It is time to focus on art making, and leave teaching and leadership projects behind….or at least at rest for awhile! This experience was offered to me at exactly the right time.

The first night was the most difficult. It wasn’t the quiet so much. It was the fact that I’m a New York City native who was settled deep in the woods alone during deer hunting season. A little note from Amanda welcomed me earlier that day upon arrival as I entered the cabin, and suggested that I wear the neon orange vest and hat if I ventured into the woods. Needless to say, there was no “venturing” and I got plenty of writing done over the next ten days!!

But, on the first night in the cabin at about 3am, I heard loud voices down the hill in the house below. A large group of people were screaming and singing and I could tell they were drunk. I then heard a noise at the door. I jumped. I sat up and listened quietly. I was alone in a strange, secluded place and I was very frightened. Had I locked the sliding door to the cabin? Did anyone know I was in the cabin? Did they know I was alone? Would anyone hear me if I screamed? Could I reach my cell phone to call someone for help? After sitting frozen for about twenty long minutes and hearing absolutely nothing but an occasional branch rustling in the wind, I realized that I had dreamed the voices and music, and that it was an animal that had been scratching (I saw it’s marks on the door the next morning).

Yes, I wrote for ten days, but I read too. June Jordan’s poetry and Charles Bukowski’s short stories fueled my ideas. I even got some work done on an interdisciplinary project I’ve been dreaming about. I meditated. I cooked (this Caribbean American woman was pleasantly surprised to find plenty cumin in the spice cabinet for my arroz con frijoles negros). But, the quiet was probably the most delicious thing I took into me.

It will definitely be hard to follow this experience with another residency.

Welcome New Events Assistant Mary Brower

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We put out a call in the fall for an Events Assistant—someone to help Events Coordinator Yvonne Stephens with the over 75 events we have planned for 2012. Over 40 people applied, and we spent weeks pouring over resumés and interviewing amazing people. There were many good folks to choose from, and we wish we could have given a half dozen of them jobs. Instead, we settled on just one: Mary Brower.
Mary Brower grew up out west, but has spent much of her life chasing geography. Her past is littered with partial careers in teaching, farming, writing, and cooking. Pleased to be setting down permanent roots in this part of the world, Mary’s favorite means of procrastination involve winter gardening, food preservation, and making supper for her husband and little boy.
We hope you will get to know Mary at one of our many events this year. We're excited to have her on Team ISLAND!

Letter From Detroit

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Former ISLAND Hill House writer in residence, Ingrid Norton, has a piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books.
From the essay:

On a summer night, I drove around a particularly desolate stretch of the east side. Charred foundations outnumbered houses. Grasses grew waist-high around them. On Belvidere Street, a brightly colored convenience store came into view. It had recently been refurbished: freshly painted graffiti-like letters, colorful and stylized, proclaimed it the “NEW BORN PARTY STORE,” while the other wall boasted of “A MAN with a VISION …” The words reminded me of a speech Mayor Bing gave last September. Bing’s arrival came on the heels of the felonious ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and many look to him for new direction; a city official introducing Bing quoted a passage from Isaiah about the restoration of Jerusalem: “[A]nd they shall build houses and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.” Restoring Detroit, however, is a formidable task. Bing announced the first stages of Detroit’s strategic plan to shrink services in neighborhoods that are too far-gone to recover mid-century population levels — but those neighborhoods are not entirely empty. I wondered about the optimist who had opened the New Born Party Store. It seemed like a symbol of the stubborn, creative resilience that somehow manages to thrive in Detroit’s harshest, most decimated corners.

Read the whole article here: http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/15945286795/letter-from-detroit

Art Film Philosophy Series

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We’re pleased to present an amazing run of events in this year’s Art Film Philosophy series, spotlighting the thinkers, artists, and activists of our region. This cross-genre series features interactive workshops celebrating what’s extraordinary in live and local culture–from a primer on grass-roots financial activism to the serendipity of community design, tips on narrative songwriting, and discussions on the business of art. Films include works on the changing face of farming, the art of scavenging food, and the curious masterpieces of sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, to name a few.

Live events during the month of February include this Wednesday’s “Stories inSong-The Basics of Narrative Songwriting,” featuring songwriters from the Petoskey-based band the Boyne River Remedy, including Jen Schaap and Mark Blaauw-Hara. Jen is an advocate for sustainable agriculture and conscious consumption, and is Administrative Coordinator of the Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference. Mark teaches English and songwriting at North Central Michigan College.

On February 22, we’re pleased to welcome members of the local farming community to speak about the state of small and mid-scale farming in our region after a screening of the film The

Greenhorns, which chronicles how a new generation of agrarians are working to reverse negative trends in agriculture in favor of healthy food, local and regional foodsheds, and the revitalization of rural economies - one farm at a time.

Join us for these compelling topics and more the second and fourth Wednesday of every month, all year long. For more information, contact yvonne@artmeetsearth.org regarding presentations or mary@artmeetsearth.org regarding films, or call us at (231) 480-4515. All events are held starting at 6:30 PM at Bellaire Community Hall, located at 202 North Bridge Street in Downtown Bellaire. Curated by ISLAND and held in partnership with Parkside Arts Council.

The Hill House Residency: Time on the River

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English poet Sir Henry Wotton called fishing "idle time not idly spent." I would venture to say the same of my residency at the Hill House. While Wotton cast a line in hopes of luring speckle-backed trout to his hook, I wished to catch something much more slippery and elusive: a serious case of inspiration. If it could be found anywhere, it would be found there, I figured.

But the task proved more difficult than anticipated. In that quiet solitude, thoughts unreeled from my head into a big messy pile so confoundedly entangled that I broke the line, balled up the mess, disposed of it, and made a fresh start. Which invariably re-tangled itself and had to be broke again and again, until finally all those loops and twists and knots started making sense to me and I was able to unravel them down to one straight, sleek line.

I would like to say that with my thoughts thus ordered, inspiration poured forth from the heavens and I immersed entirely in my work. But that's not the way things function in reality. (Or at least that's not the way I function in reality.) Instead, I found myself floating down a serpentine stream of occurrences: dyeing pounds of wool for spinning into yarn, then reclining on the couch with WNMC's Afternoon Jazz issuing from the radio; coaxing the "Moonlight Sonata" from the piano, then wandering along the snow-clad lands of the Jordan River; scribbling thoughts in my journal, then heading to Short's Brewery for the foot-stomping Orpheum Bell show. Alternately laughing over the antics of chickadees, crying over freshly lost love, boisterously singing to the German Biergarten record, solemnly reflecting on disturbing world events.

I did find inspiration, but not where I expected. It was not stretched across the expansive uplands of Antrim County with its panoramic vistas, nor suspended in the brilliant sunset for all the world to see. Rather, inspiration appeared in fleeting glances like those quick silver fish darting through the Jordan. The timeless rushing of the river; decaying stumps of a long-gone railway bridge; a short glimpse of the largest, most magnificent raven ever imaginable- these things pulled inspiration wet and squirming to my hand. Allure lay in poignant details, not in panoramic pictures.

Ultimately, that is what made my experience so valuable- the details. A crock of home-made chocolate chip cookies waiting on the table, the spacious living room with its rich wooden tones, an eclectic collection of vinyls, soft beds covered with warm quilts. A confluence of countless elements enveloped my senses and put my mind at ease in that unfamiliar setting, dissolving my fears and worries.

And so, I can assuredly say that my "idle time" passed in a manner that served me best. I certainly was not hyper-productive, but I feel that too much emphasis is placed on productivity in these modern times, anyways. Life should not be about maximizing outputs and crunching time into efficient little blocks. Just as the value of fishing is not measured by the cubic inches of meat brought home, so the value of my residency is not measured by the pounds of wool I spun into yarn. There is an ethereal quality that factors in, so light and airy that it bears no calculable weight in the material sense; yet holds considerable gravity for the mind and spirit.

I know that this intangible something will continue to inform my decisions long after leaving the Hill House. Those two weeks will brightly bob along the surface my memory for as long as I'm able to remember. They were truly a gift.

—Maria Wesserle

Fw: Notify NYC - Notification

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Notification issued 6/19/12 at 10:10 PM. The National Weather Service has issued a Heat Advisory for the New York City area from 12:00 PM Wednesday until 8:00 PM Thursday. Additionally, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has issued an Air Quality Health Advisory from 11:00 AM to 11:00 PM Wednesday. These conditions are dangerous to health. Avoid strenuous activity. People without air conditioning, older adults and people with chronic health conditions are most at risk. Cooling Centers will be open tomorrow. For locations, hours, and more information on avoiding heat illness and the Air Quality Index, visit www.bit.ly/NYCHeatAQI or call 311.   The sender provided the following contact information.    Sender's Name: Notify NYC    Sender's Email: notifynyc@oem.nyc.gov    Sender's Contact Phone: 212-639-9675

100$ per month and No more excuses. Or, Are you a talker?

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Now is the time to invest in yourself. Do you have
friends and relatives who can fix things? The main
thing you need to have a beautiful home is a vision and
sweat equity. There is no perfect home. Every home you
see, just like us humans, will have a flaw. But can you emphasize
the positive and overcome the negative. That is what life is about.
But you must have a vision and perseverance. If you can see
what you want then its possible for you to create it, just
one step at a time. Are you a talker? or, Are you in action?
You know its easy to talk about what you want, and what it
should look like. But what are you doing? just talkin, just
criticizing. Are you willing to give up something for what
you want. Or are you waiting for someone else to drop
it on you.
Getting a home is no different from life. It's about you
taking action. Anyone can talk a good game.

Yes its true...see it for yourself

There's more...call me

Willie

Seeking home: another life change like clouds in the sky...

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It's often the darkest before the dawn 

Just as the clouds pass over and the sky brightens once again, things change, things happen. Nothing is stagnant in the universe. Your fears won't last. Your courage will wane. But you must get up once again and begin.

The same holds true with finding a home. Your needs will change, the house doesn't mean the same as it once did. It will be time once again to seek another home. That home could be a space within your home which is decorated and cozy. We don't use all the rooms anyhow.

So don't be afraid. If something is pulling you to get out and explore a new home, a new place to live, a new way to expand your current living space, know it is life and one of the many changing clouds.

Home is where your heart is. It truly is...

Where is your heart this moment? What does it want to call home? Where does it lead you?

Is it tugging for you to move once again?

Talk to me.

 

I sold her a home:113 year old woman who is still living ...read her story here.

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She's 113 years old lives in Inkster Michigan and still goes fishing. She stopped bowling when she was 104 years old.
In the world where folks have connections: We have a big one.
I sold her a house with a 40 year mortgage and she lived to pay it off.
What a wise woman.
I told you I've been around in this business a long time. And now I've got a witness.
Here is the  113 Year Old Inksterite's story. 

(picture courtesy of Bilde Google)

Vernor's

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Vernor opened a drug store of his own on Woodward Avenue, and sold his ginger ale at its soda fountain. According to the 1911 trademark application on "Vernor's" as a name for ginger ale and extract, Vernors entered commerce in 1880. City by city, Vernor sold bottling franchises, with operators of those franchises required to strictly adhere to the recipe. In 1896, Vernor closed his drugstore to concentrate on the ginger ale business alone. Initially, Vernors was only sold via soda fountain franchises, but later Vernors was bottled for home consumption.

ISLAND holds fruit tree grafting workshops

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Over 50 varieties of fruit trees will be available to take home from ISLAND grafting workshops later this April. Photo courtesy of Brenin Wertz-Roth.

BELLAIRE — The Institute for Sustainable Living, Art and Natural Design will hold two separate tree grafting workshops this month.

The first will be on April 28, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on its Bellaire property, located at 2550 Orchard Hill Road. The second will be on April 29, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Ware Farm, located at 9094 Alkire Road in Bear Lake.

Brenin Wertz-Roth from Giving Tree Farm and Nursery will teach aspiring home orchardists skills that will open a whole new world of gardening possibilities.

Cortland Apples. Photo courtesy Eastman's Antique Apples.

Wertz-Roth began his work with trees at Bullock's Permaculture Homestead and in Orcas, Washington. He has been a farmer and nurseryman in the Pacific Northwest and in northern Michigan for the past six years.

“It’s not just the cost-savings through creating a home orchard that draws me to grafting and working with fruit trees,” Wertz-Roth said. “It’s also the unique taste of old varieties and the importance of saving trees from a conservation standpoint, as well as increasing the diversity of food plants in northern Michigan.”

Workshop participants will get hands-on practice matching the specifics of a site, including soil characteristics and exposure to sunlight, to considerations of particular varieties, from the size of the tree to its natural resistance to disease. Participants also will practice repairing real trees with severely damaged bark and reworking established trees with new varieties. They will learn how to train and care for seedlings in their vulnerable first years, as well as how to re-graft trees that have problems. Everyone will leave the class with understanding and practical experience, their own grafting knives, and four new apple, plum, peach, pear or quince trees.

Grimes Golden Apples. Photo courtesy Eastman's Antique Apples. 

“Most fruit trees and many ornamental plants are created through the art of grafting, but very few gardeners are familiar with the techniques that make this time-honored craft possible,” Brad Kik, cofounder of ISLAND, said. “With access to distinctive varieties right at their fingertips, backyard orchardists will be able to take their pick from flavorful, old-world heirlooms like Ashmead’s Kernel, to newer, cold-hardy cultivars like Zestar.”

The cost of each workshop is $65 per person or $110 per couple. Individuals will take home a grafting knife and four trees, and couples get one knife and six trees. Class size is limited and preregistration is required by April 25. Snacks are included.

Calville Blanc d'Hiver apples. Photo courtesy Eastman's Antique Apples.

These events are made possible by a partnership between ISLAND, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference. For more information or to register, call 231-622-5252.

Hudson's Golden Gem apples. Photo courtesy Eastman's Antique Apples.

ISLAND Internship Program 2012

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For full description, visit www.artmeetsearth.org/internship2012.html

The Institute for Sustainable Living, Art & Natural Design (ISLAND) is seeking one self-directed and contagiously curious intern for the summer of 2012. The ISLAND intern will work in and around the Village of Bellaire in Northwest Lower Michigan (50 miles NE of Traverse City) for between 8 and 16 weeks from June to October.
ISLAND intern Yvonne Stephens learned about beekeeping and event planning during her 2009 summer internship.

A typical ISLAND intern is interested in plenty of the following: alternative building, animals, architecture, art, arts administration, beekeeping, bioregionalism, construction, community organizing, computers, design, ecology, farming, film, food, gardening, homesteading, outdoor work, manual labor, music, philosophy, poetry, radical hospitality, radical domesticity, reading, renewable energy, resilience, small non-profit work and sustainable living.
Maria Wesserle at a timber framing workshop during her 2009 summer internship.

ISLAND interns are equally at home with a tool belt and a laptop. Interns have real responsibility on a mix of projects both challenging and prosaic. Expect a few fresh blisters, and expect that others will be counting on you, and not just to bring them coffee.Download the application


2010 intern Mindy Otto at an apricot canning workshop.

Art, Film, Philosophy: Modern Dance in Rural Communities

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Wednesday, June 13 from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm at the Bellaire Community Hall
202 North Bridge Street, Bellaire, MIGretchen Eichberger and Stephanie Overton will discuss the role of modern dance in our country and community, bringing specific attention to the ways dance is practiced in Northern Lower Michigan and the challenges faced by working dance artists in this area.Donations appreciated. A partnership of ISLAND and Parkside Arts Council, with support from Fischer Insurance and Applesauce Inn Bed and Breakfast.

For more information call (231) 622-5252 or email yvonne@artmeetsearth.org

Peace like a River

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by writer in residence Adrienne Wagner
Four in the morning / I woke up from out of my dreams / nowhere to go but back to sleep /  but I'm reconciled – Paul Simon




My first night in the Hill House was filled with the music of Paul Simon. I had forgotten how much I loved him and the grainy sound of a record player, the way it makes everything sound so urgent. 
Paul sang and I read in a cozy chair with an purple crocheted afghan tossed over my legs. The first book I had grabbed from the shelf above the fireplace was June Jordan's Kissing God Goodbye and it wasn't long before I fell in love with her too. 
And there amid the trees and birds of northern Michigan, time seemed to stand still, and then it turned backward. I was younger and my parents were both still living. 
This was an unexpected turn of events. 
I had originally planned to write the remaining poems for a nearly complete manuscript called Store Bought Saints. The poems were intended to explore the nexus of faith and sexuality as experienced in the moral dilemmas of life. The idea was to create a memorable cadence of petitions that offered a slow revelation of what it means to be faithful, to believe, and to love.
Love, “that soft forever begs for bees,” as Jordan wrote. I was buzzing, but not with any of the ideas I had intended to convey. Instead I wrote my first new poem in months, “Flowers for My Mother”: 
A bud vase with blue-eyed marys and yellow anemone begs forgivenesson the kitchen table next to her picture.
This lilting centerpiece of apology could be a song spilling from the windows of a '61 Ford as it rolls down moonlit Buffalo streets
towards the two-story on Clay,where my mother and her three sisters dancedwith the Beatles, planned their trip to Birmingham.
But tonight Google Maps shows only a blurred facebelonging to a black man, his left foot about to step offthe sidewalk before her childhood home.
And when I search for her name, in 0.38 seconds there are 52,000 results,all equally irrelevant. I cannot find her here, 
where a seamless web of amnestiesconnects other people across time and space. Her face will not open for me in any format. 
If only it were possible to hit the back button until I heard the soft hum of bees dilating nighttime outside the hospice room,
if I could stop myself from disconnecting,from being the opposite of everything she taught me to be. 
And thus a concept for a new manuscript was conceived. I would write poems for my parents, not about them necessarily but for them. For all the things I never had a chance to say, for all the questions I hadn't been able to ask before they both left this world. 
The days flew by and the solitude and the silent afternoons in the uninterrupted shade of the woods allowed me to focus in on this new project in a way I had never really experienced before. I thought as much about the messages the poems were trying to convey as I did about the language they were written with. 
Who did I think my mother had taught me to be? And why wasn't I being that woman?
Cue Paul Simon singing, “Oh, oh, oh, I'm going to be up for a while.”
When I left the Hill House three weeks after my arrival date I had a plethora of poems completed. I was relaxed and renewed. But what I really walked away from this experience with is an open-eyed respect for the mysteries of family that help to balance our everyday lives long after our loved ones have departed and how these perplexities continue to comprise our perceptions of self. 
I have always believed that writing has the potential to make a difference in the world. Now I understand that it also has the potential to make change within ourselves too. 
I am grateful to Amanda and Brad Kik, the Board of Directors of the Institute for Sustainable Living and Natural Design, and all its supporters for making this experience possible.