Tag Archives: Dave Brandes

Wildlife at the Garden!

We’ve had a lot of cool wildlife spottings at the garden including an Indigo Bunting, vultures, and lots more.  Let me know if you see something cool, I’m keeping a list.  (Or if you could snap a picture, that’d be great too!)  Also, I’ll be working on updating the website over the next couple months to include a section on wildlife.

We’ve got a resident in the bird box I put up.  It’s a tree swallow.  Over the summer, there’s going to be lots more blue bird houses installed by a local boy scout troop, so we’ll have even more company out there!  And some organic pest control. 🙂

organic_bug_control_smalltreeswallowpair_small

Photos courtesy of D. Brandes.

Water is here!

Hey everyone!
The plots are looking great and just in time for this heat wave, the water is good to go.  Currently we have two taps running (one on the fence near the road and the other on the side near the hill).  Yay! 🙂

There will be three more installed once we get some more piping.  There will be another one on each side mentioned before and then one out in the back in the middle (there’s now a post out there with a spickit with no hose yet–you’ll see it!).

A few things to remember:

Here's one of the working water taps!

PLEASE USE SPARINGLY!  It’ll go quickly, please conserve it.

The water is not potable, please don’t let the youngin’s drink it.

The water is hot from sitting in the pipes all the time, so please be cautious.

Please don’t hook up a hose, just use watering cans.

Make sure it’s turned off all the way and if you see any dripping, please let me know ASAP!

This water system is courteous of Dave Brandes and some of his students (and funded by the Clinton Foundation grant!). Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy!

Photo of one of the taps courtesy of D. Brandes.

Farewell for a couple weeks!!

Hey all,

I’m going to be away on an interim trip (to the national parks in AZ and UT) until June 13th.   I’ll be semi-reachable via email.  For anything urgent please contact Dave Brandes (Brandesd@lafayette.edu) or Andy Smith (Smitham@lafayette.edu)–they’re my excel advisors for the summer.

The plots are lookin’ GREAT!! Keep up the good work! 🙂

Happy gardening,

Jenn

Fence Building–Again this Saturday!

Hey everyone!!

We had a building day on Saturday thanks for the help from LEAP, the Music Appreciation floor, and some great faculty and staff including John Wilson, Andy Smith, Dave Brandes, and Annette Diorio for all the help!  We got about half of the fence posts up, so we’re planning on having another building day this coming Saturday, May 9th at 7AM.

Thanks to Mr. Jim Krivoski for buying doughnuts! 😀

dsc00586

These fence posts are native black locust trees from Prof. John Wilson’s farm.

dsc00592

We finished one side and most of the other.   This is where the gate is going to be located.

fencebuilding05-02-09-21

Professor Wilson, Sean Murphy, Scott Stinner working on the corner.  In the back: Annette Diorio, Britta Moore, and little Jack working on putting up some posts.

fencebuilding05-02-09-3

Paul Creme, Zeus Wu, and Prof. Andy Smith digging a hole.

Site Preparation and such

Hey everyone,

Today Prof. Brandes and I went out to Metzgar bright and early to mark the location of the perimeter fence posts.  The campus plant operation staff are going to dig the holes for us hopefully very soon.  After we finished, I stayed for a couple hours to start pulling some weeds.  Unfortunately they’re really starting to grow already.

If everything goes smoothly this week, we hope to have a fence-building day on this Saturday, May 2nd at 9AM.  If you’d like to come help, send me an email at bellj@lafayette.edu.

If we have a lot of people and it goes quickly, we’ll mark the community plots, pull some weeds, and start some planting too! 🙂

Jenn

Project Update! Good News All Around.

Hey everyone!

Most of the seeds have officially arrived!  I picked them up just in time for the LEAP meeting on Wednesday.  We’re still waiting on a few packets, but they’re here for the most part.  Also, apparently the field has been plowed as of Monday afternoon: so we’ll be putting in the fence posts and planting very soon!!

Prof. Brandes is going to Metzgar tomorrow morning (Sat.) with some students to survey.  And Prof. Derek Smith has been working with Dining Services and the campus legal staff to work out serving the veggies in the dining halls.

Things are a happenin’! 😀
If you’d like to help out with planting/fence posting let me know and I can add you to the garden club email list!

Jenn

Farm Auction!

dsc00481This past Saturday, Professor Dave Brandes, Professor John Wilson, their sons Owen and Jack, and myself went to the 25th Annual Hilltop Sales and Service Spring Auction.  We got there at 9AM sharp and it was freeezing and windy, but we got some neat stuff!dsc004882

Here’s what we got:

-Wheelbarrow $6

-Lawnmower (old fashioned bladed kind) $2

-Planting pots of all sizes $2

-Auctioneer making fun of me for being excited about the lawn mower..priceless

Total: $10.60!! 🙂

The auction was a lot of fun and we got some great stuff for cheap.  Owen in particular loved the all the tractors!  And both Owen and Jack braved the cold weather extremely well!dsc00483

Now we need to find shovels, hoes, and stuff at another auction and hopefully we can get a great price again!  If anyone knows of good places to buy implements for cheap, feel free to leave a comment here.

Jenn

Dickinson Farm Director, Jenn Halpin’s Visit!

Jenn Halpin came today and gave a presentation about the Dickinson Farm program.  It was a GREAT presentation and I think it really got everyone excited about our gardens here.  She was here all afternoon for visits and meetings. Here’s what we did:dsc00312

First, Jenn H. arrived and gave a brown bag presentation in Hugel 103.

Then, we had lunch with Professors Dave Brandes, Art Kney, Andy Smith and Annette Diorio at Gilberts for a Q & A for them!

dsc00302

Then, we had a meeting with Dining Services, including Joe Binotto and Bob Meyer where we talked about serving vegetables in the dining halls.

Finally, we met with garden team students interested in helping starting the garden for more Q&A.

It was a great learning experience and we’re so grateful Jenn H. came and gave us advice!  Now we’ll have to go out there and visit sometime!

Jenn

Clinton Global Initiative Conference!

On Feb. 13th, Christina Chen and I went to the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference in Austin, Texas.  The garden project is funded by a CGI-U Outstanding Commitment Award, but we received the grant after the conference last year, so we applied to go to this one!

Here’s a quick run-down of the events:
Feb. 13th, Fri:

5:00PM: We arrived in Austin (from Philly), took the shuttle to our hotel to drop our stuff and took a shuttle to the University of Texas campus for the opening night events!

4:00-5:30PM: “Making a Difference on Campus: A Call to Action” Opening Remarks by William Powers, President of UT.  Followed by panel discussion with:

  • Bill Clinton (the former President!!),
  • Paul Bell (president of Dell),
  • Mambidzeni Madzivire (grad student at Mayo in biomedical engineering),
  • Blake Mycoskie (founder of TOMS shoes), and Natalie Portman (yes, the actress!!!).

Unfortunately we MISSED this session (because our flight was too late!), but we heard it was great!

6:00-7:00PM: “The Future of Food” More opening remarks by Bill himself.  Then other program partipants include..

  • Will Allen (Chief executive officer of Growing Power)
  • Emma Clippinger (grad student, Brown U)
  • Peter McPherson (president of National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges)
  • Morgan Spurlock (Film Director–and the guy from Supersize Me!!!)
  • Roy Steiner (director of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)

Phew..we made it to this discussion!  This one was AMAZING.  The main message (in my opinion) was that campuses need to focus on their food production and waste.  Schools should food-waste compost (check!) and grow their own food (almost check!).  It was so awesome to hear these very smart (and famous!) people talking about how it is important to be doing what Lafayette is in fact doing!  It was an amazing feeling and I have to say it made me so proud to be a part of this project. 😀

7:30-9:30: Social Reception.  Students, faculty, and everyone attending the conference had dinner and (very yummy) desserts and mingled.

Sat. Feb. 14th: (Happy V-day!)

9:00-10:00AM: Plenary Session “Turning Economic Obstacles into Opportunity”

  • Paul Begala (president of Hat Creek Enterprises)
  • Scott Cowen (president of Tulane U)
  • Carlo DiMarco (VP, University relations and online strategy, mtvU)
  • John Dorsey (co-founder, faceAIDS)
  • Margaret McKenna (president of the Walmart Foundation)
  • Zainab Salbi (president and chief exec officer of Women for Women International)

Well, this one was interesting and quite timely with the current state of the economy.  It was quite interesting to hear from the pres. of Walmart, especially since they fund much of the Commitment Awards given.

10:30-12:00PM: “Working Sessions”!  During this time, students and faculty were divided into sessions of their personal interests.  Christina and I went to separate ones.  I went to the Energy and Climate Change one and Christina attended the Global Health Session.   It was a great time to talk with other students, faculty, university presidents (!), and Clinton Global U organizers on a personal level.

12:30-2:00PM: Lunchtime Meetups and such: time for everyone to mingle and talk about their commitments.

2:30-4:00PM: “Skill Session: Putting your Commitment to Action”

4:30-5:30PM: CGI-U Exchange: more mingle time to talk about commitments and network!

6:00-7:00PM: Summation and Closing Address by Bill Clinton.  and panel speakers:

  • Nnamdi Asomugha (Oakland Raiders Quaterback)
  • Matthew McConaughey (Yes, the actor!!!! and my valentine hah)
  • Marie Tillman (chairman of the board of the Pat Tillman Foundation)

This panel challenged the audience to continue our commitments and take what we learned over the past two days and apply it to the real world.  Hmm.. well, I think we’re on the right track, right? 🙂

7:30-9:30PM: Dinner Reception.  This was our last chance to really mingle.  It was so great to talk to inspiring students from all over the world and hear their commitments.  After dinner, there was a comedian..

  • John Oliver (Yes, from the Daily Show with John Stewart!!!)

He was HILARIOUS.  He commented on how the audience of CGI-U students were more like his parents than any college group he’d performed for on a Saturday night..hahaha, so true.

Feb. 15th, Sunday:

9:00-1:00PM: Service Project.  CGI-U students participated in various service projects around the Austin area.  Christina and I worked on cleaning a local creek (which really needed cleaning!!).  It was lots of fun and one last chance to see our fellow comittment-makers!

The conference in review:

It was an AMAZING experience all together.  I’m really glad Christina and I had the opportunity to attend.  Talking with other students about our gardening and composting projects seemed to really inspire others.  We learned from other students about their commitments and ways to improve our own campus.  One student named Jared worked with the UT campus to donate wasted food to local food kitchens.  This is something we could definately work on!

Thank you to the Lafayette ARC, Prof. Mylon, Brandes, Kortyna, Kney, and student Mike Handzo for making our trip possible!!

Jenn

PS. Here’s a Lafayette new’s story about the conference!

VAST 221: Technology at the Table

Some exciting news!

Annette Diorio, associate dean of students and Director of Residential Life is teaching a VAST course #221 Technology at the Table and will be incorporating the garden project into the curriculum. One of the large projects during the semester will be for the students to divide into groups and create a design for the large 1-acre plot that students will be tending. They will be deciding what to plant, where to plant it, and when. After completing their designs, Professors Brandes, A. Smith, D. Smith, and Wilson will be judging the designs and choose the best one (or pieces of them) to implement in the garden.

Tonight I made a quick presentation to the class about the project. I’m very excited to be working with them! =)

Jenn