| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | |
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1 | Phase Markers (steps I took) | Date | Hours | What I did… | Total Hours | Mentor's Notes (if any) | ||||||||||||||||||||
2 | Preliminary Warm-Up Activity | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
3 | "Creating a Drought Resilient Garden" Lecture/Workshop (exploring what it means to be sustainable; establishing backbone to urban farming and of the solutions it enacts) | 6/27/2015 | 1.5 | The meetup sponsored by The Growing Home - a grassroots initiative aimed at establishing sustainable and drought tolerant urban gardens - focused on supplying the average city dweller with the knowledge of how to create a drought resilient garden. Located at a demonstration home called the Fairy Woodland Farm, the event began with a powerpoint lecture on tips and tricks and adjourned with a tour of the grounds. Carolyn, the homeowner, showed the class her twist on making her living space more beneficial to the surrounding ecosystem, as well as to her conscious and pocketbook. Her landscape, she proudly noted, is now equipped with 50+ foot long water harvesting swales that prevent runoff, a greywater system that gathers often wasted rain, lasagna mulching that traps moisture for water conservation, and fruit trees that provide nutrition and live up to the home's title as a farm. | 1.5 | |||||||||||||||||||||
4 | Enrichment | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
5 | Volunteer-ship at the Los Angeles Zoological/Botanical Gardens | 9/8/2013-PRESENT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
6 | 8/15/2015 | 3 | With my sister at my side, I entered the Zoo with a yellow manila folder and 'Walk the Zoo' Test I had to complete through, as the name implies, walking the zoo and actively seeking out animals and their info-cards. This test comes around once a year, and ensures each volunteer is up to date on zoology facts. We began at the Meerkat exhibit and continued thorugh Austrilaia and to South America, and then finally to the Lower Aviary complete with its batch of newly hatched flamingo chicks. I explored tid bits of information I hadn't already known and recalled memories I had made at certain patches of concrete in moments withered by time. A funny incident that happened that day was treking to the top of the zoo two times, in 100 degree weather, because I had forgotten a single question while up there in the first place (sorry Vanessa)! Indeed, my eyes were opened to the complexity and beauty of nature, and how exactly urban farming can be used to conserve her beauty and inhabitants. | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
7 | 8/21/2015 | 5.5 | This night was one to remember. I have had late nights before (thanks to iPoly), but this one shall reign as the most adventurous and most eclectic. Signing in at the Volunteer Center, I made my way to the Grand Room where a dinner of two pastas and salad awaited my taste buds. After eating and finding out how my schedule would be arranged that evening, I stood and waited at my first post with Gemini, my fellow student volunteer. At around 7, patrons started to trickle in, scanned by ghost busters. It is important to note, as an explanation for the abundance of Cindy Laupberg I heard that night, that the last Roaring Nights event of the summer was themed as an 80's escape. My first station was a photo op with an 80's back-drop and cardboard cutouts of animal faces, and so until 8:30, I took a myriad of photographs of posed people with their phones and other photo-capable devices. Afterwards, I interpreted at the Meekat exhibit and helped with giving directions and navigation for those who had had one too many beers. Nearing eleven, I hung out with my parents and sister watching concerts and playing 80's games like Pacman and Galaga. Volunteering that night showed me how easily humans are turned on to a novel and new idea, like that of urban farming, and the momentum one such idea can have in order to do wonders. | 8.5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
8 | Summer Mentorship Hours (first location) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
9 | Community Science Academy 6-week long class with Caltech | 6/15/015-7/24/2015 | For background information, visit the program's website here | |||||||||||||||||||||||
10 | Monday - 6/15/2015 | 5.5 | Arriving to the Brody Botanical Center on the grounds of Huntington Garden on a sunny morning, I entered my first class with Caltech and officially started to explore the idea of urban farming. Looking around at the faces around me that would follow (perhaps even haunt) me during the program, I sat down in a second row of tables from the front of the classroom where James Maloney and Julius Su - the class's heads - were getting ready to begin work with us students. Strangely enough, I was not nervous in seeing who my classmates were, most likely because they had filled out the same extensive application that I had the month and so were qualified not to be forgotten elements of the class schedule. We were each given an iPad and attachable keyboard to work with introduced to James and Julius by their informal presentation at in front of a chalk board, we were also introduced to the app called SKIES. SKIES was actually invented and formatted by Julius (the link prefacing the apps goals and preface is here: https://www.skieslearn.com) so that small classroom sizes like the one for CSA would be able to learn interactively with each other as opposed to constantly taking notes on an individual basis. As I heard Julius proudly state what the program could be used for in regards to a more robust interest in science for future generations, I was immediately a bit more aware of what iPoly what doing for its student population - in its own right, the small classroom size the man in his 30s before me was talking about! After Julius adjourned his spoken bit, Minh Pham - the 'nerdy' (nerdy - wearing shirts with cute pictures of flying guinea pigs and walking tacos) humanities coordinator of the class - began his lecture on formulating questions for retention understanding and discovery. In this way, he used SKIES as a platform for teaching us how to write multiple choice questions and especially how to quiz each other in order to retain information. After about 45 minutes of my first humanities lesson, my class and I were escorted outside to a courtyard where a bounty of food shimmered in the light. The food that day was Vietnamese, with noodles and pan fried meats. Drinks were cosmopolitan and consisted of coke and sunburst - refreshments that always partner a potluck. I sat down in a hall filled with linened tables, with Stephanie who came from Marshall High School in Pasadena and with her bunch of friends who came either Marshall or nearby. I was definitely the one in the class hailing from the farthest school. After lunch, I walked around a bit the greenhouse next door, and then returned to class with the others. James was at the ready with a presentation on element cycles in ecosystems and how certain particles and natural variables in the environment contributed to healthy urban garden or farm in general, using the food forest (a self-sufficient farm set in the hills neighboring the Huntington Gardens, complete with little to no man made intervention in its upkeep) as an example. One thing I consider the most interesting tidbit I learned in that 1.5 hour lecture (using SKIES as a powerpoint presentation) was how responsible bacteria are for the continuation of natural processes like the nitrogen cycle and placement of oxygen that would otherwise be hard to find without these helpful microbes. In preparation for the next day's experimentation that would take place at Caltech - in a location within CTLO (Caltech Teaching Learning Outreach management in charge of running the program I was in) headquarters reserved for CSA. With this goal in mind, my class and I explored a private patch of garden that had been treated with Lasagna Mulching to fertilize the soil and make it nutrient-rich (as well as more drought tolerant) and so that its fruit tree inhabitants could thrive. Lasagna Mulching involves constructing a 'lasagna' and layered mixture of cardboard, mulch, wood chips, and worms, and then drenching it with water over the course of 4 years! Each of the groups my mates and I were classified into tackled a different type of location, with my group of two and I sampling soil under 'cover plants' into test tubes. The next day would conclude what sorts of compounds was in the soil - much anticipation experienced! | 5.5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
11 | Wednesday - 6/17/2015 | 5.5 | After yesterday's sweaty ordeal in collecting soil, it was time to see whether the three locations I got my samples from (one being by a Purple Mulberry Tree) were healthy or not. In this way, I was helping to analyze whether the community farm at the Huntington Gardens was viable or at least reaching viability, and was also inferencing which variables in the environment there were aiding the creation of a food forest. To this end, I tested my three falcon tubes filled to the brim with dirt for traces of the minerals potassium, phosphorous and nitrogen. Each sample of dirt corresponded to a certain implied amount of each of these three minerals based on the color they dictated when mixed with faucet water and pellets that reacted with the dirt. If the soil was rich in nitrogen, a red color was attained; if rich in potassium a particular shade of blue was reached; if rich in phosphorous, a particular shade of grey/black was reached. The testing kit I worked with was branded as NPK and came complete with a key for the aforementioned colors and what they inferred in my hands-on research. Even though lunch begin at the usual 11:30 mark, I hunted down my food of pizza and went back to testing trial runs on my dirt. A greater scope of testing would yield validity I knew. I did have a few laughs with Connor Hopkins though, who is barely entering the 8th grade next year; he showed me a couple YouTube videos on strange, yet laughable, topics, and then left me to my devices. After lunch ended at 12:45, the class was split into groups, with each person having to make a light-table video with a presentation of results for conclusions about dirt collected. Nervous, I recorded myself talking about how I went through the procedure of collecting my dirt, and then finished up with was gained from the experience- scientifically and philosophically. From about 2:00 till 3:40, my class and I were taken on a tour of the Plant lab at Meyerowitz on Caltech's campus, and from this 'field trip' I learnt procedures in use in the lab-setting and these were applied to urban farming as a whole. One note I wish to make here is how plants are studied, with many being given trial pesticides who side-effects are studied (verdict: meeting a plant's needs for life essentials and care elongate its life span most effectively. | 11 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
12 | Friday - 6/19/2015 | 5.5 | Today, I had the chance to learn about spectroscopy, which is basically the study of light and its varying forms. I then used my knowledge in this field, ususally taught at the college level, to learn how to use a colorimeter after a lunch of Panda Express. A colorimeter is a machine that can be used to measure the amount of a certain color present in a liquid placed in a cuvette that is then placed a cuvette holder with the piece of analytical ingenuity. Three LED lights are shot through the lquid to a sensor board, that then calculates what percetage of each shade of light passes through, the calulation of which can then be used to analyze the color composition at hand. In this way, I was able to take the orange and clear plastic box apart and then take a look at its own very unique and highly advanced composition. After, I connected the database for the colorimeter to my iPad so that I could use my digital notebook to record the measurements of the colorimeter on a variety of substances, including Kool Aid - yes, the one I had with my meal. Class ended with a humanites lesson on creating a story based on ideas I brianstormed while looking at a window and after looking at the beginning montage of the movie 'Up'. This writing workshop helped me to think and consolidate my thoughts creaively., and indeed such a skill is needed when making the definition of urban farming more feasible to the community setting. | 16.5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
13 | 6/22/2015 - 6/25/2015 - 6/26/2015 | 16.5 | During my secondary week at Caltech for this summer program, I barely had time to write this entry. On Monday, I was able to pick a color and manufacture it using a colorimeter to see how much of the dyes magenta, yellow, and cyan I needed (in drops). I first created a dark blue color that mimicked the shade of blue in a gatorade bottle I found and analyzed. After, I made a spring green color. Working with quantitative data for such a qualitative idea was mind-blowing, opening up the horizon as far as applciations of science were concerned. With the colors I created and mixed to near-perfection in test tubes and using red solo cups for water, I painted an artwork of a tree that symbolized the threats against nature present today. Aftere the fun activity, I created a video explantion, again using a light table video, upon what I had learnt for the day, tying in terminolgies such a Beer's Law - the analysis of varying color concentrations. On Tuesday, I delved into what a serial dilution is by mixing choclate chips with cookie dough. Using the fact that standard curves track the relationship the data points on a grpah and a serially dissovled mixture of water and Kool Aid dye, I made out the effective range of a colorimeter -the range in which the machine is most accurate. After a break for lunch, I filmed a video explanation of my progress throughout the day. The next day - Friday -, the class was held at the Brody Center in Huntington Gardens once again. I collected water samples from three locations in three labeled test tubes. My first locstion was by a water lily, the second was near a turtle and cod fish and the third was from a stagnant part of a lake. After lunch, these samples were studied for traces of ammonia - a compount that is produced by bacterial colonies. While being essential to life, many forms of life have a sensativity to too much ammonia, with too much of the chemical causing lack of oxygen! To accomplist this feat, I used a testing kit complete with two chemical that, when mixed with the water, change its color that was compared against a key card. The sample with the most ammonia came from beneath the water lily, where organic debris in the water contributed to more output of ammonia by voracious, comfortable bacteria. I ended the day with a humanities lesson on how to mold a persuasive argument, debating with other folks on whether eco-technolgies should be invested in where these blueprints aim to attack the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere directly. | 33 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
14 | 6/29/2015 - 7/1/2015 - 7/2/2015 | 16.5 | During the first day this week, Julius and James, per the usual class schedule, covered the principles of refractive optics. The discussion also led us to the subject of what it means for a lens to be refractive rather than reflective, and how an object from far away can be made to look bigger when shown through these lens. My two mentors also dipped into the mystery behind how light travels and exactly how this behavior dicatates how we perceive our world. After lunch, I made a prototype of a camera using what I had learnt from my optics lesson, combining two lens in a tube and taking a picture of an enlarged image with the iPad. I then ended the day with a video explantion of my train of thought in the preceeding moments. On Wednesday, I made a roughly accurate refractive telescope that could zoom in on the trees outside and cars buzzing by in the distance. Of course I used a refractive lens or two and this time connected them at the right distance from each other using two red solo cups. Afterwards, I consutrcted a miscroscope with plactics sheets, cheap Amazon bough lens, and an iPad's lens. Together these components were able to study the minute details of a dead bee found on the steamy pavement outdies and healthy leaves. I ended the day with a lab tour of chemistry department, where analysis of steam vents at the bottom of the ocean were being made pulic as far as secrets were concerned. It is quietb amazing that these uderwater wastelands of molten hot rock came be home to so many bacteria and more complex forms of life that make together a community, feeding off each other's company. On Thursday, James went over the biology of fruit flies as oests urban farmers must watch out for if a maintained farm plot is to be achieved. These critters are susually brought from abroad and so know no predators and distract from the inner working of our local enviornement. My class and I then assembled fruit fly traps with small boxes and a funnel as an entrance. After making short PSA's regarding the plight of fruit flues in Califronia, my mates and I placed varying kinds of baits in the traps, ranging from fidh oil to vanilla extract. Mine had fish sauce, which smelled absolutely horrible. Studying the food preferences of fruit flies, our traps were laid to rest in a biology department . More specifically, these contraptions were placed within two plastci boxes which held swarms of fruit flies. The boxes were then palced in a fridge and afterwards, they were nalayzed for how many of our subjeect's they each held. Mine held none, while vanilla held the most (probably since its smell was most sweet and tantalizing). | 49.5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
15 | 7/6/2015 - 7/8/2015 - 7/10/2015 | 16.5 | On Monday, I worked tirelessly with a group to design and contruct from scratch an ant colony out of palster I measured and mixed myself in a whiye bukcet. So that I got the right consistency, I first poured water and then drenched my liqudi with a snowfall of plaster powder. I actaully had to repeat this process because the plaster had ran out, Julius ran out to a nearby store to retriueve some more, and I had not gotten enough the first time. The first step in making this naturally occuring structure was analyzing what designs there already existed in nature. Molding these plans (complete with tunnels and such) with red clay on a sheet of plexy glass, I surrounded this stiff art with clumpy plaster and let the sealent dry up and curdle. Flipping the masterpiece over when the reaction within the plaster had completed, I took the tape off the plexy glass and removed the wet clay. My group and I the took two test tubes of red harvester ants and attached them to the two ends of a superconlony we organized. The ants inhabited our manmade housing unit while I ate a subway sandwhich. My group and I then left two iPad's to record the wanderings of our ants with time lapse video. We wanted to see how they'd intereact with each other and with the food placed in one of the two binded colonies. On Wednesday, we discovered one test tube of ants died from too much moisture apparantly, while the other tube survived quite well, with some escaping our unit somehow. Julius started classtime with a humanities lesson in making plans of action, as in enacting public policy on paper. After lunch greeted my hungry tummy, my fellow ant expeirmenters and I analyzed the results of our ant colony and summed up our reseach into a cohesive thesis. On Friday, we presneted our data to the rest of the class, complete with videos, pictures, and text on a SKIES slideshow. We were also greeted to a science presenetation and career seminar over pizza and drinks of course. The panel discussion consisted of esteemed scientists in their fields. Two humanites lesson follwoed on both cretaing a job description and cover letter, as well as companies with certain qualifications needed. | 66 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
16 | 7/13/2015 - 7/15/2015 - 7/17/2015 | 16.5 | A week in lab has begun! My class and I met up at about 7:45 in the morning on the grounds next to the Mead Lab, where a safety lecture by the chemsitry department chair awaited us after we protected our bodies with lab coats and eyes with goggles. After this briefing on general lab protocol, I placed my coat, stamped with a purple print on the right sleeve, on a chemistry hood - where chemicals are sythesized with a vent overhead so that fumes do not pose a threat - reserved for my group and me. After a lunch and lecture with Professor Reisman on making drugs mimic biologial systems so that they are as effective in the medical field, I returnd to the lab to extract dyes from blueberries and carrots. By the end of the day, I had two glass viles of dye in my pocket and walked out to my car and its doting driver. On Wednesday, Julius in briefed us on the theory of chromatography - the separation of colors in a dye/extractionand. After, I worked with my group on seperating the varying the shades of colors present in boiled spinach juice using silicon gel (breathing in its crystals, by the way, can cause lung cnacer). The mani catalyst in this sort of seperation is based on the subject of polarity, and howeach component of a substance interacts with water/moisture. On Friday, I looked at what factors allow for the science of ice cream to exist and made a student lesson on this topic. This anlysis was followed up with making ice cream with liquid nitrogen and comparing ice cream made with this shock factor and the traditional variety. After lunch, my lab group and I peeled oranges and places their peels in a plastic bag for a experiment on Monday. | 82.5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
17 | 7/20/2015 - 7/22/2015 - 7/24/2015 | 16.5 | On Monday, my lab group and I went to Mead Lab and right away retrieved our orange shavings. Our goal was to extract the flammable oil limonene from these dices of orange peel using steam distillation confined in a series of flasks and beakers that made use of the steam emitter in the hood we were stationed at. It was quite interesting seeing our mixture of orange and clear petroleum ether chemical bubble into one cohesive body within their round-bottom flask holding. After multiple intervals of thumb-twiddling. Through lunch, our mixture congealed into strong-smelling mass, and after our meal of Panda Express, we began our extraction of the purest form of limonene we could possibly attain by mixing our distilled product with potassoim chloride so that it could dry properly when boiled. By boiling it, we evaporated every bit of moisture from and left behind a residue that was then combined with a dribble of petroleum ether. We preserved the final product in glass vials. On Wednesday, I worked with another small group in deriving salycili acid from the twigs of a willow tree. Julius debreifed us on how this task was to be completed in the room most centrally locate din the lab. The molecule was described as the primary building block of aspririn, and each step we were to conquer in our experiment was explained in terms of how the molecule was being manipulated to make its medical counterpart. In this way, my group and I boiled willow bark - spliced and diced - and an oxidizng agent so that the acid would be actiavted and isolated. After lunch, my lab mates and I performed a liquid to liquid extraction of salicylic acid, squeezing out unwanted liquid in its liquid hold by way of a petroluem ether wash through a seperatory funnel. The end prroduct was combined with potassium chloride and then its was boiled to a dry agent residue that was washed with ether into three glass vials. At the end of the day, I was priveleged to take a tour of a chemistry lab wherein a machine that could detect cancer was being prototyped. On my final day with Caltech, I continued my exploration of the many facets of science in responsible for justifying the case of urban farming by making aspirin in its powder form through mutlple dillutions and carrying on with accetylation that dried the salicin into its crystalline form. Graduation commenced afterwards, where my classmates and I were handed certificates for our efforts this summer. What a bittersweet ending to a mindblowing ride! | 99 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
18 | Summer Mentorship Hours (second location - mentor/approval pending) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
19 | Pomona Organic Farm - Pomona College | 7/18/2015 | 3 (9:45 AM - 12:45) | I have arrived at Pomona College's Organic Farm! This was actaully my second visit to the small-scale, urban farm, which is both student run and a popular destination for the nearby community. It is important to note the impact this farm has had enviornemntally and socially. Since its etablishment, Califronia native Red-tailed hawks and other native critters have called Claremont its home. By nourishing the land beneath it, it is ensuring our local food webs heal and continue towards health and sustainability. Socially speaking, the farm reaches out to the Claremont community, which buys its produce and invests in the green, small town way of life it rallies behind. In this way, everyday citizens are remembering their place in ecosystems, and their place in nature: stewardship. The farm mostly attracts the older crowd since it is located in prime retirement destination, but its relevance in the lives of our future activtists is delightful to see. This connection to teenagers and their supportive parents is a direct result to its location at Pomona College, which it supplies with farm-fresh food weekly. Knowing thr farm is in the hands and knowledge of these future polittians and hippies comforts me, as they will be our future change-enacters, espeically given their top-notch, liberal arts education within the Claremont Consortium. After arrivibg at about 9:45 in a misty morning (the sun peeking through the clouds overhead), I met with my sister Vanessa - who attends Pomona College - and we then commenced to sit down at a wooden table next to a chicken coop. Nothing had changed about thr farm, besides it having been vandalized the week prior and a new farm manager taking the sceptor. A group if about 5 awaited us, and together we painted signs for crops whose signs had either rotted into incomprehension or were invalid as a result of crop-switching. I painted one for a guava tree - the sign matched the colors on the outside and inside of a fresh guava. While playing picaso, the new farm manager - Scott Fleeman - asked each of those at the table - the crowd gathered including a Buddhist nun - what their favorite vegetable was. Making sure a zuchini wasnt a fruit instead, I answered with zuchini, since it is complimentary to about any type of dish and can stand alone in flavor in any snack. For my efforts, I adopted a basil plant and helped my sister pick edible goods growing out of the ground. For the trip back home, I grabbed some sweet-tasting fennel and chewed it beneath my tongue (fennel gum anyone?). | 102 | |||||||||||||||||||||
20 | Summer Mentorship Hours (third location) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
21 | Pasadena Arroyo Food Co-op | 8/19/2015 | 2 (4 - 6 PM) | Late in the hot afternoon on a Wednesday, my mom drove me to the Arroyo Food Co-op in Pasadena, which lays about 5 minutes from my house. Entering, I was right away greeted by a cash register who instructed me to put on an apron with the co-op's emblem and a name tag of course (especially since I was a newbee). Going into the store's office area, I grabbed these items (tyring to find thr\e apron with the least amount of stains) and located a fellow co-op ambassador by the name of Nikki. Since she is a senior employee, and a graduate of UC Santa Barbara, I trusted her to instruct me in whaever needed help that day as far as smooth running of the store was concerned. In this way, I tagged price tags onto containers of organic, locally sourced hummus and salsa (one with red peppers and garbonzo beans looked especially delicious). While using the price-gun, a customer asked me where she should place the freshly cut (and slaughtered) meats she was planning to buy while she serached the rest of the aisles. I cut 5 plastic bags from our produce area (complete with locally gathered goodies like strawberries and apricots - summer, seasonal favorites) and handed them to the gal who had asked. Afterwards, I re-stocked a batch of strawberry-coconut acai beverages, after which another customer asked whether the store could order Amy's burritos that were gluten-free (the ones we carried weren't). I right away grabbed the women's information (including name - Suzanne - and phone number) and placed it on my manager's desk along with a description of the situation. I then proceeded to wash about 8 bulk bins, which are the plastic bins that will be used to sell bulk foods whose measurments will be decided upon by the customer. After about 30 minutes into washing a man by the name of Tom came to the sink where I posted at and advised that I roam the front of the store a bit to avoid being hit by a heat stroke. Resting in a shower of cooler air, I organized products on shelving and then reported to the store manager, who had finally arrived by that time. At 6, I returned my apron and exited the store with a $2.95 bottle of iced tea (perfect for a hot day). | 104 | |||||||||||||||||||||
22 | 8/22/2015 | 3 (11 AM - 2 PM) | Arriving to the store via a drive through sunny, traffic immune Pasadena, I once again dressed in an apron (a cleaner one this time) and of course made a name marker for myself (last name included this time so that I would not be confused with another Robert). The store manager was not in her office, so history repeated itslef and I shadowed Nikki in cleaning baby zuchini I transported from the refrigerator to the produce stage stalked by early-bird customers. Afterwards, I washed any leftiver dirt and sediment off the heads of miniature-sized lettuce. The reduced size of these catalysts to salads was directly reflective of the fact that they were not treated with growth hormone or pesticide of any sort; they were organic. Conqering this task of mine in a ground sink and a spritzer, I proceeded to re-stocking and looking for past due expriation dates in an aisle of the stroe grounds. With Nikki's guidance, I typed and printed 7 labels for products that were nameless and priceless on the shelves and discovered about 2 products forgotten in the bootom-most shelves used for surplus and storage. I searched these left-outs in the co-op's inventory online, and once they were found, I customized their niches. At the end of my shift, I smelled some donated lemongrass and came outside to the parking lot where my mom had been patiently waiting 15 minutes or so. | 107 (TOTAL) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
23 | Fall Mentorship Hours | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
24 | Arroyo Food Co-op | 8/25/2015 | 2.25 (4 - 6:15 PM) | Today during my two-hour shift, I first dressed myself in the usual apron garb and complimetary nametage labeled with my name in ink. I then asked the cash register manager Kelley who I should report to for the day's duties, to which she lead tme to a senior volunteer at the store by the name of Erin. With a sweaty face marked with determination, Erin first instructed me to stock a cardboard box of eco-friendly paper towels onto shelving. After doing so, packing up the extra supplies in a bottomost shelf, packing away detergent in another region of the same asile, and helping out a customer in regards to how to extract food from bulk bins set up in the west-most point of the store, I proceeded to lose my phone. Even though I gasped at the thought of not having a phone with which to communicate with the outside world, I relished in my newfound isolation by replishing other areas of shelving with goods, including those of tortilla chips and Amy's organic canned soups. Throughout the process, I learnt how to open a sealed box without using a knife (as protocol for a minor called against such use; ripping off the sealant that was tape was a popular remedy) and made the products on shelves look presentable and thus desirable to buy for the many guests I saw come in and check out with recyclable bags in their hands and Jamaican music in one of their favorite batches of air. At the end of my shift, I helped Kelley check out a customer by bagging the patron's produce into her cart. In this moment, I caught a glimpse of my phone in Kelley's register lost and found basket; I quickly resolved my issue. | 2.25 | |||||||||||||||||||||
25 | 9/1/2015 | 2.25 (4 - 6:15 PM) | This afternoon was very fulfilling as I labored away in the store's humid walls. I greeted Kelley at the door per the usual and then met with Erin once again. As she stacked produce in their nesting sites at baskets and plastic bins with cardboard pieces used as labels and to list their origins (usuaslly local), I walked through each aisle looking for a sealed box on the ground that indicated it was there to replnish its kind on shelfs. As I placed Cadia crackers and Cascade bottles in their rightful spots in the limelight, the shelving at the store began to look stcoked and ready for the comunnity's snacking. Guests trickled in throughout my time there, with Muir teenagers selling produce they grew at their urban farm up at Muir High School (in Pasadena) and youngsters running right past me as I carefully handled misted glass vases of ginger soda. Thanks to Erin's clarification of protocol at the store in regards to various situations and questions I may have (such as where empty cardboad boxes went and where extra product was startegically hidden), I ran through my assignments quickly and efficiently. My main task was printing new labels for products that had none, and asking Kelley to enter a new product - Cascade Lemonade and Pomegranate Berry beevrages - in the Co-op's online store, as they hadn't existed there up until this point. After printing many tags for goods in the office, and organizing its chaos while at it. I left the store when it was empty. | 4.5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
26 | 9/2/2015 | 2.25 (4 - 6:15 PM) | Today was a rather relaxing day in the store. After checking into the office and placing an apron on my chest, I greeted Nikki (who I hadn't seen in quite some time) as she turned on some Jamaican music to the frigid surrounding air and then made my way to Tom (a gruff man), who was unpacking boxes and freshly brought in produce in the back. He basically gave me free reign of the aisles, with his only request being to stock shelving with new goods in their brown parcels. Untying sealed tape with my bare hands, I filled empty shelves with more yummy knick knacks and household essentials. I also took it upon myself to print 11 labels on the office's computer reserved for public usage. In this way, most every product was identifiable according to its profile on the online catalog. The product that most caught my eye was the Yerba Mate's Loose Leaf Pound bags, which were actually not in the consumer's line of scope at first - what a waste they were in being laid on bottom, ground-hugging shelving, catching dust instead of attention! Smelling local coffee grounds was a nice escape for my nostrils too as i packed them in cozy lines on a top-most metal stage. It was strange not seeing the usual faces of Kelley and Erin, and their seemingly constant jabber with each other and experimenting with foods on their palletes. Today was quieter. | 6.75 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
27 | 9/5/2015 | 2.25 (4 - 6:15 PM) | As a setting sun showed itself on the city of Pasadena, my mom, like clockwork, drove me to the Arroyo Food Co-op, where I raced to the sanitation aisle and opened sealed boxes like it was Christmas-time or a supply run in a Walking Dead episode. In this sense, I made two labels for Earth Friendly Furniture Polish and Eco Me Wood Polish and placed any extras I encountered neatly and visibly on bottom shelving so that the next Robert could re-stock with ease as needed. Seeing so many varieites of organic, commercially made goods made me smile, anbd persuades me that society is transitioning to more sensible and humane methods of living and enjoying life's commodities. As I made the aisle I was rooted in 'pretty' and presentable (guests passing by; admiring my work as I had hoped), Tom ambushed me (not that dramatically) and asked me whether I would like to wash bulk bins in the back sink, this being what I had done during my first time as an Amassador (nostlagia hit!). Ready to see these contianers in use at the store, I raced to the back and there waiting for me was a familiar stainless steel sink, draped in warm humidity, with water and complex parts to pastic montrosities in its comfines (bulk bins of different styles). Bit by bit, I sudded and then rinsed each piece I encountered, Tom behind me building another shelving unit for drying these trail-blazzers for bulk foods. After the store closed, I closed up shop, accidentally frightened Kelley with squeeky feet, and departed in my carridge. | 9 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
28 | 9/8/2015 | 2 (4 - 6 PM) | Like clockwork once again, I placed an apron on my chest and a nametag near my collar bone, and proceeded in helping Erin stock shelves with newly arrived produce and products. For the first time in the store thus far, I realized the effort made everyday by the store's employees (mostly (selflessly), if not all, volunteer in trade) in upkeeping the vision of the store. Even though my job description, officially speaking, is handling customers in seeking out to satisfy their needs, all of those I work with (from the office of the manager to the cart of the un-packer) all find an interest in conversating with patrons and perpective buyers - treating them all as if they were heavily part of the movement of sustaibale farming and consumerism. Erin set up a fan at one of the two loading docks to the store, and as I delighted in the breeze it hummed, I stored chocolate bars in the fridge so that they wouldn't melt and was sure to print labels for nameless shelf inhabitants as I roamed the aisles. As I recived questions and requests for future goods along my pecking route, I encountered a tired Erin (this mood of her's never before seen), who obviously cited the hot weather and her need to dance off her sluggishness. Serving visitors and prepping things for them to buy at the same time can be quite rough, and that is why I mostly seek Erin out to see whether she could use an extra pair of hands (always, I am recipricated with eyes of relief). | 11 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
29 | 9/16/2015 | 2.5 (3:30 - 6 PM) | Arrivng at the Co-op early, I called upon an old man to let me into the store early so that I could talk to Joy - the manager if you remeber - for an interview, with pen, notebook, and phone equipped with a voice recorder at the ready. My mentor actually had forgotten this date of ours, and so we arranged the interview to be had while she and I worked the store from 4-6. So, in the meanwhile, I made sure the sheving units were ready to be showcased to peering eyes, and I also made sure to get acquainted with any events coming up on the gorunds. I found out there would be a grand opening for bulk-bin sales (the bins being the ones I so fervently washed in the back-room sinks) very soon. In this way, customers would get a chance to shop Whole Foods style, shopping bags full of loose, weight-felxible goodies like granola and rice. This less restricitve method of filling one's pantry shall be exciting and provide more variety than typical organic foods sold in monotonous boxing, not to mention more oppurtunity for urban farmers to sell their loose, dry produce. After the front doors were left ajar, Joy came up to me with fresh tangarine slices and then we sat down at the front of the store where the buisness cards were laid out and thus began my enlightenment of her life story at the store. Details shall be provided in my blog 5 post as well as a link to the actual converstaion that went down in audio format. Stay tuned. Note: the husband of the gal who had ordered Amy's gluten-free burritoes the first day of my mentorship at the store came in to pick up the order I placed on her behalf. There, her burritoes sat cooling off in the fridge right next to delicious-looking dutch choclate ice cream. I was jealous of them, with the hot weather and all. | 13.5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
30 | 9/24/2015 | 2.25 (4 - 6:15 PM) | I arrived at the Arroyo Food Co-op and placed a stuffy cotton apron on my already constrictively overheated chest and waist - not a wise fashion choice for a humid and hot post-summer day. After saying "hi" to Kelley while she connected the store's foreground boombox to her Jamaican/acoustic style centered spotify account, I greeted Nikki, who then had me stock shelving in the frozen aisle. In this way, I for once focused on tagging and neatly presenting cold, wet (from condensation) drinks and healthily processed goods like Amy's Gluten Free Burritos. I must say that I was tempted to buy an iced tea or even a ginger tea from the glass enclosed mirage in the desert, but the tempation only lead my thoughts to my mom's refreshing homecooked meal waiting for me at home. With such inspiration, I answered a phone call to the store and left a message for Joy from the customer who had asked a question in a fuzzy, muffled tone. While stocking and organizing, and helping patrons of the store navigate around the aisles, I developed a method to creating tags to be placed in the ranforest-like environment that was the refridgerator. First, I printed a tag and then I taped both sides of the piece of dry paper to waterproof it. I then tacked the modified tag on the product that needed labeling, and thus was the case for my machine-produced creations thereafter! After my playtime was over, I asked to be excued, hugged Nikki goodbye (after an accumalation of her and I working together in times spaced from each other) and went forth into the orange setting sun to my patient mother. | 15.75 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
31 | 9/30/2015 | 2.25 (4 - 6:15 PM) | After prepping myself for a new shift at the Arroyo Food Co-op, I right away caught a glimpse of Nikki - a fellow ambassador I now considered a long-term friend. After greeting me with the usual "good to see you again", she prouldy presented me with a composition book of hers and showed me a list of responsibilties I was to complete for the day. Making it my goal to meet each and every one of those expectations in managing the small and easily combustible store, I first went about cleaning the cystalized cream residue on ice cream jugs - all of which were in homemade coffee, mint, vanilla, and dutch choclate flavors. Seeing that the ice cream section desperately needed re-organizing, I, one-by-one, took all of the jugs out of refridgeration and, one-by-one placed them all back in a more aesthetically-pleasing fashion - and in a design more desirable to the customer. I then went about walking through the aisles making sure shelves were upkept and boxes on the floor were addressed. In my marching rounds, I remembered that I forgot to label the different varieties with correct price tags and what not. So, after I placed the final touches to my first item on the list, I washed fresh produce - mostly gourds - that had dust on them, and two squashes that were begining the early stages of growing mold - a sign of just how fresh the fruit and veggies sitting in their baskets were. After spending much time in the backroom produce-washing sink, I grabbed a dirt and carrot filled plastic bag sitting on a stainless steel countertop in the store's loading dock. The carrots were no-doubt locally grown and so in order to make them meet store-quality standards I went about wasking each strangely shaped carrot in the 'kitchen' sink where I had washed bulk bins early in the summer. Making sure I seperated orange mass from dirt particulates and off branching root 'strings', I set the bag now teeming with tens of brighter carrots on the air-drying table and cleaned the sink back to its shiny originating state. My shift, as quick as it had begun, ended just as abruptly. Time, once again, evaporated into the mid-afternoon sun. | 18 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
32 | Pomona College Organic Farm | 10/2/2015 | 2 (4 - 6 PM) | Today is my first day at the farm as a mentee. Walking past the chiken coop at the entrance, I entered the tree-shadowed grounds fifteeen minutes early when I met a freshman at Pomona College by the name of Val, who casually showed me a glass mason jar she had in her hands at the moment and what two specimens lay inside that rudimentary beaker she proudly held as her own: a brightly painted caterpillar and dried basil leaves. Val and I then discussed a climate change awareness expo that was taking place on campus during the evening, and how she had enjoyed the snippet she had visited earlier that evening (besides the momentary saleman stunts had). After this pleasurable chance encounter, we united with the others who had joined me (Val left shortly thereafter) for the garlic planting workshop to be held that summer-like morning. There and then, I met my mentor Scott with the glance of an eye as another lanky man showed us how to properly plant elephant garlic as well as a smaller variety - making sure there lay a garlic's height-worth of topsoil on top of the bulb's head. The team gathered then headed out to the east side of the farm where we began planting on the sides of walkways and in replacement of herbs who had outstayed their welcome - apparently (the previous inhabitants were shredded up and used as mulch rather than food). After planting around a lonely apple tree on the west side of the farm, I worked side-by-side with Scott on decorating another part of the farm with the 'holiday bulb' on hand, as he talked with the walking 'garlic encyclopedia' with how farm security needed to imporve in light of recent vandalisms involving Pomona College golf carts running over carefully maintained crop lines. I then formerly introduced myself to Scott who then introduced me to his coworkers after having read my situation for senior project from a sent email. A farm specialist named Sam took an exteme liking to my thesis, and so he toured his own "French Intensive" garden with me as my shift ended, showing off the fruits of his labor - including those of spicy peppers. | 2 | |||||||||||||||||||||
33 | 10/10/2015 | 2 (10 AM - 12 PM) | After arriving at the closed gates of a farm, I used my knowledge of the college grounds to enter the farm through its secret entrance - a trail commonly used by Claremont city hikers. Entering the familiar location, I was right away greeted by assistant farm manager Michael, who recognized my last name from knowing my sister. He called Vanessa and convinced her to come down to work at the farm - laying minutes from her dorm building at Harwood - today, even though she had deliverables to address in regards to her conquest into vector Calculus - as Michael's main point in persuasion stated: "place family in higher importance than schoolwork". As my kin walked into the farm, a plentiful gathering of 5 or so had already accumalated at a meeting table on the farm's grounds, where we were painting stakes for the labeling/classification of crops added and to be added. In total, I painted 3 of these wooden spears with tubs of house paint labeled with creative names like 'globe artichoke'. While painting, I talked to Vanessa about academia and talked to Ben from Pasadena City College and other students about general revelations we had experienced in life so far - twas relaxing! After my sister left, I weeded out a farm plot - primarily in and around a thyme bush - and then wished Michael farwell before seeing a California Condor flying overhead while walking to Pomona College's art building where my carridge sat awaiting. | 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
34 | 10/17/2015 | 2 (10 AM - 12 PM) | After arriving once again to my new official mentorship, I realized that I was the only volunteer at the farm for the first 30 or so minutes, first working with Scott in looting garlic chive bushes of their seed pods - and most importantly gaging which ones were mature enough to be robbed of their life support. In this fashion, Scott realyed info to me in regards to the concept of "banking seeds" (stocking seeds away in a dark dry container called a seed bank). Such a technique, he noted, was essential in making sure a harvest would occur and a crop would grow annually in spite of whatever catastrophic conditions, like severe droughts or winters, were faced. Usually, a farmer will take the seeds from the plant in the better condition than its other flowering counterparts so that the most resilient genes can be utlilzed for a successful harvest. After some Pomona College students joined my mentor and I, we gathered the garlic chive fronds we collected from their mother stalks, and brought them to a table where we went about shaking and squeezing the seeds from their bulbous holdings - now dry. Just then, my sister joined our efforts, as well as Sister Namadina - a female Buddhist Monk who often times checks in on Vanessa to make sure her emotional and spiritual needs are maintained in college life. Seed seperation took the most time, and before I realized the quick passage of time, 12 clocked in its familar sunlit breeze. After Scott left me to my own devices, Sister introduced me in how to tear Lemongrass saplings from their colony's base deep in the ground. In this way, I came home with three lemon-scented green stalks I then partly submerged in water (hydroponic farming) so that their own roots may bloom and strenthen. I am now aniticipating when I shall bloom my own lmeongrass bushel in my backyard. | 6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
35 | 10/24/2015 | 2 (10 AM - 12 PM) | Today was lightly schedualed, and so Scott, a couple of Pomona College students, and I helped organize the farm in lieu of the gala that was to be held there. This farm festival was to be a semi-formal event, with the rest of a guest's outfit relating to the location on which the tablecloths were to be drawn. In this sense, guests later came (from 4-7 in the evening) in overalls and blazers, and dresses coordinated with cowgirl boots. Thus, I trimmed the Mulberry trees on the grounds, as well the water intensive Avocado tree (which I learned was water intensive in that it required 3 hours of watering at one time for multiple times during the week, simply because the tree rejects consumption of salt when water has traces of the compound). I then went about trimming a nearby oak tree where a band would be playing (the dry branches cutting me many a time on the wrists and hands). With a nod of approval from Scott, I left the farm with plenty of badges - bruises - of honor. | 8 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
36 | 10/31/2015 | 2 (10 AM - 12 PM) | Today was a very fulfilling day even though my mentor Scott was not on the premises. Instead of mentoring Scott, I shadowed a Pomona College Junior named Marie-Alice, who is actually my sister's RA. I also met and worked side-by-side with a professor of biology at Mt. Sac college. Together, our trio retrieved from the greenhouse - hand built by college students may I mention - and planted calandula seedlings on a row where the previous species-alike residents were chewed and mutilated by animals (likely squirrels). To this end, we removed the protective neeting on the dirt, as well as the tubes directing drip-irrigation, and drenched our hands in rich, moist soil so that by the end of the task we had two neat lines of plants that I then watered with a nearby hose. Closing up shop there on East Farm, we headed over to the West Farm under the guidance of Marie, who instructed us to rake fallen dry leaves into two wheelburrows at a time. We then took turns wheeling these loads over to the compost piles, across the bordering lot of grass, to East Farm again (they would provide the carbon to the decaying young soil). After around three to four tiring wheel-powered shifts, we three, with noses inflamed by the risen dust and pollen, drank water provided by grey-water irrigation (a sink with a hole outlet into the ground) and then derooted weeds on West Farm. Alas, as a final hurrah for the day and its holiday, we ate plucked guavas and retreated to our burrows. | 10 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
37 | 11/7/2015 | 1 (11AM - 12 PM) | Arrivng at the farm a bit late, I joined the other volunteers gathered where Scott maintains an active composting project (within the confines of East Farm) - a setup of garbage piles covered with tarp so that its bacteria can thrive in a moist, humid envrionment encourgaing the production of new soil. I then went about scraping a vine killed by a recently thriving bacteria that also killed off many neighboring farm crops with its arrival. Hacking away at the toughly woven bark, I removed it from its former place at a fence to its burial site in a compost bin. The rest of the crew trimmed barren trees, afterwards touring Scott as he explained how to grow apple trees in Southern California climate and which plants shall be added to bare plots on the farm - a winter variety is currently being considered. I then left with a dwarf apple in my hand, just plucked and ready to be devoured. | 11 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
38 | 12/5/2015 | 2 (10 AM - 12 PM) | Well, starting off today's work shift, I helped Scott trim a tree that had outgrown its plot of dirt by the dome. In the meanwhile, Scott let me know how cutting bits and pieces off each branch of the tree would help with its later blooming and sprouting. To make sure it still kept its general height, we cut up tothe start of "first year branches", which were the ones that sprouted from the tree first since its inception. Learning how to prune and the anatomy of a tree before and after it is pruned will be essential if I wish to grow my own flock of fruit trees, and as a general rule of thumb when directing maintenence. After, other volunteers joined us in laying the groundwork for a pollination garden that Pomona College's Beekeeping Club is and will be heading. To this end, we lugged compost from a disposal pile used by the Consortium to where we would establish the garden - a ravine with a ancient-looking fallen tree in its center. Using wheelburrows and either rakes or shovels - I preferred shovels given their greater srface area -, we unearthed a Christmas Tree, met new people, and carted punds of the fine assortment of dirt and woodchips over to the bare patch of gorund being renovated with drought tolerance capabilties. After having one last chat with an older woman about her fear of snakes and whether any lurked in Southern California. To her dismay, she found out they do indeed exist in close proximity to her backyard. At the end of the day, there lay about a 4 inch layer of compost on the surface of where we lay it. | 13 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
39 | 12/12/2015 | 2 (10 AM - 12 PM) | I raced across the grassy knoll neighboring the farm and splitting it into East and West, and in doing so figuratively ran into Scott and a couple of volunteers. The day revolved around planting a butterfly bush and what looked to be a Mexican Sage Bush in the Pollination Garden, the idea for which I had conceived last week. Memorizing (for the moment) the combination code to the tool shed, we handed ourselves pick axes and shovels, we dug holes with room beneath the naked underside of each plant. In the space below, we laid mulch and neighboring dirt, and we then, resting the plants on their new foundation, tucked them into the earth with more neighboring dirt we had dug up in the first place. We then smoothed a bowl around each plant's head and surrounded this circular ditch with compost laid last week so that water could be trapped for the plant's pleasure before being evaporated by the drought. It was quite cool learning a systematic approach to planting plants, and developing my newbie skillset in repeating the process with an exotic plant bearing thick roots in a rocky patch of farm by the avogado tree. | 15 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
40 | 12/18/2015 | 2 (5 PM - 7 PM) | After cleaning the inside of the farm's chicken coop alongside its inhabitants while talking politics with Scott and the other volunteer who showed up, we farm hands took a drive in the farm's golf cart to East Farm. There, we tilled stinky compost piles so that their colonies of bacteria could impart their love to all regions of the steaming clumps of garbage and organic waste. At one point Scott left to meet with a college maintence man, and so I was left alone with the other volunteer who I knew nothing about. This volunteer and I talked for about thirty mintues regarding education and our life plans with it, and in this way, we plowed through the overwhelming stench and muscle strain. Scott came back and we finished up the last of the compost piles as the sun faded below the horizon. | 17 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
41 | 1/16/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | The job this morning involved pruning many of West Farm's trees, including those of fig. The original layout of the branches were twisted and needed cleaning up if the trees were to be able to spring leaves and eventually fruit. Two other volunteers joined us in these labors and after, we took a stroll over to East Farm and applauded its bounty. | 20 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
42 | 1/31/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | Scott and I introduced a Shakedown Cafe (Pitzer College) representative to our citrus trees, offering their last remaining fruits at a price for a planned breakfast. We then worked as a partnership in planting Borridge (edible flowers) seedlings sprouted in East House's greenhouses. These, as well as decorative flowers, were situated around the trunks of trees. We also planted remnant green onions leftover from the college's kitchens and dining venues in East House amidst the sprouting garlic I buried last Fall. | 23 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
43 | 2/6/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | After Scott introduced seeds from an ancient corn variety - one seen and harvested by early Native Americans -, he introduced himself and me to a group of a Pomona city high school's agriculture/planting class before taking us to east farm so that we distribute seeds into pockets of soil anchored by a seedling-specific planting tray. These trays were placed into the greenhouse so that their loads - tagged and layered with fine soil a coating of a sand-like fertilizer - could easily sprout. I planted Tomatillo ("Toma Verde") and Kale ("Curly Roja") after moving a bench for my fellow students to sit on while crafting their trays. | 26 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
44 | 2/13/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | Upon Scott's absence, a formidable group of volunteers and I went about weeding (uprooting weeds) in several placea around the western region of the farm. In this way, crab grass and a stringy variety of grass speckled with alluring yellow flowers were forced to abdicate their positions in the organic farm so that there was more spaces for more useful, beneficial plants - like borridge. Using shears, I was able to first behead the aformentioned yellow flowers before attacked the main body encountered - avoiding many a time in getinng stung by a pollinating bee. | 29 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
45 | 2/20/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | Using a sickly Scott's guidance, flexiblity in climbing trees, and a pair of shears, I pruned two apple trees with Scott and a community volunteer as company. Sam joined us, inviting us to medidate on tree trunks, during which the community volunteer and I went about giving a chaotically built pomegranite tree a light trim. | 32 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
46 | 2/27/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | Scott, a college student volunteer, and I harvested stinging nettle, which had proliferated throughout much of the farm by then, for a pasta-making workshop that would incorporate the green plant, arthritis-fighting plant into dough. After this stage of the morning, we hiked up to east farm where the college student and I grabbed a wheelborrow and began sifting fine soil-grade compost into using chunks of 6-month old chunky compost and a hand-powered sifter. After picking one pounds'worth of 'super sweet' peas from the vine for the Shakedown Cafe to incorporate into cuisine, we three then lightly tilled a row of soil, laid the sifted compost down as its topmost layer, and planted Marigold - a healthy nematode population watch - seedlings from the greenhouse in the elongated patch - 7 in apart from each other, into 4 encompassed rows. We sprayed Marigold seeds into the remaing plot of straw and compost strewn land, after which I liberally watered the planted patch. Scott established parabolic metal rods over the crop row, over which we blanketed the row with a light white cloth anchored to the ground with miniature boulders. A very productive use of time! | 35 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
47 | 3/5/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | A substitute for Scott, several college students, and I went about pruning peach trees, climbing them and showing no mercy in shaping their growth so that plenty of sunlight entered the center-most cavity of each tree. | 38 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
48 | 3/12/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | Scott and I robbed the vigorously fruiting peach trees of some of their many fruits so that their branches would not be over-weighted. | 41 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
49 | 3/19/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | Vanessa joined Scott and I in once again decreasing the dense population of bloating peaches. Their mother ships simply cannot keep up, in terms of holding these fruits up and providing them each with sufficient resources, with the burden of the sheer number of fruits and their seeds. | 44 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
50 | 3/26/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | Once again, Vanessa, Scott and I picked peaches, sending them to the ground and letting them decompose their as sources of nutritents for the soil. | 47 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
51 | 4/2/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | I walked the farm, finally found Scott in East Farm, and discussed the state of the farm with him. Twas a relaxing session. | 50 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
52 | 4/23/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | Scott, a college student, and I weeded west farm and cleared some its overgrown pathways. | 53 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
53 | 4/30/2016 | 3 (9:30 AM - 12:30 PM) | Scott, a Pomona College alum named Susan, Ben from Pasadena City College, and I weeded a particularly overgrown tract of land (teeming with nisturshim and Bermuda Grass), after which we liberally dispersed Buckwheat seeds over the now bare soil. I then drenched the soil and their added loads with water. | 56 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
54 | Independent Component One Hours Log Bit... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
55 | Personal Micro-Farm (2 forms - one based in soil in the backyard and the other an kitchen aquaponics based in water teeming with fish) | 11/15/2015 | 3.5 (7 - 10:30 AM) | Well, today was a sort of welcome intro into how my first independent component will be like. Waking up at 7 AM to the tug of my mother's arm, I right away put on fitness shorts and and a sweater and then braced my still-awakening senses to the cold morning air. I then went about assigning how big I wanted my backyard garden plot to be, situating this micro-farm of mine in my rose garden. To do this, I removed two rose bushes, carefully and mercifully tearing at their root systems and tugging at their main stalks until they gave way to empty ditches. I incorporated the orphaned roots into the nearby soil so that they may decompose as food for nutrient-producing microbes and other sorts of bacteria, and also made sure to till the previously compact patch surface that was litered with moss and fine sediment (beach-grade sand). In this way, I am left with a sufficient plot of farmable land with evenly tilled soil now united in composition and consistency. To ammend the soil so that its potential is fully realized is my next task, as well as choosing the right kinds of crops to plant there this winter season. A curiosity I do wish to note in this update is the discovery of what looks to be a rusted old piping system that runs under a shallow layer of dirt where I was shoveling and mending. This first obstacle to my project will act as a perfect location for a sign with my farm's name though! On an even ligher note, I wish to thank my mom for giving me the momentum with which to farm with her inspirational, perfectly baked Mexican Wedding Cookies - much needed energy for the start to the day! | 3.5 | |||||||||||||||||||||
56 | 12/27/2015 | 3 (8 - 11 AM) | With my mom shadowing my labors, I went about laying down pavers as a marked boundary around my garden. In this way, I hoped to better contain whatever crops I would end up growing. This endeavor would also help my mom better organize whatever crops she would choose to grow after I have left 'the nest'. Adding the pavers after buying them at Home Depot, I can safely say now, have also added aethetic appeal to my small-scale urban farm, and from this point on, I will add a sign with the farm's name as well as nametags for each of the species to be had. Another more hidden benefit of laying down these bricks is keeping roots from tangling up with each other. I do not wish for the root systems of the nearby roses to choke my younglings, nor vice versa when they mature. Much excitement lays ahead. | 6.5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
57 | 12/28/2015 | 1 (1:15 - 2:15 PM) | My mom, sister, and I walked the grounds of the Cal Poly Pomona Regenerative Studies lot, where we found a functioning aquaponics farm as part of a senior project. | 7.5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
58 | 1/5/2016 | 2 (5 - 7 PM) | I quietly researched online what materials would be needed for my countertop aquaponics garden, especially focusing on what species of fish would be most beneficial and what soil would be the easiest to filter water out of. One organization that I found was quite neat in my search for information and a to-do-list was named "Back to the Roots". The grassroots venture was started up by two UC Berkeley graduates and now hosts/invented products ranging from a mushroots planting kit to a ready-made aquaponics enclosure. The design and small-time nature of this enclosure will be what I model my own after, since the one I will be creating will be more of a kitchen accessory than a household/neighborhood lifeline. My mom worries about the fish dying. Fair point for concern. | 9.5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
59 | 1/9/2016 | 2.5 (1 - 3:30 PM) | I visted Home Depot with my mom to gage how much some of the materials I needed would cost me once I would buy them for the construction of my aquaponics farm (a stand-alone one that would sit on my kitchen counter). Such materials included PVC piping and the clay ball medium that would act as my soil. In this way, we brainstormed how exactly the structure of my contraption would look and function. We then went over to OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware) in Pasadena where we looked for the clay balls formula, again with no success. We did find pots made out of coconut coir, which is a another type of soil subsitute made from the fur of a coconut. It is imperative that our substitute allows for water to easily pass through to the drain and fish pond, as is not the case with dirt. Well, we found a water jug that could act as the pot for our plants and the aquarium for our fish. We would cut it in half and position it in such a way that an upper level holds the growing produce and the lower level holds the fish and water pump, which would transfer water to the upper level via a tube. That upper level would be situated above the lower basin so that its passing water supply empties in the right spot! Our final stop in our mission of exploration was PetsMart in Pasadena, where we found fish supplies, including an air pump (and a cute adoption station with cuddlies). We now have a realitics glance into our endeavor. | 12 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
60 | 1/15/2016 | 2 (1 - 3PM) | My mom and I again explored what materials there lay out there for my aquaponics garden. This time, we trekked to a Walmart in Duarte after school, and this is where we bought a water jug as the base for my garden. We also bought "zip ties" after asking where they were of a store attendent. We talked about other design additions to our garden that may become necessary. additions like painting the plant and fish holders black to avoid the blooming of algae on the transparent plastic walls of the split water jub. | 14 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
61 | 1/18/2016 | 4 (11 AM - 3 PM) | My and sister accompanied me while I dug out some Uchoy plants - Asian cousins to the green Bakchoy - as well as a sweet pea plant from Pomona College's Organic Garden, where a colony had proliferated along a narrow path. We bagged two offspring in total with a shovel, collected Amaratha seeds into a plastic snack bag, and shoveled some mulch into a later sealed bag. Once our collections were acumaled into a sashel, we drove home to transplant the Uchoy and pea plants into my established backyard garden, making a ravine around each where water would convienantly collect itself in times of rainfall. I then went about transplanting my two jalepeno plants from their place in a yellow driveway pot to my garden as well. As a finale to my trekkings, I lightly tilled my soil-based beggining to a farm and 'seeded' amaratha bushels of their seeds, which I gathered into a ceramic seed bank - holding cup with a tin foil lid and label. | 18 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
62 | 1/19/2016 - 2/3/2016 | 5 (varying time frames per day) | Many minutes a day were spent lightly tilling the soil around my backyard garden crops. I shall now be leaving the soil to rest with a no-till approach to my farming endeavors - so as to not disrupt microbial doings and beneficial livelihoods in and near root systems. Mulch will be used as a covering for the soil anbd cover crops as natural, less destructive, means of massaging the soil network and preventing it from transforming into a dense mass. | 23 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
63 | 1/21/2016 | 1 (11 AM - 12 PM) | I planted Okra seeds picked and packaged into a seed back in October of last year, surrounding their destined space of occupation with a fragile rock borden. I also chopped the heads off of and planted discarded green onions - a technique heavily in use by Scott at Pomona College Organic Farm and their import of kitchen scraps. | 24 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
64 | 1/25/2016 | 1 (2 PM - 3 PM) | My mom and I adventured to Home Depot in Asuza so retrieve two, very long 1 inch diameter PVC pipes. We also went to OSH in Pasadena to get some ecorative drainage rocks (pebbles). | 25 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
65 | 1/26/2016 | 5 (3:16 PM - 8:16 PM) | I finally have gotten around to halfing my water jug bought at Walmart with the help of a saw (mini and larger versions) and exacto knife. I sanded the gritty edges once cut, and then extensively painted the outside walls of each half - the bottom and top halves of my indoor, sustaining aquaponics garden - with black housepaint. In total, I wrapped each with about 7 coatings of sticky decor to make sure no light could penetrate the walls and thus averting the potential for algae growth in the aqua habitat. | 30 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
66 | 1/28/2016 | 5 (4 PM - 9 PM) | Working with a decreasing abundance of natural light in my backyard, I punched a total of 6 pairs of holes into my water jub and a matching (complimentary) 6 pairs of holes into my 3 measured and sawed-to-perfection PVC pipes that shall act as the backbone to my aquaponics garden structure, connecting my top and bottom decks and propping up my top deck laden with crops against the tug of gravity. I then tightening together the structure with zip ties and connected both my water and air pumps to my habitat with plastic tubing and a nearby outlet in the Family/TV room. The rest of my available alottment of time was spent vigorously attaching (hot gluing) a spray can lid drilled with holes - enabling it as a drain - to the opening of a now upside down top half of the water jug. This lid is elevated from its surrounding bowl-shaped landscape so that the water accumalated around itself can be filtered by roots hanging within. Drainage rocks (pebbles), clay pods, and bathed cocnut coir straw were then layered on top of the drain, suspended above the bottom deck. A couple of gallons of water were dumped into this ground-neighboring ditch with air imported and water exported/imported in a cyclic fashion. Lemongrass has been shaved and planted into the top deck. | 35 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
67 | 2/1/2016 | 2 (4 PM - 6 PM) | Fixing flaws and making improvements to a now more efficient aquaponics garden, such as in lenghtening the air transport tube. | 37 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
68 | Independent Component Two Hours Log Bit... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
69 | Occidental College's FEAST Organic Farm Soil workshop | 2/13/2016 | 6 (1PM - 7PM) | Being a visitor to this neighboring organic farm, I introduced myself to Dylan - the farm manager - as he let the chickens loose within the parameters of the tightly corraled premesis. Asking questions regarding my senior project's essential question and foundation with visible curiosity, Dylan gave me a brief tour of the farm, including in his intriguing relay of gardening enthusiasm background history of the farm's roots and its crop count. Dylan then went about welcoming the other volunteers - college students - who later trickled into our meetup, after which point he gave us a crash course on soil health as he openly analyzed dirt composition as seen around campus and on the farm itself. The student manager then gave us gardening tips and tips regarding environmental analysis. Bunches of bits of valuable info streamed my way, and these bits I intertwined with info I had been reading about in my major source of reserach: "Grass, Soil, Hope" by Courtney White. Dylan at this point in time handed out our shovels, and right away, a red-headed male named Riley and I began laying a layer of dusty mulch on the ground neighboring the chicken pen/coup. Afterwards, I was directed to, on my own accord, layer the beaten paths along the farm's raised beds with a spongy bedding of straw. Through open dialogue and immersing myself within a collegiate community, I learned the responsibility of the future generation in regards to agricultural/botanical sustianability. That evening, I proudly enjoyed a gourmet burger with freshly cut fries with family and a still setting sun. | 6 | |||||||||||||||||||||
70 | Flyer-making | 2/7/2016 | 1 (6 - 7:00 PM) | I drafted a flyer that would petition the support of school folk in planting a school community garden, a move recommended by Cathy Morrison - my third interviewee - in lobbying a backing for when I would propose my proposal to administration and beyond. The flyer hung in Pellegrini's room, on Hope Club's board reserved for announcements. Hope Club has begun on it newest, more organic, venture. | 7 | |||||||||||||||||||||
71 | GoogleDoc meeting with Kyle Levin | 2/8/2016 | .5 (8 - 8:45 PM) | Kyle and I met online to discuss our collaboration that would be involved when we would set up both our on-campus compost pile and garden. | 7.5 | |||||||||||||||||||||
72 | Drafting and finalizing an email to Flores | 2/9/2016 | 2 (5:15 - 7:15 PM) | I typed my email on a doc, the same one used by Kyle and I for independent component one brainstorming, that would be sent to Mrs. Flores that evening. The email expressed the significane of my school community garden, as I forsaw it, and asked for her approval. She, in turn, expressed interest and agreed to meet with me, in person. | 9.5 | |||||||||||||||||||||
73 | Meeting with Mrs. Flores | 2/11/2016 | 1 (during class) | I met with Mrs. Flores to gain approval for our school community garden's establishment on campus, on a strip of land neighboring the lunch tables. Paul Huang came with us on our tour of the proposed site, chosen jointly. We openly brainstormed what was hope for, and the scope of the project in regards to beautification, practicality and sustainability as defined by my senior project. To round out our meeting, Paul proudly mentioned his own backyard urban farm in Arcadia, where he grew many crops with an outstanding green thumb - he showed me photos of the fruits of his labor on his phone to prove this skill/art. | 10.5 | |||||||||||||||||||||
74 | Dream being realized - Hope Club Meeting Brainstorming #1 | 2/25/2016 | 1 (12:38 - 1:38 PM) | Once Hope Club convened in Mr. Rivas' room, we organized our plan of attack in preparation for our garden's place outside the classroom. We chose Brianne to be our plant-adoption specialist, Victoria Nakai (fellow senior) to pick up a bag of ORGANIC soil, asked each other to bring banana peels and other decompostable organics (i.e. coffee grounds) for added nutrition for the garden's anatomy, and aksed each other to bring milk jugs that we could use for watering. We discussed which plants to plant, our itinerary for the garden's evolution, when we would execute that itinerary (future Fridays after school and during meetings), and what tools we needed and could be brought. Our mission statement for the garden was molded and crafted. | 11.5 | |||||||||||||||||||||
75 | Visitation to Home Depot for soil purchase | 3/10/2016 | 1.5 (1 - 2 PM) | My mom and I visited Home Depot on our way home from school, and while there, we surveyed what brands of soil were being offered. We chose an organic variety so that our bag of soil would offer no chemical-additives disrupting the microbial life within our garden's living, biological network. The soil we bought would balance the too moist, too compact dirt siting at the school at that point in time. The goal was more porous soil capable of water filtration and microbial harmony. | 13 | |||||||||||||||||||||
76 | Hope Club Hands-On Gardening Workshop #1 | 3/11/2016 | 2 (12:38 - 3 PM) | Several hope club members (most notably seniors Santiago, Andrea, Chris Arnold, and Idalia Lopez, and freshman Bella Lopez) helped me in breaking ground on our gardens plot of firm dirt. The earth was tilled, with care so as to not exterminate the many worms we found along the way, and the top soil, which held much pollution in the form of discarded pencils and pens, was removed via garbage bags at the school's dumpster. 3/4 of our strip of land in a sea of asphalt has been allowed breathing room, and it now rests as ready for planting. It is important to note that two main goals in today's tilling was to break up as much clay as possible - so that future thriving roots can have wiggle room to stretch and reach nutritious depths - and to ammend the dirt with more nutritious soil - existing this new batch with the pre-existing one. | 15 | |||||||||||||||||||||
77 | 3/13/2016 | 1 (11:23 AM - 12:23 PM) | Brianne Estrada (fellow senior) trekked to a local nursery with her mom, and while there, picked up our to-be-planted plants. These green guys were paid for with hope club money I had given to Brianne the week before. | 16 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
78 | 3/14/2016 | 1 (5 - 6 PM) | My mom, sister, and I drove to Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH) to pick out some coned wiring upon which the garden's tomatoes and strawberries would crawl and fruit. | 17 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
79 | Hope Club Hands-On Gardening Workshop #2 | 3/17/2016 | 2 (12:38 - 2:38 PM) | Upon checking my hope club members into today's meeting, I toured the garden with them and instructed them to bury our rotting banana peels and coffee grounds (as well as other decaying organics) collected under around 2 inches worth of top soil. Each club member was placed into a partnership with another member, and each pair was given a shovel and gloves. Resources were limited, so patience and sharing of the responsibility were necessary. After all of our goodies were planted to supply the garden's microbes sustinence, we doused the garden with a liberal helping of water via red solo cups that were later stored in the Cage along with our farming tools. | 19 | |||||||||||||||||||||
80 | Hope Club Hands-On Gardening Workshop #3 | 3/18/2016 | 2 (12:38 - 2:38 PM) | Several hope club members joined me planting some of our strawberry seedlings. There are in the worst shape among our awaiting growing goodies, with droopy leaves and dehydrated roots. Some of the them have white flowers though, and so I have hope for their well being (and their future help in making for a delicious dessert topping). 1/4 of our garden is now covered in weary greenery, battling the opressing heat of the sun's constant glimmer. We finally watered the whole lot and deconstructed some hardened clay rocks that had formed due to the recent dryness (drought). | 21 | |||||||||||||||||||||
81 | Visit to HomeDepot | 3/23/2016 | 1 (12:38 - 1:40 PM) | My mom and drove over the Home Depot one last time to pick up a bag of mulch, reading about each othe brands selling the material and debating about how much would suffice. | 22 | |||||||||||||||||||||
82 | Hope Club Hands-On Gardening Workshop #4 | 3/24/2016 | 2 (12:38 - 2:45 PM) | Several Hope Club members and I covered the top soil of the garden with mulch, which acted as decorative groundcover and functioned as a blanket that prevented evaporation (dry, parched soil easily achieved by the drought). Water retention for our struggling strawberry plants supplied the arsenal (water) they needed to persist and flourish - as we hoped. We watered them right after. | 24 | |||||||||||||||||||||
83 | Hope Club Hands-On Gardening Workshop #5 | 3/25/2016 | 3 (12:38 - 3:45 PM) | After pep rally, many hope club memebers and I rested in the AC of Rivas' classroom. We then planted our cucumber seedlings, jalepeno plant, and tomatoe plants, all of which had been waiting in the Cage after having been delivered by Brianne a while ago. Mulch and soil ammedment were bunched next to the newly planted sites. We ended the meetup once again with a liberal watering of all the plants, in both the waiting room (Cage) and on the ground in action. | 27 | |||||||||||||||||||||
84 | Accumalation on text messages sent to Hope Club | 2/11/2016 - 4/21/2016 | 1 | Entirety of text messages sent to the group chat "Nucleic Nexus" regarding plans for the garden, how those would be executed, and changes in schedule. | 28 | |||||||||||||||||||||
85 | Stroll through Pomona College Organic Farm | 4/2/2016 | 1 (10 - 11:00 AM) | I hiked through the farm's abundance of proliferating crops and took note of what worked for this plot of sustaining land and could be applied to Hope Club's own micro-farm. | 29 | |||||||||||||||||||||
86 | Research plus social media intervention | Through out process | 1.5 | I researched which plants would most prosper in the spring, when planting commenced, and how they should be planted for truly organic farming to be achieved. I also publicized the club's gardening through many Instagram posts. | 30.5 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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