kylewith

May 28 2014

Food. Curated., Liza de Guia and Storytelling

Time for one of those random posts coming directly from my heart filled with inspiration and energy.

Food. Curated. is a video series shoot and produced by one lovely lady in New York by the name of Liza de Guia. I first came across some of her video a while back when I was researching other bakeries for ideas and tips on how to bake better. I came across the video below and I fell in love. I feel in love with the baker, her bakery and her philosophy of baking. The story was told so incredibly well I went on a search for more and more.

Fast forward to a couple of days ago I came across an article on Liza through her Facebook page Food. Curated. The thing about Liza is she is rarely in the videos and is rarely mentioned on her website so there was no way of me knowing much more about her and why she would make all these video until this article.

The article recounted a bit of Liza history and how she came to making these video and I was fascinated. This led me to find a Tedx talk she gave about why she did it all. And this is where I truly feel in love.

For starters she did something I have always, always advocated for and developed her own platform. Her blog, and brand. She didn’t need the help of a network to tell her stories. She then went on to talk about how she produced the video and why, talking about being real, making a connect and trust. It was absolutely exhilarating for me to hear. I really can not explain the feeling. Everything she talked I related to 100% and could take exactly what she was saying and apply it to how I went about producing Yellowknife Street Stories. It was incredible.

Then she said something else. She paused for a second and looked at the crowd and said “there is no one person in this room that wouldn’t fascinate me” and I near cried. I kid you not, everyday and more so when I was actually writing my book and I would recite a quote to myself “everyone is fascinating, everyone has a story.” It plays tribute to the natural feeling of looking around at all the people, regardless of who they might be or how they look, and want to walk up to them and start asking them questions about themselves for no other reason than wanting to learn a little bit about them and to share there story.

One other thing the article on Liza mentioned was a her dream to move from Food. Curated. to Life. Curated. where she and a team tell the stories of everyone. To her I say “I am in!”

May 25 2014

Building Gardens

My house has always had a raised garden plot but this being my first spring in the house I wanted to make some changes for a number of reasons.

So I could get my jeep between the house and the shop to the other part of the backyard. It’s a big lot.
And to create a space that is sheltered from the wind and any animals. I don’t actually know of any animals that would come around but I imagine something would.

A couple of weeks ago I moved the plot forward along my house about 4 ft. Just enough to get the jeep by.

Last weekend I filled the box up with soil again, because I emptied it to move and I wanted to start fresh.

Today I started and mostly finished the construction of a enclosed garden space. Essentially I built a roof for the garden box.

The first thing I did was build the frame out of some 2×4’s and 1/4’s I had around the yard. I don’t like angles, I don’t work with them enough, but I managed.

A lot of the project was scraps from the Yellowknife Dump and my plan was to use these screen door windows as part of the hatch system.

At the dump the prior weekend I was also able to collect a couple rolls of clear plastic tarp. Oddly it was the exact width I needed. I stretch and stapled it all along the rear of the garden – closest to the house – and the ends. I also found two framed plastic window coverings that would be used as hatches as well.

With the use of some simple hinges I was able to create four hatches that open and close with ease allowing me to work and water without to much hassle.

As the weather is really improving now I went ahead and planted a variety of plants to grow. Keeping in mind I’ve never maintained a garden myself before.