Emily Grace Fitzgerald

Ramblings around Austin with an iphone:)

2011-06-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

Sarah's Surprise birthday party
Austin days......

Jen knows how to throw a tea party
MMMmmmmm
East side tacos
Amazon protection feathers

Jeff's house

Grackle medicine

polariod adventure with Jon

2011-06-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

lexi grace

2011-06-09T13:04:00.000-07:00

This amazing Spider was in my garden yesterday....

2011-05-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

the caterpillars are eating my broccoli plants

but my chard looks lovely.

Academy garden

2011-05-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

close-ups

2011-05-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

mom and Stevie on Garden st.

2011-05-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

Pre-wedding sailboat adventure for Meagan

2011-05-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

he was holding on

courtesy of Meagan......

My garden in May

2011-05-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

The light was just right on this eggplant leaf.

Procession of the Species

2011-05-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

Summer looking tough:)
Renee made this amazing milkweed for the procession......and David wore it so well!

A great way to spend mother's day!

Springtime in Austin

2011-04-03T11:21:00.000-07:00

Theo at the greenbeltTheo in the garden

more SXSW photos

2011-04-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

renee is SO darling!

Yes! Thao on her birthday:)
marching band from Oakland

Austin Bike Zoo

2011-03-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

SXSW music in the east side woods

2011-03-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

2011-01-31T13:49:00.000-08:00

This is Texas farmland

Gabriel Valley Farms: An organic Wholesale nursery across from this bleak field.

2011-01-21T14:06:00.000-08:00

Photo/video workshops with children in SF and Marin.

2011-01-21T13:44:00.000-08:00

Documenting the Garden project in Chinatown.

In this eight week photo workshop in San Rafael, CA children took

photos that expressed their experience of neighborhood they live in.

Cat and proud owner.

Painting in the Garden

2011-01-21T13:36:00.000-08:00

Martin and LBJ school gardens

2011-01-21T13:14:00.000-08:00

Very carefully transplanting vegetable seedlings.

Kids released ladybugs into the native plant garden and learned about the importance of beneficial insects.

Taking a moment to smell the roses.

Gardening and Art with Children

2011-01-20T21:13:00.000-08:00

San Francisco Gardening days

2011-01-20T21:09:00.000-08:00

Having fun in the garden.

A magnifying glass is used to explore plants growing in the garden.

Second graders working in the garden in Chinatown.

Lots of Hard Work at Burnet Middle School

2011-01-20T21:04:00.000-08:00

Preparing the beds for planting. During an after school gardening and on the weekends we weeded, started seeds and made compost.

The Burnet Middle School Garden

2011-01-20T20:38:00.000-08:00

A bed full of weeds.

As vegetables began to grow...

Art in the Garden in Chinatown (San Francisco, CA)

2011-01-20T20:33:00.000-08:00

These children were painting murals and signs to bring color to the vegetable gardens that we had just planted.

Patrick and I on the news talking about Composting

2011-01-17T12:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpp/good_day/Austin-Home-and-Garden-Show-20110114-ktbcgd

Microbes in our Whole System

2011-01-17T11:37:00.000-08:00

This was a collaborative project where I worked with an architect to conceptualize the "Microbial Earth" vision.......how compost and benefical microbes affect our whole system. I took in to account the mineral, nutrient and water cycles.

Organic Gardening In Balinese Schools

2011-01-17T08:43:00.000-08:00

I recently was asked to write and article about my time teaching organic gardening in Bali for Acres Magazine. this is my first draft and photos.

As I sit at my favorite coffee shop in Austin I reflect on the magical time I spent in Bali. Bali warmed my heart like no other place I have ever traveled. After a grueling 30 hours of travel I arrived in Denpasar. Denpasar is a city like many other SouthEast Asia cities, but the energy of Bali is different. Something about the natural beauty melding with art and art being such an integral part of the culture changes the feeling of a place. I felt immediately at home when I arrived on the island! I had forgotten what it felt like to be in Asia, but as soon as I was zooming down the road in the middle of two lanes dodging parades, motor bikes and people with my sweet Balinese driver it all came back to me. Art and temples line the roads. I arrived in Ubud in 2008 to volunteer for a non-profit called Bali Children's Project. BCP is different from many non-profits I have worked with, because they are managed by locals and encourage their volunteers to teach whatever they have experience with. I had been working with children teaching organic gardening in San Francisco and installing organic gardens in the city for a year and a half at the time and I wanted to continue this work as I travelled.

There was some adventurous part of me that was not at all intimidated by the fact that I knew no one, didn't speak the language and had never done any gardening in a tropical region. That first day in Ubud I made my way from my guesthouse to the near by village where I would start teaching gardening the following month. A friend I made at the guest house gave me a ride on the back of his motor bike through the pouring rain to Penestanan. The monsoon rains came and went with very little warning. The warm rain and humid air gave me a needed sense of freedom as we raced through town. I met with Linda the director of BCP who would be leaving the next day and Kadek, a beautiful Balinese woman who was running the organization and grew up in Penestanan. I walked through the rice fields past the pigs and chickens and came to a beautiful house. Linda and Kadek sat chatting on the porch. I immediately loved Kadek, it was as if we were sisters in a very recent past life. She showed me one of the schools where we would be planting a garden.

During the next month I traveled with my dear friend Caty and explored Bali and neighboring islands. We couldn't leave immediately though because I arrived right after the Balinese New Year when everything shuts down, even the airport, you aren't supposed to leave the house and the entire island is silent, you cannot cook and the dogs that generally bark and howl are silent. This all follows days of parades and large paper mache sculptures, which are chasing away the evil spirits. The Balinese believe that if everyone is silent the bad spirits will move on to the next island. During this day of absolute silence Caty and I realized just how committed the Balinese are to ceremony.

The food culture in Ubud, Bali is really advanced. This smallish village has cuisine comparable to San Francisco. Amazing food from all around the world. There is even organic restaurants and a small health food store. It is interesting, because according to many locals, the farms all used to be organic. I always marvel at the way the Western world finds trends in indigenous wisdom that has been around for centuries.

The use of pesticides in rice farming seems to be even more detrimental than pesticides in standard agriculture. This is because all the rice farmer's share the water that travels through beautiful canals from village to village. Pesticides have spread from farm to farm and even the farmers who have never used pesticides or herbicides have been exposed. Prior to the 1970's the Balinese rice farmer produced rice at a very high level of productivity that few pre-mechanized agricultural societies have achieved. As the population grew the demand also grew and a government program was introduced that offered pesticides, petrochemical fertilizers, tractors, rice mills and hybrid seeds. Credit was extended to farmers and because farmers saw these new seed strains able to mature in almost half the time and produce greater income many family rice farmers could not resist the government offered assistance. Along with this new technology came many problems that the farmers did not experience within the traditional wet farming system. As I was told these new seed strains have spread and somewhat contaminated the traditional Balinese strains.

I wish I had learned more about rice farming while I was there. What I know is a brief history, the immense aesthetic beauty and what tremendous hard work it is. Rice is a huge part of the community. Many of the kids at the school where I volunteers had parents and grandparents who spent their day working in the rice fields. Because my ability to speak Balinese is almost non-existent and my Bahasa Indonesian is not great either it was difficult to discuss complicated matter such as agriculture. Though I will say I learned so much from the kids in the village, as I had the children in San Francisco. These kids were so much more connected to nature and also so much more willing to work then most of the kids I had worked with. When I arrived at the school called Kumara Dewata the first day and realized just how difficult it was going to be to teach organic gardening in Bahasa Indonesian, I figured we might as well get right to work. Kumara means child and Dewata means Goddess, what a beautiful name for a school The school yard was mostly concrete, however there was a big beautiful tree right in the center of the courtyard and my friend Kadek said that when she attended that school 20 something years prior the same tree was there and everything else was different. Behind the small school building was a narrow dirt patch covered in weeds, which would soon be transformed into a beautiful garden. I started my first day with the kindergarten class doing a yoga exercise where the children start out as small seeds and slowly while learning that a plants needs food, water and air to grow move and strech into a vibrant healthy plant of their choice. We then got right to work digging up the bed behind the school. I was excited and impressed to learn that these children wanted to help. The soil was full of rocks, enough rocks to build a small house. There were little stones and gigantic bricks, much to the children's delight they were able to pull bricks the size of a shoebox right out of the dirt and we started a pile on the far side of the school. I began to wonder if we would be able to prep this bed before I left; I had never seen so many rocks in such healthy soil.

One afternoon when I wasn't doing art with the children I decided to visit a local organic farm owned by an expat. Currently several expats have started organic farms there. Permaculture is taking off in the international community and people from all over the world have moved there to raise their children in a progressive place. There are green schools, green festivals and yoga studios. In some ways the Balinese culture has been untouched by the Western world in a way that many other popular tourist destinations are so sadly affected. In fact it is hard to tell where the local inspiration began and how much of Ubud is a melting pot for so many folks who felt disenchanted by the the typical Western disconnection from the land and spirit world. This particular farm was lovely, a permaculture inspired farm with a restaurant, healthy compost pile and methane run electric system. I knew immediately that I had to bring the kids on a field trip here. The manager of the farm generously donated organic seeds that I would start with the children as we continued to pull weeds and dig rocks.

One Friday we started bean seeds. The kids knew to mark them with small bamboo pieces, as bamboo is a staple that grows so prevalently. By Monday the beans were 2-3 inches tall, I couldn't believe it! It really taught me the importance of good soil. That was my first experience witnessing the fertility of the soil. The volcanic soil is remarkable. The children were also impressed and excited to see the progress of their work. The whole school began to take notice of the changes behind the school building and we were offered a bed in the front and a bed on the side. It was no longer just the kindergarten that we were working with, but many of the older kids joined in as well. There were limited resources, if we wanted to do grafting there was one knife, borrowed from Kadek's family. Pots for starting seeds were difficult to find, but this lack of resources seemed to have no effect on the rapid plant growth and enthusiasm of the children. Kids would come cultivate the soil while they were on recess and on afternoons when we are not there they would stop by to water the plants.

One weekend Kadek and I decided to take a weekend trip. I was concerned about all the seeds we had started in pots on the side of the school and the possibility of things drying up in the hot sun while we were gone. When we came back I was surprised and delighted to find village children that I had never seen before caring for the plants.

I loved my time in the village, I felt strangely at home walking around with plants, a shovel, a pitchfork or my camera. It felt like a different world, but a world where I was able to slow down and connect with nature in a way that increased my ability to see and change. I began my day at daybreak with a very vocal rooster outside of my thatched roof house, I practiced yoga over the river canyon as the sun came up and then I walked through rice fields for twenty minutes to get to the school. After ten minutes of gardening surrounded by children I would be covered in sweat and dirt. A morning just doesn't get much better than that.

This lovely connection to the natural world is a part of the Balinese culture that is very unlike the United States, however food wrappers littered the school ground and often blew into the garden. Most of the children and adults have no awareness about littering. It was often that I would get a headache from the smell of burning plastic. Trash fills river valleys. I was told that prior to so much Western influence all food was served in bio-gradable wrappers, such a banana leaf and so it made sense to throw it on the ground...compost, right?

The rest of my exploration in Bali was full of strange dichotomies like moneys walking down the street in front of the Prada store...really there is a Prada store there..weird! The integration of modern society with tradition seems to have a way of evading me. How do we preserve age old wisdom and assimilate as change naturally occurs. When is the change too much that it negatively impacts a society? One belief that I have developed after years of working in environmental education is that the more time people spend in nature and observing the natural world the more likely we are to want to preserve it and care for it. The way the Balinese took time to notice the smallest details, particularly within ceremony permeated through much of the culture.

When it came time for me to leave I couldn't make myself leave this glorious island. If I stayed two weeks longer I could attend a village ceremony that only happens one every fifty years. I had already seen the village begin to transform in preparation for this large ceremony. Whole structures were being built, huge bamboo and palm frods lined the road and everywhere you went you could just feel beauty and celebration. I knew I couldn't leave. I stayed long enough to attend this amazing ceremony and also to witness a tremendous amount of growth in our garden.

On my last day in Ubud, Kadek took me on one last motor bike ride up to the school. We admired all of our work. The peanuts we had planted as nitrogen fixers were thriving, the beans and squash were blooming, and we knew that soon there would be plenty of fresh produce for the children to snack on. I reflected on my first few weeks at the school and with the enthusiasm of a child marveled at natures ability to grow and regenerate. Where, just a six weeks earlier lay a bed full of rock and weeds now flourished full of many beautiful edible plants

I recently had this article I wrote posted on Austin EcoNetwork

2011-01-17T08:41:00.000-08:00

Bio-remediation with Compost & Fungus

by Emily Fitzgerald, Education Coordinator of Microbial Earth

We believe that we can heal the land in our own backyards with the help of Microbes and fungi. In the last newsletter we overviewed the benefits of Mycorrhizae and the necessity of microbes. The broader environmental community is talking about the potential of microbes and fungi to clean up the biggest oil spill ever. Recently an article was published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Research Service, where they experimented with using compost to remove three different types of commonly spilled hydrocarbons, including motor oil, diesel and gasoline. Research shows that compost has the ability to remove oil from water and thus break down the hydrocarbons. Bioremediation takes far less time with compost than under natural conditions due to the increase in diversity and population of Microbes in compost.

In a typical fertile soil there are about 26 million/gram of bacteria and in compost the bacterial population is close to 417 million/gram. Fungi populations are also generally five times higher in dry compost versus dry soil. It is know that microbial activity can be up to forty times greater in compost than in soil ecosystems. Scientist are now isolating microbes from healthy compost piles and inoculating bioremediation sites. Studies primarily done by one of the pioneers of mycoremediation, Paul Stamets show that fungi also have an amazing ability to cleanup toxic spills. Oyster mushrooms have been particularly useful in converting environmental toxins. This”decomposer” class of mushrooms is extremely effective at breaking down industrial pollutants. The thready branching roots of mushrooms are called mycelium. Many scientists, companies and researchers are using mycelium to decontaminate soil.

Uncle Dan's house

2010-12-21T10:53:00.000-08:00

after our walk
Sweet Nonnie

Yogi and Deja playing

I think this was the same day

2010-12-17T23:22:00.000-08:00

I almost brought this frog home.
Black Solider Fly Grub eating machine.

This one seemed so familiar...and wise too.

NM and AZ in the fall

2010-12-17T23:17:00.001-08:00

Little Cuties

2010-12-17T22:49:00.000-08:00

Ava
Ava

Ava

2010-12-17T22:46:00.000-08:00

bike ride from work

2010-12-17T22:39:00.000-08:00

This was really

2010-12-17T22:26:00.000-08:00

My sweet Nonnie

2010-12-17T22:25:00.000-08:00

2010-12-17T22:23:00.000-08:00

Corpus Christi, TX

2010-12-17T22:09:00.000-08:00

on Steve's boat
Mariah dear

Austin Winter Days

2010-12-17T22:06:00.000-08:00

painting at home

Kelsey and I had a wonderful meal

Inspiration for Halloween

2010-12-17T22:04:00.000-08:00

Renee's installation

2010-12-17T21:17:00.000-08:00

Wed. farmer's market

2010-11-04T14:56:00.000-07:00

beautiful peppers, broccoli and cabbage grown by Larry and Gale Smith

2010-11-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

Barton Spring in the Morning...Beautiful Springs
The best baby hair ever!

Bokashi Video

2010-10-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

Buffalo, Compost and soil

2010-10-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

Cute, Cute Theo

2010-10-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

austin, tx

2010-10-28T20:18:00.000-07:00

chicken tractor-yay!

2010-10-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

Local Plants, Food and Farm in Austin

2010-10-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

Datura Blues party SXSW

2010-03-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

Tigre and Garden

2010-03-21T16:33:00.000-07:00

beautiful cauliflower from my garden

Snow in Austin Yesterday!

2010-02-24T21:25:00.000-08:00

Olivia 1 month

2010-02-24T21:08:00.001-08:00

Fire at E.A.T.

2010-02-09T16:41:00.000-08:00

Megan you are a fire goddess

Earth Activist Traning

2010-02-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

2010-02-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

2010-02-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

2010-02-09T16:20:00.000-08:00

rain and charles-what a lovely home

Valentino

2010-02-09T16:12:00.000-08:00

2010-02-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

Mushrooms

2010-02-09T15:52:00.000-08:00

Lovely J'Etana

2010-02-09T15:50:00.000-08:00

Marissa and J'Etana

2010-02-09T15:47:00.000-08:00

Faces of the Earth

2010-02-09T15:21:00.000-08:00

Now that I have caught up on some of what I have been doing for the past 6 months, the photos above are from Earth Activist Training. What an amazing experience!

Stevie's Graduation

2010-02-09T15:10:00.000-08:00

Mr. Iscoe

2010-02-09T15:09:00.001-08:00

Beautiful Janie

2010-02-09T15:08:00.001-08:00

Taos Thanksgiving

2010-02-09T15:03:00.000-08:00

My darling Deb as Frida

2010-02-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

WKA Benefit- Halloween Carnival

2010-02-09T14:54:00.000-08:00

Sedona

2010-02-09T14:53:00.000-08:00

2010-02-09T14:52:00.001-08:00

Salt Lake

2010-02-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

Flowers in the Mountains

2010-02-09T14:47:00.000-08:00

Tetons

2010-02-09T14:27:00.000-08:00

Our Garden is Growing

2009-06-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

Kerville Jason's ranch

2009-06-29T11:25:00.001-07:00

WKA Family

2009-06-29T11:11:00.001-07:00

Kemah, TX

2009-06-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

In the Garden

2009-05-27T19:39:00.000-07:00

Our New Garden

2009-05-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

Bay to Breakers

2009-05-25T16:51:00.000-07:00

SF Days

2009-05-25T16:34:00.000-07:00

SF

2009-05-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

With Kali and Deb in Tucson

2009-05-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

On the Road to SF

2009-05-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

Rockport Night

2009-04-12T17:42:00.001-07:00

Cass and Will....so sweet

2009-04-12T17:31:00.000-07:00

Dress up with Lib

2009-04-12T17:25:00.001-07:00

Texas is Scary Sometimes

2009-04-12T17:20:00.001-07:00

Stevie

2009-04-12T17:17:00.000-07:00

mom

2009-04-12T17:15:00.001-07:00

Nonnie

2009-04-12T17:06:00.000-07:00

In Miami with Charlie

2009-01-27T13:27:00.000-08:00

From the Air Over Key West

2009-01-27T13:24:00.000-08:00

Ocala with Alan and Grandpa Fitz

2009-01-27T13:00:00.001-08:00

Night Out with Lib and Jay

2009-01-13T16:26:00.000-08:00

oh Austin! now i am up to date.

Road Motion Series

2009-01-13T16:22:00.000-08:00

At the Bay on Christmas

2009-01-13T16:17:00.000-08:00

aftermath of hurricane Ike

Greece with Charlie

2009-01-13T16:13:00.000-08:00