Photo Essay: Free Yard Mulch
January 31st, 2012In the life of a xeriscaper, there are fewer questions sweeter than "Would you like some free mulch?"
Why the affection for ground up tree trunks, branches, and leaves? Because mulch holds moisture in the soil. It also builds the soil and controls weeds. In the arid Southwestern United States, we like such things. A lot.
Yesterday was free yard mulch day at my house. It came courtesy of Romeo Tree Service, which offers it at no charge. And that includes delivery. Romeo does this in order to avoid costly trips to the landfill. If you're in the tree business, those tipping fees can really add up.
Here's the Romeo crew, preparing to dump a truckload of fresh mesquite mulch on my driveway...
Here it comes!
Okay, so now I've got this big pile of free mulch in my driveway. In honor of this occasion, I got up bright and early to get some of it into the yard before work.
Since I don't have a wheelbarrow, I'm using a trio of five-gallon buckets to move the mulch. It's not difficult to push handfuls of mulch into the buckets, then haul them over to the piles I've created in the yard.
Matter of fact, it took only 40 minutes to reduce the driveway pile by a third. Only two more thirds to move, and then I've got some mulch raking to do.
Tip: Want some free mulch for your yard? Use the Romeo Tree Service request form.
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Freelancer’s Guide to Starting a Successful Photography Business
January 27th, 2012While the Internet is full of advice on how to take better pictures, information on the business side of photography can be hard to come by.
To fill this void, I created the Freelancer's Guide to Starting a Successful Photography Business. It showcases more than 50 resources that will help freelancers learn professional business practices in photography, find photography buyers, and improve their photographic skills.
Every book, blog, or website in this Freelancer's Guide is one that I've found useful in my own photographic career. And, since I have a no-kickback policy, I recommend each of them freely. No one is paying me to say nice things about them.
Released as a downloadable file, the Freelancer’s Guide to Starting a Successful Photography Business is offered exclusively via the Envato Tuts+ Marketplace. The retail price is $15.00.
This is the second eBook in my Freelancer's Guide series. The first, the Freelancer's Guide to Finding Clients, shows how to find clients via cold calls, warm calls, and e-mails. It also is available via the Tuts+ Marketplace and retails for $15.00.
Learn more about the Freelancer’s Guide to Starting a Successful Photography Business.
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Bicycle Photography: UA Criterium 2012
January 23rd, 2012I'll admit to feeling sad while at a bicycling event. Why? Because we may have seen the last UA Criterium on Saturday.
The closed-course race around the University of Arizona never attracted huge numbers of spectators. But if you were into cycling, you just had to be there. No way could you miss it.
Several streets used by the UA Criterium course are going to become part of Tucson's Modern Streetcar route. And mixing racing bicyclists and streetcar tracks is never a good idea. Not to mention the race organizers. Several of them are about to graduate.
Such is the life of a collegiate bicycle race -- short, sweet, and fun while it lasted.
Here's a look at this year's event...
UA Criterium 2012 - Images by Martha Retallick
And here's a look back at my photos from races past:
Tip: You can view more event photography in my portfolio and on this blog. I am also available for event photography assignments in Tucson, Arizona, and elsewhere. I specialize in concerts, festivals, parades, political rallies, and sporting events. To check availability and to request a proposal, please e-mail me or call 520-690-1888.
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Photo Essay: Battling Buffelgrass
January 18th, 2012So, there you are, trying to do the right thing. You go to all the trouble of controlling the weeds on your property, then there it is: Buffelgrass.
According to the Southern Arizona Buffelgrass Coordination Center website, "[R]apid spread of buffelgrass and conversion of fire-resistant desert to flammable grassland rivals urban growth and water as the region's most pressing environmental issue. Buffelgrass has introduced a new wildfire risk into an ecosystem that is not fire adapted. It grows in dense stands, crowds out native plants, and negatively impacts native wildlife species and their habitat."
Buffelgrass is an invasive species, and it's one that we need to control before it destroys the ecosystem on which we depend. This post shows what you can do if you find yourself face-to-face with buffelgrass.
First thing to do is identify it. Buffelgrass grows in bright green clumps, and it looks like it has bottlebrushes on the ends of its stems. Lots of seeds in those bottlebrushes.
Here's buffelgrass, invading my neighborhood...
Now that we've fingered the culprit, let's prevent it from spreading its noxious self around the neighborhood. Since the above plant is growing out of a gap between a public street and a curb, we can't dig it out with a caliche bar. Too much risk of damaging municipal property.
Instead, let's chop that buffelgrass down as far as we can, then spray the remnants with a glyphosate product like Roundup or a generic equivalent...
Prefer to use a more organic approach? Try BurnOut. Or, if that's too rich for your budget, white vinegar. You may need to apply several doses, but guess what? That's often the case with the glyphosates or BurnOut...
Once the remnants are brown and dry, you can use a hand weeder to dig them out. Then you can trash them, just like the chopped buffelgrass...
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Photo Essay: Tucson Concert Venues
January 16th, 2012Time for a look at Tucson concert venues, past and present.
First, a look back at one of the hottest dance clubs of a couple of decades ago. I'm talking about the Green Dolphin, which was located a few blocks south of the University of Arizona. This was one of the clubs that students raved about when I worked at the UA.
Not that UA employees would ever frequent a place like the Green Dolphin. The music was too loud for our bosses, the bands were ones that thirty-something worker-bees like me had never heard of, and, besides, all of us full-time employees had to get up early so we could arrive at our campus jobs by 8 a.m.
Hence, I have no Green Dolphin memories to share.
What I can share is what the place has turned into. The Green Dolphin has been closed for almost 20 years. These days, it just sits there, decaying in the Tucson sun...
Twenty years ago, Downtown Tucson was not the first place that would come to mind if you were planning a big night out. It was full of empty streets, empty storefronts, and a scary ambiance that didn't encourage people to linger.
Much redevelopment has happened in recent years. With redevelopment comes large community events like 2nd Saturdays Downtown. This one draws at least 10,000 people every month for strolling, eating, drinking, shopping, and admiring the vintage car show on Congress Street...
The Tucson music cognoscenti know that 2nd Saturdays concert acts are the ones to catch before they head off to the big shows at Club Congress, Plush, or the Rialto Theatre.
With that thought in mind, let's check out the Heather "Li'l Mama" Hardy Band on the 2nd Saturdays Scott Avenue Stage. Here's Heather Hardy on the electric violin with Mitzi Cowell on guitar...
On bass, it's Larry Lee Lerma...
Manning the drums, Ralph Gilmore...
Tip: You can view more event photography in my portfolio and on this blog. I am also available for event photography assignments in Tucson, Arizona, and elsewhere. I specialize in concerts, festivals, parades, political rallies, and sporting events. To check availability and to request a proposal, please e-mail me or call 520-690-1888.
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Photo Essay: Penn Wood School
January 11th, 2012Always fun to go back and visit the last grade school I attended. If it's not peering into classrooms and seeing wall charts teaching skills that adults take for granted – remember what life was like before you learned how to tell time – it's taking a walk around the school grounds and realizing how different the world is from a child's perspective.
Did we ever sit in chairs that small? Was the basketball hoop really that high?
Are beech trees that massive?
That's the upside.
The downside is seeing what has happened to one of the great treasures of Penn Wood School. That would be what everyone called The Field. It was a grassy field that had been carved out of the woods behind the school.
To get there, you had to walk down a terrifyingly steep hill – no running allowed – cross a stream that had a very sharp looking wooden bridge, do a dash to the end of the paved path, and then there it was. The Field.
You could run around like crazy during recess, run laps during gym class, or win one of those oh-so-stylish ribbons at the annual Charlie Brown Field Day. (I treasured my third place broad jump ribbon for years.) After school, it was a great place for hanging out with friends, and you could even take a little hike on the nature trail that a Boy Scout troop had built in the woods.
Such was life for kids in the late 1960s.
These days, the paved path is falling apart...
The bridge is covered with rotting leaves. And it feels shaky when you walk across it...
The Field is well on its way back to being The Woods. Looks like Penn Wood School has a tree planting project underway, but what's with all those junked doors? Someone remodel their house, then dump the old doors over at the school?
Come on, Penn Wood, it wouldn't take much to clean this place up. Just get a roll-off dumpster and some energetic people to tote all the junk away from The Field/Woods, and it's an attractive place again. Might even create some jobs.
The falling apart path? Well, that could be converted into a terraced hiking trail. Just find some railroad ties to create the edges of each terrace, fill 'em with dirt, and there you go. More jobs created and a new exercise trail for the Penn Wood kids. The bridge? Very fixable – even more jobs worth doing.
If the Penn Wood kids are too small or young to help, they could still learn from the renovation of their school grounds. Matter of fact, here's the outdoor classroom where the workers could brief the kids on what's going on that day, what their jobs are like, and how the kids can grow up to get one too...
And if any of the worker/teachers need a place to put their notes, well, here's a lectern that could be put back into service...
So there you have it. A jobs program at my old school.
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Event Photography: Remembering January 8
January 9th, 2012A year ago yesterday, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others were shot at the "Congress on Your Corner" that she was hosting in Tucson. Six people died.
The past few days have been filled with various tributes to the victims. And the big buzz around town was that Rep. Giffords would be attending the candlelight vigil on the University of Arizona campus.
Would she really be well enough to show up? Only way to find out was to head to the University of Arizona Mall and see for yourself. Around 3,500 people did.
Although this year's January 8 commemoration didn't attract the media encampment that last year's shootings did, the satellite trucks were back in town...
The University of Arizona's flagpole is located just west of where the candlelight vigil took place. As they were last year, the U.S. and Arizona flags were lowered to half staff...
People started arriving two hours before the 6:30 p.m. start. The seating in front of the media riser was reserved, but I didn't hear the usual snark about all the important and wealthy dignitaries getting to sit near the stage...
After all, that reserved area wasn't the sort of club that people craved membership in. You got to sit up there because you had some connection to the tragedy...
Due to safety concerns, real candles weren't provided. Instead, we were given glow sticks that were to be lit at a certain time...
Sun sets, night falls, and the ceremony is about to begin...
The question on everyone's minds was answered right away. Gabby was there with her husband, Mark Kelly, and she led the Pledge of Allegiance. She also participated in the on-stage candle lighting ceremony that honored the wounded and the deceased.
Then it was our turn...
Tip: You can view more event photography in my portfolio and on this blog. I am also available for event photography assignments in Tucson, Arizona, and elsewhere. I specialize in concerts, festivals, parades, political rallies, and sporting events. To check availability and to request a proposal, please e-mail me or call 520-690-1888.
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Photo Essay: Westtown School
January 6th, 2012When I was growing up, Westtown was that hippie-freak Quaker school at the end of the street. The long hair and love beads crowd were quite the contrast to the buttoned down, straight-laced kids in my neighborhood.
I can remember one of the moms making jokes about “Westtown's finest” whenever she saw students heading away from campus toward the bus stop. They were headed toward Philadelphia, and judging from their expressions, they couldn't wait to get there.
Then, as now, the Westtown campus was surrounded by farm fields and forests. It's not a hotbed of excitement for teenagers.
After I left home and went to the University of Michigan, I met a graduate student who'd gone to Westtown during the hippie-freak era. She regaled me with tales of her efforts to end the Vietnam War by doing door-knocking campaigns – in my neighborhood.
Apparently, her antiwar activities ran afoul of what she called the Quaker Vatican, and she was told to tone things down. Me? I was amazed that there was anything conservative on the Westtown campus, much less a Quaker Vatican. And, no, I don't recall her ever knocking on my family's front door.
Fast-forward to the present, and Westtown is now a pricey prep school – I've heard that the tuition is more than $20,000 a year. Not the sort of school that many of the neighbors can afford, but Westtown is beloved for the fact that it has kept much of its 600-acre campus free of development.
Part of the open space is leased to Pete's Produce Farm, which does quite a brisk business. Looks like Pete is growing some daikon radish...
Care for a hike? Plenty of trails to choose from, and some of them even offer challenges like trees to hurdle and obstacle courses to conquer...
Do be on the lookout for deer and hunters during the annual hunt...
And make sure to spend some time hiking around Westtown Lake...
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Construction Photography: Here We Go Again
January 5th, 2012Nothing like a backed-up septic tank to enliven an eastern Pennsylvania family's Christmas Eve. The family in question would be mine. And this story's almost a carbon copy of the one I blogged two years ago.
Once again, a call to Hickman Sanitation, and out comes owner Dave Hickman (below) with one of his employees. Let the pumping process begin...
This is one of those "dirty jobs, but someone has to do it" scenarios. But the Hickman Sanitation guys aren't grossed out by the task at hand. They just do it...
Here's a tip for tanker truck observers: When the upper bubble starts showing liquid, it's time to shut down the pump and empty the tank...
Which is done back at the Hickman Sanitation headquarters. Note my previous post – the tank contents are transferred into a much bigger truck, which makes regular runs to a regional waste disposal facility.
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Nature Photography: Solids and Liquids
January 4th, 2012A Christmas holiday visit to family in Pennsylvania reveals a timeless truth about the Keystone State's winter weather: It varies.
On one day, it's cool enough for a jacket. Perfect weather for my mother to stroll around the neighborhood with Buddy the Labrador Retriever...
Looks like Buddy's found another interesting scent. This one merits very close inspection. Which means that the four-legged detective is on the job...
Eastern Pennsylvania normally gets around 40 inches of rain each year. The 2011 total? More than five feet, which included a late summer drenching courtesy of Tropical Storm Irene. In late December, the ground's still saturated, and watch out for the low spots...
When the cold comes, and it always does, the water turns to ice, entrapping everything within it...
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