Waiting for… Finding a Home…

"Waiting for a Home" - Soergel Orchards - Wexford, PA

“Waiting for a Home” – Soergel Orchards – Wexford, PA

I haven’t posted in a while… A life consumed… A life confirmed… For me…

In the meantime… I was interviewed for Ignite… Check it out right here

Red sky mourning… Red sky and the mourning doves…
Yellow leaves grace trees rising above…
Spring is a whimper… Summer is a reply…
Autumn is the way the seasons try to say goodbye…

Summer is falling… Fruit is rotting on the frozen ground…
Mourning doves fly through the winds winter bound…
Frozen time lost in the name of sleep…
When we wake the spring clouds will thunder and weep…

Winter is of the night… Winter is a time of passing…
Winds send the naked trees suddenly crashing…
Darkness lasts longer than the winter sun…
I am of the daylight… Together we are one…

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Advertisement

Aster Blossoms and Orion

Comment

“Blood Moon Eclipse” – Whitney Avenue – Wilkinsburg, PA

Autumn… Orion… Wind from the north…
Guide me to the sky and let the stars come forth…
Aster blossoms purple… Basil sets seed…
Mighty trees get naked and poppy pods bleed…

Bask in the glow of the warm harvest sun…
This is the point summer and winter are one…
Dreamscapes of neutral memories terraced…
Nightmares will scare us… Pray to Polaris…

The end is near… But the worst has passed…
Surprised to find that any of us could last…
Green leaves fade to a bright shade of rust…
After the autumn leaves decay into dust…

Under the blue sky… Floating balls of cotton…
The scent of the breeze is of fallen fruit rotten…
Green grass fading… Goldenrod swaying…
This is a moment in time worth replaying…

Comment

“Web in Dew – Foggy Bottom” – Frick Park, Pittsburgh, PA

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Morning Reflections – Daylight after Night

Comment

“Morning Reflection” – Keystone State Park – Westmoreland County, PA

Orange glow of the street lights emanate after dark…
Indian style on cold concrete… A contrasting remark…
Heaven is to the north… And hell is in the Deep South…
Poison is pointless unless you put it in your mouth…

Daylight is for the good… The evil roam the night…
Without darkness there would be no concept of light…
Darkness provides the cover for those who take a stand…
Government is nothing more than a rights restricted brand…

Shadows from the clouds sweep across the green hills…
Air is sweet like the steam of a working moonshine still…
Embers burning… Eyes discerning… Moonlight on the water…
Some plants we grow as food… Others are simply fodder…

We are on the ground but our spirits are among the crows…
A seed in the hand does nothing… But in the soil it grows…
When the strong bear arms the weak begin fleeing…
Weapons are possessions we intentionally bring to being…

Tonight I light a candle to illuminate the black of dark…
A tree will die without protection from its wrinkled bark…
Brick by brick we build them up until they crumble down…
The strong know when to smile… The weak can only frown…

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The Guerrilla Gardening Guidebook – Sunlight

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

“First Rays of Sunlight” – Stone Cairn – Frick Park – Pittsburgh, PA – Another renegade activity I take part in… Natural sculptures made of stones found on site…

Sunlight

This post is part of a larger body of work titled ”The Guerrilla Gardening Guidebook”. For the introduction and table of contents please click here

Urban environments can be thought of as a collection of microclimates, one of the greatest determining factors of these is the sun. Plants require sunlight to survive, so gardening often becomes a hunt for the best sunlight. Knowing a few little facts about the sun can help you determine where the best light in an area will be.

The earth spins around the sun in a counterclockwise motion. If the earth was straight up and down the sun would be 90 degrees to the earth at all times, the result of which would be no seasons. Because the earth tilts 23.5 degrees, in the winter we are tilted away from the sun, and in the summer we lean towards the sun. The sun rises in the eastern sky, and sets in the west. During the summer months, the sun passes directly overhead. During the winter months, the sun will be much lower in the sky and to the South. March 23rd and September 23rd are known as the vernal and Autumnal equinox, this is the day the vertical sun crosses the equator.

Walls that face to the south will act as heat traps, the reflected sunlight heats the ground, and in turn will heat the area at the foot of the wall. North facing walls on the other hand can experience nothing more than indirect light most of the year, this side of a building will stay frozen much longer than the south facing wall during the spring thaw. The effects of this can raise your USDA hardiness rating a zone or two on the south facing wall, and possibly lower it on the north wall. The reflection of solar energy is known as albedo and can be harnessed for use in the garden, this is a subject I have already explored in a previous post… You can find my post here- Albedo and Absorption of Solar Energy

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

“Sunlight Through Pineapple Sage” – Whitney Avenue – Wilkinsburg, PA – The first peaks of sunlight photographed through my pineapple sage… This salvia is photosensitive… Meaning it blooms only after we reach a certain amount of hours of sunlight… In this case around 12 hours of light and 12 of dark… AKA – Fall…

East and west facing walls are a little more complicated, even if both walls get the exact same amount of direct sunlight. The first thing you will notice through observation is that the soil at an east facing wall is always drier than the west. The wall to the east has the benefit of warming throughout the course of the entire morning, although the west wall is also warming, it is happening much slower. By the time the sun starts warming the west wall, the ambient temperature is up, and the east wall does not loose heat as fast as the west after nightfall. Because of this, you can often get away with plants typically suited for full sun on the east side of a building, and plants suited for full shade on the west.

I have published several other articles about shade gardening, for that reason I will not be writing about it now… Instead you can check them out from these two little links – Gardening in the Shade – Woodland Mimicry in the Urban Garden

Determining the type of sunlight you are working with will not take all day. Now that you understand how the sun moves across the sky relative to the current season, you will be able to map your gardens sunlight without even being on site. Just remember the sun rises in the east and sets to the west… The sun will be high in the sky in the summer… And low and to the south in the winter… Eastern sunlight is always better than west, and south facing walls create a warmer microclimate than walls facing other directions… Easy as pie…

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

This site… And all the photographs and information presented within are provided free of charge by the author… I am not affiliated with any product or business… Only myself… Writing this blog takes a ton of time… If you find any of this information helpful, please consider purchasing a print from my online store… It is obviously not a requirement… But it helps…

I sell prints of my photography here – http://www.society6.com/chriscondello Or you can contact me directly at c.condello@hotmail.com for commissions or locally/personally produced prints… Thank you for reading…

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Warm Glow – Home for Lunch

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

“Jasmine” – © chriscondello 2013 – Whitney Avenue – Wilkinsburg, PA

The warm glow from the sky…
Radiates off my cool skin…
Washes away the depression…
Cleanses me of sin…

Dreaming of forests and lakes…
Longing for the rivers and streams…
Climbing up the tallest mountain…
These are my simple dreams…

So embrace the perfect heavens…
Take time to hug a tree…
Run through the endless flowers…
On your way to swim the sea…

Slow clouds black out the sun…
Shape shifting across the blue…
Creating a show of endless images…
A show that’s just for me and you…

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Earth Angel

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

“Earth Angel” – © chriscondello 2013 – Whitney Avenue – Wilkinsburg, PA – Not the perfect photo… I know… But no angel of mine is perfect… Nothing I praise is flawless…

Written with a found pen on a Hosta leaf while at work this morning… Just me and a morning dove…

We are all magnificent earth angels…
Gifts from the heavens above…
Flower blossoms open in the sunrise…
A sleepy morning dove cries…

The sun angel pokes through the trees…
Blesses me in light and warmth…
Just the morning doves and me…
Sweating in the humidity…

Earth angel please bless us all…
Bless our every single step…
The sun and the moon will play along…
The morning doves will join our song…

Sing to the heavens above…
Sing to the ground beneath your feet…
Praise the elements that make your heart…
Live… Love and beat…

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Waiting for the Sunrise

20130214-180101.jpg
Memories unfold like wet origami…
Left out in the drenching rain…
Waiting for the sunrise…

Sun heals and makes things grow…
A deity worthy of worship…
Waiting for the sunrise…

Just because you see the sun rise…
Doesn’t mean you’ll see it set…
Waiting for the sunrise…

peace – chriscondello

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Value Hue or Shade

Pyrex

The last of the snow clings to the shadows…
Shadows of winter that always face north…
As the shadows fade with the end of winter…
Spring and its flowers begin to push forth…

Take your time to observe your surrounding…
Natures beauty never fails to awe and inspire…
Even in winter when you look you will find…
A minimalist landscape for your artistic desire…

Black and white make colors seem bright…
When mixed together they neutralize and fade…
Who wants to be just another neutral gray…
When you can be color in any value, hue or shade…

peace – chriscondello

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Good Planets are Hard to Find

08072011-01

Acid Mine Discharge in my neighborhood. A bi-product of coal mining is iron pyrite, when the iron is exposed to moisture it will rust, when that is mixed with oxygen you get sulphuric acid… Shown bubbling out of the street… I could remediate this, but it will require several tons of limestone and some heavy equipment… Not to mention permission that I would not get…

The resources of our planet are already beyond her limits, the best time to act was fifty years ago… The second best time is now… Currently all of the systems that make the world function are failing, mass casualty natural disasters will become commonplace and land will become much more scarce. As we increase our rate of consumption, the rate of degradation increases exponentially, we as humans in turn need to move forward in a way that is not degrading our environment.

As time moves forward we are using less of our most available resource – HUMANS – to harvest the resources that we have less and less of. Even as I write this somewhere in the world a robot is replacing human farm labor, people are losing their jobs faster than we can replace them. When a person loses their ability to feed themselves they often end up on welfare, a system that reminds me of the scrip system that was issued by the mines to miners as payment, scrips were non transferrable and only valid at one company store… Essentially a form of human ownership… And a tool that will one day be used to control people again…

Water is a resource that is literally shaping the world around us as we speak, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find reasonably pure water anywhere in the world… In order for water to be considered potable it is tested for around 2000 elements, this is not an easy test to pass and will only get harder as we introduce and discover new elements.

– 97% of all of the water on the earth is salt water.

– 3% of it is fresh, of which 75% of that fresh water is in ice…

The fresh water is split up into…

– 11% is rechargeable ground water (less than 800m), this water needs to be slowly absorbed to recharge.

– 14% is in deep groundwater (pre-historic groundwater) and is not rechargeable.

– 0.03% is in lakes, ponds and surface water.

– 0.06% is in our forests and soil.

– 0.03% is in our rivers

-0.035% is in our atmosphere.

Of the 3% of our water that is not salty, roughly 0.03% is actually useable. We need more people paying attention to the land and listening to what it is saying, the earth is always speaking. Many of us hear her scream, only a few of us have been tuned in to be able to hear her whisper.

The Gaia Hypothesis

The earth as a whole is a sentient being, meaning a self-healing, and a self-regulating being that has the ability to not only detect problems, but to also react and respond. If the earth really is a sentient being that does have the ability to respond to problems, then it will eventually neutralize the problem… We as humans do the same thing… We identify the problem, consider the solutions and act appropriately, neutralizing the problem.

– Diversity leads to stability…

– Stability leads to fertility…

– Fertility leads to designing and sustaining productivity…

– Productivity leads to designing sustainable economies…

– Economies lead to designing interactive communities…

– Permanence in culture results due to the interactive community…

please just listen – chriscondello

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Run Away With Me

100_1525Lets get out of Dodge……
Head for another land…
Lets go to the ocean…
Build castles out of sand…

Climb the highest mountain…
Jump into the sea…
Forget about your bags…
And run away with me…

Camp under the stars…
Embrace the shining moon…
We can go nowhere later…
Or somewhere soon…

We can do anything…
We can be with anyone…
We can laugh and play…
We can sing and run…

I just need you…
To just need me…
To surf the stars…
And play in the sea…

This is the point…
To never disrupt…
To pack a bag…
And keep heading up…

Live for experience…
Live for the new…
All I want in life…
Is to be with you…

peace – chriscondello

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.