The Elysian Fields

Anyone out there (Livejournal, Dreamwidth, and/or Facebook) know any good resources for dotting your tees and crossing your eyes when relocating a business (specifically an LLC) from one address to another?

My Google Fu returns many results on why you might want to move a retail location, but the why, the where, and several other issues have been decided... I just want to make sure all the nuts and bolts are in place and properly tightened to tie down all those ducks in a row and other assorted metaphors, mixed and otherwise.

Cheers!

Is there anyone here (on DreamWidth, LiveJournal, or Facebook) who uses Blogger and manages to get it to post to Facebook?

I want to get the Green Man Enviroscaping blog set up so I can get the GME facebook page to crosspost them.

I can share the posts individually (and so can anyone who looks at them), but those would post to my facebook wall and not to the company's. In LiveJournal, this is easy enough to set up, but I couldn't find an equivalent feature in Blogger's tools.

Any ideas? (short of migrating the blog entirely, which I'd prefer not to do!)

I was hoping we'd be able to get some tree work done. Most of the high-risk bits that we could get have been taken care of, so part of the reason for getting back out there is purely theraputic ~ after a few months without that level of activity, one day tends to kill you.

I'd equate an hour of tree work with 2-3 hours of time in a gym, with most of it focused on an upper body workout. Of course, the tree work jobs I've done so far have been in the 6-80 hour range...

The light snow ~ less than half an inch ~ is what's keeping us in today. Maybe tomorrow?

This afternoon, there will be a company meeting of sorts, going over some details with our future sales rep.

Tonight? Possibly karaoke, although that depends on how the cold bug behaves.

Some of the May posts from Green Man Enviroscaping LLC blog:

Green Man Enviroscaping LLC will be volunteering some time & expertise to assist the D&L Trail Tenders at the Lock 13 in Parryville.

The work will be scheduled for May 22, and will start at 9:30am.

If you're interested in volunteering for this or other D&L Trail Tenders events in the areas covered by any of the four chapters (Easton, Lehigh Valley, Northern Lehigh and Carbon/Lehigh Gorge), visit the D&L site for contact information.

We hope to see you there!

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Mulch Matters ~ article on how to use mulch

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Boosting the signal for Edge of the Woods... here are some of their coming events... be sure to visit the nursery website for more information on these events, as well as sign-ups or tickets as mentioned in these blurbs:

Things are Blooming Away here at Edge of the Woods!
A few of the plants in their glory right now are Fringetree (it's fragrant, too!), Catawba Rhododendron (lavender and white), Amsonia (great for butterflies) and American Wisteria (not nearly as aggressive as it's Asian counterpart). Stop in Today to see these great native plants and learn how to use them in your garden.

Make a rain barrel May 22
Sponsored by the Saucon Creek Watershed Association.
The fee is $35 for each rain barrel, and participants will be provided with the materials and instruction needed to make and take home a finished rain barrel. Pre-registration is required and space is limited. Download a registration form and mail it in today!

Learn all about Rain Gardens May 22
Adrianne Blank, Registered Landscape Architect.
Adrianne will give presentations at 10, 12 and 2 on May 22. Rain gardens collect storm water runoff from roofs, driveways, or other impervious surfaces. With a rain garden, you can grow beautiful plants, reduce polluted runoff and re-charge groundwater supplies. The presentation is free of charge, so don't miss it!

Gardening for the Future June 12 10 AM
A 'Must Hear' presentation With Dale Hendricks

Tickets on Sale Now!

Why bother gardening with natives? Plant grower and lover Dale Hendricks will answer with good information about the many positive impacts our seemingly small acts can have. Can gardening be good for the climate? For wildlife? For us? Does this have to be complicated? What plants are the easiest for beginners? He will then present, in his down to earth way, the joys and lore of several easy to grow, durable and beautiful native perennials and grasses.

Cross-posted from the company blog (as if the green text doesn't give it away...):

On June 20th, we set up a table at the Edge of the Woods summer festival and hoped to talk to a few people who braved the rainy weather about the services we offer.

When one of the speakers that morning experienced weather-related delays, I filled in, and discussed some edible woodland plants and answered questions until Julianne arrived and set up her presentation. The event was covered in the Times-News here.

As indicated in the article, I tend not to rely on my identification skills when it comes to wild mushrooms ~ the tendency to misidentify is too high and the possibility that the misidentification involves something poisonous is just enough to keep me from making that call.

If you're interested in the sassafras-leaved dish ~ a variant on the quesadilla ~ you can find the recipe for Frasadillas on my personal blog.

To clarify on the sweet birch/wintergreen, they are two separate plants: the sweet birch, or black birch, is a dark-barked tree that contains a sap that is used to provide the wintergreen flavoring; the wintergreen plant (which has berries with a taste and texture much like a Certs candy) is not used to create the flavoring that is named after.

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This past weekend, Green Man Enviroscaping LLC employees volunteered their time for a trail cleanup session at the Weissport trail head of the Delaware & Lehigh Trail. We were able to clear a lot of crown vetch and some tree-of-heaven growing between the canal and the trail itself, and we helped plant some donated flowers around the memorial for Wilbur “Cap” Bauchspies.

Beautiful misty morning here in northeastern PA. Haze across the forest, about 50-100 songbirds singing*, nice, quiet sleepy day, Mr. B hollering HAL YAY YOU YA on the other side of the door...

The newish green that forms a semi-circle around me, balanced by the faux-stone wall of the house a foot to my right, seems to play with you: is it really hazy, or do the leaves just smear the colors like an oil painting?

Speaking of magical woodland type stuff, you know, in the movie Legend, during the opening credits, there's all that fluff and stuff floating around, giving the forest that enchanted feeling?

Those were our working conditions earlier this week. I'm not sure what the tree was ~ I didn't ID it, although with the proliferation of seeds, I wouldn't it be surprised if it was the evil Tree-O-HeckHeaven ~ but it was definitely related to the dandelion. For two days straight, the air was filled with floating fluffballs. Sometimes it was as sparse as those opening credits(!!!!). Once in a while, it stopped for a few moments. Here and there, it was so thick, that we joked we'd be competing with the guy with a fir tree in his lung... you couldn't take a breath without inhaling a few of the things.

Today will be Rachel's last day of school. We're going on a field trip to the Lehigh Gap Nature Center for a talk by Pat Sutton on Backyard Habitat For Birds and Butterflies (For those in the area who might be able to join us it's at 1:00 p.m.-- Special program by naturalist Pat Sutton from Cape May, New Jersey; with lots of tips on how to attract birds and butterflies to your garden).


* Estimated. I lost count at 25 different types of calls. Sounds kind of like I'm in an aviary, which is good.

A while back, I had a request for the shirt off my back.

No, seriously.

While my son and I were volunteering to help get the deer exclosures we built at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center planted, I was asked if we had shirts for sale.

We didn't.

This past week, I've been working on getting some new shirts ~ the old ones are looking slightly less glow-in-the-dark ~ and in the process, I revised the logo a bit (partially to simplify the colors for silk screening the t-shirts and embroidering the polo shirts; partially to get some additional text on there as well).

Earlier tonight, I had the brilliant idea of using Zazzle.com ~ where I already offer various products based on my photography for sale in the The Elysian Fields Gallery ~ to offer this new logo on a variety of items and make it available to others.

This logo differs a little from what we wear ~ ours are four-color renderings, this is the full color logo designed by Tooth & Nale Graphics for us, along with the text of our new shirts.

The logo is available on a number of products, including t-shirts (in sustainable styles for men, women, children, and babies!), stickers, magnets, buttons, mugs, keychains, and mousepads. Click on the images below to see more information on each product:

( The rest under the cut... )

(Cross-posted to Dreamwidth & LiveJournal from the company blog)

This weekend, volunteer at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center!

You'll be working on the only superfund site approved for recreational use. Over a thousand plants will be going in to six plots ~ three within deer exclosures and three outside of the fences.

Nine different species of wildflowers will be planted in each plot, and will be monitored and measured over the next few years. They will be looking at which species grow best on the soil overloaded with zinc and other heavy metals, and, more importantly, which species do not take the metals up out of the soil and back into the food chain. They will also be studying which species are impacted by deer pressure.

We did a quick test the other day, and four of us were able to get over thirty plugs planted in less than an hour, in the rockiest corner of the rockiest exclosure, so the good news is the work will be easier than expected (and easier than getting the fences up in the first place! =)

Please RSVP as noted below to make sure you get some lunch!

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April 25, 26 -- Experimental plantings in grassland restoration area
     9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. -- Native forbs (wildflowers will be planted in the grassland restoration area of the nature cetner.
         Lunch will be provided for volunteers.
         Contact lgnc AT ptd DOT net to register so we can have lunch for you.

Unfortunately, unlike some folks in New Jersey and further up along the coast in Massachusetts, we did not get thirteen inches of the white stuff. We only got three inches, so I went out once with Rachel along for the ride, and we did the client sites, and came back to do our driveway.

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I had been concerned ~ well, suspicious really ~ that it would snow while I was up at the conference and I'd miss it, but I made it back in plenty of time.

Saturday, after the conference, I headed over to Worcester to visit some family, and hear a bit more about the Asian longhorned beetle and all the trees that were cut down to try to keep the pest from spreading. As mentioned in yesterday's semi-conscious post, I had dinner with my mom and her two sisters and with my grandfather's sister as well. All four of them were flirting with the waiter to one degree or another, so I spent much of the time shaking my head or saying "oy" or something like that. Despite all that ~ or, in all truth, because of it ~ the waiter took two "buy one get one free" coupons when it clearly stated one per table. So he made up the extra in his tip.

After getting more stuff from my great aunt to bring back for the kids, we went back to my Aunt Susan's and talked, looked at some pictures I had on the computer, and watched Blazing Saddles.

The conference went great, I learned a lot of useful bits of information, had a lot more bits that confirmed I was on the right track, and found a whole bunch of vendors that I'd like to work with. I went from having a couple of tentative contacts with possibilities to discussing things (one of whom has never gotten back to me) to a number of companies that offer viable solutions to all of the needs I had and then some. I've gotten challenged ~ both from the vendors and the sessions ~ to bring the skills I have up a notch or fifty, and that will benefit my customers greatly.

The section of the books I am currently studying ~ Edible Forest Gardens (hands down, the best books I've seen on permaculture) ~ is going in-depth into the structures of the soil and the soil food web, and that was a recurring theme in the conference. Although I had some soil-testing gear on my wish-list for the company, I'm now convinced that I need to up that in priority. I, at least, need to pick up one or two things and then expect to use a lab for the tests themselves. At some point, it will be important enough for me to make sure I can do the tests myself.

Because the general purpose solution worked in my yard, I was attempting to bring that to others (at least until that solution proved to be ten times as expensive as other commercial offerings) and I realize that, to be able to charge people, I need to be able to offer better service than a one-size-fits-some-and-hopefully-you solution, and actually be able to fine tune it to the specific needs of the site and desires of the landowners.

I did talk to some other vendors about permeable pavers, rain collection systems, and a few other things I had looked into and hope to be able to offer at some time in the future. I also made contact with a lot of great people in some aspect of this industry ~ the vendors, growers, landscape architects, some folks who were just interested parties, as well as fellow design-build-maintain contractors like myself.

Also, if you ever get a chance to listen to the Forest Service's Kevin T. Smith talk about anything ~ even if he's just reading off the ingredients list on a cereal box ~ go and see him. He is a great speaker, combining a depth of knowledge with an entertaining delivery.

Also also, one of the speakers from NH used "wicked" at least three to seven times in her portion of the talk, and that made me smile and think of the homeland.

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I had mentioned, the other day, how I had dinner with firesign10 and family, and I have to go into a bit more detail. First off, I think Mr. Bear tried to adopt me. He showed me his Fantastic Four action figures, set up a game for me on his Leapster, and offered me the best bits of whatever food was on his plate. He also thought I should go home with them, and when he found out I wasn't coming over, he asked if we could set up a playdate. He's about a year and a half older than Mr. B, and if we could ever get those two together, they'd have a blast.

Conversation covered everything from work to commuting to bass playing ~ which reminds me, I should have mentioned this: firesign10, you folks should come to the Musical Day cookout on the 25th of May! (okay, really I should just announce that to everyone, but, in particular, you guys should bring down the basses and guitars and so on! =) (I should also verify if it's going to be on the 25th or another day that weekend, or, even, the next!)

Great people, and it was great to meet them!

The posts today will be Legion.

I thought about writing them all out and spreading them across a few or a dozen days, but hey, maybe I'll just flood the market.

Food will, of course, take up most of them. Some measure of all, really. Even the two posts on architecture and home design (from the How to Tell if ... are from Another Planet series... see the other episodes here and here) will be related to food preparation. There will also be six recipes: three main dishes, one sauce, one component, and one overall Plan for the entire meal.

I've mentioned before that I get into things in waves. I can be really intensely focused for a while, and then I'll move on to other things. Obviously, the food wave is cresting now. Thursday had the recipe for sweet lemon cod and winey 'zo 'n 'zo. Saturday had the Valentine's Feast that will generate all the food posts mentioned above, and was previewed here and had results depicted here. Yesterday, there were egg rolls which also works fairly well as a stir fry recipe ~ thought I had posted a stir fry one before, but if I did, I failed to tag it with either food or recipes.

There's likely to be more food recipes ahead in the near future. Maybe. I have some hamburger, and I'm likely to try something different for making burgers, so maybe something on that at the end of the week. Everything else for the next week or so will involve less of the recipe and more of the open-package-and-heat variety, unfortunately. Although I've seen some newspaper articles claim that healthy, fresh foods are cheaper than the pre-processed crap out there, Deb goes into conniptions when I get into a cooking phase because I like to work with ingredients instead of heat-n-serve stuff, and, apparently, her issue with this doesn't involve taste or health, rather money, of which we have, well, none.

In other news, aequitaslevitas drove to college today. All by his own self. Next step will be him getting a job ~ beyond the part time work with me* ~ so he can pay for gas.

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* He's very restricted on what times he can work; even if he doesn't have high school classes or college classes, his working permit is based on the school district we live in, not that he attends... so no work while they are in school, even if he is not. Which pretty much limits any landscaping help to the summer vacation ~ can't exactly do that sort of thing in the night time, or, even, schedule it to start late enough in the day to take him along. I suppose now that he's driving, he'll be able to come out in the afternoon for a few hours a day... hadn't thought of that until typing it... but that may work, although it means two vehicles going to the site... =)