Wood

…dream or old school or sustainable?

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From the forest to the town.

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In the town.

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Duplex?

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Neighbors in the duplex make the shared balconies their own. Note finishing details–they are rough but they stand the test of time. Century? Two centuries? Older?

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Not everyone keeps them in museum quality. It is expensive; and believe it or not, it is not in compliance with current energy standards. And how much to upgrade in order to meet those standards?

And now for something completely different

I have spent my life living in places where the culture is foreign. Years living in strange cultures. Building landscapes and gardens with people from other cultures. So I have become an observer of signs that focus on cultural differences. Please see the image below. Then try to draw your own conclusion.

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From experience, I have noted that these drawings are to help certain people adjust to strange cultures. In this case one might suppose that people who are not accustomed to toilets with seats or not accustomed to plumbing that functions well might need this kind of help. How can they afford to travel as tourists?

Working on landscaping projects, I have often found that labourers employed by contractors receive a very low salary. Sometimes those labourers have not entered the country legally. Sometimes they have never yet encountered cars or trucks. Believe it or not. People of the earth.

5 Landscape Architecture Things

…I wish they had taught me at university. Maybe you can suggest others?

  1. All the places where underground utilities are accessed through the landscape surface with requirements and flexibility for placement.
  2. The line items most likely to be big profit items for contractors in unit price landscape construction contracts.
  3. How to write measurement and payment clauses for landscape construction contracts.
  4. Financial positioning and leveraging variables for landscape development in the domains of real estate and architecture.
  5. Advancement pros, cons and how-tos for landscape architecture careers in private sector versus government.

Vegan World

Here is a collection of images I have taken of plants and landscapes the past days as winter descends and the first frost arrives.

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Winter descends. Previously we had snow only 2000 meters elevation and above. Last night, I fell asleep listening to the slow and peaceful pitter patter of rain falling softly on the roof. I woke up this morning to find the snow had snuck down to 700 meters elevation.

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After this tree’s branches and trunk have built barns, built and heated homes, the remnants have become the nourishment for how many other living entities? Everything gets eaten in the end.

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Frost bite, frost burn, yet there is some beauty in this image. Is there a lesson to be learned?

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The frost is not the end but a tell that the end is near. In the background, the babbling brook runs away from that truth.

Free Beer

Most of the time I take photos of plants, gardens or landscapes where I attempt to share something beyond sense perception. That is my fun.

The other day, not far away, I found this sign. Tomorrow is when? Tomorrow never comes. Now isn’t that the funny truth?

And after all, it is not a stretch to say beer is the ideal people and plants linkage. Ethnobotany at its finest.

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See you there tomorrow for free beer.

Sneaking In

It happened last night.

Woke up this morning and winter had snuck in. Winter! And I had not yet even finished the requisite autumnal post.

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Snow down to 3,000 meters. Above image shows in the foreground two valleys at 600 meters. The valleys drain the north side of the Jungfrau Massif, part of the Berner Oberland in the Swiss Alps. If you magnify, you can see Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger in the left center background.