Category Archives: creativity

Hacking the Farm

creativity, learning

Tim Stahmer’s post about how to learn creativity and critical thinking prompted me to finally get this post written. It’s been drafting itself in my brain for the past few weeks but I just haven’t had enough quiet time to write. You see, I live on a farm and spring is a busy time of year. While my husband is the farmer-in-chief, I have daily chores that include feeding pigs, chickens, and bees along with collecting and processing eggs. It’s also flower gardening time, and I’m busy with a 1200-square-foot plot along the road that seems to sprout weeds overnight. And our most recent experiment* has been successful so now we have six baby chicks that hatched in the incubator yesterday. Plus, I haven’t given up any of my “real work” but at least I work from home so I can sit on the front porch with my laptop.

As I work around the farm, I think a lot about what I am learning. It mostly involves being creative and applying critical thinking to solve problems. We can’t afford to buy a lot of new stuff. So, my chicken coop is part of the old smokehouse, and the pigs live in an outbuilding on the property. We battled snakes in the hen house so eventually used part of a roll of house wrap to line the inside. The roosts are made of pieces of a former plant stand and the nesting boxes are stacking crates that I found for $1 at a discount store. As for the pigs, they drink fresh water from an old cooler rescued from the barn. I’ve had to experiment with tying it off to keep them from tipping it over. (Pigs really like rooting stuff up and I think tipping the cooler was a bit of a game for them.)

Certain tools lend themselves to hacking. Mason jars, for instance, are wonders: we found boxes and boxes of them around the farm. We drink from them. We feed the bees with them. We store all manner of seeds and food in them. Sometimes, I even use them for their “real” purpose and make jam and can vegetables.

There are plenty of books and website on farming and we use them as reference guides to see how others are hacking their farms. Thank goodness there is no written test…but there are plenty of tests. It took several tries to keep the snake out, and we lost chickens because of my failures. I had thirsty pigs a few mornings when they tipped the cooler.

And the new hives are just one big test: my bees are busy building comb all over the place and my local beekeeper friend is coming over to help me get them under control. We have one hive that appears to be thriving while we wonder if the second one will survive as there is very little activity. Beekeepers will tell you that if you ask 100 beekeepers the same question, you will get 100 different answers. There are guidelines but hives are alive and bees are independent so you have to solve your unique problems in unique ways.

As Tim points out and I experience every day, creativity and critical thinking are learned by doing. As I solve problems, I create a toolbox of solutions that can be applied in other areas as well. Kids need the same kind of authentic problems to solve so they can begin equipping their own toolboxes.

*We have two roosters and we wondered if we were getting some fertilized eggs. So we randomly put 12 in the incubator about three weeks ago. The answer is yes.

Creating Time for Creativity

creativity

Making, creating, crafting…increasingly, the virtual world is the place to share your analog creations. While the maker movement tends to focus on electronic making, there is a huge homemade crafting movement going on. Just as educators are trying to find time for creativity in schools, so grown ups are trying to find time to create as well. In my younger days, I was a cross stitcher and made complicated samplers. I look at them now and wonder when I found the time. Perhaps it is telling that they were all made pre-Internet days when I had a “regular” job and did not live on a farm. I could spend a Saturday afternoon listening to a book or watching a movie and stitching. Now, I spend much of my time with a laptop on my lap.

But, I still try to find time to craft. For now, it’s mostly crocheting. It’s easy to pick it up for a few minutes while dinner is cooking or as I watch the news. It takes a different part of my brain but it isn’t mindless. Crocheting requires pretty sturdy math skills and just general concentration.

So, I was excited to discover that March is National Craft Month. And a new organization called cre8time is doing what they can to encourage people to make time for crafting. The goal is just 8 minutes twice a day which leads to 8 hours a month. The video may be a bit dramatic (I think it’s the music) but it reminds us that in the busy-ness of life, we need to find time to create.

Of Troll Quotes and Book Shelves

books, creativity, ds106

I spent a bit of time browsing the aggregator in hopes of finding potential blog post fodder. I loved Tom Woodward’s rif on quotes and authenticity but could find nothing of any consequence to add except to say thanks for providing the link to Michael Livingston’s blog, which has been added to the aggregator.

So, I tried my hand at making a troll quote instead:

This seems like something that would make it to Facebook, if I do say so myself, although it occurred to me that I am very much out of the mainstream when it comes to media.


The LIbrary

From Tom (btw, that West Wing video clip in another post is one of my favorites), I headed to Ars Technica because this phrase annoyed me: “Bookshelves today are simply not as appealing as they used to be.” Really? I do beg to differ. I have no interest in spending $500 to build a book scanner so I can get rid of my books any more than I got rid of my albums once I digitized them. I still put an album on the turntable now and then. And there are just times when I want to read an analog book, one with pages, one that runs on its own power (and mine as I turn those pages). Part of the reason we bought this house is because I needed more shelves! Two more books arrived in the mail yesterday.

Then, it occurred to me that maybe I’m out of the mainstream here as well. Digital is always better, and I can turn into a 150-page-a-minute book scanner. But, when would I find time to read?

happy birthday, tdc

creativity, design, Photography, Video,

I started with tdc6: Create an audio of two sounds not normally heard together. I created Chicken TV.

In honor of the first year, I made the gift I pictured: a short slide show of photos taken as part of the daily create along with one of my other audio projects. The prompt was to make an audio recording of using an everyday object as a musical instrument. I chose chickens and made the chicken drum circle.

Thanks to the people who work hard to make the daily create exist. You helped me be just a little bit more creative…to stop and listen and look at my world and create from the materials around me.

Create, Connect, Commit in 2013

blogging, community, creativity, ds106, learning, reading, writing

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach described her New Year’s commitments and challenged the rest of us to do the same. As always, she makes a powerful statement and I found myself nodding my head in agreement as I read. Dealing productively with digital and emotional distractions, finding a work/life balance, and pursuing excellent in everything…these are all worthy goals. She sums it up beautifully: “I am determined to influence the world this year rather than be  influenced by it.”

I have three goals for the new year: create, connect and commit.

Make Art Dammit!

This is the mantra from The Daily Create, an offshoot of ds106, a MOOC that originated at the University of Mary Washington. Each day, they post an assignment designed to inspire “spontaneous creativity.” Today’s assignment is to illustrate a decision. Mine is a screenshot of my Kindle app and wondering what to read next…

First Read of 2013?

As part of ds106 GIFfest, I had fun making my first animated gif in a very long time. It reminded me that I enjoy creating:  from crocheted doilies to homemade bread to flower gardens to digital media. And, I have lots of opportunities to be creative, as long as I make the time. Along with Sheryl, I’m going to stop thinking there isn’t enough time…I value creativity so making it part of my daily life is important. In a larger sense, by creating these things, I am creating a life.

Create Connections

One of the great things about doing The Daily Create is that you do so as part of a community. It was a real kick to get positive comments on my animated gif along with suggestions for how to extend the creativity. Creating is fun but being part of a creative community is even more fun. Writing this blog post is part of this goal: a way to connect with others at the start of the new year, a year in which I want to do more connecting. More blog writing, more twitter sharing, more community creating. I have recently started exploring Google+ as well. I do a lot of connecting as part of my work, bringing people together in courses and webinars and conferences, but I want to do it more personally, including getting more involved in the crochet group I joined last year.

Increasingly, our farm is becoming a place to make connections. We have gotten to know many members of our local community when they come by to get vegetables. We have also made connections with other local farmers, and the first thing I did this morning was sign up for beekeeping classes so I can get my hives up and running this year. This past summer, we donated our excess harvest to the food bank in town. I want to strengthen those local community ties, perhaps as part of a local anti-poverty or literacy initiative. Moving to the country has opened my eyes to rural issues. I’m not sure of the details yet but am committed to finding my niche in our new place.

Forge Commitment

When I look back at my reading list for 2012, it is filled with great books. But most of them are fiction. Meanwhile, there is a whole host of writing calling for my attention: get back to Kozol, dig further into the banned book list, spend time with contemporary writers about education and change, and work on the shelf of Wendell Berry’s books. I feel a deep connection to Berry as both a writer and a farmer.

This reading will help fuel my writing. I committed to a daily blogging practice this fall and then life and work got in the way. I am re-committing to that practice as I move into the new year. Writing is a way to both create and connect so offers a foundation for my other goals.

So, a public declaration of my goals for the new year…what about you? Want to join me in any of these endeavors?