September 2, 6:30 PM, MLK Park Gym.

 We need YOU at this meeting to advocate for this community-building, safety-creating strategy!   If you want to learn more about the proposal visit here, and if you want to really stay up-to-date and help the project, friend Kingfield Dogpark on Facebook here.

Show your support for the Kingfield Off-Leash Dogpark! 

A)     Buy a Kingfield Dogpark t-shirt or doggie drink bottle at the Kingfield Farmers’ Market this Sunday at the KFNA table (read about how KFNA uses this table to build support for neighborhood projects in a recent Southwest Journal story by a Market Board Member!)  The $20 cost for a T or bottle goes directly to the dog park project.  

and

B)      Send a letter of support for an off-leash area to all Park Board Commissioners, Councilperson Elizabeth Glidden and copy dogpark@kingfield.org.

The 2010 B.L.E.N.D. Award is proudly sponsored by the following Neighborhoods: Armatage, East Harriet Farmstead, Fulton, Kingfield, Linden Hills, Lynnhurst, Tangletown, and Windom. The participating Neighborhood Associations and Councils are issuing a call for submissions for the 2010 B.L.E.N.D. AWARD, which recognizes builders, architects, designers, and property owners whose projects respect existing neighborhood design aesthetics. We have also included Landscape projects as a submission category this year and are looking forward to having submissions in that category. The submission deadline is Friday, July 30th, 2009 5:00 p.m.

Eligible projects include new buildings, renovation or additions to existing buildings, and landscape projects that have been completed since July 1, 2005; projects must be located within the boundaries of the participating southwest neighborhoods. A jury of design professionals and neighborhood residents will select projects to be awarded. Recipients of the 2010 B.L.E.N.D. Award will be announced the week of August 16, 2010.

BLEND stands for Buildings and Landscapes Enhancing the Neighborhood through Design. “The name and the award represent the residents’ recognition of interest in their neighborhood and encouragement of progress while balancing a need for compatibility,” said Phil Rader, AIA, an architect on the Fulton Neighborhood Association’s Zoning Committee.

The B.L.E.N.D. AWARD was featured in the 2010 Minneapolis/St. Paul Home Tour. See their website www.MSPhomeTour.com. You can read the feature article at http://msphometour.com/files/2010_Home_Tour_Pg14.pdf

If you have a remodel, addition, new home, or landscape project completed within the last 5 years and your project is located in a Southwest Minneapolis neighborhood, please consider submitting this year Details of participating neighborhoods, project categories, mailing instructions, eligibility, and submission guidelines can be found on the BLEND Award web site www.blendaward.org -or- by contacting Phil Rader prader@philrader.com.

Last update: July 26

On one side are staunch dog advocates who believe an off-leash park on a portion of Martin Luther King Memorial Park in south Minneapolis is just the thing they need to exercise and socialize their pooches.

On the other are those who believe the 18 1/2-acre park is hallowed ground, named for the greatest civil rights leader in American history, and not a place where dogs should run loose.

“This was supposed to be a memorial for Dr. Martin Luther King,” says Ed Christopher, 84, a retired postal clerk, who circulated petitions against a dog park. “They don’t send dogs into a veterans cemetery.”

Park officials asked both sides to meet last week to discuss the proposal. An informal poll by meeting organizers found 47 in favor of an enclosed dog park on the King site, 30 against, and three maybes.

On one side are staunch dog advocates who believe an off-leash park on a portion of Martin Luther King Memorial Park in south Minneapolis is just the thing they need to exercise and socialize their pooches.

On the other are those who believe the 18 1/2-acre park is hallowed ground, named for the greatest civil rights leader in American history, and not a place where dogs should run loose.

“This was supposed to be a memorial for Dr. Martin Luther King,” says Ed Christopher, 84, a retired postal clerk, who circulated petitions against a dog park. “They don’t send dogs into a veterans cemetery.”

Park officials asked both sides to meet last week to discuss the proposal. An informal poll by meeting organizers found 47 in favor of an enclosed dog park on the King site, 30 against, and three maybes.

Read more from the article here.  To learn more about the Kingfield Dogpark proposal read here.

Bateman’s work “Field to Table” is a large wooden dining table whose center is a planted field of produce grown by her collaborator, David Van Eeckhout, a local organic farmer.  The table supports an abundance of green plants with the first crop rotation consisting of red sails lettuce, bright lights chard, winner kohlrabi (green) kolibri kohlrabi (red), red giant mustard, green wave mustard and renegade spinach.  New crops such as tomato, peppers, beans, leeks and kale will be rotated into the piece throughout the 2010 growing season.  Surrounding this “groaning” table are 10 antique, wooden chairs of diverse shapes, all painted off-white.  
One might say this woman sure knows how to set a table! Bateman, who is also a landscape architect, explains this very engaging work:  “What we’re trying to say with this is ’support locally grown’ food.  The field is coming right out of your table, it’s so close.  Let’s get as few steps between us and our food as possible.”

The work is an imaginative celebration of the local foods movement and the joys of community.  Bateman’s collaborator Van Eeckhout runs Hog’s Back Farm, an organic farm in Arkansaw, Wis., that sells produce directly to individuals through a Community Share Agriculture (CSA) program.  The seeds, compost, everything used for the project’s “field” are organic.  Another project collaborator is Graham Beech who completed the woodworking as his eighth-grade project at City of Lakes Waldorf School located in South Minneapolis.  Bateman says, “Graham is interested in pursuing art in his high-school years and beyond.  I enjoyed involving him in how this project was articulated along with its construction.”

The artwork is sited near the front entrance of the Arboretum’s Oswald Visitor Center and near the recently completed “Uff da Palace” stickworks sculpture by Patrick Dougherty. Visitors are immediately drawn to the Bateman piece, and many even pull up a chair, sit down, visit and relax at the expansive wooden table of greenery.  “I’m so pleased that people are responding to it! It’s fun to see people sitting at the table and interacting with it.  I’ve even seen a group having a meeting at it.  The table with the field growing out of it is a simple concept, but people are enjoying it visually and I’m glad for that.  Hopefully, the piece also supports the work of organic and local farmers and this message of local harvest,” she said. 

The “Powerhouse Plants” exhibition, which opened June 5 and continues through Oct. 10, also features displays on new research into various forms of bio-energy (“Bio-Energized!”) as a means of fueling our vehicles and dwellings, as well as a variety of displays on “Incredible Edibles” celebrating nutrient-rich plants to power our bodies.  The latter includes several small model garden plots (that can be replicated at home) and a Chef’s Row of vegetable plantings that are favorites of Twin Cities chefs along with recipes on how to use them (recipes available at the Arboretum website). Open 363 days a year, it is located 9 miles west of Interstate 494 on State Hwy. 5 in Chanhassen.