Braddock, PA

So here we are, we just finished our first day of farming here in Braddock, PA. Sure, it was only three hours or so, but the farm manager, Marshall, wasn't feeling well and Ms. No Upper Body Strength Brewster here was not complaining after pitch forking compost. The farm is small, but there is a wide variety of stuff growing, and they seem to switch things up a lot, so I feel its going to be a great learning experience. Today we got a tour of the farm, met some of the youth program interns, did some weeding and the aforementioned pitch-forking, and cleaned out two beds of collard greens to make room for I think some radishes. Tomorrow we are going to tackle building another compost bin, and figuring out what our schedule/role here will be.

Braddock (http://www.15104.cc/) is a suburb/neighborhood of Pittsburgh, which was home to the first Carnegie Steel Mill and Carnegie Library. But when the steel mill closed, the population went from about 20,000 residents to 2,000 in about 3 years. For along time it was a pretty dangerous, drug and crime ridden area, but for the last few years, the new Mayor, John Fetterman, and a bunch of the local community have been working really hard to revitalize the community in new ways, one of which included turning 8 empty lots, which used to be an old hotel, into an urban farm, which is where we are working.

We are staying in a rehab'd convent, which has about 6 working bedrooms, a big kitchen/dining room, porch, huge bathroom, a donation based cafe, an office for a local art group, and a living room. One of the residents, Juan, is working on fixing up the third story, which will open up more bedrooms. Right now there are about 8 of us staying here- a few artists, another WWOOFer (Emily), and some others. A group of artists from an art collective in North Carolina showed up last night with a travelling interactive art installation, which are these three huge tipis made out of bamboo and recycled industrial plastics. They set them up this morning in front of our convent, and we had a chance to go inside and explore them. Right now they are building another one with the local Boys and Girls Club.

On the 30th, Just Seeds (http://www.justseeds.org/), an art collective, will be staying here for a three day artist retreat- which means we will be giving our room up for a few days and sleeping back in the van, but it will also mean that we will get to meet a ton of new people involved with a collective that I've been purchasing art from and otherwise supporting for a long time, so I think its worth it.

The weather has been good- everyone has been saying this is a mild summer, but our West Coast skins haven't been doing too well with the humidity- there has been a lot of cat naps and 5 minute cold showers through out the day. I've done a bit urban exploring, but forgot my camera, so I plan on going out again tonight and documenting some of the surreal old buildings and art projects scattered around Braddock. For now, though, feel free to check out my travel partner, Una's, flickr page, as she has uploaded a few shots from our trip so far (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirkullay/).

Ok. Time to take another quick shower and head out exploring again!