Herb Fest Pomona Saturday October 10, 2009

1970 dig in the dirt
Originally uploaded by mquest foto

It is not every day that the Goddess of Pomona receives email from the Goddess of Garey Avenue. But it happened this week for the very first time. The ocassion? To request that I put the word out about Herb Fest to be held this Saturday at the recently burned-and-resurrected Garden nursery. This is the type of thing that is very important to goddesses in Pomona.

Here's the particulars in the words of the goddess who works Garey:

"Herb Fest
Sat. October 10th, 2009, 10am-4pm

Herb fest is cornucopia of information, seeds, and plants.

In the course of the day, underneath the old walnut tree that
survived the fire, there’s going to be an abundance of free
workshops on all things to do with herbs:

11am -- Growing and Using Herbs -- herbs 101, taught by Kathleen
noon -- Companion Planting -- of herbs and vegetables, who likes
who and what likes what, taught by Dawn
1pm -- Soils and Amending Your Soils, taught by Robert
2pm -- Medicinal Herb Preparation -- using herbs you grow,
taught by Olympia
3pm -- Regional Herbs -- of the Southwest & Mediterranean
Climates, taught by Martha

It should be a really great time and a lot of knowledge shared. Come
out for one or a couple or all of the workshops if you can. There’s
going to be a lot of great information.

The Garden already also has a lot of herbs in pots to choose from and will have a shipment of seeds in too for fall and winter planting,
etc., but also the Italian seed company Franchi is going to have a
booth of seeds, as well.

The Garden’s new website is also up and going now with info on the event.

Come out to Herb Fest and support our local business (instead of Home Depot of course), expand your home gardens, and increase your knowledge of herbs, how to grow them, and how to use them too!"

Back to the words of the usual Goddess around here: today's photo is of a child working in a Pomona garden in 1970 from Flickr.com. It seemed a fitting photo for encouraging everyone to continue the Pomona gardening tradition by coming out to Herb Fest. You are guaranteed to spot at least one goddess there (the one specifically assigned to Garey), as well as the one who'll be trying to get away from soccer and a birthday party to stop by.

THE END

Empathy in Pomona

On Saturday, Pomona was filled with smoke and confusion. But today is a new day and it is empathy that fills the air. We may not have handbaskets at our local Stater Brothers, but our little town is busting at the seams with pure, unadulterated empathy. This is, of course, nothing unusual here in Underdog Pomona. It is one of the characteristics of life in POmona that is hard to explain to outsiders (okay, Claremonters) when they wonder why the heck you live in Pomona. Tomorrow (Tuesday the 14th) there will be a community work day at The Garden all day. All are welcome to come out.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune had some photographs which were taken at the time of the fire. This one really got me. It captures the fiance's empathy for his girlfriend's loss so strikingly. Look closely: he has the word "HOME" written on his hand.


Another story that has not been told much is how Olympia (known as the Goddess of Garey Avenue around here, saved Dawn's animals. It seems the Goddess of Garey Avenue (pictured above "sun gazing") has now been elevated to hero status. As for me, seems I'm back working graveyard on the blog.


THE END THE END

Fire in Pomona

Pardon my dust as I'm in the midst of reinventing the blog for a possible comeback, but I did want to open up the site in order to post this video taken by 15 year old Pomona resident Juan Cabrera, my newest contributor here on the blog. That's him sideways above.

According to some posts on the internet and an interview with the homeowner of the 2 Old Divas knitting shop/home on channel 4 last night, there is some controversy over how this fire was handled by the fire department. Mr. Henry complained that the firefighters refused to fight the fire when it was behind his house, which he was pleading for them to do. Mr. Hall said he had to helplessly watch as his home proceeded to catch on fire and burn. The other business affected (I'm still not sure how much) was The Garden, the first organic garden shop in L.A. County, but more importantly the Garden was part of the heart of Pomona. This is very sad.

Here' the link:

THE END