Backyard Industry

Full Circle

 
A woman recording audio in a small room

Lisa recording in her home studio in 2011. Jim Kelly

                                    

Pop Up Archive Item: “Full Circle” : https://www.popuparchive.com/collections/1471/items/29930
Transcript for file: bi_for_me_141219.mp3

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Another years and is already upon us. So it’s time for a look back at this season of backyard industry. Let’s reminisce gatherings and shindigs have always been a favorite topic of coverage here a backyard industry and twenty fourteen was no exception. Whether it was getting people together to eat meals in bowls to fend off January and February polar vortices or indoor lawn games organized to help friends get their ya yas out in very early spring after being cooped up inside for what seemed like forever or a small gathering to chow down on green tomatoes before a hard frost in late October backyard industry maintained its fondness for get togethers this year . I submitted my very first book reviews in twenty fourteen Eva Chen’s eating wildly in August and Suzanne copes small batch earlier this month. I made yogurt and pickled asparagus for the first time and got really close to the messaging Kevin was cookbook saving the season. Preserve what you have. Keep it simple and enjoy the process. Landolin helps urban best theory also made an appearance this year inspiring a trek toward downtown champagne with environmental almanacs Rob canter to search for fauna a well beyond mere squirrels in the park. That’s where we saw the muskrat. Remember I’ve always been up for a field trip this year. I walk the alleys of Easter Bana looking for fear of food and semi secret gardens but also for clues about my neighborhood. I attended the opening of poultry enthusiast Karen Carney’s chicken coop in Champaign. I learned about eating invasive species from Dustin Kelly in rural Urbana and was on hand for the delivery of one hundred pounds of red wigglers. Those are worms for the massive composting project at the University of Illinois sustainable student farm. I stopped in a separate time last year at the farm to talk to the farms managers at Grant about the basal downy mildew that was destroying basal plants all over our part of Illinois this summer. Twenty fourteen was a busy year but this segment isn’t just about the end of the year it’s about the end of this particular road. I’ve said before the backyard industry has really grown to be about the triumph of the small neighborly gesture. The simple gathering of friends the humble attempt at trying something new. What’s funny is that in twenty ten when backyard industry got its start on AM fighting ideas in my backyard. I had no idea what I was doing these episodes all ninety three of them have been humble attempts at something new. The most basic writing advice in the world is to write about what you know and that’s what I did when I started. The very first episode of In My Backyard aired on June tenth two thousand and ten and was basically a call to gardening action whose working title is stop talking and start digging. Then I started writing more about what I knew less about or didn’t know anything at all about and telling the stories of my neighbors friends and community as they made their way through pickling sausage making SAP boiling seed swapping and smoker building people whose romances bloomed over food offer details for the radio an episode about amateur food photography and restaurants weren’t fully meta when we snapped photos of our lunch we even branched out into video and will be producing a few new ones over the next several months. Telling you guys about these things on the radio has been super fun but it’s time to take a break. Backyard industry radio all ninety three episodes will live happily online on WILL’s website at will dot Illinois dot edu slash backyard industry backyard industry will also continue to be a small but mighty force on a variety of social media Facebook Twitter Pinterest Instagram and Tumblr. The blog at backyard industry dot org will be updated much more frequently with writing and photos. And as for the future backyard industry over the airwaves I’m not sure. You never know but thank you thank you thank you so much for listening. For backyard industry this is Lisa Bralts.

Backyard Industry's Lisa Bralts has 2014's stories - and those of the last 4 and a half years - in the rear view mirror.