“Yes You May…Nest in the [Texas Blackland] Prairie” Part 1

This month I’m participating in “Yes You May,” an exploratory month where participants give themselves permission to try new things. Whether it’s a new(ish) skill, project, hobby, direction, or anything you’re curious about, you explore it for the month and share the journey as you go. In “Yes You May,” you can be a beginner, trying new things, let yourself fail, be curious, stumble, learn, and grow.

This could be every month for me, in fact I’ve recently considered focusing on learning a new skill each month to build routines of learning since I’m interested in so many things. Start learning ASL, improve my Spanish, try more cute crochet animals, woodworking, learn to solder so I can fix my own sound equipment and cables, flute repair, tin whistle lessons from Paraic McNeela, Native Flute and/or flute making from Blue Bear Flutes, shakuhachi since Steven gave me one as a gift for my birthday, salsa flute playing, jazz flute, piano for composing and accompanying, the list is endless. But there’s something special about a group of people learning things at the same time and cheering each other on, so I settled on a theme for this month:

I’m going to start learning to nest in the prairie, mostly by learning about native landscaping. I'll also make some Blackland Prairie site-specific interactive art.

AV and I made a very intentional decision to stay in Austin in the last few years and continue to make our home here. We love it here, we have family and loved ones, and we’re continuously building beautiful intergenerational queer community. We belong here and I dream of our new home being a safe space for our friends and loved ones, neighbors and community to gather and support each other. I want to keep spreading love and joy and kindness and belonging right where we are.I’ve just in the last few years gotten into this “nesting” phase. Now that I want to stay here for a good long while, I will be learning about the ecoregion that includes most of Austin: the Texas Blackland Prairie. I want to learn what plants are native and how I can “rewild” our front and back yard into a drought-tolerant landscape that supports native birds, butterflies and other fauna, and grows food for our household and eventually, others in the neighborhood. Centered on that theme, I’ve got a collection of other areas of learning I’ll be exploring this month as the inspiration strikes. I'm not putting pressure on myself to do all of these things or focus on them equally, but just sharing the intention and having people to update gives me a lot of motivation. So here's my list:

THINGS I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT…

1. Rewilding/Native Landscaping - I found some great resources on this but so far have very minimal knowledge about the ecoregion or how to do landscaping or rewilding. I have ordered a bunch of clover seeds to replace the grass out front as a more drought tolerant ground cover, and when they arrive I will learn how to prepare the soil and overseed in some areas, with the help of my neighbors’ equipment!

2. Music Publishing - I don’t really know where to start but I need to publish my two pieces entitled Wildlife Walk No. 1 and Wildlife Walk No. 2, which are site-specific flute choir works dedicated (and premiered at) the Utah Hogle Zoo and Natural History Museum of Utah, respectively. No. 2 is being premiered in June and I’d REALLY like to have actual music available for purchase to share when that happens!

3. Cooking seasonally - what vegetables are growing locally now that I can cook with? I don’t know! Time to find out and give it a try with a couple new recipes.

4. Sound installations - I’m going to try and use the Echoes geolocated audio platform to prototype a sound walk musical experience geotagged to a local park or maybe the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. I imagine this will be like a “capstone project” of the month, incorporating learnings in multiple areas.

THINGS I KNOW A LITTLE ABOUT…

1. Piano - I took a year of lessons in 2021 but I’ve never really applied myself regularly. I’d like to practice a little each day in May with the goals of incorporating piano into my sound walk project. I’d also like to learn the accompaniment parts to the Suzuki Flute Method Book 1, so I can accompany my students in recitals next fall.

2. Tin Whistle - I got into this mostly in 2009-2010, and pick it up a couple times each year, but I haven't improved in a long time. I’d like to practice a little each day in May with the goals of incorporating tin whistle into my sound walk project, and learning a group of session tunes to take to Irish sessions at the local Irish pub in June.

3. Front of House Audio Engineering - I’m running sound or assisting with live sound for three choir concerts this month, in which I have opportunities to explore some new technologies that I am excited about! Specifically AES3 and ipad mixer apps on a local area network.

Ok, here we go!