Join us on our porch @ 158 Eaton on Wednesday, September 1st from 3pm – 6pm, where we will be demonstrating two different recipes for canning tomatoes.  Our workshop will overview blanching, a common preserving and cooking technique, as well as sterilizing, packing, and sealing your jars.  A $5 donation is appreciated to help cover the costs for the workshop, and attendees go home with their own jar of ReUse Tomatoes!

Join Fancy & Delicious tomorrow, August 22nd, at 153 Eaton Street from 12-5 for our monthly bread workshop.

Arrive at noon if you want to knead and bake your own loaf of bread in our clay oven. There are still a few spots available. If you are not planning on baking, join us at any time in the afternoon to
enjoy some tea or coffee, and good company (the company is always good)!

There will be no special lesson or theme this month. All basic ingredients and supplies are provided, but if you want to experiment with any special flours or recipes, you should bring your own extras.
Instruction and guidance will be available for those who want it. The workshop is free, but we accept
donations to cover the cost of ingredients and to help keep the project alive!

Cheers,
Maura

–
Fancy and Delicious Baking Co.
153 Eaton St. Buffalo, NY 14208
fancyanddelicious.blogspot.com

Peter and I visited a few of the Delevan Avenue gardens during the Garden Walk a couple weekends back. We were both super impressed with the gorgeous plants, colors, creative designs and SKILL of the gardeners who shared their beautiful spaces.  We also found a few resourceful urbanites who were sharing their reuse ideas!  One example is Jeff Wilson’s back yard patio space that gave broken granite slabs some knew purpose!  If you click on the photo link you’ll see some other great ideas. I know there are lots of clever examples of reuse in your gardens too; I hope you will share those ideas and photos with all of us.

Folks, there’s lots and lots of exciting activities for August.

You can download our calendar from our website–click on the calendar or link.

We are always in need of people to help with publicizing or organizing events so if you need volunteer hours (or your teen does) contact us and let us know volunteer {at} buffaloreuse(.)org

The Strawberry Moon Celebration went so well that we have decided to do it again! Join us this Saturday at 8pm. We will teach you how to make beignets with a black raspberry sauce, taste test some Lake Effect Ice Cream, and watch a movie under the stars. Remember to bring a chair and a friend!!

The August Movie Night will be Friday, the 27th and we’ll make treats with fresh blueberries!

You are probably seeing more and more rain barrels popping up in gardens, driveways, and backyards — if you haven’t found one for yourself yet, look no further.

And if you do not yet know: rain barrels can make a huge impact on our local ecology by conserving rain water, slowing water runoff, and preventing pollution and debris from being carried into our waterways and municipal systems.  Installing a rain barrel allows you to catch clean, untreated water that has fallen from the sky and hold it there until you need it — taking a bit of the burden off your tapwater, and the municipalities that make it.  If everyone in the city did this, think of the difference that could be made!!!

You will most likely see rain barrels all over if you are out and about for Buffalo’s Garden Walk this weekend, so if you get jealous and have the urge to keep up with the Joneses (or just want to water your garden or wash your car), you can get yourself a rainbarrel from our store at 298 Northampton for just $30.

Please don’t get me wrong, we love the Garden Walk–I love anything that gets people out into the sidewalks and talking to one another about color and veggies and sunshine. And I realize that with 355 gardens on the Walk–it makes it difficult to map a larger area; however, there are many gardens east of Main Street that I think are worth visiting–namely those in our neighborhood:

• Our Rain Garden at the corner of Northampton & Michigan is very new! It was installed by National Grid employees as a corporate service project this past Earth Day 2010. The garden was designed by Matthew Dore of Buffalo Horticulture. Matt regraded the vacant double lot to guide rain water into the middle (like a shower drain) where a pergola was built surrounded by blueberry bushes. The lot also features a privacy fence using reclaimed flooring. The perennial flower beds have a backdrop of foundation stone.  Planters built from reclaimed hemlock floor joists double as seating along the sidewalk.
  Keep traveling down Northampton and
• You’ll discover a Bee Sanctuary which was once a vacant lot, but is now a warm blanket of yellow, amber, and bronze with summer wild flowers. (In the spring the lot was dotted with blues, pinks and purples). The wild flowers are native to the North East and are helping to fortify a sagging urban bee population.
• Our Children’s Vinery is truly unique!  It has an apple tree and six arbors supporting a variety of pole beans, melon, squash, tomatoes, eggplant and chard.  We have Mobile Victory Gardens donated by artist, Stella Maars which are growing herbs and pumpkins.  We’re just adding a teepee of morning glories.  We have experimental containers for growing potatoes and a strawberry patch which has delighted people of all ages!
• The Patchwork Garden is also a sight–50 different beds which neighbors, volunteers and groups have adopted!  Folks plant whatever they want in this community garden and they enjoy having a place to grow their own food and relax.  We host events like movie nights, cooking demos, art, performances and free gardening workshops in the garden.
• Just around the corner there is another style of community garden, The Cold Spring Community Garden on Southampton and Masten, managed by Dan Ash and Jessica Lang.  Their garden is a site where five houses once stood, but now there is an 8foot wall of tomatoes, several rows of vegetables and raspberry vines.  There are also fruit trees which will mature into a mixed bowl of cherries, plums, peaches, pears and apples!  Volunteers and neighbors work in the garden and are able to eat what they harvest.

Thousands of volunteer hours have gone into building these gardens and the whole reason is so people can come and enjoy them. We hope you’ll visit them soon.  Over the next 2years we hope that Northampton will showcase greenspace development and neighborhood stabilization.  It will be like a red carpet–only greener!  If you have questions or would like to get involved, please stop by our table at the Garden Walk/Talk this weekend!

… and boogie until you FALL DOWN–that’s double dare from Mira!

a little gnosh, a lotta cool drinks and SUPER STEAMY GROOVES, by Fudgychewy.

Join ReUse at Mickey’s Bar and dance the night away at the Mickiewicz Adam Library

Friday, July 30, 2010
8:00pm – 11:30pm (maybe later)
612 Fillmore, Buffalo

Listen to some Fudgychewy grooves here.

We’re pre-selling tickets via our website/paypal and our store for $5
Please print your Paypal receipt

Your hard earned sweat and coin goes toward ReUse’s Community Programs–our free workshops for home repair and gardening, the tool library, the veggie gardens, street blitzes, neighborhood beautification and more–which helps us DO MORE!

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS: We need folks to work the door, work the drinks, kitchen help and cleanup.  Please email Danielle–volunteer {at} buffaloreuse(.)org

This upcoming Saturday, the 17th of July,  Kenmore residents are encouraged to drop off reusable materials, such as appliances, windows and doors at a Buffalo ReUse truck situated near the Kenmore municipal building at Delaware Avenue and Delaware Road.  It should also be noted that all donations are tax deductible.

For a list of items that we accept check out the  donate material section of our website.

We are also always continuing  to add to our inventory within our tool lending library, so if you have any tools laying around, bring them on down.

For a list of  tools that we are in need of check out the  donate tool section of our tool library website.

Rather than being thrown out, the items will be taken to either our Buffalo ReUse store on Northampton Street in Buffalo, which resells high quality building materials to home owners at a low cost, or inventoried into our tool library that is located on Eaton Street.

This will be the second of five Saturday drop-offs that have been scheduled in conjunction with the Kenmore Farmers’ Market.  They will be held from 9 a.m. to noon.   Mark your calenders with the remaining three Saturdays.  Aug. 21, Sept. 18 and Oct. 16. Ours is!

By donating your materials or tools to us you are allowing us to move forward with our mission.  The money generated from the store’s sales helps fund some of our other programs, including the community gardens and our deconstruction and salvaging teams.

Looking to Volunteer?  Like to garden?  Look no further!

Grassroots Gardens has put out the call for volunteers to help at a few community gardens around Buffalo — now is your chance to get involved and get your hands dirty!  Join us on the following workdays to make these community gardens more wonderful than they already are:

7/17: The Cottage District Community Garden is looking for some muscle and a few extra hands to help out with a project at their garden at 10AM on  Saturday, July 17th @ 60 York St (between Normal and Plymouth).  They’re looking for at least five people, but more is always merrier.

7/31: Also, on Saturday, July 31st at 10AM the Community Garden at 20 Orton Place will need as many volunteers as they can get–they are going to be taking down / moving materials and replanting the gardens.

Come help out!!!!