Baking, Plants and Movies

You make think from previous posts that all we do is travel, but we have been keeping busy at home too! We are both taking classes at the local community college. I'm taking Basic Pastries (see photo of lemon meringue tart) three mornings a week and a class on Characteristics of Wood one evening a week. Jake is taking Spanish and a Woodworking class twice a week.

Jake also made is debut in the movies yesterday! He was called to be a "background artist" (an extra to those of us not in the industry) for the movie "Crazy Heart" featuring Maggie Gyllenthal, Robert Duval and Jeff Bridges. Jake plays a businessman on a lunch break at a mall in Houston. Jeff Bridges, playing a cowboy, has stopped at a bar in the mall with his young son. The son wanders off and Jeff and Maggie go looking for the kid. The movie is being filmed in New Mexico (good thing given the hurricane damage in Houston!). So, on Friday a casting agent calls Jake to see if he'll be available for 8 hours on Saturday. Jake says yes, and at 9:30 pm he finds out that the next day's filming is actually in Albuquerque and he has to be there at 6am! He and the other extras are bussed from a parking lot in Albuquerque to a little suburban mall and spend the next - 16 hours! - in the basement of the mall filming several scenes. I got occassional updates from him as the day and night wore on. They do feed the extras, but otherwise there is a lot of waiting around for new takes and scenes to be set up. He said he enjoyed talking with the other 60 or so extras that were there. So, look for Jake walking by in the background in the mall scenes when the movie comes out!

Meanwhile, I was volunteering at the Santa Fe Botanic Garden's 2nd annual plant sale! (See photos). The plant sale relies on donations of plants from local nurseries and members, so it is much different from the Adkins Arboretum sale. But there was still the pre-sale plant grooming, labeling. and plant organization. In addition to plants they had a "garden artifacts" sale area where gardening related items, books, and beautiful handmade wreaths were being sold. The wreaths were grapevine wreaths decorated with dried flowers. They also had a wreath making demonstration table and a worm composting demonstration table. By the end of the day, all but about 3 tables were empty and the remaining plants were donated to a local school that was going to be holding a plant drive for their school garden and agriculture/horticulture program.

Oh yeah, and we are both doing some work we are paid for as well. I'm on the second week of teaching my online class in Ecological Restoration and have 2 articles due for the Arboretum at the end of the month, and Jake is cranking out a teaching manual for one of his textbooks.