Greening Austin Daily » outdoor activity

Keep Austin Beautiful Lady Bird Lake Clean Up June 9th

katherine — Wed, 23 May 2012 22:36:53 +0000

There will be a cleaning of Lady Bird Lake June 9th from 9-11 AM. I did this one last time, and thought it was really fun to kayak around the lake looking for trash. Even though there were volunteers everywhere, I still found a lot of trash, mostly Styrofoam along the shores (just watch out for poison ivy!). KAB encourages you to pre-register for this event. Here’s the info from their website:

It’s beautiful outside and our first Lady Bird Lake cleanup of the summer is coming up soon! Join hundreds of volunteers as they have a rewarding morning searching high and low for every last bit of trash and getting to know other lake enthusiasts.

There are several sites around the lake to choose from, whether you’d like to help from the shoreline or from your boat! Each cleanup will end with a prize for the most unusual object found during the cleanup.

On-the-Water volunteers should be 16 or older and be comfortable around water.

Volunteers MUST pre-register for this event, please use the registration link below.

Date: Saturday, June 9th
Cleanup Time: 9am-11am
Location: all around Lady Bird Lake
Registration: Click Here

Keep Austin Beautiful Now Accepting Neighborhood Beautification Grant Applications

katherine — Fri, 11 May 2012 03:26:33 +0000

I received this info from KAB this week, just in case any of you out there have a neighborhood beautification project in mind and would like to get some $$$$ to get it started:

KAB Neighborhood Beautification Grants – Now Accepting Applications!

Organize the ultimate volunteer opportunity in your neighborhood with funding from Keep Austin Beautiful! KAB is now accepting applications for 2012 Neighborhood Beautification Grants! Each year, KAB awards grants of $500 to $2500 for neighborhood and community groups to improve and beautify public spaces. You might start a community garden, replace graffiti with a beautiful mural, reintroduce native plants to your neighborhood’s creek, or create a new space for your neighbors to gather! Applications are due by Friday, June 1st at 5pm.

Visit www.KeepAustinBeautiful.org/nbg to review our guidelines, see past projects, get ideas, and download the grant application. Contact Ladye Anne Wofford, Community Programs Manager, at ladye.anne@keepaustinbeautiful.org or 512.391.0617 x 905 with questions.

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Spring Plant Sale and Festival This Weekend

katherine — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:50:33 +0000

Check out the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center this weekend to peruse the large selection of native plants and have a guided tour of the gardens. Here’s some info from their webpage:

Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 13 – 15, 2012.
Members Sale, 1 to 7 p.m., Friday
Public Sale, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday

At the Wildflower Center’s Spring Plant Sale and Gardening Festival you can choose from nearly 300 species of hardy Texas natives bred to deal with our Central Texas climate. Feel free to leave your plant purchases at the Holding Area while you finish enjoying your visit, or up until the Plant Sale closes Sunday at 5 p.m.

Admission: $9 adults, $7 seniors and students, $4 UT faculty, staff or students with identification, $3 children 5 through 12, members and children under 5 free.

If possible, bring your own wagon to haul your purchases

Plants may be purchased and held for pick-up

Free cold filtered water, just bring your reusable water bottle, or buy one in the store.

Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to noon and 1 to 3 p.m., Mr. Smarty Plants answers your questions.

Story time is at 11 a.m. in the Little House Saturday and Sunday. Sunday Kathi Appelt and Joy Fisher Hein read from their book Miss Lady Bird’s Wildflowers.

Ecopots all day Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., free guided garden walks.

Saturday, artist Shou Ping will be here from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Mc Dermott Learning Center to visit with the public about her work.

Members Only Sale: Friday, April 13, 1 to 7 p.m. Friday’s sale is exclusively for members of the Wildflower Center. Become a member online or at the preview sale.

We will not be recycling plastic pots at this plant sale, please consider recycling them at your local recycling center.

Lady Bird: one inspirational lady!

Upcoming October Events, Including Wildflower Center’s Fall Plant Sale this Weekend

katherine — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:01:58 +0000

Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day sent me some information about a few upcoming Austin fall events, including the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s fall plant sale this weekend. There will be a chance to sample some Mrs. Meyer’s products at each of these events, so not only will you get to spend some time outdoors enjoying the fall weather at these events, you will also get a chance to try out some green cleaners/hand soaps at these events. I’ve only ever used Mrs Meyer’s toilet bowl cleaner, so I’m excited for a chance to try some other products for free.

Here are the events:

Fall Plant Sale and Gardening Festival (Saturday and Sunday, October 15^th and 16^th) — At the Wildflower Center’s Fall Plant Sale and Gardening Festival, sponsored by University of Texas, Macy’s and HEB, you can choose from nearly 300 species of Texas native plants. Stop by this event to also interact with artists and authors signing their works in the store, guided walks and talks, and tips for your garden from experts and Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day at their garden set up booth. http://www.wildflower.org/plantsale/
Gypsy Picnic (Saturday, October 24^th) — Clean up before treating yourself to a gathering of Austin’s best trailer food nomads for a day of tasty treats, tunes & more at Auditorium Shores. http://www.gypsypicnic.com/event-info/faqs/
Boggy Creek Green Corn Project (Sunday, October 30^th) — Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day is setting up some sinks as participants join in a delicious afternoon dedicated to food, music, gardening and farming. Over 20 fine local restaurants and food purveyors will be offering complimentary tastes of their artistry with local produce. 4 local musical groups provide live music from the farmhouse front porch. On the back porch, 3 local chefs demonstrate their food art and of course the audience eats the results! You are free to stroll the farm, visit the Hen House, and bid at our Silent Auction. A Family Friendly Event. http://www.greencornproject.org/2011-Fall-Festival

Sounds fun!

Weekend Events: Keep Austin Beautiful Clean Sweep and Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Plant Sale

katherine — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 17:03:57 +0000

This weekend are 2 fun events:

1) The KAB city-wide clean sweep happens this Saturday morning. You can volunteer to help beautify the city. Find more info here.

2) The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is having a plant sale all this weekend. It’s a great place to get some native plants, although there is a cover charge to get in. Here’s some more info on it:

Did your garden suffer from record drought and heavy freezes? Time for a refill. At the Wildflower Center’s Spring Plant Sale and Gardening Festival you can choose from over 300 species of Texas native plants. The event also features artists and authors signing their works in the store, guided walks and talks and tips for your garden from experts.

Spring Plant Sale 2011: April 9 and 10, Members Only Preview on April 8

Hours: Saturday & Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Admission: $8 adults, $7 seniors and students, $4 UT faculty, staff or students with identification, $3 children 5 through 12, members and children under 5 free.

April Events: Funky Chicken Coop Tour and Keep Austin Beautiful Austin Clean Sweep

katherine — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:51:23 +0000

I have two April events to add to your calendars:
1) Funky Chicken Coop Tour, April 23
If you’ve ever thought about getting some chickens for your backyard, this event is a good opportunity to learn about what’s involved. From their website:

Come join us for the third annual Austin Texas Funky Chicken Coop Tour! Have you been thinking about keeping urban chickens? Do you need coop design ideas? Then this is the tour for you! Hey, this is even for those of you that already have backyard chickens and are thinking about changing your coop design(there’s always room for improvement, right?). Also, feel free to come peck(oops, meant pick our brains on raising chickens.

Learn more here

2) Keep Austin Beautiful Clean Sweep, April 9th

The year is the 26th annual clean up of the city held by Keep Austin Beautiful:

Clean Sweep is KAB’s annual citywide cleanup that takes place all over Austin. The first 4,000 volunteers to register get a free event t-shirt and it’s followed by an awesome Volunteer Party and Environmental Fair at Waterloo Park which includes: free lunch, live music, kid’s environmental activities, recycled art, door prizes and more! Last year more than 4,300 volunteers registered to cleanup 129 sites!

Get more info and sign up here.

Volunteer this Saturday at It’s My Park Day

katherine — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 23:00:25 +0000

This Saturday, March 5 is Austin’s It’s My Park Day. You can sign up here to volunteer at a park near you for a couple of hours Saturday morning. Last March my husband and I volunteered at our neighborhood park and got to help build a trail in the park – it was a lot of hard work but it has been nice all this year to walk along the trail we helped build and show it off to our friends and families (here are some pictures of last year’s trail building). If you use any of the local Austin parks, this is a great opportunity to give back to the city!

Moonlight Margarita Run and Gala this Thursday to Raise Funds for Lady Bird Lake Trail

katherine — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:35:19 +0000

This Thursday starting at 8PM is the Moonlight Margarita Run and Gala which benefits the Lady Bird Lake trial. The run is a 5K that starts near where the trail crosses Mopac, and the gala is held afterward at American Legion Hall. Entry for the run is $35 , for the gala it’s $65, and for both it’s $95. Proceeds from the night’s event go to The Trail Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to improve the trail around the lake. You can register here or check out more details. The Statesman notes that the events “help fund the upcoming $475,000 renovation of the very trailhead where the race starts — the busiest access point on the 10-mile crushed granite pathway” and that “work should start this fall and take about six months.”

Last Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center “Nature Night” of the Summer is Tomorrow

katherine — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:37:08 +0000

Starting at 6PM tomorrow, the Wildflower Center will be having its last Nature Night of the summer, “Birds of Prey”. Admission is $1. Here’s the description:

Thursday, July 29: Birds of Prey – soar with us to explore the habits of hawks, eagles, buzzards and more birds of prey. At 7 pm only, don’t miss a flying demonstration provided by Blackland Prairie Raptor Center with their feathered friends in our Courtyard! Stop by the Travis Audubon Society booth for more information on local birding programs. Check out great activities at the Capital Area Master Naturalist booth.

so cute!

photo credit

Statesman Article on Bull Creek Park

katherine — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:45:03 +0000

The Statesman had this article today about Bull Creek Park. Here’s an excerpt about the littering problem:

Statesman Watch spent several hours at the park last weekend… [t]he understaffed Parks and Recreation Department did make it out to empty trash cans, but the rest of the park was strewn with food wrappers, beer bottles and cans, cigarette butts, diapers and even spent charcoal.

On Saturday afternoon, a large family held a birthday party for a child. The next morning, beer cans, candy wrappers and an El Rancho Supermercado plastic bag of trash were left behind. Near the creek, three Budweiser bottles, an empty pack of Kool 100s and orange peelings were left where a trio of men with an ice chest had been the afternoon before.

On weekends, with little or no police presence, park users cart ice chests, grills and picnic tables and set up next to the water. Children swim by. Refuse litters the ground even though trash cans are a few feet away.

The park is located at at RM 2222 and Loop 360.

photo credit