Week 1 Recap of Mobile Adventure

Getting our adventure started proved to be very difficult.  Between garage sales and selling items on craigslist, packing and moving the rest to storage, building and modifying our camper and trailer to support our business as well as our family, and preparing our home for the next residents, we suffered multiple setbacks and delays to our departure date. It's now been about a week since we finally began our journey.  Managing NativeDave.com online and as a mobile design unit is much easier than we ever could have dreamed.  Folks seemed to be intrigued by our journey. In addition to learning from us about sustainable landscape design they are discovering details about our journey toward a simplified, more meaningful personal life.  The impacts of this change in lifestyle affect every aspect of our lives, and how the journey plays out will be as much a surprise for us as it will be for you.  That is the "adventure" part, I suppose.

Our first meeting as a mobile business and family was last Thursday, September 16th, in Plano.  Fabulous design project (fees generally range $400-600 based on the size and scope of the project.)  Friday, David checked on our project near Highland Park and worked alongside the maintenance crew (Organic Options based in Ft. Worth 817.903.1786).  On Monday David met with two new clients for notes and sketch consultations ($150-225 based on the size and scope of the project.)  Tuesday I spoke to Coppell High School students about designing a restoration project for park property located in the Blackland Prairie ecoregion.  That class is comprised mostly of seniors, some juniors and a couple of sophomores enrolled in AP and IB Environmental Science courses.  As soon as I completed that presentation, my contact Kristen Brown and I drove to another campus to speak to a Biotech Ethics class.  The room was filled with freshmen boys and a handful of girls.  Their project is to "discover" a new plant species that will address an ecological, economic or cultural issue within a particular ecoregion without negatively altering said ecoregion.  All students in both groups were attentive and very respectful, and they asked particularly insightful questions.  They were engaged, and I seemed to feed off their enthusiasm.  Thank you, Coppell HS, for making my experience a thrilling and rewarding one.  I invite you to keep in touch with me regarding both projects; the nativedave crew are very interested in watching them develop.  Best wishes!

Today we are working on a design for a client with 10 acres in Rockport, TX.  Our morning began with some low-key "plant stalking" and spider-watching.  I'll post pics of both later today (pics posted Thurs 9/23/2010), but if you want to see pics of our outdoor office/kitchen/living area, I will write about and post pics later today at http://4x4elvalor.blogspot.com/ as well as some related personal content at http://christyilfrey.blogspot.com/.

Wild Petunia (Ruellia spp.)

Helen the Garden Spider