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We're excited to report on the success that we have been having with our Old Southern project, the beginnings of the Yourland Urban Gardening and Composting program.  Reuben Brock has been working diligently not only as our cook at the Welcome Diner, but also in the development of our Old Southern project.  For the past few months we have been collecting our organic waste, mostly from the Welcome Diner and composting it at Old Southern for use as fertilizer in our gardens.  In just a few months we've been able to serve daily specials at the Welcome Diner that feature foods grown fresh in the gardens of Old Southern.  We've featured an "Old Southern Burger" (a burger patty packed with fresh herbs from Old Southern served with a homemade cole slaw on toasted sourdough) in addition to our recent special, a chorizo plate with a side of zucchini fries (made from fresh zucchini grown at Old Southern.)  Below are a few pictures of our compost piles, fresh vegetables growing in the gardens and our side of zucchini fries.  Be sure to drop by the Welcome Diner to try our fresh specials--Reuben will be more than eager to tell you all about everything that we've been doing.

As the project progresses and grows, our need to design, build and produce has grown.  We're looking forward to more collaboration with Jason soon!

As we have been moving forward in the development of Yourland, we have paid special attention to the legacy value in the site--Namely the legacy that was left by Smitty's, a long time tenant.  Over the past months we have experienced great contact with that legacy through conversations with previous employees, in experiencing videos and photographs from the past, and in experiencing the space itself.  Our desire to retain the legacy value of the site remains very strong as we have hopes to produce a written Smitty's history and to restore many elements of the original site.  We have saved the original artwork on the walls and have found several remnants such as this art department sign, all of which we hope to use to commemorate the site's history:

We have been fascinated by the fact that much of the community that interacted at Smitty's #1 in the 1960's on still remains in touch.  We've come across a wonderful blog entry entitled  "Remembering Smitty's" that was written by a previous employee and is commented on by many.  It is an incredible document that represents an incredible spirit of love and service that we hope to retain in the Yourland project.  If you have a minute take a glance a the blog.

For the past few weeks we have been playing a video in the front window of the Yourland development space at 4412 North Central Avenue.  It is the same video that is featured on our website (www.marthaandmary.net) and is a beautiful historical document that was captured by Arnie Eggers, the original Smitty's baker, on his trip from Iowa to Arizona in 1960.  If you're in the area be sure to drop by for a cold drink at Lux or a sandwich at Pane Bianco and take a look at the video.  Be sure to say hello to us in the Martha + Mary office as well!

In our previous newsletter we announced the updating of our web program.  Situated at the center of our presence on the web is a page that is purely a page for the sharing of media (www.marthaandmary.net).  Clicking on the "m+m" allows the visitor to delve deeper into the interior sites, but navigating through the media on marthaandmary.net itself, we hope, will offer an engaging experience of Martha + Mary.  We have recently made some media additions to our website--Please take a browse if you'd like.  Be sure to check back in on our website from time to time.  We hope to have something of value waiting for you when you do.