perspective

Why is it Called “Mezzacello”?

Rick and I had been searching for a house in Old Towne East (a downtown residential neighborhood in Columbus, OH) for a few years. We talked about what we wanted to do with a house, and what it would be…

Living Lives of Sterile Futility

Living Lives of Sterile Futility I started this blog post a few weeks back. I started it in anger and I realized as I was typing furiously into my iPhone amidst the ruins of my compost bins in the alley…

The “Foundations” of Building an Urban Garden

What you are looking at is the foundation stones from a house that used to sit on this lot. Every garden bed we build we know we are going to excavate some foundation. Luckily at this point we have a…

digging into foundations
The limestone stoop to a former Greek Revival townhouse that once stood on this site.

When You Have Love That Dovetails

Rick and I are an ecosystem, a system, a partnership. We need each other, we love each other, we improve and strengthen each other. We are also two independent people with enough foresight, history, wisdom, and vision to know that…

2019 Columbus Gay Pride Parade.

A Tale of North and South Korea: or East Mezzacello & West Mezzacello

North and South Korea: East and West Mezzacello North and South Korea is at the heart of Mezzacello. We always knew we were of two minds when we designed Mezzacello. Rick wanted Pretty and Plentiful, I wanted Functional and Farmland;…

New fountain garden

Why We Do Everything Ourselves

This is a blogpost that perfectly underscores our mission of Grow, Maintain, Sustain, Explain lives and breathes. Teach by showing.

Why We do everything ourselves

The Neighbors Truck

The Neighbors Truck Mezzacello is an enclosed sustainable urban ecosystem, but it is also part of a larger ecosystem of community that is our awesome neighbors. Community is like a garden, I didn’t know this but I quickly discovered it…

The Neighbors Truck
Jim with our neighbor Randy in front of his trusty Ford Ranger.

Tech, Dirt, Rain, and Security

Security is essential on an urban farm. From cameras to drones to locks I am always looking for ways to improve security. Locks are my nemesis. I forget combinations, I lose keys. So when Amazon offered up a weatherproof biometric…

A biometric fingerprint lock that does not work with muddy fingers.

Harvest, Hunger, and the Art of Preservation

The harvesting of food is the single greatest chore in urban farming, the next greatest is preserving it!

Potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and duck eggs collected from the garden and livestock gardens at Mezzacello.

Mezzacello from Above

I pulled together some drone footage of Mezzacello from above in an attempt to help visualize the five ecosystems of Mezzacello and how they relate to the house on the property. Mezzacello From The Air. Many thanks to the PAST…

Mezzacello from atop the hornbeams in the allee.