Mark and Marcus: Music and Sustainability

October 6, 2018May 4, 2019 Mike Nowak environment, FolkTober Fest, gardening, harvesting tomatoes, Marcus de la fleur, Mark Dvorak, native plants, planting garlic, retrofitting, storm water management, sustainability, The Mike Nowak Show, The Wisconsin Vegetable Gardener

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Chicago’s “official troubadour” visits Mike and Peggy

(October 7, 2018) Today we tell stories of Mark and Marcus. First, Mark. On September 13, Peggy and I had the distinct privilege of being part of the as 2018 Harvest Moon Dinner, presented by Angelic Organics Learning Center (AOLC) at Chicago’s Theater on the Lake. It was an evening of good food and drink, in a terrific setting and for a great cause.

One of the highlights of the evening was being able to listen to “musician, educator and community builder” Mark Dvorak. Mark has been entertaining audiences with his guitar, banjo and songwriting abilities since 1981:

In 1986 Dvorak joined the faculty of the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. He soon became embedded in the Chicago acoustic scene, collaborating with many dozens of artists and students, befriending Old Town founders Win Stracke, Frank Hamilton, Eddie Holstein and many others. Dvorak continues to be an integral member of the Old Town School faculty, where he is artist-in-residence.

You can find a lot more in the biography on his website, but I will mention that in 2012 WFMT’s Rich Warren, host of “The Midnight Special,” named Dvorak “Chicago’s official troubadour.” And, in one of my brushes with fame, I played softball with–actually against–Mark in the Chicago Theatre Softball League, though why a guitarist would risk his fingers playing 16″ softball is beyond me.

But I digress.

Mark and I got to chatting at the AOLC dinner, and I told him that it would be terrific to have him on The Mike Nowak Show with Peggy Malecki to play some “environmental” music. He responded by telling me about something called FolkTober Fest, which consists of three acoustic music events on Friday and Saturday, October 12 and 13.

The event is being presented by Music & Pot Lucks, an organization dedicated to nourishing the community by presenting cultural programs in support of agencies serving neighbors who navigate through challenging times. The host is the Oak Park Arts District, and the beneficiaries are the Oak Park River Forest Food Pantry, Housing Forward and the Oak Park River Forest Community Foundation.

Mark Dvorak, of course, will be part of the event, and he lists where the action will take place:

Friday, October 12, 6;30 pm – FolkTober Fest Acoustic Jam at District Kitchen and Tap, 220 Harrison Street. Players of all acoustic instruments, singers and listeners are invited to the free event.
Saturday, October 13, from 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm – FolkTober Fest Showcase at Val’s halls Records, 239 Harrison Street. The free performance will feature acoustic performers and singer songwriters including $7.34 Supper, Acoustic Neighbors, Jeff Burke’s Jam Class, the Young Stracke All-Stars and others.
Saturday, October 13 – The Buzz Cafe, 905 S. Lombard Avenue features a dinner show and tribute to folk icon Pete Seeger. At 6:00 pm the dinner show entertainment will be provided by Oak Park’s own Dropped Notes String Band. The Buzz Cafe will create a special menu for the event and guests are welcome to bring along their own adult beverage.

Mark Dvorak joins us in studio this morning, where, in addition to talking about FolkTober Fest, he will be required to play music. He is joined by Stephanie Schrodt, who is Music & Potlucks co-director. By the way, you can get your tickets for FolkTober Fest here.

Speaking of Folk…er…October, what to do in your veggie garden right now

It’s been a few months since our friends, The Wisconsin Vegetable Gardener. were on the show. As I often mention, the title is singular but there are two of them–the husband and wife team of Holly and Joey Baird. Now that we’re into the month of October (really?), there are still important things to be done in the vegetable garden, which is why they’re on the show today.

If you want to know all about growing vegetables in the upper Midwest, check out their podcasts. On their latest podcast, they talk about what to do with pumpkins and the power of leaves, among other things. Those are just a couple of topics for fall vegetable gardening that will come up in our conversation this morning. They will be accompanied by Mark Dvorak on whatever instrument he decides to play at that time, which should be fun.

IMPACT 2018 is all about sustainable landscaping

A long time ago (2002) in an eco-system far, far away….a group of eco-warriors identified themselves as the Midwest Ecological Landscape Alliance, sometimes known as MELA. Their mission was to find less environmentally destructive ways of creating urban, suburban and exurban landscapes. How do I know about this? I was one of the two co-founders of the organization.

Sadly, this organization was forced to give up the ghost a couple of years ago. Fortunately, however, the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association (ILCA) seemed to understand the need for forward-thinking horticulture, and welcomed a number of the former MELA members into the Sustainable and Ecological Landscape Committee.

Out of that came the creation of the IMPACT Conference, “to present invigorating sessions on sustainable and ecological landscape practices.” At last year’s conference, Peggy and I recorded a bunch of Facebook live interviews, and we will be returning this year on October 16. Among the presenters on that day is a person I interviewed nine years ago on Progresso Radio.

His name is Marcus de la fleur and on his blog, Reshaping our Footprint One Watt at a Time, he writes,

Marcus de la fleur of Mark and Marcus, with Cathy Haibach — Marcus de la fleur and Cathy Haibach

A deep energy retrofit (or energy efficient rehab) provides an excellent opportunities to make the home more economical to own, operate, and maintain. It also and provide a significantly healthier and more comfortable environment to live in. Our deep energy retrofit of a typical masonry Chicago twoflat is a case study on how to incorporate energy conservation strategies into existing homes and start saving on operational and maintenance cost.

Marcus was last on my show in 2009, and a lot has happened since then. For one, I’m at a completely different radio station. For another, he is now trying to put native plants in the landscapes of his clients. However, he is discovering that maintaining them is a task that seems to have few takers–meaning companies that focus on landscape maintenance. When we talked about that on the phone, it surprised me.

This should be a very interesting conversation…along with all of the others on this morning’s show. Peggy and I hope you tune in.