A Bit of Good Advice

First and foremost, the update on the March 24th event -

Plant a Row for the Hungry will be going on all day at Southwood. For up to 10 non-perishable food items donationed (they need peanut butter), we will give you a free vegetable plant. OSU Master Gardeners will be there to offer advice to thumbs both green and brown.

At 1 p.m., the Vegetable Education session will take place as scheduled at the Market House (106 E. Apache-now renamed Aquarium Place-in Jenks. There's a map here.) The actual installation of the Plasticulture beds at the Farm and the Market, has been postponed until March 31 due to this week's rain.

Southwood's lovely vegetable expert Emmie Sherry will demonstrate how to build a really cool vertical planter out of a recycled pallet, and give a brief overview of Southwood's 2012 spring vegetable selection.  Immediately afterwards, Micah Anderson, Plasticulture Program Coordinator with the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, will discuss the many benefits of this method (which include water and nutrient conservation as well as weed control.)

At 2 p.m. KRMG's OKFoodie will tape live at Southwood, featuring Southwood friend The Cheese Wench.  

We hope to see you there!

And now, as my sister calls them, some of "Brenda's musings" -

My dad says when he and my mom were first starting out in business, one of the best pieces of advice he received was to always seek mentors. Both of my parents took that message to heart. Throughout their careers, they have surrounded themselves with intelligent people and listened to what they had to say. Turns out, it's a good business strategy.

Southwood was built on the wisdom of those mentors. Some of the best employees - wonderful people who taught me how to work hard during my teenage years at the cash register - have been the retirees who enjoyed low-key second careers at Southwood. Mom and dad sought the wisdom of business, civic and industry leaders in the Will Rogers Rotary Club, the Tulsa Parks & Recreation Board (I cannot even begin to tell you how much Mr. Walt Helmerich taught my father), TU's Family Owned Business Institute, and the American Nursery & Landscape Association.

Still, the best mentors, who really taught my parents how to have the strength, resiliance and courage to build a thriving business, were their families. The Schultes, the Cronks, the McAulays - my array of Oklahoma German and Irish clans - are a loving, supportive and occasionally boisterous lot.

Today, in the families as well as the civic, business and industry organizations, my parents and their fellow Baby Boomers are stepping gracefully (sort of) into the roles and responsibilites of society elders. Not that they're old. 60 is still the new 20, I swear. And we, their sons and daughters, find ourselves needing to take charge of a few things while they're out discovering that 60 is, in fact, not the new 20.

Luckily for me, as it turns out, taking in a lot of great advice equipped my parents to, in turn, dispense equally great advice. And so, with the foundation and direction of my family's loving and boisterous wisdom, I - along with my MBA-finance-wizard sister and my hyperactive-earthy-plant-guy husband - am helping to steer Southwood into its next phase.

Interestingly, I'm finding that as I seek my own mentors in this project, I'm looking not just at my elders but also quite often at my peers and even my juniors. I'm really enjoying my new foray into social media beyond Facebook. As much of a news junkie as I am, I find so much of what's on older media like TV is depressing and sponsor-driven. The blogosphere and social media is so much more organic and real, I find a lot of inspiration here. And of course, it's all youth-driven.

So I've decided that my goal at this point is to take it all in, and as somebody once told my dad, to seek mentors everywhere I happen to find them.