Bio Swale/Pollinator/Rain Garden We can imagine a time when a block of Oklahoma City residents come together and create rain gardens in the strip between the curb on the sidewalk in front of every house on their street. They wouldn’t have to be as elaborate as the one we made at CommonWealth, but they would slow the water rushing down the street during a rain enough for some of it to sink into the ground and be filtered more than it is now when it reaches the city’s water treatment plant. The shallow gardens would be filled with pollinator plants to help filter the water and feed bees and butterflies. We’ve learned a lot in the process of creating the rain and pollinator garden at CommonWealth. It’s a beauty and it’s doing its job well. We were fortunate to get funding for the project from the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Oklahoma County Conservation District. Many thanks to Jenna Moore for grant assistance, Kevin Mink of the OCCD for extensive help with design and implementation, intern Andrew Johnson, all the volunteers, including Ryan Smith, and many thanks to Lia, for directing the project. Come check it out!  
  
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Yatar combines herbs from his garden, beeswax from his hives, olive oil and essential oils to formulate balms with specific beneficial qualities. Yatar will demonstrate how he makes his herbal beeswax healing balms, as well as the bamboo containers that he creates to hold his balms. With Yatar’s guidance, each participant will make their own bamboo container, and a customized herbal balm to fill it.
