The 1936 fire season in Alberta was long, hot and dry and had taken its toll on men and equipment by early August. The numbers of fires, persistence needed to control and extinguish them, limited resources and long distances with little access were all factors in wearing down the fledgling Alberta Forest Service that had been established in the province just a few years earlier. Heavy smoke and haze limited visibility for the few lookouts in existence to spot new fires, and aerial patrols were non-existent.

A new start in Galatea Creek was burning, a holdover from a lightning strike a few days before. As it gained in intensity, the cry went out with the discovery of the new fire. Men and equipment were dispatched, and they fought to contain the fire as it came into the Kananaskis Valley, but it was too little, too late.

The fire erupted with blow-up conditions, jumping the breaks they were building and spotted well beyond, entrapping the crews. Tactics quickly changed as efforts doubled from trying to control the fire to survival. The fire roared northwards, past Evan Thomas Creek, over top of the Boundary Ranger station and beyond, burning most of the broad valley from rock to rock.

When fire’s growth slowed and stopped near the upper end of Skogen’s Pass, it had spread nearly 10 km down the valley and consumed more than 8,000 ha in a few short hours. Good fortune and hard work spared the men with only minor injuries. Other than timber, there were few other losses in respect to values at risk. Even the Boundary Ranger Station cabin, only a few years old, had survived.

Three quarters of a century later, the Kananaskis Valley is the heart of the most valued recreational area in Alberta. Hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to the area each year for day trips; to camp in the large developed campgrounds and remote backcountry campsites; or to stay in the comfort of five-star hotels and spas. They golf, china mosaic, tour, fish, climb or engage in any one of dozens of outdoor pursuits. With access through countless trails, visitors can be found in the most remote parts of the valley and the various steep drainages that feed into the Kananaskis watershed. Highway 40, the single access in and out of the valley, is heavily used by these visitors.

In 1936, the vegetation cover in the valley was a mosaic created from numerous fires over the years, many of which were from aboriginal burning prior to European settlement. Today, the vegetation cover is largely a continuous Lodgepole pine fuel type that grew in undisturbed since the 1936 fire. Most of the lands within the valley are now managed by Tourism, Parks and Recreation (TPR), but fire management and suppression remain the responsibility of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD), the successors to the old Alberta Forest Service.

With recent fire regime studies and a better understanding of past fire history and disturbance trends, both agencies recognize the need for ecological restoration, fuel reduction and the value of strategic breaks in the fuels in the valley. A number of projects were identified in the valley, but putting disturbances back on the landscape is not necessarily an easy process.

TPR’s mandate is to protect the province’s natural landscapes in Alberta, but the use of mechanical equipment or logging to remove the trees is limited. Prescribed fire was considered to be an acceptable alternative, as fire has been both a natural and anthropogenic process in the valley. The problem faced by fire managers was how to safely create a high-intensity, low-severity, stand replacement fire within the continuous, homogenous fuel type that now exists through the entire valley with the limited use of mechanical equipment.

Usually with interagency planning processes, challenges and conflicts would be expected due to different cultures, mandates and perspectives of agencies. Recognizing that both agencies desired the same outcomes, staff from both ESRD and TPR used the planning process as an opportunity, rather than a challenge.

The Evan Thomas prescribed burn was chosen as the first of several vegetation management projects identified within the Kananaskis Valley. Its objectives included creating a landscape level fire break, improving elk habitat, restoring goat habitat, restoring age class diversity, etc. However, putting a large (400+ ha), high-intensity stand replacement fire on the landscape with so much development in the area was a major concern.

The solution was to reverse engineer what is already done in the wildland urban interface (WUI): fuel modification. In the WUI, fuel modification (thinning, removing dead and down fuel, pruning, etc.) is commonly used to reduce fuel loads in an effort to minimize fire intensities near communities. In this case, we wanted to increase the surface fuels inside the burn unit to improve the flammability of the fuels within the burn unit itself. This would provide a fire behavior response of higher intensity fire in lower fire danger indices, thus decreasing the risk of the prescribed fire escaping and threatening the numerous values within the valley.

To avoid confusion with the term “fuel modification,” which is synonymous with fuel reduction and the WUI, the term “fuel amendment” was used to describe the process. Fuel amendment simply refers to increasing stand flammability by adding to, or increasing, the surface fuel load of the stand.

The design of the burn unit took advantage of topographic changes. Evan Thomas Creek was used as the boundary on the bottom end. Two small tributary creeks were used as boundaries along the sides of the burn unit, and the top of the burn unit was capped off with an Alpine meadow. Within the main burn unit, an objective of falling from 10% to 30% of the stems within the stand was established. This would increase the slash loading at ground level and, after a short period of curing, would increase the flammability within the burn unit. In addition, by opening up the forest canopy, the forest floor becomes more open to sunlight and wind, which helps to dry the stand quicker. The range of 10%-30% reduction would help to ascertain how much fuel amendment was necessary to achieve a response in lower indices.

While using mechanized equipment within the provincial park is very restricted, it was agreed that a feller buncher could be utilized to fall the trees. This would both expedite the process as well as provide an increased safety margin over hand falling on steeper slopes.

During the planning process, several operational concerns for the fuel amendment were noted. Although the use of the feller buncher was permitted, if there were indications of rutting or excessive ground disturbance, operations would cease. Buffers would be required along creeks as well as a recreational trail that went through the center of the burn unit along the Evan Thomas Valley. Cross-slope openings would need to be left to maintain wildlife travel corridors.

Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.

The debate comes as the London borough of Enfield has started moves to create a by-law which would make spitting in the street without good reason an offence, with prosecution and fines of up to ￡5000. Now SNP leader Cllr Steve Cardownie is calling for a debate over whether similar measures should be considered here.

He said: “To me, it’s on a par with dog excrement, it’s just disgusting. I can understand if someone is ill, but you would hope they would spit into a hanky. There’s nothing worse than seeing someone just spitting in the street and there clearly are some people who’re not dissuaded by how antisocial it is. Perhaps a fine would convince them to refrain.“I will raise the issue at the next SNP group meeting with a view to asking officials if such a move is necessary or appropriate here.”

Liberal Democrat Councillor Robert Aldridge, who spearheaded a campaign against spitting in public two decades ago, added: “In some circumstances I think it’s preferable to encourage good behaviour than penalise bad, but perhaps a fine would discourage people. It is disgusting.”However, other councillors questioned the need for such a move, with SNP Councillor Mike Bridgman calling spitting “disgusting, but not a criminal offence” and Lib Dem Paul Eadie asking whether criminalisation was “a step too far”.

Tory group leader Councillor Jeremy Balfour added: “Clearly spitting is not very pleasant or nice, but the trouble with a law like this is – how do you enforce it?”Superstar golfer Tiger Woods faced a barrage of criticism for “spitting round Muirfield” during the recent Open tournament, with many taking to social media to complain about his perceived lack of respect for the renowned course. Spitting within reason is traditional on the Royal Mile’s Heart of crystal mosaic.

Despite the backlash against Woods, spitting by sports stars is generally less frowned upon as many athletes, especially runners, claim it is necessary to clear out dirt which has accumulated in the mouth.

Midlothian-born Olympic athlete Freya Murray said: “Yes, to be honest, I do have to spit when I’m training or competing, but I try to be discreet. I certainly would never do it when I wasn’t running.” However, Lothians MSP Alison Johnstone, a former East of Scotland 1500m and 800m champion, who now also coaches athletics, said spitting was not something she regularly came across in her 30 years in sport, adding: “Perhaps the athletes I work with are just more considerate!”

That took place while the veterans and rookies gathered in Bradenton, Fla., for a four-day mini-camp in early April. There remains a great deal of maturing before the crop can be declared a success, but the early signs point to a bumper one.

The Roughriders improved their record to a CFLbest 5-0 on Saturday by beating the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 32-20 at the University of Guelph’s Alumni Field. The win came six days after the Riders thumped the Tiger-Cats 37-0 at Mosaic Stadium.

“It all started in Florida because we had a chance to get acquainted with everybody,” Riders defensive back Dwight Anderson said when asked about the team’s fast start. “Then when we came into training camp, everybody managed to blend together. Everything has just come together.”

Head coach Corey Chamblin stressed the family aspect of the Riders during the mini-camp. He talked to the players about stone mosaic for each other on and off the field. He wanted the team to be close, which was one of the reasons why most players made the trip to Bradenton. That team-first attitude is among the reasons why the Riders are playing as well as they are.

“We argue and we curse each other out, just like families do,” said middle linebacker Rey Williams, who was among the key veterans added to the Riders during the off-season. “When it’s time to play football, everybody has each other’s back. The guys believe in one another. There is a level of trust here and to have it so early is great.”

Saturday’s game provided an example of that philosophy. The Roughriders found themselves trailing 10-0 after the Tiger-Cats scored on their first two offensive series. Hamilton quarterback Henry Burris was then sacked by Riders defensive tackle Tearrius George, forcing the Tiger-Cats to punt from their nine-yard line. Five plays later, Chris Milo connected from the 17-yard line for his 10th consecutive field goal and the Riders trailed 10-3. After incurring the 10-point deficit, the Riders outscored the Tiger-Cats 32-7.

George would go on to add two more sacks. The Riders also picked up two sacks from Hilee Taylor while John Chick and Williams had one each. George, who added three defensive tackles, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery, feels a different attitude is a reason for the strong play of the defensive line.

When Willy did get the call, he completed 14 of 25 attempts for 269 yards, including second-quarter touchdown passes to Geroy Simon, Chris Getzlaf and Weston Dressler. Willy was shaky early in the game, but he settled down as the contest wore on.

“That’s the mojo on this team,” Anderson said. “It doesn’t matter who it is. It can be a starter or whatever. We know that he’s going to do just as a good a job as the starter did. That’s just the mentality the whole team has. Whoever is the next man up, we’re going to ride with you or die.”

Kory Sheets continued his torrid start to the season while rushing for 140 yards on 25 carries. The secondyear CFLer became the first running back in league history to surpass 100 rushing yards in the first five games of the season. He is also the first Roughrider to register 100-plus yards in five consecutive games at any point of the season. George Reed (1969) and Mike Strickland (1978) had four consecutive 100-yard games.

“Coach made a big emphasis a couple of weeks ago about everybody trusting people and making sure that the person next to you is going to be where they should be,” said Sheets, who leads the CFL with 712 rushing yards. “Everybody is accountable and they trust everyone around them to do their job and their job only.”

Camille Seaman sees interconnection while chasing storms. I value that, but I felt something different in the summer of 1980 — perhaps because the storms hounded me. I bicycled across the United States and parts of Canada, down the West Coast, and back east. It was the year Mount Saint Helens blew up: Matronly Mother Nature mutated into Lizzie Borden with an axe. I touched transcendence and experienced frailty.

My first revelatory moment was wrapped in Midwestern hospitality while I bicycled west. I crossed into eastern South Dakota and knocked on a farmer’s door with a well-rehearsed request for water from the garden hose. A woman insisted I come in and made me sandwiches and filled my water bottles. Her husband greeted me like I was long-lost Cousin Mike. They told me of a good camping spot just down the road, where there was a picnic table under a small pavilion near a shallow lake. I pedaled there.

It was then, while perched on that table at sunset, that I saw one of Seaman’s storms: A massive, anvil-shaped, cumulonimbus cloud lumbered in about 20 miles to the west and tossed lightning bolts like neon spaghettis. Welcome to the Great Plains, where the weather is as pitiless as the Borg. I was a living triviality, as significant as a greasy spot under a shabby pavilion near a muddy lake.And yet it was strangely beautiful. It possessed a stop-my-heart, crystal mosaic, complete with angry eyes and commands to kneel.

I pedaled west some more and eventually camped in volcanic ash. A family put me up in the Seattle area and a new acquaintance drove me, my bike, and my packs up to the 7,000 foot level of Mount Rainier. I hiked up a little further on blackened snow, where I met my second moment. A pretty woman ahead called out: “You can see Mount Saint Helens from here.” I rushed to her — to see the volcano, of course — and turned around. There it was, the killer mountain: Lizzie Borden pausing for a cigarette, emitting a wispy plume. And she was near — so near it seemed I could touch her. And I was on a bike. And volcanos often explode more than once … My instinct for self-preservation quashed any longing for oneness. I pedaled south — out of Washington and harm’s way — as fast as my finite legs would pump.

The third moment came about a month later, when I was biking eastward in Kansas. I was relishing it. The wind was with me, blowing so hard the corn lay flat. I sailed — until I peeked behind and saw the squall line (a line of clouds bringing a torrential storm) and the aqua-colored sky. My stomach crawled into my throat because I knew that aqua skies meant tornados and I was five miles from the nearest town … A ditch! Give me a ditch! Any ditch! My kingdom for a ditch into which I can hurl myself and my bike! But Toto, this is Kansas! And the postcards were no lie: Kansas is flat — so flat I see no ditches wider than a grave, and graves are not the idea. So use that wind and race until your legs are Jell-O. Skid into the town with your heart racing at ten thousand beats a second. Accept the invitation from the car-repair guys who are watching the storm: “You’d better get in.” I bring my bike into their garage and — a moment later — 60-mile-an-hour gusts plow through and the power goes out. Driving rain and hail slant sideways. Everyone’s having themselves a nervous chuckle while doling Coors and yes, this future Baptist minister accepts the beer. So arrest me. The storm blasts and, after it’s all over, I walk outside to see fallen trees and blocked roads. I also hear reports from local volunteers: funnel clouds did, in fact, touch down.

Ancient thinkers would see no contradiction between Seaman and I: She spoke of nature through the lens of immanence, or nearness; I saw it through transcendence, or enormity. They saw the face of the divine and equally applauded intimacy, which wells from immanence, and the fear of God sparked by transcendence. Both are valid. Immanence and transcendence are woven into a complete mosaic.

I sometimes step outside my air-conditioned home and view the very sky that brought those storms and clouds of ash. I love its sun and clouds and rain, but I also hear of melting glaciers, heat waves, droughts, and rising seas. I remember my well-founded frailty and fear, and I can’t help but pray that all will hear the twin messages of immanence and transcendence — before the axe is wielded once more.

Born in 1979, Dennen released his fourth studio album, Loverboy, in April 2011 on Downtown Records. In October 2013, Dennen is slated to release his new album, Smoke and Mirrors, recorded in Nashville with producer Charlie Peacock. In 2008, Rolling Stone named Dennen an “Artist to Watch,” while Entertainment Weekly called him one of its eight “Guys on the stone mosaic.” Dennen has appeared at the Newport Folk Festival and Oulipo Ballroom in Kentucky, and his music has been featured in the 2010 film According to Greta and on the TV show Parenthood.

Dennen also works with the San Francisco Bay Area-based nonprofit The Mosaic Project, which teaches peace and understanding to young children of diverse backgrounds. Dennen created an original musical curriculum for the program, which was released as an album called Children’s Songs for Peace and a Better World, winning both a Children’s Music Web Award and a Parent’s Choice Approved Award in 2004.

Getting the music started under the stars on Friday will be New York-based band, Goldspot. Making their Pittsburgh debut, the band is fronted by singer/songwriter Siddhartha Khosla. Named “Ones to Watch in 2010” by HITS Magazine, the band’s energetic live performances and recorded material draws inspiration from everything from R.E.M. and Bollywood to George Harrison.

In August, Goldspot will release the new album, Aerogramme, their follow-up to 2010’s And the Elephant is Dancing, which was produced by Beach Boys engineer Jeff Peters. Goldspot has appeared at high-profile festivals such as Glastonbury and V, has opened for Travis, Death Cab for Cutie and Franz Ferdinand, and in 2007, became the first band to play at London’s O2 Arena when they opened for Bon Jovi.

Suzanne Meyer, director of Marketing at WYEP, thinks that Friday’s concert might break attendance records for the series, which launched in 2007 on the Northside. “There is a huge Brett Dennen fan base in Pittsburgh and we are getting a lot of response. Goldspot is new to WYEP and Pittsburgh, and we are very excited to have them,” says Meyer, who anticipates that the concert may draw up to 4,000 people. Meyer also says that WYEP–which became the country’s first green station with its LEED-Silver Certified complex on Pittsburgh’s South Side–will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2014.

There’s no shortage of mobile photo book applications on the market today, but a majority of these are focused on taking digital creations and turning them into offline, printed products. Memorability, a recently launched iPad photo book app, is different. Instead of bringing online web printing services to the new, smaller screens of smartphones or iPads, the app instead suggests that we no longer need to print out our photo scrapbooks at all — and that an iPad-only solution actually has advantages of its own.

If you do a search for “photo books” in the iTunes App Store, you’ll find a variety of solutions for building photo albums that can then be shipped to your home. Some of these are built for iPhone, like Mosaic and Simple Prints, for example. Others, like Printzel, are universal apps, and others still, like KeepShot, are iPad-only. Memorability fits into this latter group in the sense that it’s been designed for tablets alone.

But unlike the others, Memorability is not meant as a utility for building hardbound photo books — it’s the digital replacement for them. There’s no accompanying web service or printing option with the app. Users’ albums are saved locally to the iPad, while the company’s servers will only host the albums shared with other family and friends for up to 30 days.

Like the traditional scrapbooks it’s inspired by, Memorability includes pre-designed templates that can be customized with text and captions. But it also includes a unique feature, as well: voice support. In addition to arranging photos into albums, users can record narrative voice-overs. The resulting photo books can then be viewed in an automatic slideshow mode, or can be swiped through manually.

Private sharing is built into Memorability, allowing users to friend each other, then view and comment on each others’ books, which appear in the app’s feed. Plus, you can optionally share books to Facebook or via email to reach family members or friends without crystal mosaic . There the photo books are turned into movie files that play the slideshow and narration when clicked.

Based in Chapel Hill, N.C., and bootstrapped by husband and wife team Anne and Tom Clark, Memorability got its start — as many companies do — in order to solve a personal pain point in the co-founders’ lives. “I have thousands of photos of my children on my computer, but as a busy mom, I never had time to do anything with them,” says Anne, who worked on Memorability’s interaction design and wireframes while husband Tom, currently a senior director of product at TIBCO, coded.

“When I looked for a solution for my iPad where I could display my photos, I wasn’t happy,” Anne says of the iPad’s current app selection. “I wanted something that was more like a physical photo album. When I didn’t find anything like that, I decided we needed to do it,” she adds.

The premium version of the app is available for free in the App Store, offering a number of built-in themes, and the ability to record up to a minute of voice per page on albums that can be 20 pages long. After the launch period is over, the app will remain free but will then cost $3.99 to upgrade to the full version with more free themes and albums not capped at five pages each.

A number of album themes will remain available for in-app purchase in both editions, and new themes will be added monthly, says Anne. Given the scrapbooking vibe of building the digital books, there may be an opportunity for Memorability to sell additional embellishments in time, but the company decided against the “sticker pack business model” for now because the immediate goal is keeping the app easy to use. However, the team is considering letting users pay to keep their albums shared with others for longer than the 30-day default at some later point in time.

Memorability is interesting because it actually replicates the feeling you used to get from putting photos into a scrapbook, while also taking advantage of the digital medium that’s now at hand. It’s a lot like Disney’s recently launched private social networking app Story, except that Story is only built for iPhone, and is not as polished or pretty — things that matter to Memorability’s most likely female, Pinterest-pinning, family-focused crowd.

The Earth images are part of a larger mosaic that will show the full Saturn system once its stitched together by the Cassini team over the next few weeks.In the meantime, the spacecraft has already beamed back to Earth tons of raw images from the event that are available to view and download on NASA’s website. The raw images do not have the colour, brightness, or sharpness of the finished product, but are being manipulated by amateur image processors while we wait for the stone mosaic   to be assembled.

Val Klavans, who holds a degree in astronomy and previously interned at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight centre with the Cassini mission, created the colour composite of Saturn and Earth seen above from three raw images taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Earth is the white dot in the distance, with Saturn’s rings in the foreground.

“We ran it a couple of times (in practice) and if they call it, they call it, and if not, hey, I’m still there to block with my hands,” Clark said after becoming the first Roughriders O-lineman to catch a touchdown pass since Marc Parenteau in the 2010 Grey Cup.

“It’s an unbelievable experience. I’ve never got a touchdown in my life. For the first to come at the CFL level was great. Taking the ball to my dad (Rob) was probably one of the proudest moments in his life.” Clark has been deployed at tight end since the Roughriders’ second game of the regular season, helping to protect Durant and to open holes for Kory Sheets.

In the third quarter of Sunday’s game, Clark faked a block and slipped uncovered into the end zone. Durant lofted the ball toward the 6-foot-2, 310-pounder and he latched onto it for the major.”What was going through my mind was, ‘Block, don’t fall and don’t drop the ball,’ ” said Clark, who noted he has never touched the ball at any level of football.”Seeing it coming to me was pure pandemonium at that point. Having (fullback) Scott McHenry jump into my arms and celebrating with the O-line, for me it’s just unbelievable.”

Clark was on the Roughriders’ practice roster in 2010, but he played that season with the PFC’s Regina Thunder. He was on Saskatchewan’s practice roster again in 2011 before playing seven regular-season games in 2012.

Every home is born first in the imagination, in the longing for the culmination of a dream. Only in some homes, the dream-like quality never really leaves, long after the walls have sprung up and every roof tile, every brick, pillar and window has found its place. The first time you see the Jade Hill cottage in Coorg, it is easy to disbelieve your eyes. So is there a house, really, atop a steep hill, shinning in the evening wilderness like a jewel? Well, yes, there really is.

But before we trek towards the home, it is time for a flashback. As narrated by architect Kavya Thimmaiah Prasanna, “My dad (Rajyutsva award winning architect HC Thimmaiah) was orphaned at an early age. He and his three siblings spent their childhood between various relatives’ houses in Coorg, the one constant being their grandmother. Her death split up the family and dad moved to Delhi, then Mumbai and finally to Chennai for his first job. One of the first architects to come from Coorg, he finally moved to Bangalore where he set up his own practice and started his life. But always, there was a hankering for what he had lost. The childhood home among the coffee plantations that he enjoyed so fleetingly. So 40 years after he left Coorg, when he got the opportunity to build a hill home, it was the culmination of a life-long dream, something he had always yearned for, without even admitting to it.”

So that then is the history of Jade Hill, the house on top of the mountain that HC Thimmaiah built with his daughter. The cottage, when you reach it, spreads out languidly as if it were part of the hill rather than built on it. And that is because the Thimmaiahs used stone and laterite found in the region and kept the structure organic and simple with a wrap around verandah where the design quirk is the twisted brick pillars. The flooring throughout the house is red oxide though it isn’t just red but blue and yellow and green and embedded with decorative tiles.

Part of recreating nostalgia was to literally salvage it, so Thimmaiah sourced doors and windows and a lot of wood and even tiles from old traditional homes that were being demolished all across Coorg.  Kavya says, “Yes, my parents decided to use only recycled materials in the construction. Scrap-yards were scoured and doors, windows and pillars bought in a decrepit state and refurbished lovingly. Hundred-year old tiles for the roof and burnt-orange, laterite walls completed the construction.” To keep the house as green as possible, the use of new wood was kept to the minimum and concrete built-ins were created to serve as beds while a few pieces of antique furniture lend a sense of history.

Even in the bathroom, a mosaic was created out of broken tiles that would have been thrown away otherwise. Building the house though was not easy. Recalls Kavya, “When my parents bought a piece of land in this remote, relatively unknown part of Coorg, most people thought that they were plain crazy. Who would want to live in a village so windy that it was called Galibeedu or ‘Windy Village’? A place with rainfall so high, that nothing grew on the slopes?  Least of all, glass mosaic, coffee. To a Kodava, any land that coffee can’t be grown on is pretty much useless. ‘If you must build a house there, don’t build on top of the hill,’’ they said and added, ‘Build it in the valley, where it is sheltered, and to hell with the view!’’ But my dad, the recalcitrant person that he is, said, “Top of the hill and nowhere else.’’ So top of the hill it was. A house built into the hillside, overlooking the valley, with a deck facing a storybook view and sunsets.”

Most visitors couldn’t locate the house at first. Says Kavya, “This house with the old doors and windows couldn’t be it, they thought. One visitor even went around the back, searching for the ‘new’ house  till we had to tell him that this was it! Many years and monsoons later (there were dire warnings of monsoons so severe that they would blow the tiles off the roofs), the house stands as proudly as before. Resorts and home stays have sprung up in and around Galibeedu and this once forgotten place now commands one of the highest, real-estate values in Coorg. For us, the house on the hill has become a favourite family getaway. Sitting on the deck, watching the sun set over the green forests below, we can’t imagine the house being anywhere else.”

Tracy Van Duinen was working on the mosaic under the old railroad trestle on Peterson Avenue a few days ago when a van pulled off the busy road and a woman got out.The woman introduced herself. She said she’d been driving by and had seen some children working on the mosaic. She said she had a daughter.In the past year, people in the Northwest Side neighborhood of Sauganash have raised $75,000 to beautify two ugly old walls flanking Peterson. Paula Fitzgerald, a longtime resident, dreamed up the notion. The neighbors enlisted help from the Chicago Public Art Group, a nonprofit responsible for wall art all over the city.

This summer, supervised by Duinen and another artist, Sauganash residents have turned the walls into a chronicle of the neighborhood, using glass and tile to depict its forest, crystal mosaic , its schools and homes and people past and present.They were close to done on the July day that Hanna and her mother pulled up. But there remained, on the south wall, a bare spot with the stenciled lines of a figure waiting to be brought to life with cement, glass and grout.

Hanna parked her own wheelchair in front of the outline. She picked up a shard of mirrored glass and, with some instruction, began to create. She did the wheel first, then the handlebars, cement splatting on her shoes.Watching Hanna work, Lia Codreanu couldn’t escape the symbolism: her child of glass creating a person out of glass, both of them in a wheelchair.

Codreanu was 26 weeks pregnant when doctors told her and her husband, immigrants from Romania, that their child would be a dwarf.When their daughter was born, the diagnosis changed. Hanna had osteogenesis imperfecta, loosely known as brittle bones, more loosely known as glass bones.Doctors said Hanna would probably die within a year. She lived. Doctors said she would never walk, and once again she beat the odds.

“I could walk,” Hanna said Friday, sitting in her wheelchair, next to the mosaic, “only I broke my leg falling out of my mom’s van, so I had to have surgery. But when my legs don’t hurt, I can walk. Sometimes I forget to not run. My mom has to remind me to not run. I also take this medicine that helps my bones not to hurt.”Since her first day at the mosaic, Hanna has come back several times. People like having her. She wears her troubles so lightly she makes them almost invisible.”You get drawn to Hanna because of her energy,” Van Duinen said.

But in her short life, Hanna has fractured bones more than 40 times. She has endured many surgeries and braces. There was a brace for her broken back, a brace to flatten her chest. Soon she’ll have a new brace for her spine.