April 26, 2024

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75º | 20% chance of precipitation
Sunrise 6:51 a.m. | Sunset 8:30 p.m.
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🌳 Keeping LOU green

an aerial view of cherokee park in the autumn

Louisville’s parks help contribute to its tree cover. | Photo by Louisville Tourism

We had Earth Day on Monday and Arbor Day today — late April is all about the environment, and Louisville knows how to step up in the conservation department.

Beargrass Thunder

If you have planted or enjoyed a managed natural landscape (or “yarden”) around town, you can thank Beargrass Thunder. The native plant nursery and landscape company started as a YouTube channel for hobby gardening, but now offers plants + custom seed mixes, as well as installing native plant gardens.

In 2019, Beargrass Thunder owner Jody Dahmer began a campaign to overturn a 90-year-old weed ordinance that outlawed plants taller than 10 inches.

“If the Code Enforcement officer thought your flowers or edible food were actually ‘weeds,’ you could be legally fined for feeding your family,” said Dahmer. In March 2022, the new rules allowing managed natural landscapes went into effect.

Beargrass Thunder is now turning its focus to surrounding suburban communities + HOAs, especially near the Parklands of Floyds Fork. Dahmer also participates in seed swaps at the Louisville Tool Library and hosts cleanups and reforestation efforts along the South Fork of Beargrass Creek.

A young person climbs a rock wall, surrounded by trees. — Treefest is just one of TreesLouisville’s community outreach events.
|
Image via WHAS11

TreesLouisville

It’s hard to picture a Louisville without trees. From the dense forests of Iroquois and Cherokee Parks to the tree-lined side streets, the city is filled with greenery.

But in 2015, an Urban Tree Canopy Assessment found that Louisville was losing an average of 54,000 trees per year. TreesLouisville wasn’t going to stand for it.

TreesLouisville is singularly focused on improving Louisville by increasing its tree canopy cover. Last month, it unveiled the Louisville Tree Plan in cooperation with Metro Government to continue improving the city’s urban canopy.

The conservation group often gives away free trees at events around town, and will be participating in the plant sale at the Louisville Zoo this weekend.

Asked

How much of Louisville is under the urban canopy?

A. 28%
B. 45%
C. 39%
D. 42%

See if you're barking up the right tree

Events

Friday, April 26

Mahler 6 | Friday, April 26-Saturday, April 27 | Times vary | Kentucky Center for the Arts, 501 W. Main St., Louisville | $31-$56 | Experience a symphony entitled “Tragic” with conductor Teddy Abrams.

Saturday, April 27

School of Rock | Saturday, April 27-Sunday, April 28 | 11 a.m.-9 p.m. | Portal Louisville, 1535 Lytle St., Louisville | $0-$10 | Hear the next generation of rock and roll belt out tunes by Led Zeppelin, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, and more.
Makerplace Workshop: Paint Pouring | Saturday, April 27 | 1-3 p.m. | Kentucky Science Center, 727 W. Main St., Louisville | $20-$30 | Create abstract artwork and learn about the chemistry of paint at this all-ages event — tickets include general admission to the science center.

Sunday, April 28

Dawn at the Downs | Sunday, April 28-Monday, April 29 | 7-10 a.m. | Churchill Downs, 700 Central Ave., Louisville | $49-$59 | Enjoy a buffet breakfast on Millionaires Row and in the Stakes Room.

Monday, April 29

Funday Mondays | Monday, April 29 | 10 a.m.-5 p.m. | Louisville Zoo, 1100 Trevilian Way, Louisville | $7.25 | Enjoy discounted zoo admission + parking all day.

Tuesday, April 30

Kentucky Derby Festival WineFest | Tuesday, April 30 | 6-9 p.m. | Mellwood Art Center, 1860 Mellwood Ave., Louisville | $75-$125 | Visit local vendors and sip on regional Kentucky wines.

Events calendar here

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Biz

Do or delegate? 3 ways to achieve more

a woman sits at a large white table and works on a laptop

Athena vets 30,000+ assistants, and under 1% make it to its four-week training program, where they learn Athena’s proprietary delegation system, AI tools, and playbooks. | Photo via Pexels

Most people don’t know how or what to delegate. Their “I can do it myself” attitude or mediocre experience with a virtual assistant limits their ability to move from doing to delegating. Athena gets to know your personal + business life so you can achieve more.

Here are three tricks to kickstart your delegation journey:

Use voice notes to delegate.
Record videos of repetitive tasks to turn into a standard process.
Stop thinking it’ll be faster to do it yourself.

Achieve more + get a $1,500 credit

News Notes

Civic

Mayor Craig Greenberg recently announced a new initiative to encourage employers to hire workers with felony or Class A misdemeanor convictions. The Second Chance Supporting Business Certification provides networking resources + contracting opportunities to participating businesses. Applications are open now.

Cause

Calling all readers — the Jack Harlow Foundation is partnering with Carmichael’s Bookstore to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day (tomorrow, April 27). For every in-store or online book purchase this weekend, the Foundation will donate $5 to the nonprofit Educational Justice.

Ranked

Louisville placed No. 3 on Axios’s list of increased visitors from March 2023 to February 2024. The list ranks American cities by how well they are recovering in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Downtown Louisville saw a 32.5% increase in visitation during the measured period, just behind Chicago and Minneapolis.

Derby

The Kentucky Derby Museum is expecting record visitation numbers thanks to the 150th Kentucky Derby next week. Last year was the museum’s best ever with 251,000 visitors from Oct. 1, 2022-Sept. 30, 2023, and this year is expected to top 300,000. (Louisville Business First)

Job

Jefferson County residents can apply to work as election officers ahead of the presidential primary on Tuesday, May 21 and the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 5. Applicants will attend a 2.5-hour training prior to each election and be paid a total of $300. Apply now. (WHAS11)

Watch

In case you missed Thunder Over Louisville, WDRB has video recordings of the fireworks and drone shows that lit up the Ohio River last weekend. The annual event marked the two-week countdown to Derby weekend, and an estimated half-million people attended. (WDRB)

Gallery

Construction of the new paddock area at Churchill Downs is officially complete. Want to see behind-the-scenes of the development? Check out our coverage from last month. (WHAS11)

Sports

Wisconsin, Evansville, Long Beach State, Washington — basketball players are flocking to LOU from all over the country. Get game coverage, analysis, insights, interviews, and more from local experts of the Cardinals with Locked On’s daily podcasts.

Travel

Heading to the airport soon? Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF) wants to help you spend less to get there. See how simple it is to save $5 on an Uber or Lyft rideshare to SDF or pre-book Express Shuttle Lot parking (just $5 per day).*

Watch

For the first time ever, Hulu Live TV is offering a three-day free trial. Get 33 of the top 35 cable channels, Hulu on demand, Disney+, and ESPN+.*

Home

Did you know you could finance your fixer-upper with home equity? You could get up to $50K with a HELOC — calculate your payment.*

Read

And the winner is...

A top-down view of a laptop sitting on a table with an open notebook and pen sitting on top of it. Next to the laptop is a latte in a mug atop a white saucer. The latte has a foam heart on top.

Drumroll, please. | Photo by Pixabay via Pexels

This month, we ran a poetry contest to celebrate National Poetry Month. We challenged our readers to craft a poem using only the words that appeared in one of our newsletters (here are the original contest guidelines if you want to give it a try).

While prose is our newsletter’s bread and butter, it turns out that you all certainly aren’t op-prose-d to verse; we received several creative, intriguing, and beautiful poems that we narrowed down to our top three finalists.

Check out the winner below, and click through to read the other finalists.

“The Quality of Your Style” by Jim S.

Be big!
Honor the quality of your style:
Pull in that direction,
craft a game
unlike anywhere
appearing in English.
Throw limitation out.
Mix it up,
narrow the red tip,
submit your words,
contest the vote
of erasure.

Read the runner-ups

The Buy

A women’s pastel, oversized button-down — because you can’t go wrong in it for spring. Bonus: This one’s 100% cotton.

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The Wrap

Today’s edition by:
Declan

From the editor

Can you picture a herd of bison walking down Preston Highway? Sean Patrick Hill over at Leo Weekly just put out a great article on the history of bison in Kentucky and how their presence can be felt even today in Louisville’s roads.

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