I love hitting the road in my go-anywhere 8 year old Toyota Tacoma (4×4, stick shift, 5 speed, 4-cylinder) truck, armed with cameras. This time I forgot my Panasonic Lumix G1 serious camera, just had the little Canon PowerShot G95. I breathe a sigh of relief when I get to farm land and I start scanning for pix. After splitting enough oak to fill my truck at my brother’s, I headed up to Middleton and Harbin Hot Springs. There’s something strangely relaxing about the funkiness and occasional white trash homesteads in lower-income counties.
I was reflecting on finding a balance between computer work and the physical world. I love all the email and blogging I’ve been doing lately. It’s an exciting time, what with the popularity of this new book, and sometimes I get so involved here at the Mac that I forget about two necessary antidotes:
1. Working out (including hiking, anything outdoors and physical) for the body. Getting circulation going, stressing muscles, and stretching. I always feel better.
2. Doing something with my hands. Making a table, turning the compost pile, splitting shakes. Deep-down satisfaction to make something with hands.
Funky lightweight farm building looks like it’s floating.
I When I see old farm buildings like this, I think of converting them into places to live. In Big Sur in the ’60s, I lived happily in a converted chicken coop for a year.
Nice steel sculpture at a place with a sign “Art Forms” on Hwy 121, south of Sonoma
Hi Lloyd, love your blog. I've lived in the City of Napa for 20 years now, and from the look of that window shot, I'd say you took it in downtown St. Helena. I also love the old and funky farm buildings, and always wonder about the stories they contain. I've also been splitting oak firewood latley, since a friend needed to cut down a dangerously rotten 350 year old oak in their yard. When you get in touch with the knarly grains of something that old and amazing, you develop an appreciation. Splitting wood is good for the heart, but hard on my hands! Keep up the good work, congrats on the tiny homes book.
Ken
Hello, Lloyd, I feel the same thing when I'm working day after day on my PC. My rusty skeleton and my painful tendons send me the warning signal : ''screen's overdose ! look out of the window ! '' First-aid : going for a stroll in the woods or on the beach (much better with a dog)
At the moment, winter is very mild on the european Atlantic coast and spring's vigor is spewing out, mimosas are in blossom (very, very early), round here everybody is hacking down trees, and planting hedges, and diging, and cleaning… Outside is life !