Some say the world will end in fire…

In the last few months I’ve experienced extreme cold (Minnesota) and warm weather (80’s here in Baja). It made me think of summers down here, which are just about unbearable, and the 2 extremes (as applied to being outside—I’m not talking about heaters in the cold or air conditioners in the heat). In the cold, you can bundle up to mitigate the extreme, but in the heat you’re out of luck. One time in August down here, my landlord Yuca and I would go across the dusty road and lie down in the shallow river in T-shirts and shorts, then come back to my room and stand in front of the fan while soaking wet for a few precious moments of coolness.

Fire and Ice 

Some say the world will end in fire, 

Some say in ice. 

From what I’ve tasted of desire 

I hold with those who favor fire. 

But if it had to perish twice, 

I think I know enough of hate 

To say that for destruction ice 

Is also great 

And would suffice.

-Robert Frost

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

Leave a Reply