Oregon Mountain Cabins

October 2, 2020 at 3:30 am

Lloyd,

Peter from Portland, OR here. Met you at a book signing a couple years ago at Powell’s on Hawthorne St.

Came upon these beauties on the first day of a 5-day thru-hike in the Eagle Cap Wilderness in the Wallowa Mtns of NE Oregon. These mountains are high alpine, differing greatly in appearance and density than the Cascades. They seem to be managed by a man who goes by “Dennis”, who we encountered on our initial ascent into the wilderness. He told us he was the caretaker of the cabins on the southern shore of Android Lake, to peruse them if we fancy. He mentioned that it was the remnants of an old summer “resort” from the early 1900s. He has done good work restoring these old gems.

The yurt-shaped cabin looks newer, however. You’ll also notice some homemade structural supports on a couple of them. All gear/equipment/tools are carried by horseback up nearly 6500 ft. (3000 ft. gain) to this location. All in all, pretty cool. They function on something of a rental basis. They all have beds, wood stoves and seem to be in good shape interiorly as well.

Cheers,
Peter Knudsen

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We Will Send Our Books to Prisons Free of Charge

September 30, 2020 at 12:16 pm

We get letters from prisoners from time to time, and we always send them whatever books they request, free of charge. Prisons, which are profit-making organizations, continually exacerbate the problems of confinement. Years ago, they eliminated weight training and gym facilities; until that time, we sent many copies of our book Getting Stronger: Weight Training for Men and Women, by Bill Pearl to prisons around the country. These days, they won’t allow us to send books to their libraries, as is indicated in this heartfelt letter, but we can send books directly to prisoners.

If you have any connections with prisons, or know anyone serving time, we want to get the word out that any of our books — either fitness books or books on building — can be sent free of charge upon request.

In this case, it’s such a positive thing for inmates to learn a useful trade such as building tiny homes, that will both help them integrate back into society, and help provide shelter when it’s sorely needed.

Mr. Kahn,

My name is ——— and I am an inmate of the federal correctional institution in ———————. Within the Bureau of Prisons is a program called Vocational Training (VT) wherein the local prison partners with a local college or university in order to provide career training courses that are worth transferable college credit.

I work in the VT Program as a tutor and teaching assistant in the Residential Carpentry class. As the building tutor, it’s my job to take (mostly young) men from never having held a hammer to completely framing, subfloor or slab up to roof sheathing — a tiny home in three months. I love my job and find it intensely interesting.

I’ve long had an interest in sustainable building, community building, and smaller home designs. I was not prepared to find a small but dedicated (and growing) community of similarly-minded people here in prison. We have an architect from Tucson who is into natural materials, and a gentleman who wants to build a carbon neutral off-grid home. One guy wants to build a tiny cabin in Idaho, and another dreams of building homes on small trailer frames as a business. It’s exciting to have this support.

Which, Mr. Kahn, is why I am writing. I’m hoping you can connect me to resource books, papers, and other sources of information so that I can help this community succeed. The VT carpentry library is small and currently contains only a few volumes on tiny home design with almost nothing about natural or alternative methods of sustainability.

I’m working to change that, little by little. One of my goals here is to vastly increase the information available to the inmate population. Without internet or research computer access, that means the printed word. My vision is to have a robust selection of books on general sustainability, green building, water systems, solar designs — the works. I am asking you and Shelter Publications to donate books for the purpose of bolstering our sustainability knowledge set.

I making this appeal personally rather than as an official part of the VT program because the BOP has very strict rules about outside/private organizations donating to or participating in BOP programs. As an inmate, however, I can receive books and materials, then donate them to the library. I understand the purpose of these rules (I do not want to jog laps in the Coca-Cola Annex or spend time in the Inmate Leisure Library brought to you by Verizon,) but it does make certain things more difficult to accomplish.

I screwed up, broke the law and I’m paying the price. I could spend the next four years feeling sorry for myself, but that is not who I am. I intend to leave here a better person and to have made this place better for my efforts.

I ask that you help me serve this community, that these people can go on to serve their home communities.

Thank you for your time,

Respectfully, ———

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Prickly Pear Cactus

September 17, 2020 at 6:06 pm
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Prickly pear cactus, or nopal plant in garden that just took off. The nopalitos or tender paddles are nutritious and have many healthy ingredients. You need to carefully remove the spines. The tunas are tasty fruit. I burn off spines with a blowtorch.

It needs no water, weeding, or cultivation.

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