“Bobby Heffelfinger created this rolling art studio in West Marin county, California, on a 2013 Ford F-350 truck with mostly recycled materials (left over from various building projects). He started with the truck chassis and built a flatbed with 2 × 2 steel square stock.…”
Blogs I’m putting most of my posts on building on TheShelterBlog now. I’m starting to link to those from this blog. TheShelterBlog focusses on building, homesteading, gardening, and the home arts, whereas this blog tracks my eclectic path through life. Note: if you go to the “Categories” button on the right and select a subject, like, say, “Natural Materials,” you’ll get all the posts on that subject. The info available this way is growing each day. This is getting to be a body of work.
Dwell Magazine I can’t help myself from continuing to knock this soulless, sterile publication. Who are the people that live this way? Certainly different from our tribe.
Stretching—The Pocketbook Edition Rick Gordon is about halfway through building a 5″ x 8″ pocketbook edition of our best-selling book (3-1/2 million copies, 23 languages). Pocketbook editions of Stretching have been very popular in Spain and Germany and we feel it’s time to introduce it in English. Out in 2015.
Small Homes Our next building book is under way. Contributors are beginning to send us photos, descriptions. Note: Contact us if you know of (or have built) an imaginative, artistic, practical, and/or economical home in the 400-1200 sq. ft. range: lew@shelterpub.com
Mini-Skeleton I was looking through Cool Tools for Christmas present ideas and one of the items led me to this unique little (9″ high) skeleton, available from Amazon. One of the comments from a nursing student said that both the leg bones (tibia and fibula) were switched; same with the arm bones (radius and ulna) This is true, but I was able to switch all 4 of them into the right positions. This is a fine little skeleton, ingeniously produced, for a very low price. BTW, there is a great children’s book on anatomy that’s selling on Amazon or $.01 these days: The Human Body by Ruth Dowling Brunn and Bertel Braun.
My Life Since I quit competitive running, I’ve been taking long walks in the woods, looking for mushrooms, wild foods such such as yerba buena tea, cattail pollen, watercress, miners lettuce, etc. Been getting clams, fishing for eels. Picking up oak trees knocked down by storms on the roads for firewood. Skateboarding when I can.
–Yoga started again after a year’s absence, it’s so good for stiff, banged-up bodies like mine.
-Kauai Going there the last 2 weeks of January, to get in the warm water, do some hiking, shoot photos of small homes.
Comedian David Dean on the radio last week:
“Honk if you love Jesus.
Text and drive if you want to meet him.”
In 1961, a surfing friend, John Stonum, was studying to be an architect at UC Berkeley, and designed this small building for me to build in Mill Valley, California. I wanted to build a sod roof (now called “living roof”), and we had journeyed up to the Heritage House on the Mendocino Coast to see their two sod-roofed cabins.
This was a post-and-beam structure, with posts 6 feet on centers, and oversized precast concrete piers for the foundation. A lumberyard in nearby Olema, California was going out of business and I bought a truckload of “merch” grade rough redwood two-by-fours for $35 a 1000. Not $350, but $35.
As you can see, there were two 2 × 10 Douglas fir rafters bolted to each post (which had notches). The roof decking consisted of the two by fours on edge, nailed together. I knew very little about building, but with this building started out a process that I follow to this day: when you don’t know how to start, simply begin. As you go along, you’ll figure things out.…
Continued at https://www.theshelterblog.com/first-building-project/
“Hey, Dad, what’s all this junk doing on this beautiful bike?”
Bernie Harberts was featured in Tiny Homes (pp. 188-89), documenting a 2,500 mile journey from Canada to Mexico, with a mule pulling a 21-square-foot gypsy wagon. Recently we got a letter from Bernie, as reproduced below. A month or so later he sent us 2 jars of apple sauce cooked on his wood stove in a box stuffed with straw.
So much is going on in my life right now, I haven’t got around to many posts of late. I need a clone (or maybe an apprentice), then I could keep the pub biz running, go fishing/clamming/crabbing, surf and paddle, hunt mushrooms, make knives (with Russell made-in America carbon steel blades and madrone handles, do the maintenance around the homestead, go on a kayak adventure I’ve got planned, walk the 10-mile sandy beach in Pt. Reyes, spend a week in Santa Cruz…it goes on…
Monday night on the way home I bought a bottle of Germain-Robin made-in-Ukiah brandy, then stopped off at the Sweetwater nightclub. It was local musicians night and there was a couple on the stage, a guy with acoustic guitar and a curly-haired girl, singing a duet. Jeez, did they sound good. They were doing “Let’s Stay Together,” one of my all-time faves, by Al Green, and they had it right. They were at the same time both channelling Al and giving it their own beautiful interpretation. The guy hit Al’s high note “I just cain’t see-ee-ee…,” the girl sang beautiful harmony. They were called Come Around Babe. I think they’re a brand new group, can’t find this song anywhere online. Here’s Al:
Let's Stay Together by Al Green on Grooveshark
It was around 10 when I started home and I went to my magic waterfall, took a couple shots of brandy, clothes off, and ducked under it. What’s usually a trickle was a pounding torrent, the full power of the mountain. It’s such a simple thing to do, the cold shock gives way to elation as soon as you’re out…oh boy am I glad I did this…I didn’t even play the radio on the way home, as “Let’s Stay Together” played over and over in my head…
