From Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools yesterday:

“I really like this small guide because the author emphasizes the cheapest possible way to get up and running. While commercial maple sugaring has gone all high tech, with miles of plastic tubing and vacuum pumps, a weekend backyarder can use traditional homemade apparatus to produce a few gallons of golden syrup each season. Don’t need much if you have the minimum trees, scrap wood, outdoor workspace and time. (And BTW, you can get syrup form all kinds of maples in the right climate zone.)

From my few clumsy experiments using an earlier edition of this book, I can tell you it’s a lot of work for a little syrup — but because its your syrup, it tastes like ambrosia.”

— KK

“…Maxime Qavtaradze is literally close to the heavens. The 59-year-old monk lives atop a stone pillar in Georgia, scaling a 131-foot ladder in order to leave and enter his lofty home, reports CNN. Photographer Amos Chapple ascended the cliff to photograph his life there.

   The Katskhi Pillar has long been venerated by locals in the area, though it’s been uninhabited since around the 1400s.      When climbers ascended for the first time in centuries in 1944, they found the ruins of a church and the 600-year-old bones of the last stylite who lived there.

  The stylite tradition is believed to have begun in 423 when St. Simeon the Elder climbed a pillar in Syria in order to avoid worldly temptations, but the practice has since fallen out of favor. However, Qavtaradze is a modern devotee.

   Though isolated, he is not a total hermit, coming down once or twice a week to counsel the troubled young men who come to the monastery at the bottom for his help. After all, he was once one of them. Though he now lives at the top of the world, Qavtaradze found his vocation when he was the lowest he’s ever been, doing prison time after he ‘drank, sold drugs, everything’ as a young man.…”

Click here.

From Evan Kahn

Loaded my (mountain) bike into the truck and drove into San Francisco yesterday morning to see the last race of the America’s Cup series. I parked at Fort Point under the Golden Gate Bridge, where surfers were riding small waves, weaving around the offshore rocks.

  I rode over to the Marina Greens, pleasant sunny morning, Got a 4-barrel latte and donut at a dockside kiosk, rode past Aquatic Park, South End Rowing club, a half dozen cove swimmers in the water (half of them wearing wetsuits, no less!), past Fisherman’s Wharf — hadn’t realized how gaudy it’s become. There were two gigantic cruise ships in port, grotesque pieces of shit. San Francisco, still a beautiful and wonderful city, once a vital west coast port, but here whoring out to the tourist buck. I digress.

The entire bay side of the city, from bridge to bridge, was full of strolling (and biking) people. I got a burger and chocolate shake at the In-n-Out — don’t do that often, but needed some energy. Biked down to Pier 29, where the boats were berthed, then back to the hill between Aquatic Park and Fort Baker, and watched the big boats racing across the bay. The New Zealanders were out front, but Oracle sped by them in the upwind leg. Call it perverse, unpatriotic, or rooting for the underdog, but I wanted the New Zealanders to win. Whatever, these boats are awesome. There were hundreds of other boats of all persuasions out in the bay.

   Rode bike back to my truck, bucking 30mph-or-so winds, crossed the bridge, jumped in my mountain canyon pool on the way home, walked a bit on the sand at Stinson Beach, winds dying down. Pretty nice day. Tomorrow I’m going to try walking into San Francisco, leaving here at dawn…

“A lesson in blowing Dwell magazine’s mind, courtesy of the Madrid-based firm Ábaton Arquitectura: design a house that’s about 290 square feet (micro home!) that’s made from recyclable materials (green!) and can be transported by truck and assembled in a day (mobile!). Oh, and let’s not forget about material makeup (the exterior is clad in cement-board panels) and prefab potential: ÁPH80 can be manufactured in as few as four weeks. Dwell has officially spontaneously combusted.

With gabled ceilings reaching more than 11 feet, walls of glass, and a combined living room and kitchen, the feel of this place is light and airy; ‘the different spaces are recognisable [sic] and the feeling indoors is one of fullness,’ the architects say.

Another look, below:”

Click here.

I read this book straight through last night. It’s a charming and informative account of Kelly and Rosana Hart’s many nomadic vehicles over the last 4 decades: trailers, a van, a pickup-truck-with-camper, and several buses.

Kelly’s first bus was covered in our book Shelter (p. 89) in 1973, and his earthbag/papercrete house was in our book Home Work (p. 88) in 2004. He’s been creating new mobile (and stationary) homes ever since. Plus running the info-packed website https://greenhomebuilding.com/.

The tone of writing is conversational and friendly, there are building tips for those inspired to do likewise, there are details and photos from a bunch of trips (including to Mexico), and there are a few hundred color photos. A homemade book in the best sense, made in the USA, $12 at Amazon here.