Jay Shafer, probably the most prominent guy out on the tiny house scene, has left Tumbleweed Tiny Houses and is now running his shop at https://www.fourlightshouses.com/. This is his first tiny house, moved many times on wheels, now located in his back yard.
Went for long walk on beach late this afternoon. Sun still out, with storm coming in from southwest. On behalf of plants in the woods, grass on the hills, and the aquifers, (and myself), am hoping for as much rain as possible in the next few months. Note crow in bottom pic. Two of them were riding wind currents back and forth, horizontal with beach, just holding wings out. As I climbed back up the cliff, the horizon had darkened, and 10 minutes after this photo was shot, fog had drifted from ocean to land.
–Flaming Duck We’ve had a domestic (humanely raised, yada yada) duck in the freezer for a while. I come from a duck-hunting family and during the season we had wild duck every week. I’ve cooked plenty of wild ducks (500 degrees — let me know if you want my Mom’s recipe for roast duck), but never a domestic one. I set it up on the rotisserie rod on the Weber Genesis outdoor grill (which we use for everything of the meat persuasion), with a pan underneath to catch the fat. Things were going well, duck turning, fat dripping and I turned the grill up a bit, went out to the studio to do something, forgot the grill; when I got back, it was — shit! — smoking madly. Opened the cover and flames about 2 feet high were shooting up out of pan. Well, I’ll tell you, don’t throw water on a grease fire. Poom! Baking soda (a cooler head than mine prevailing) finally did the trick (in the pan after duck was removed). It put the fire out but ruined my plans for the duck fat. Duck fat donuts? Well, for sure, French fries. The duck turned out flavorful, like jerk chicken, the flames enhanced the flavor. The great chef.
Music del Momento The Turbans. I rediscovered them, hearing “When You Dance” on the radio. Just got CD The Best of the Turbans, and there are some stunning songs. This is what we were listening to in college (’55-57). This a 4-man vocal machine, with great arrangements, heavenly harmonies. An outrageous falsetto by Al Banks. Some of their songs are on Grooveshark here. (Skip all the tracks by “Hadji & the Turbans”). Check out “Congratulations,” Sister Sookey,” “All Of My Love…”
Animal encounters in the last week:
-Dead skunk on road. Nice shiny winter pelt, no smell (it happens every once in a while). I left it there since I skinned a beautiful skunk a few weeks ago.
-Freshly killed deer. Passed this up if for no other reason than my shoulder is still in recovery period — all the more so because I tweaked it picking up oak firewood off road — dumb shit! So am taking a step backward and giving those tendons time to heal. Rly.
-2-3 foxes this week. Bushy tails. Stepping smartly. Foxes are back. About 20 years ago we had tons of small animals around, including many foxes, and some kind of disease got most of them: raccoons, skunks, foxes, possums — populations severely diminished. But now they’re on the rise. I love watching foxes — elegance of the Candidae family.
-A coyote who ran away, then stopped and looked back at me. Mischief in eyes.
–Salamanders ambling mindlessly across trails and fire roads — as soon as there’s moisture.
-Line of about 20 pelicans single-file, flying about a foot above the waves. They often get into the updraft of waves and fly without moving wings. Watched them from above, and they flew around a cove and circled a few times before settling.
I’m tempted to say that this tool is a life changer, but I’m prone to exaggeration, so I’ll just say it’s a game changer. The game being that by mid-day I’m usually rolling with my writing or book layout and don’t like to take the time to make a decent lunch.
Enter the Blendtec and “green smoothies.” I combine greens plus fresh or frozen fruit, vitamins, protein powder, almonds, hemp seeds and whatever else I see around, turn on the Blendtec and have a delicious drink while working. I do it 2-3 times a week.
I’m getting fresh-from-garden raw greens — parsley, kale, chard, or lettuce, whatever looks good, plus fruit, protein, carbos, vitamins. There are tons of recipes for green smoothies. I use Gold Standard vanilla whey protein — good flavor, high protein (something like 55 grams in 2 scoops): info here.
This is a big powerful machine and it can be used for any number of things. It’s nothing like the blenders most of us are familiar with. In addition to smoothies, you can chop, juice, grind grain, and make soup or ice cream.
I got it for $400 from Amazon here. Expensive, but high quality, highly useful, long lasting.
For a comparison between the Blendtec and the other super blender, the VitaMix: click here. You can also do a search for “Blendtec vs. VitaMix” in Google for more comparisons.
For the CoolTools review of the VitaMix, click here.
I suspect most people know about these two tools, since I’m not exactly on the forefront of technology out here in the semi-country, but if not:
Apple’s Magic Trackpad works beautifully. I’m using it more and more instead of a mouse due to mouse/wrist problems. Here is Apple’s hype, which is pretty much true:
“The new Magic Trackpad is the first Multi-Touch trackpad designed to work with your Mac desktop computer. It uses the same Multi-Touch technology you love on the MacBook Pro. And it supports a full set of gestures, giving you a whole new way to control and interact with what’s on your screen. Swiping through pages online feels just like flipping through pages in a book or magazine. And inertial scrolling makes moving up and down a page more natural than ever. Magic Trackpad connects to your Mac via Bluetooth wireless technology. Use it in place of a mouse or in conjunction with one on any Mac computer — even a notebook.”
https://www.apple.com/magictrackpad/
The other thing, and I guess all Mac users utilize this, is Apple’s application, Grab, used to take screenshots. I use it daily, when I can’t download something, and I want an image. It creates only TIFFs, which must be converted to JPEGs, at least for my blog postings.
Meaning “Too long; didn’t read.”
This really caught my eye. It was in a NYTimes article a few days ago about a 17-year-old who sold his company to Yahoo for 30 million dollars. What was way more interesting than his youth and all the money was his idea: “…his algorithmic invention…takes long-form stories and shortens them for readers using smartphones, in its own mobile apps…”
“…he started coding at age 12. Eventually he decided to develop an app with what he calls an “automatic summarization algorithm,” one that “can take pre-existing long-form content and summarize it.” In other words, it tries to solve a problem that is often summed up with the abbreviation tl;dr: “too long; didn’t read.”
I’ve now got a sign, TL; DR posted by the computer. Like keeping videos under 2 minutes. And it’s a new world coming, with pocket sized screens the norm for young people. Keep it short & sweet, I keep reminding myself…
Tiny Homes On the Move Getting photos in from all parts of the world is slow going. Right now we’re trying to get large enough photo files on the Vaka Moana sailing canoes from the South Pacific. Three of these 66′ catamarans sailed into our bay here in 2011, and we’re doing the story of our local fishermen going out to visit them, and of their mission with the Pacific Ocean. They’re navigating by the stars.
I’m also working on a story on The Moron Brothers, two good-ole-boy Kentucky bluegrass musicians who drift along the Kentucky River in a shantyboat, fishing, eating, telling jokes, and playing some really good bluegrass.
This morning I just put together two pages on a 54 sq. ft. gypsy vardo with beautiful wooden interior; it’s on a trailer and can be moved at speeds up to 60mph.
Right now we’ve done rough layout on about 40 nomadic units — on wheels or in the water. Slow moving, but the more days that pass, the better it gets.
The Half Acre Homestead I’m doing presentations on this subject at the Maker Faire in San Mateo this May and at the Mother Earth News Faire in Puyallup, Washington June 2nd. It will cover all the tools we’ve settled on after decades of building and raising and preparing food on a small piece of land. Also photos to give you ideas: kitchen setup, raised garden beds, bantam chickens, foraging, etc.
You needn’t own a piece of land to utilize some of these tools or techniques. You may live in a city and want to grind your own grain and make your own bread, or carve a wooden spoon, or grow chives in a window box.
These are tools for people wanting to use their own hands in crafts, or in providing some of their own food and/or shelter. Country, suburban, or urban. There are a lot of things you can do yourself.
We’re working on URLs for each tool or technique, and we’ll post them on our website. If I really get organized, I’ll pass out cards at my talk with the our website URL and QR code.
Lately I’ve been thinking of making this into a book. Right now I can’t see what form this one will take, but it should be smaller and cheaper than our color building books. Black & white? I’ve been looking at Sears and Wards catalogs from turn-of-century.
Music de Jour Marian Janes: “I Know a Good Time;” Magic Sam, “I Feel So Good.”
Mikey (the lead builder in Tiny Homes) and buddies floating through the snow with their GoPros. Check out how they film themselves with cameras on poles held out in front. Check out how much FUN they’re having.
From Evan Kahn
I heard Johnny Cash doing “I Will Rock and Roll With You” on the radio last week. He’s in beautiful voice even if he in’t sure he loves rock n roll in this collection of songs by him, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison (+ John Fogerty). Check out also Carl Perkins’ “Birth Of Rock And Roll.” Had me (secretly) dancing in studio this morning. Gimme some piano son!
Click here.