Blogging is perfect for me, what with my compulsion to blab about everything I encounter in my world. It takes maybe a year for me (with substantial help) to get each book together, but here I can get things out daily. Actually I’m a frustrated newspaperman. I love the immediacy of newspapers, but could never take the pressure; nor could I write well and quickly enough to work for a grownup daily paper. I don’t tweet these days, and just can’t join the FaceBook conglomerate. Blogging’s enough. Finding the time to do it, along with getting books out in today’s turbulent publishing seas, is a challenge.
Winter Solstice I felt something Friday, like a wakeup call. To get it a lot more together and quit moping because of an injured shoulder. I have so many friends with debilitating body parts, that I’m like a wimp. One body part goes wrong and I get depressed. OK, days are getting longer. I actually felt the first wave of Spring the other day, the new grass growing as the hills turn green, the call of a red-wing blackbird (lodged in my all-time memory from teenage years prowling my dad’s rice farm in Colusa (Calif.). Come on, April!
(Above pic, Amanita Muscaria, bursting out of pine needles everywhere right now…
“A fun and detailed guide to hacking unusual bicycles from old bike parts. With a bit of welding here and there you can take castoff bicycles and repurpose them in dozens of imaginative ways. Here are notes for customizing choppers, tandems, unicycles, and crazy stunt bikes with frames found at the dump. How to strip down a bike to its useful components, and what to keep in mind as you modify its design and performance. “
“Scott Newkirk… spends every weekend living off the grid at his 300-square-foot house in Yulan, New York. There’s no electricity or running water, no TV, no computer. There he can slow down, sleep late, and take his daily bath in the nearby brook (weather permitting).
Newkirk had been living close to the land on the property already, in a wood-frame tent, but it burned down. Not long after, he came across the 1973 classic eco-architecture book Handmade Houses: A Guide to the Woodbutcher’s Art, which celebrated small, handcrafted houses constructed out of recovered and scavenged materials. That got him thinking about building a house on his property with the same innocence and integrity he was reading about.…”
Rainy morning, from Cafe Roma, North Beach, latte, brioche, MacAir. I asked the barista for wi-fi password, she said “I don’t know.” Meaning password is “idontknow.” Like “Who’s on first?”
Turns out I need shoulder surgery. After all these years of intense usage, I finally tore the rotator cuff muscles in my right shoulder. Skateboard fall. (Yes, yes.) I’ve put off this type operation (in both shoulders) for years, since there’s a long recovery period. But this time it’s beyond a shot of cortisone and rehab, so biting bullet. One step back, two steps-forward. I want upper body function over the next 20 years. “Fall seven times, get up eight.” – Japanese Proverb.
Scattershot of stuff going on around here:
Tiny Homes on the Move: Wheels & Water I’ve probably got 60 pages roughed out. A lot of homes on water. 72-year-old Swedish sailor who is building a 10-foot sailboat and plans to circumnavigate the globe. He’s already sailed around the world solo. Young woman living (and sailing) on own sailboat. Further adventures of Swedish welder Henrik Linstrom (in Tiny Homes), sailing with his girlfriend from Baja California to the South Seas and then (now) in New Zealand.
On wheels: a family of four who sold their home (no more mortgage payments) and now live in a very spiffy self-remodelled school bus. A French circus wagon home on the road. Two ski bums (a couple) and their winter camper/home.A bunch of custom housetrucks. Surfer van/home. I’m getting a few pages done each day.
Travel I’m kind of travelled out for a while. Long periods of sitting in order to get somewhere great no longer seem as tolerable. More time at home means getting deeper into surrounding natural world. No longer having to train for running races leaves more time for pure exploration. What can I find out there, going on own power (no gasoline) from home?
Tiny Homes, the book Still selling well, people love it. Hopefully sales will keep us afloat while we craft the new book into existence.
Feedback From Our Building Books is phenomenal these days, seems to be increasing. I think it’s that we now have a suite, or critical mass, of building books, connected in a very real way. People were inspired to build by Shelter, and their work appears in Home Work. Inspired by Home Work, appears in Builders of the Pacific Coast or Tiny Homes, and so on. Especially great are the 20-30-year-olds discovering Shelter (40 years after its publication).
Gun Control. Jesus, Mr. Pres, will you please kick some ass? Come out in warrior mode about controlling assault weapons and hand guns. Jesus!
Rolling Stones in NYC. They sound and look amazingly good. How about this duet Mick does with Mary J. on one of my favorite (for more reasons than one) songs?:
Photographer Cliff Volpe sent us this info about Primitive Living Skills gatherings and some “stone age” projects Cliff may do next summer:
PRIMITIVE LIVING SKILLS GATHERINGS
These are week long events where instructors teach a variety of classes that focus on primitive technology, hunter-gather culture, and ancient ways. There are usually a very wide range of classes taught…from the more spiritual inclined to skills focused…such as primitive archery, atlatl manufacture, shelter building, wild edible plants, brain tanned buckskin, basket weaving, footwear/moccasins, felting, roadkill animal processing, diaper-less baby rearing, flint knapping, animal tracking, friction fire, primitive pottery, etc. Here’s a list of primitive living skills gatherings that happen on the west coast:
Summary: Held in May in California, about 500 people attend, I’ve never been but have heard great things about it. Registration filled up early last year.
A course this Spring at the North House Folk School:
“Want to learn the classic dovetail log home construction technique, also known as American heritage or Appalachian log homes? This course provides the opportunity for students to learn by constructing an 8’x8′ shelter with a 4′ porch out of 4″x8″ pine timbers from foundation to roof, including window and door placement and framing, that can be outfitted as a small guest cabin or sauna.… ”
Bill and Athena Steen and their son Benito visited us a few weeks ago. They’re the folks that started the strawbale movement with their book The Straw Bale House, written in 1994. I’d been to visit them 3 times at their end-of-the-road compound south of Tucson, but this was their first visit here. We had a lot of fun. We have a lot in common. Bill shot all his photos with an iPhone.
This is a book I wished I’d had when I started building, but it is also one that’s extraordinarily useful to more experienced builders. Mike Litchfield was the original editor of Fine Homebuilding; in 1982 he published the first version of Renovation, and it’s been updated periodically, this being the latest and 4th edition. Popular Science called it “The most comprehensive single volume on renovation ever” — totally true.
What differentiates this book from others of its ilk is that the author has gathered all this information in the field, interviewing carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and contractors, finding out what’s important, what works, what’s new. These guys love to talk about what they do well, and in this sense, the book is one of collective wisdom. It’s at the same time highly useful to professionals, but also one that’s invaluable for homeowners and people of the fixer-upper persuasion.…
Blogging is perfect for me, what with my compulsion to blab about everything I encounter in my world. It takes maybe a year for me (with substantial help) to get each book together, but here I can get things out daily. Actually I’m a frustrated newspaperman. I love the immediacy of newspapers, but could never take the pressure; nor could I write well and quickly enough to work for a grownup daily paper. I don’t tweet these days, and just can’t join the FaceBook conglomerate. Blogging’s enough. Finding the time to do it, along with getting books out in today’s turbulent publishing seas, is a challenge.
