Mike Litchfield, author of the excellent book In-laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats (Taunton Books), is going to interview me on the subject of tiny homes on the local West Marin radio station, KWMR, this Thursday at 9 AM, Pacific Time (PST -0800): https://www.kwmr.org/
A great review of Tiny Homes appeared on the flagship of the tiny house movement, the Tiny House Blog, run by Kent Griswold.
Due to that, and the Wall Street Journal’s and New York Times‘ article last week, we had web orders for 41 books today.
More on the tiny homes front: Our neighbor. fisherman Todd, told me that a few weeks ago he gave a book to a farmer friend, and the guy is already building something he saw in the book. Last night I saw John Korty, the filmmaker, at a movie in San Rafael and he said that his son was looking at the book and getting ready to build something out of it. It never occurred to me that the book would be such a motivator.
Our next book will be on nomadic living in the 21st century. Homes on wheels and homes in the water. Campers, RVs, trailers, house trucks, house buses, and bike rigs, as well as sailboats and houseboats. We won’t start working on it until the summer, but if you have any material for us, please let us know. We’ll contact you when we get, um, rolling.
*By this we mean road rigs, not small cabins on trailer platforms that are meant to be moved infrequently.
Above photo: “Gypsy Family: Georgia, Jessy, Jeanette and Ray Poulson live life on the road, selling handcrafted goods.” (in New Zealand.) https://shltr.net/A8Tkn4
“40 Tiny Houses in 40 Days – Day 1
February 2, 2012
I’ve been shooting pictures of other folk’s tiny houses for over a decade now. While I’ve put some of my images in The Small House Book, I’ve still got some more stuff I should put out there. Here, then, are a few of my favorites- some new, some old.”
– Jay Shafer, Tumbleweed Tiny Houses
https://shltr.net/thjayblog
You can never tell what it’s going to be like on the beach. A few days ago I rode my bike to a distant beach and walked a mile or so on the rocky shore. Tide just starting to come back in. It had rained ¼” the night before and the air was fresh and loaded with negative ions. Surf big. Water with bluish almost metallic sheen. Sun starting to set, no wind, a reddish Winter-going-into-Spring cast to rocks and driftwood. I was thrilled.
Unexpectedly I came across this little driftwood bench. Sat down, toked up, watched sun dropping down to horizon. Reflecting on the instinct to build. Some people just have it, they put things together, like the person who assembled the driftwood for this beach lovers’ perch. (That’s my right foot there.) Good on ya, mate!
4 to 5 months ago I slipped stepping off a ladder, spun around, and stuck my arm out to absorb the blow — acute shoulder pain. I lay there thinking, just how bad is this? Well, pretty bad, not so much in the severity of the injury, but in the time it’s taking to heal.* But finally, it’s getting better bit by bit. I’ve gone to an acupuncturist, a traditional Chinese massage guy, a great physical therapy lady, and done light shoulder exercises when I can remember them during these busy times. Trying to avoid surgery.
I’ve found during the course of many injuries over the years, that you get to a point where you’re not making any progress, and you have to push a little into the pain zone with rehabilitation. The trick is to work the injured area enough to get circulation going and repairs started, but not screw things up even more.
So, feeling a bit better, I went surfing last night, and it was a thrill to be back in the water for the first time in four months. I only got one ride, and that was on my knees (more than a bit rusty), but it was a start. Getting into the ocean in any manner whatsoever gets the chi flowing.
*I heard a comedian one day talking about how fast young people heal. He said when you’re 18, you can get fairly badly hurt, then stand in front of the mirror and watch yourself heal.
Cabin built of slab wood by Dave Sinaguglia near Hartford, CT
A ton of great cabins have been posted in the last few days:
https://freecabinporn.com/
Article by Penelope Green with short mention of our book
Excerpt:
“…Lloyd Kahn, once the shelter editor of The Whole Earth Catalog, and the dean of the hand-built movement.
Mr. Kahn, 76, has been publishing steadily under his own imprint, Shelter Publications, since 1973, and has influenced generations of passionate D.I.Y.ers. He has his own new book, Tiny Homes, Simple Shelter: Scaling Back in the 21st Century ($24.95), a glorious portfolio of quirky makers and dreamers…”
https://shltr.net/THNYT
“Historic American Buildings Survey Robt. W. Kerrigan, Photographer April 10, 1936 VIEW FROM EAST – Mission San Francisco de Asis, Mission & Sixteenth Streets, San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA”
If you are in SF, and get a chance, look inside; the ceiling is stunning: “…The colorful high altar and the wooden ceiling with Native American patterns were hand-painted.…”
From the Library of Congress https://shltr.net/msndolsf
Sent us by David Wills
“The folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax was a prodigious collector of traditional music from all over the world and a tireless missionary for that cause. Long before the Internet existed, he envisioned a “global jukebox” to disseminate and analyze the material he had gathered during decades of fieldwork.
A decade after his death technology has finally caught up to Lomax’s imagination. Just as he dreamed, his vast archive — some 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes, 5,000 photographs and piles of manuscripts, much of it tucked away in forgotten or inaccessible corners — is being digitized so that the collection can be accessed online.
Read More …
Mike Litchfield, author of the excellent book In-laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats (Taunton Books), is going to interview me on the subject of tiny homes on the local West Marin radio station, KWMR, this Thursday at 9 AM, Pacific Time (PST -0800): https://www.kwmr.org/
