Tiny House Book Mojo

Professional book packagers would be aghast at the way I put together a book. Assemble material (photos and text) for over a year, store in file folders, then at certain point pull best material out and begin laying out a spread — 2 pp. at a time. Random, no order. No plan or outline, no idea how things will fit together; just here the requirement that shelters be under 500 sq. ft.

It’s a wild mix so far — about 40 pages roughed out — and the book has now got its first trace of a mojo workin.

Book starting to run through my mind all the time. I’ve read how novelists get into a thing where they (authors) are just transmitting what their characters are telling them. Or maybe it’s muses at work. It feels a bit like that now, a natural process, a seed growing. Exciting! This is the best part of my job, watching all this unfold.

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Roadkill Deer/Window-Bashed Quail/Homemade Bread/Wailing Souls

Yesterday I was driving over to a doctor’s appointment (MRI scan of left knee). I spotted a dead fawn on the road along the lagoon. I didn’t have much time. Parked, found the little critter, although stone dead, still warm. Tossed him in back of truck, got a bag of ice, did my over-the-hill chores, came home and gutted, skinned, and cut up the carcass into chunks which are now aging in the pantry and I’ll cut up and freeze tonight. Tonight I’ll have some of the liver, some of the heart and a kidney with a glass of red wine. Talk about win-win! 20 pounds of tender, flavorful, “organic,” meat, power-packed protein from what would in most cases rot and decompose.

MOREOVER, A few nights before, Mary brought over three dead quail that had crashed into her window. Heavens no, she couldn’t think of eating them1 I cleaned, then stuffed them with onions, little olive oil, salt and pepper, baked at 450º maybe 15 minutes (maybe 10), had with salad, red wine, fresh baked bread still warm from oven.

This foggy morning, a flock of blackbirds in the Eucalyptus tree, singing their hearts out, a multi–tonal symphony, and now The Wailing Souls on Sirius reggae station doing “Oh, What A Feeling.”

So I say Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Oh what a feeling…

It’s on Firehouse Rock, classic Wailing Souls album.

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Mighty Hunter

The 6th mouse I trapped in about 3 days. I think this wipes out the family. BTW, you can mummify a little critter like this (or say a dead hummingbird, if you find one) by placing it on a pie plate in the freezer, wrapped in Saran wrap with air holes punched in it, and leave it for about two months. I learned this at a workshop on bones at The Bone Room, a great natural history store in Berkeley, Calif.

Note: they have invented a better mouse trap. The Ortho 0321110 Home Defense Max Press ‘N Set Mouse Trap has a “bait well” that you fill with peanut butter, so the trap is sprung by mouse digging around in it; this solves the problem of mouse deftly removing bait without springing trap. Ortho also makes a rat trap with the same feature.

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Shells, Skulls from Beach Last Night

Not sure about the big skull (which animal, that it). I’m going to bleach it in hydrogen peroxide. The seagull skull is a nice one, going to get it stripped down and bleach. I want to retain the yellow color of the beak. Most of the shells shown here are these thin translucent wafers. They have slight iridescence like abalone shell colors. I’ve strung them together to make windchimes. I don’t know what they are, can’t find them in our books on seashells.

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Primitive Technology-Traditionl Skills and Handmade Tools

Great website Lew discovered, with tons of info: making bows and arrows, atlatls, flutes, a dugout canoe hollowed out from a redwood log, tanning hides, building an Ohlone tule house (San Francisco Bay tribe). Scroll down on right side to see all the subjects. https://www.primitiveways.com/

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Internet Archive of Old Books, Movies, etc.

Bob Gagnier has sent me a bunch of good info over the past year. The latest:

Dear Lloyd,

I am sure you have heard of the Internet Archive. I send this to you on the odd chance that you have not. The site is a treasure trove of old books, movies, music, etc., all in the public domain. A link to the site is here:

https://www.archive.org/

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Dog Dances at Family Jam/Swarm of Bees

I’ve been getting some great comments on the blog lately, some of which I’m putting out front, like this one.

“masterofhounds has left a new comment on your post ‘Couple Seeking Bona Fide Inexpensive Eco-Opportunity in New England’:

You guys should move to Northern California. New England has lost the Back to the Land flair it had in the 1970’s-80’s. Wild crafting with your dog, that screams Bay Area!

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Full Bleed: New York City Skateboard Photography

Fabulous photo book of NYC skaters by Alex Corporan, Andre Razo, and Ivory Serra. This photo is a stunner. Credited as: Dan Pensyl. C Squat ramp, by Patrick O’Dell. 2002.

Double entendre of “Full Bleed,” in case you don’t know: in book layout, photos that run off all four sides of a page with no margin are referred to as “full bleed.” Blood also being dues all skaters pay from time to time.

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