When I drove up Highway One Wednesday to see my friend Louie in Mendocino county, I stopped for coffee at a cafe in Bodega Bay. I saw this truck with poisonality and when I went into the cafe, I asked the young guy sitting there if it was his. Yes it was. He was Stuart Brown, and he had replaced the independent front suspension with a straight axle and was welding bars on it (more to come) so it could bounce of things out in the woods. We hit it off and it turned out he knew who I was and had a copy of Builders of the Pacific Coast. It’s wonderful to be running into these 20-30-year-olds these days who are into the same things we were 40 years ago (and still are).
Godfrey Stephens just sent me this, with a note:
“A storm of sorts…
Turn up volume…”
“Perpetuum Jazzile is a Slovenian choir that performs jazz and popular music….The choir consists of both female and male singers, occasionally augmented by jazz instrumentalists from RTV Slovenia Big Band….a wide spectrum of jazz styles, performing complex and dense harmonies….performs bossa nova and swing music, as well as funk, gospel and pop,[citation needed] either a cappella with vocal percussionist Sašo Vrabič, or with a jazz trio…”
Above text from Wikipedia
My wife Lesley has been making quilts for many years. They haven’t been on display anywhere for a few years, but we’re working on a web site. they’re wonderful to look at. What I’ve always liked about her quilts is the randomness that she allows to take place. She has a geometric pattern, but doesn’t carry it out like an engineer. If she runs out of fabric in the middle of a pattern, she’ll let the pattern be asymmetrical. Someone just wrote her today (which prompted me to post this):
“…I always loved the vitality and quirkiness of your work. I am a HUGE fan of that; so of course I love Kaffee Fassett as well. I love your little hand cut pieces, and your wonderful stitching and the odd bits of whimsey e.g. beads, and of course, best of all, the color….”
I’m going to post her quilt photos now and then.
This is a lovely piece, her voice hauntingly pure, accompanying herself on a dulcimer. Boy!
I met a redneck on a grecian isle
Who did the goat dance very well
He gave me back my smile
But he kept my camera to sell
Oh the rogue, the red red rogue
He cooked good omelettes and stews
And I might have stayed on with him there
But my heart cried out for you, California
Oh California Im coming home
Oh make me feel good rock n roll band
I’m your biggest fan
California, Im coming home
This is a wonderful blog: “Organic micro-farming with two acres and some tools ~ a daily photo journal…” https://tinyfarmblog.com/
“This disconnection between the production and consumption of food has deepened over time. Now, we, the non-producers, don’t trust ourselves to grow food. We don’t trust our soil and our rain. We’ve surrendered one of our most basic needs to strangers, corporations, and advertisers. As a result, we eat food that isn’t food: prepackaged, preservative-soaked material; pre-cooked and frozen meals re-heated and served at overpriced “casual dining” restaurants. We eat vegetables, if we eat them, that have been processed beyond recognition. Most often, we can’t even see, much less touch or smell, the food we’re buying until after we’ve purchased it and removed layers of plastic and cardboard packaging. Our ignorance is so complete that we do not even know what food is supposed to taste like. We eat meat from degraded animals killed in filthy conditions, and it doesn’t even taste good.
Gardening, even just window gardening, can take place in the most densely-populated urban areas.
The farmer’s market cannot replace the supermarket, especially for those of us who live in areas with a limited growing season, but if we can grow food that we share or even sell to each other, then we are more likely to be aware of where our food comesfrom-and what can go wrong with it along the way.”
https://www.snarkmarket.com/nla/
Above pic from: https://tinyfarmblog.com/
Jay Baldwin, long-time Whole Earth editor and toolmeister, has designed a lightweight (800 lbs.) pickup truck camper that folds down for aerodynamic travel. Jay has built just one prototype. It’s not in production. To my question of getting investors, Jay wrote:
“I am not looking for investors (though I’ll listen to any decent ofer), as I do not feel up to starting a new company at 76. What I need is someone to make and distribute them., and send me the modest royalty. I designed it to be a a truck “conversion” in the same way that dealers sell van conversions with striped, big windows and a French Bordello interior. Feel free to tweet it, and say that we will suitably reward anyone who gets this going. I have talked to many RV makers (Airstream sat on my proposal for three months before saying no, even in aluminum). They all say pretty much the same thing is so many words: “It’s a great idea, but if we put it in our catalog, it would make everything else we sell look obsolete.” … I’ve had it in five shows and also featured it at Art Center school of Design in Pasadena. and two Dwell conferences and three years of the MAKER Faire, to much acclaim.”
Pix of camper at: https://www.quickupcamper.com/
After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake devastated the city, some 5000 earthquake shacks were built for citizens. Jamie Meltzer, a Stanford professor, had two of the shacks remodeled into a house with a total of 650 sq. ft. “…pretty spacious for me because I had lived in the East Village in NYC in a 359 square foot place.” Design by Klopf Architecture, construction by Javier Claudio. More pix at:
A refurbished 1965 Boeing 727 hotel suite in the jungles of Costa Rica:
