To give you some perspective of people in their ’60s-’70s in this day and age: we grew up, graduated from college, married, had kids, and worked at a job for over 20 years before we even heard of computers. I developed skills in producing a book for press in what’s now called “the old way.” I won’t bore you with details, but it was a well worked-out process that could produce high-quality results. AND then along came computers and all those hand-done hand-made methods of book production have become obsolete. We’ve had to learn a completely new craft. In this regard I’ve been lucky: since book production is now on the computer, I get to watch our Mac maestro Rick work his magic. He’s light years ahead of me and and I continually watch what he does, ask questions, find out new ways to do things, cool software, up-to-date hardware, a steady flow of tips and tricks I’d otherwise never know. In this sense I’m way ahead of most of my contemporaries (Lowell, S. F. high school Class of ’52). I can do basic work in QuarkXpress and Photoshop, have got my cameras pretty well coordinated with the office Mac G-5, I’m sailing along on the web (in Firefox). I can’t believe how I can access information. A few days ago (see earlier blog re chickens) I wanted to know how much an elephant weighed. Zing! 13,000 lbs. And etc. If you’re of the shall we say post-baby-boom generation, I’d recommend getting much and frequent help from younger computer geniuses. Things are moving (and improving) fast, and an hour tutorial once a week will produce marvelous dividends.

Turning 70 is actually a big deal, let me tell you. It sounds so fucking old, for one thing. Eyebrows raise when I divulge my age. What follows is for you guys who are getting up in age, my experiences of late in trying to keep the parts working. I got out of shape for really the first time in my life, over the past 2 years. My running sucked, I had lost cardiovascular endurance and muscle strength, and didn’t feel all that great. Ugh! About 3 months ago I started running more seriously, and joined a gym, especially for upper body workouts. You’d think I’d know better than to let things slip, after editing a series of fitness books and hanging out with athlete authors for over 10 years. Well anyway, do I feel better!

In running you’ve got to push the limits to make progress, and if you’re going to compete in races, you have to administer pain in measured doses while training. I knew all this about running, from getting in and out of shape over the years; it was a familiar path. Weight training, however, was different. I hadn’t worked out with weights since the ’80s when I hung out with Bill Pearl for two years while we did GETTING STRONGER. This was the first gym I’d ever joined and I feel like a kid in the candy store. There are literally 100s of machines, fitness gizmos, a superb collection of free weights. I knew the basics, from GETTING STRONGER, and started doing 30-40 minute workouts 2-3 times weekly. Man! First was the upper body pump, something runners don’t experience. Things started circulating in my chest and arms, and this felt good. In a very short time I started putting on muscle. Bill talks about this: in GETTING STRONGER, he says that weight training produces noticeable results in a month or less, and that’s why it’s so encouraging. So it is; whatever your age, it’s never too late to put some of that muscle back on.

Since finishing HOME WORK I haven’t been sure what new project to tackle next. We did our childrens’ book, WONDERFUL HOUSES AROUND THE WORLD, and we’re just about finished with updating GETTING STRONGER and GETTING BACK INTO SHAPE. I’ve been gathering material, per usual, wherever I go, but I haven’t been sure which of the following projects to pursue as The Next Big One:

1. A book on Baja California, based on 12 years of photographs, exploration, hanging out with my 3 very different Mexican friends — beaches, surfing, ranchos, hot springs, cave paintings, remote islands, old missions. I have a tremendous amount of material on Baja and could do a unique book, but I don’t know if there’s a big enough potential audience.
2. A book on the barns of North America. Production of this book is not an “if” question, but rather “when.” It will happen sooner or later; I’m mad about barns. I search for them whenever I drive in the country.
3. A book provisionally titled SOUTHEAST ASIA IN THE 21ST CENTURY: TRAVELLER’S TALES. As of yesterday we have put together* a sample 14 pages from such a book and I’ll be showing it to friends to get opinions on whether it will fly. It actually looks, ahem, pretty darned good. (Often the only way to tell whether a project will work is to start — I learned the same thing years ago in building houses.) We’ll get these pages up on our website (www.shelterpub.com) ASAP.
4. A book titled BUILDERS, based on maybe 15 builders in different parts of the country. Builders who combine creativity and craftsmanship, who are a cut above the usual, who have a track record of good work for good people, who are also interesting in other parts of their lives. A funny thing just happened regarding this book. As I’ve prepared to hit the road documenting builders (am writing this on a United 737 on the way to Burlington, Vermont, to cover builders in the Green Mountains), people have been emailing and calling and telling me about builders — in North Carolina; Santa Cruz , Calif.; Whidbey Island, Washington; Long Island, NY; other places. In a short time this book has taken on a life and is happening. With any new project I’ve found I can’t force it, I just have to wait and watch for the signals. So the next book looks like BUILDERS. At the same time we’ll keep accumulating material for the book on Asia.

*Note for book-tech freaks (others, don’t read this, you’ll be bored): We developed a new process in putting these 14 pages together: I’d make up rough layouts, using our 4-year-old bless-its-dependable-heart $250 HP color copy machine, with color pics to size, scotch-taped to the layout sheet. Then I’d pencil in areas for text, captions, heads. I’d write the digital file number on each photo so Rick would know where to grab it (pics already adjusted in Photoshop). Rick put it together in QuarkXpress, handed it back to me. I went in a resized pics, wrote text in place, wrote and placed captions. Unique for me in being able to compose text on the spot, to fit it around the photos, which are my main focus. I gave it back to Rick, he cleaned it up, and produced what is our temporary final version. It was like lobbing a QuarkXpress ball back and forth, polishing it each time (yes I am mixing metaphors), a 3-stage process of improvement.

On March 19 I took a trip to southwest Arizona and then Mexico. I spent three days at Bill and Athena Steen’s strawbale compound 60 miles southwest of Tucson and then flew to Mexico to hike in the mountains east of Alamos (about 400 miles south of Tucson).

Mud and Straw

The Steens have done a lot since I photographed their work for Home Work. They live in a beautiful part of the desert, at the end of a dirt road. They’re on a creek and in addition to their good-feeling house, there are numerous buildings scattered around the grounds — all built of natural materials. They wrote the original best-selling The Straw Bale House book, and run strawbale building workshops. They mastered straw bale building years ago, but the unique thing about their work is the plastering and coloring, the surfaces. When you see this wall (that separates their office from the rest of the living room), you can’t help but run your hand over it. There are bits of golden straw. embedded in the solid surface. It’s tactile, the kind of surface that feels good to be around.

Interior strawbale wall

Here are a few pics from the Steens:

Straw bale building with murals

Mural

Mural

Strawbale pump house. Walls tie into foundation seamlessly, corners rounded.

Nook in strawbale wall at neighbors new home. Plastering by Bill Steen.

On Sunday we all drove over to Bisbee, an old gold and copper mining town five miles from the Mexico border. There’s a good-vibes motel consisting of trailers, including some great old Airstreams, and this vintage diner:

Dot’s Diner, seats about 10 people max. Great burgers and shakes.

Vintage gas pump, 1950s trailer in background

Into the Mountains

This whole trip started because a running friend, Mike Durrie, asked if I wanted to go on a trip into the mountains in Sonora, Mexico. His daughter and son-in-law run bird-watching and river-running trips and the plan was to hike into a mountain camp, stay there four days, going on hikes to a remote ranch and then to Arroyo Verde, a unique canyon with exotic birdlife and diverse plant species. It was a great trip and I’m tempted to write a lot about it now, but will keep the blog short and cover it more fully in a later newsletter.

Ten of us came into Alamos, which is a drop-dead beauty of a town in the foothills of the Sierra Madre, colonial style, built in the 1600s. The buildings have high arches, 3-foot thick adobe walls, and are painted a variety of bright colors. A photographer’s delight. I got up early the first morning and walked around shooting photos as the sun came up and the town came to life. We spent two days there.

School in Alamos

Then five of us, plus Mike’s son-in-law Dave, took off in a big 4-wheel drive Ford van. We drove to the end of the road — it took 3+ hours to go 23 miles, rocky roads, through streambeds, creeping over boulders. Then we hiked 3 hours to get to the camp, much of the trail steep and rocky, criss-crossing a stream, swimming occasionally in green pools.

This pool was at elev. over 4000′. Man, was it cold! I got under the waterfall, then scrambled out. On our way back into town a few days later, Dave took us to a very large, deep pool in a canyon, where the water was warmer and swimming great.

The ranchers in this area split roof shakes from a local pine tree for their buildings.

Interior of rancheros’ remote shelter for making lechuguilla (mezcal from local agave) and hanging out

Hard-workin’ little woodstove built out of 50 gallon drum. An example of Mexican ingenuity, evident throughout Mexico, making useful objects out of junk. There was an oven in the lower half. It worked beautifully.

Stove (with oven) welded up from 50-gal. drum

We slept on cots under the stars. Dave was the chef, his wife Jen had pre-prepared all the meals. It all went harmoniously, it’s a pleasure to be around people that are thoughtful . . . things like doing dishes, cleaning up, serving meals.

Here are a few pics from the trip:

Mike Durrie standing under rock face. There are pictographs on the wall here.

Ruben Alvarez, one of the ranchers from Rancho Santa Barbara, at 5000 feet elevation. Ruben does not drive and walks 13 miles to get to his ranch.

Roof of hand-split pine shakes, typical of ranches in Sonora mountains

Old kitchen at Rancho Santa Barbara (Ruben’s parents’ home). Stove is built of adobe, metate stone (for grinding corn for tortillas), on left.

From left, two rancheros, Dave, Mike, Michael, Tricia and (seated), Michael. The rancheros got a kick out of the fact that we had three Michaels, since there’s (I believe) a musical group in Mexico called “Los Tres Migueles.”

I am gathering a LOT of material these days that I think would interest people of similar outlook — builders, designers, people who work with their hands, people who are interested in how things are put together. Pretty soon we’ll have a builders section on our website, and I’ll be posting photos of interest to builders. This way I can communicate current info I’m gathering without waiting years to get it into a book.

Hey, don’t give up if you’ve quit working out. Cyclist John Howard says you have “muscle memory,” so that if you’ve ever run, or cycled, or swam etc., you’ll pick it up quickly when you start training again. Come to think of it, computers have knocked a lot of time out of a lot of people’s schedules, and workouts have often diminished. Well, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life, dude! Start simple. Take walks, pencil in 3 periods of activity for the week. For the office, print out this PDF from our website and keep it in your desk drawer. It’s got drawings of stretching, muscle building, and activities you can do every day in the office:

On the Job Exercises (PDF file)

Get up and walk around the house (or block) when there are long commercials on TV. Park your car as far from the store as you can and enjoy the walk. C’mon, let’s go…