I can’t recommend Kirsten Dirksen’s videos highly enough. She’s a genius! Hundreds of wonderful videos of wonderful people doing amazing things. Trouble is, when I go to this website, I keep going from one video to another; they are all terrific. I can’t get anything done! youtube.com/channel/UCDsElQQt_gCZ9LgnW-7v-cQ
Re the above:
Aaron Fletcher has grazed his sheep and lived off the land as a traveling shepherd for 12 years. He calls it guerrilla grazing (a step above guerrilla gardening, he says) and he lets his sheep graze — with permission — public parks and side lots. Homeless by choice, he offers his services to small farms in exchange for food or a place to stay (though half his calories come from his sheeps’ milk).
With a tiny metal cart home pulled by his sheep he has a bed, a refrigerator/evaporative cooler, a shower (he uses a pesticide sprayer to pump up the water pressure), power (solar panel), sun oven, a mailbox stove for heat, bicycle tire wheels and a corrugated plastic roof.
Fletcher makes cheese and butter from his sheep milk and forages for seeds, fruits, vegetables and herbs. He’s created a map for foragers in his region. He makes some money with his scythe business — cutting noxious weeds for locals, but he insists he’s not interested in making money and just hopes to serve as an example for other homeless interested in guerrilla grazing.
123homefree.org/about
Wood engraving, Flammarion, 1898
-Ned Riley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lughnasadh
Photo: Spitalfields City Farm
Spitalfields City Farm is a green oasis located in the heart of East London.
spitalfieldslife.com/2021/05/10/spring-at-spitalfields-city-farm
From Elisabeth Kirkland
More on Spitalfields: likelocals.blog/inside-spitalfields-city-farm-a-green-oasis-in-the-big-smoke
The global, industrialized food system faces increasing scrutiny for its environmental impact, given its voracious appetite for land is linked to mass deforestation, water pollution and a sizable chunk of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The implied trade-off has been that advances in agriculture have greatly reduced hunger and driven societies out of poverty due to improved productivity and efficiencies. But Mark Bittman, the American food author and journalist, argues in his new book Animal, Vegetable, Junk that these supposed benefits are largely illusionary.
In a sweeping deconstruction of the history of food, spanning the past 10,000 years of organized agriculture, Bittman takes in everything from Mesopotamian irrigation to the Irish famine to the growth of McDonald’s to posit the rise of uniformity and convenience in food has mostly benefited large companies, fueled societal inequities and ravaged human health and the environment.…
–The Guardian
www.theguardian.com/…
Sent us by Maui Surfer
Note the way the dormer roofs are on the same plane as the top of the gambrel roof.
I really like the gambrel roof, where you take the gable shape, and push it up to get more headroom in the 2nd story. Big, spacious dormer nice for 2nd story.
Though it looks like it’s not being used (and there’s krappy shed attached on the left side), they’ve put a new roof on it.
Framing
There’s a lot to learn about building framing from farm buildings. Like the gussets here; attach them with construction screws and you’ve got simple, cheap connectors.
Shot this photo in August, 2017, on my way up to watch the total eclipse at the home of our friends Lew and Krystal in Prineville, Oregon. The sloping sides of the lower part are typical supports for the heaviness of the water tank at top.
(I’m posting things these days by going through my archives randomly and picking out shots that I think are of interest.)
There’s a herd of these just south of Tomales (Marin County, Northern California). Wikipedia says this breed: “…originated in the Scottish Highlands and the Outer Hebrides islands of Scotland and has long horns and a long shaggy coat. It is a hardy breed, bred to withstand the intemperate conditions in the region.”
