“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” -Winston Churchill
I’ve been on this small piece of land for 40 years now. A lot of mistakes and false starts along the way. I’ve built and torn down about 4 chicken coops, 3 greenhouses, at least 2 small buildings, and a geodesic dome. I’ve done and undone countless projects because I was in too much of a hurry or didn’t think things out in advance. The sign that used to hang behind the counter at Golden State Lumber sure resonated with me: : “If you didn’t have time to do it right in the first place, how come you have time to do it over?”
I’ve done presentations titled “The Half Acre Homestead” at the Maker Faire last year and at the North House Folk School this year, with pictures of the garden shredder, grain grinder, table saw, and on and on. What you can produce on a pretty small piece of land. Here are a few recent things:
Chickens: Our new flock of mostly Golden Seabright and Auracana bantams is a month or two away from laying eggs. I’ve dispatched 21 roosters. Skinning rather than plucking saves a lot of time. I’ve just learned how to “spatchcock” (butterfly) poultry for barbecuing (check the word on Google for instructions).
These home-raised birds taste way better than even “free-range” commercial chickens. Way different flavor, less fat, bones dense. I vacuum-seal them with Foodsaver “Gamesaver,” and freeze. This model is a big improvement over previous Foodsavers. (The trick with meat, fish, or sealing anything with liquid: freeze for a few hours before vacuum sealing; this eliminates liquid being drawn to the sealing area.)
Pickling: My 3rd batch of sauerkraut is the best. Made with our own red cabbage and salt, nada mas. My olives (salt, vinegar, water) have turned out great after 3 months; no lye. Lesley’s been making all our own (sour dough) bread and now, Kombucha tea.
Read More …
“Christopher and Merete live in a tiny 127-square-foot house on a big stretch of land one hundred miles southwest of Denver. Inspired by the Tiny House movement, they built the home themselves on a very small budget, sourcing materials from local salvage yards, thrift stores, hardware stores and IKEA. It’s super cozy – particularly the kitchen!…” https://shltr.net/tinykitch
“An heirloom tomato…is an open-pollinated (non-hybrid) heirloom cultivar of tomato. Heirloom tomatoes have become increasingly popular and more readily available in recent years. They are grown for historical interest, access to wider varieties, and by people who wish to save seeds from year to year, as well as for their taste, which is widely perceived to be better than modern tomatoes. They do however have a shorter shelf life and less disease resistance than most commercial tomatoes…
Heirloom tomatoes lack a genetic mutation that gives tomatoes an appealing uniform red color while sacrificing the fruit’s sweet taste. Varieties bearing this mutation, which have been favored by industry since the 1940’s, feature fruits with lower levels of carotenoids and a decreased ability to make sugar within the fruit.…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heirloom_tomato“…Only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love & homegrown tomatoes…”
-Guy Clark
Note, the knife shown is my favorite vegetable chopper. It holds an edge forever, and is cheap (under $10!). Made in Thailand and reviewed here on CoolTools.
“…a gathering place for sea goers who seek warmth, shelter, food, and fellowship…” https://www.outerlandssf.com/
Every morning surfer Dave bakes 60 loaves of bread (some of which goes to Trouble Coffee, next door, where they make thickly sliced cinnamon toast). This is a totally great restaurant.
Check out their Kickstarter project of building a parklet out front with salvaged lumber and native plants: https://shltr.net/outerkick
“Chrissy Benoit…moved south to open the Little House in Boynton Beach.…the renovation of its historic 1930s Ruth James Cottage, restoring 800 square feet of Dade County pine from floor to ceiling, then moving the whole darned house a few miles away….When she heard news that the house was being given away to whoever pitched the best business concept, it was a project she couldn’t refuse. She won the contest, and a year later the final product is a tiny home transformed into a bright, cozy eatery with an approachable menu meant to celebrate Old South Florida.” https://shltr.net/tinyrest
On Sunday I took my little (12′) aluminum boat (15 hp 2-stroke Evinrude) up to Tomales Bay to go clamming. A couple of near disasters: Backing up with a trailer has always been a problem for me; you have to turn the truck in an opposite direction from from your instincts to angle the trailer correctly. So after much travail and embarrassment (all the other boat launchers did it perfectly), I got my boat trailer down the ramp and boat in water. After parking returned to find 6″ of water in the boat. Forgot to put drain plug in. Estúpido numero dos. Bailed it out, headed for clam beds. The bay is beautiful, sandy beaches reachable only via water.
Sign made of license plates on Grandi Building in Pt. Reyes Station
This was my first foray with my clam gun, and I ended up getting 7 horse necks and one Washington. The gun is a piece of 4″ PVC pipe with a handle and plunger that pumps mud out and gets you down to the clam without doing a lot of shoveling. This week I’m gonna practice backing up trailer in a parking lot. I’m upping my intake of food from the sea (including seaweed) these days.
Left: nifty door latch of plumbing parts in Fertile Grounds coffee shop this morning in Berkeley
In Williamsburg, Brooklyn
75 breweries, 150 beers https://bkbeerfest.com/
Thanks to a tip (comment) from Anonymous a few days ago, I went to Jimmy’s on this, my last night in NYC. Down a flight of dark stairs and into what felt like a medieval tavern on East 7th (#43, between 2nd & 3rd). You know how you enter a room and everything feels right? Had several glasses of Greenport Hoppy Stout and excellent pasta dish and talked to 4 different people at the bar. There’s something intimate about NYC; you’re in such close proximity to people in public places. This is a wonderful pub, in a formerly Ukrainian
neighborhood, I recommend it highly. Their food is made with ingredients from local farms. They have many beers. NYC is an infinitely complex and deep city. It’s what you make of it and what you take of it.
Spoonbill & Sugartown is a unique independent bookstore in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn — everything in the book world that Amazon is not. This was my 15th signing/slideshow event in the last 3 months and it was off to a good start when, before I started, a big guy came up and said he first saw Shelter when he was 8 years old and it had inspired him to become a builder. Plus my good friends from Bolinas, now living in NYC, twin skateboarder/artists Shelter and Ivory Serra showed up.
I did the slides (11″ MacAir and lightweight Epson digital projector all of which I carry in my backpack) and answered questions, and 2+ hours flew by. Such good vibes.
Collage poster by Rachel Day
I was pretty wiped out, especially after 4 nights of minimal sleep, and walked down to the Venezuelan restaurant Caracas on Grand and had 2 “Dark & Strong” rum/ginger drinks and a plate of shredded beef w/rice and black beans. Great place, cool personnel, great food and drink (about 25 types of rum). Williamsburg is a great area, just across the river from Manhattan. There’s a peacefulness in the air, even with all the activity and people. Absent is the roar of the Big City.
Ahh! End of my tour. Now one more half-day at the book expo and then 3 days to scout for adventure in this, the capital of the universe.
