I started blogging in 2006—13 years ago. After a few years,I really got into it — posting daily. (To this date, over 6000 posts.) But gradually, over the last few years, I’ve cut way back on my blogging activity, for two reasons:

1. The photographer part of me discovered Instagram. Shoot the photo, and wham! It’s online.
2. Lean finances. There was no money in blogging, and I needed to put more time into book production to keep us afloat.

Right now this blog is a bit half-assed. I throw things up whenever I can, but I’m not committed to daily posts as I used to be. (For example, see the posts from February, 2014)

I’m about two thirds of the way through doing layout of my new book: Handmade: The Half-Acre Homestead. In reality, I spend more than half the day dealing with the ever more complex world of publishing. In an ideal world, someone else would handle all the business affairs, and I could just produce books. But it doesn’t work that way, and I spend a lot of time on checking inventory, printing, marketing, dealing with foreign publishers, doing interviews on a variety of subjects, and handling whatever crisis shows up in the morning’s email.

Handmade: The Half-Acre Homestead

This book is my focus these days. (It’s been a long time coming.) Each week, I give Rick maybe 10 pages that I lay out with scissors and (removable) Scotch Tape, and he transforms them into InDesign/Photoshop files for our printers in Hong Kong. It’s a thrill to see the pages as they get printed out on our Epson inkjet printer. I’ll try to remember to post photos of random pages as I go along.

I’ve taken thousands of photos around this place over the past 40+ years, most of them not specifically for this book. Rather, I’d see bees gathering pollen from a sunflower, or a fox sleeping in the garden, or sunlight on the dining room table and shoot photos. Now, I’m looking through all my digital photos and gathering up the ones that will appear in the book. Note: with over 200,000 photos, Google Photos has been invaluable: I’ll type in “flowers,” and Google will algorithmically come up with all the flower pictures on my computer.

The book is breaking down into these categories (and more): House / Kitchen / Cooking / Foraging / Fishing / Garden / Greenhouses / Chickens / Flowers / Pests / Butterflies and Insects / Quilts / Weaving / Shop Tools…

Hit the Road, Jack: Adventure Travel

Yogan and Menthe, French carpenters, worked their way along the Pacific coast in Summer, 2017, trading building skills for room and board.

We are slowly gathering materials for this book. If you know of any unique homes on wheels, contact evan@shelterpub.com.

The ’60s: Stop Children, What’s That Sound

Right now I’ve put a few chapters of this book on the blog (see drop-down menu above). After I get the homestead book finished, I may go back and start work on this book again. For sure, I’ll eventually get it posted. But lately I’m once again thinking of turning it into a real book.

One last thing: I just came across a bunch of vintage photos of surfing in San Francisco and Santa Cruz in the ’50s, before wetsuits, and I’m incorporating them into my slideshow on driftwood shacks that I’m doing tomorrow night at Mollusk Surf Shop in San Francisco. (4500 Irving St., 7 PM, Saturday, March 16), and Tuesday, March 19th at 7 at Bookshop Santa Cruz on the main drag in SC.

Another of the many great videos by Kirsten Dirksen of faircompanies.com. I really recommend taking a look at her work!

Brad Lancaster’s home is featured on pp. 186-189 of Small Homes.

www.HarvestingRainwater.com

This is a great book. I found it so fascinating, I read it cover-to-cover. I’ve known growers for years, but never realized the full extent of what it takes (took) to grow out in the woods. It’s not only a book about farming, but about gardening, wildlife, plants and trees, and about treating the earth with respect.

Also, the drawings are great (see link below). Andrew told me it was about a year in creation.

Up until now, guerrilla growers in Mendocino and Humboldt counties produced organic, high-strength cannabis, grown without chemicals or electricity. Now things have changed. Yes, it’s become legal, but there are a host of downsides to the recent legislation. The 30 or so years of guerrilla growers hand-growing and homegrowing a clean product have just about ended, as Big Business has moved in. A lot of pot is testing positive for pesticides. People buy their organic produce at Whole Foods, yet don’t know if what they are smoking is laced with insecticides. How much are your lungs worth? Advice to pot smokers: Know thy grower.

Andrew’s book encapsulates the romance and righteousness of working with nature, and documents an era of wholesome cannabis production.

To get it (and to see some of the pages), go to: mollywestranch.com

Succulents at Cottage Gardens nursery in Petaluma, California. They have beautifully tended plants, as well as metal sculptures, garden art, old buckets and bathtubs, enamel pots, and wooden barrels. It’s fun just walking around in this fascinating place. 3995 Emerald Drive.