Dan Price’s Hobbit House was featured in our book Home Work in 2004.

“He’s got no wife, no money, but he’s happy in his ‘hobbit hole.’

Dan Price left behind a stressful life as a photo-journalist after his marriage fell apart, and he wound up in a meadow outside Joseph, Ore. He now lives in an underground hutch burrowed into the hillside. ‘I like being able to do what I want to do,’ Price told NBC. ‘I don’t believe in houses or mortgages. Who in their right mind would spend their lifetime paying for a building they never get to spend time in because they are always working?’”

Click here.

Photo: NBC News

$800/month. From Tiny House Listings here.

It’s an impossibly beautiful morning, just exquisite. California blue skies. Fields on ridge have blush of green — early rains. Nights getting colder. Stars. Moon a week away from full. Red apples in trees, blue in sky, green on hills, warm morning sun. I’m taking a break from (the final stages of) Tiny Homes on the Move (I swear it’s getting better by the day) to write this.

More reggae I’m listening to “Train to Skaville,” archived on https://www.dancehallreggae.org, thanks to a comment by Gill. I missed out on most of this music back in its day. It just feels so right. I love it. Makes me happy. What a great site. Free.

On this morning’s SFGate:

“S.F. man lost in woods, survives on squirrels, lizards

A 72-year-old San Francisco man was recovering Sunday after he spent 19 days lost in a remote canyon of Mendocino County, surviving on squirrels, lizards and berries, and wrapping himself in leaves and grass to stay warm.…”

Techies in San Francisco I hear (and read) a lot these days about the rich techies pricing out the less affluent in SF.

From Socketsite:

“The average rent for a studio in San Francisco is now $2,312 a month, up 8.7 percent year over year …
The average rent for a San Francisco apartment in general is $2,899 a month, up 3.4 percent from the first quarter of 2013 and 6 percent higher year-over-year, with one-bedrooms averaging $2,782 a month and two-bedrooms with two baths up to $3,791.”

I wonder what % of these people are techies. What about lawyers, financial wonks, other corporate fat-checks? Whatever, it’s too bad. $3k per month rent is 100K in 3 years. Tiny homes, anyone?

On being native I was talking to a Mill Valley cab driver a while ago. He was thinking of leaving. I said, Look, you’re a native, you’ve got to use your knowledge and experience to figure out how to stay. You know your way around. Don’t give up. Be creative. Hang in. Whenever I meet a native San Franciscan, I say so am I — we’re an endangered species, always gets a laugh.

Bounty from beach These days if I’m not getting mussels, I gather seaweed and crab shells, stuff into plastic bags in my daypack, throw on compost pile when I get home, chop up with machete, turn into compost — which I’ve finally got figured out. This pile (5’x5′, 2-3′ high) is steaming, worms are thick. Every single scrap of food (that doesn’t go to the chickens) from 40 years is in our soil, which gets better each year. Speaking of which:

Symphony of the Soil, DVD by Deborah Koons Garcia

Was reviewed in NYTimes last week by Jeannette Catsoulis here. “Infused with an infectious love for its subject, ‘Symphony of the Soil’ presents a wondrous world of critters and bacteria, mulch and manure. Maintaining this layer in all its richness and diversity is, the film argues, perhaps our most critical weapon against climate change. At the very least, you will leave with the profound understanding that feeding our soil is the first step in feeding ourselves.”

“We don’t grow plants, we grow soil. And the soil grows the plants.”

        – A farmer talking about composting

(So titled after San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen’s Friday columns, called “Friday Fish Fry;” Herb was master of 3-dot stories. I started reading him at the bkfst table at age 15. In the ’70s, he answered a couple of my letters with his Underwood upright typewriter. Wonderful man…

Sunny Monday Morning We’ve had 3 days of real hot weather, now cooling. Blue skies, glassy ocean. Swam last night… Once in a while I try to throw together fragments revolving in my mind, a la Herb C…

Tom Clancy on Writing  “I tell them you learn to write the same way you learn to play golf,” he said. “You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired—it’s hard work.”

That’s why I’m so slow at posting stuff…

Now listening to The Abyssinians Super reggae vocal harmonies. Gimme that old time reggae! “Jason White” here. (I only like about half the songs I hear on “The Joint,” Sirius Radio’s reggae station. A lot of insipid or preachy stuff or songs you’ve heard 100 times.…

Great Music on KWMR Our local station has really good music programs around 7-9 PM (West Coast time). Blues, bluegrass, reggae, cajun, R&R, eclectic mix of DJs. I listen to it on radio while doing dishes (and sneakily dance when no one’s around), but think it can be streamed…

Free Books to Prisons We have always sent free books to any prisoner who writes us. Letter received a few days ago:

“Shelter Publications,

I wish to thank you for your gift of books. they have been a blessing, not only for…me, but to the many I have loaned them to who are trying to dream and create a future as they leave prison…Thank you for your gift and the many hours of studying, dreaming and contemplation these books provide.

   -J.M., Palmer Correctional Center, Palmer Alaska”

   Thrilling feedback.

   I wish there were some way to get our (fitness and building) books into prison libraries (if there are such). Any researchers out there who can find a list? Or if you know someone in prison, let them know they can write for free books.…

Tidelog Tide Tables I have this posted over the sink and look at it every day. A lot of surfers and fishermen do the same. A graphic view of tides, with art by M.C. Escher. For east and west coasts, including BC. Here

Blues on the Canal Rich Jones sent this link to houseboat moving along an English canal with blues band playing:

Tiny Homes On The Move We’re gettin there! About 90% complete. This has been the most complex book ever, the most people ever to deal with, in many parts of the world. USA, Canada, UK, France, Australia, China, + sailboats cruising the high seas. Two main categories:

Wheels: vans, trucks-with-camper-shells, housetrucks, house buses, and trailers

Water: sailboats, houseboats, and tugboats

There are some 90 of these units in the book, either rolling on the road or floating on the water. They are used as either permanent residences or for trips of varying lengths upon life’s highways and waterways. Book should be out in May 2014…

I love the life I live,

And I live the life I love.

   -Muddy Waters

“Hey Lloyd…My wife and I went on a road trip last month to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We found this place called the Hostel in the Forest on the coast in Georgia with a couple cedar shake domes and a bunch of treehouses you can stay in with dinner for $35 per night plus a clothing optional warm lake and cold spring fed pool in the forest. The shower house has 2 walls facing the path so you walk in and your private shower stall is the rest of the forest. It reminds me of a cross between Bill Castle’s place and Breitenbush hot spring.…”

–Chris McClellan