Poem by Emily Dickinson

Each that we lose takes part of us,
A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
Is summoned by the tides.
-- Emily Dickinson

Old gardner's shed for sale in Wales

Just ran across this in doing research for tiny houses book:
"The Gardener's Shed, The Coombe Estate, Near Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, Wales SA33 5HP
Of interest to self builders and developers
Situated in a rural idyllic setting. A detached derelict house on a large plot with previous planning for multi dwellings - Vacant.
Description
*   The Gardener's Shed is an unusual detached building
*   The property is currently derelict and therefore in need of complete modernisation and renovation
*   Planning permission submitted for a contemporary dwelling set on a large plot
February 14th, 2010 by Wilco
For Auction with Savills of London"
http://is.gd/aaiXZ

Large photovoltaic solar panel assembly in Northern Italy

Michael McNamara, one of the builders in Builders of the Pacific Coast, sent us this photo yesterday, describing it as: "Solar panels in a sound deflection wall along the autostrada in northern Italy."

Wild woman of the woods mask

Tsonoqua (Wild Woman of the Woods) Mask by Wayne Alfred - Kwakwaka'wakw (Namgis). At Spirit Wrestler Gallery in Vancouver, BC, Canada
"Wayne Alfred was born in 1958 in Alert Bay on the northern tip of Vancouver Island. Alert Bay remains one of the most important artistic and culture centres on the Northwest Coast. Its isolated location protected the community from much of the effects of assimilation and remained not only a heritage village but also one of the most continually developing cultural areas on the coast. It is the home of the largest free standing totem pole in the world and the U'mista Cultural Centre which houses a major historic collection which had been returned from major museums as part of the changes to the Cultural appropriation legislation of the Federal Government."

http://www.spiritwrestler.com

Rural Studio/Samuel Mockbee/Alabama

"Fine architecture is usually reserved for wealthy patrons or grand civic spaces. But in 1993, Auburn University Professor Samuel Mockbee set out to change that. He founded The Rural Studio, which guides students in the design and construction of homes and community spaces in economically depressed Hale County, Alabama."
-Above quote from: http://www.ruralstudiofilm.com/home.html
-Above photo from:
 http://www.cadc.auburn.edu/soa/rural-studio/Default.aspx
-sent us by Vaughn Wascovich

Sun setting Tuesday night

On way down to Muir Woods from 4 corners. Hard to believe it was pouring rain earlier in day…

Yellow house, red car

In San Francisco Tuesday, Geary/Clement around 8th-9th avenues

Exploded Bug poster by Peter Aschwanden

The Power of boingboing: we got over 6000 hits on our website for our septic systems book from this mention on boingboing by By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb. 23, 2010:

"The late Peter Aschwanden was best known for his extremely detailed and humorous illustrations for John Muir's 1969 book, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot. His cover illustration for The Septic System Owner's Manual almost makes me wish I had a septic tank."

At Peter's website, you can order books, posters, and T-shirts. His "Exploded Bug" poster (above) is amazing! http://www.peteraschwanden.com

Rainy/sunny day in city

Tuesday I left around 6AM to meet someone in Berkeley. The rain started as I left home, and when I was driving around the lagoon, under big Eucalyptus trees. It was coming down in sheets. A half hour later as I came down the road into Mill Valley, rain pounding, it felt like I was in a speedboat on a river. Every once in a while - like then - I'm amazed that I can be warm and dry in a heavy rainstorm and moving through space in my truck.
I grew up in San Francisco, so I think of myself as a city boy. But I've lived in the country since age 17, so I'm a country boy too. I get totally excited each time I go into the city for a day. So much going on. I generally do a 3-county circumnambulation: Berkeley/Oakland; S.F.; and Marin County. I get home with days' worth of inspiration.
Graffiti just off either Howard or Mission in S.F.

Hillary & Cristina yukkin' it up

What a contrast to male politicians! I spotted this in the NY Times yesterday and it was such a contrast to the male dogfighting in today's government. Yeah, call me sexist, but it makes me think how much better things would be in the world with more women in power  (notwithstanding exceptions such as Margaret Thatcher or Sarah Palin).
Photo by Jorge Araujo/Associated Press
Caption: Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina on Monday.

Sculptural concrete fish house in Veracruz

Jennifer Ring from Ontario sent us this photo she took in Mexico while traveling/camping in her van. She says: "This cement fish house was located in Veracruz state overlooking the gulf coast, Mexico-it wasn't there last time I went. There was no one around at all so I was unable to get any information or interior pics.…

The revolution underway in publishing/article by Jason Epstein

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future by Jason Epstein, New York Review of Books, March 11, 2010

The publishing world is changing hugely, and fast. Strange, we don't seem to be that affected (yet). Maybe because we do so few books and take lots of time to do each one; people are still buying them. It may also be that we're small and can move fast, unconstrained by big corporate complexity. We're adapting.

Charlotte Mayerson, my friend and former senior editor at Random House, sent me a link to this perceptive article by Jason Epstein, former editorial director (for 40 years) at Random House, and co-founder of The New York Review of Books, and it seems important enough to pass on. Here's the lead paragraph:

"The transition within the book publishing industry from physical inventory stored in a warehouse and trucked to retailers to digital files stored in cyberspace and delivered almost anywhere on earth as quickly and cheaply as e-mail is now underway and irreversible. This historic shift will radically transform worldwide book publishing, the cultures it affects and on which it depends. Meanwhile, for quite different reasons, the genteel book business that I joined more than a half-century ago is already on edge, suffering from a gambler's unbreakable addiction to risky, seasonal best sellers, many of which don't recoup their costs, and the simultaneous deterioration of backlist, the vital annuity on which book publishers had in better days relied for year-to-year stability through bad times and good. The crisis of confidence reflects these intersecting shocks, an overspecialized marketplace dominated by high-risk ephemera and a technological shift orders of magnitude greater than the momentous evolution from monkish scriptoria to movable type launched in Gutenberg's German city of Mainz six centuries ago."

Full article here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23683

Tons of photos of houses in New Orleans

"Housewatcher" roams the streets of New Orleans, shooting pix of houses and house details: http://www.flickr.com/photos/housewatchertp/sets/

Homebuilt Homes on Mississippi in New Orleans

Article on the dozen or so houses in the "batture" of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans, titled: Homes on the Mississippi River batture in Jefferson Parish have whimsical appeal, by R. Stephanie Bruno, Feb. 26, 2010, at: http://bit.ly/cYnrpA
"The word batture is used to describe portions of the Mississippi River bed that are exposed intermittently, depending on whether the river levels are high or low.…"
One house is described as looking "…like something out of central casting for a fishing camp -- wide porch all around, driftwood artfully inserted between pilings, buoys strung from the porch ceiling. It even has faded Barq's root beer signs on the walls."
-Photo from housewatchertp's photostream at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/housewatchertp
-Sent us by Lou Commons

Tiny House Book Is Rolling

For the last year I've been saving URLs of websites, blogs, anything on the internet on the subject of tiny houses. I ended up with over 100 URLs and about a month ago I started going through them and printing out photos and text, which I then file in folders in a filing cabinet. I have maybe 70 file folders now. I have 2-3 weeks more of checking out the blogs and websites. Each reference I go to usually leads me to find other things on the web.

I have no idea right now what the book will look like. After I have all the files assembled, I'll go through them and make notes and start figuring out the categories, and the flow of the book. Then I have to contact all the bloggers and photographers. I'll then do non-electronic layouts, sizing photos on my 10-year-old HP color copy machine ($250 new). I'll get Lew to look stuff over. It will then go to David for artistic tune-up, then to Rick for book construction.

I've got some wonderful material. There might just be a movement out there of people simplifying their lives, taking care of their own shelter needs with their own hands. Sort of looks like that to me. This is gonna be a great book! We'll try to keep up our standards of 1000 photos per book. The vast amount of material we have in our books means that we can only pay a few major contributors. But we do offer blog and website publicity for all participants.

-Above photo from: http://www.betterbarns.com/. These guys are an example of what's out there.

Posting on Greenhouse Book from HomeGrown Evolution

From: http://www.homegrownevolution.com/

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2010

How to become the chicken coop Frank Gehry

Haven't laid my hands on a copy yet, but it looks like author and publisher Lloyd Kahn has another winner, in this case a painstaking reproduction of a turn of the century catalog The Gardeners’ and Poultry Keepers’ Guide: Illustrated Catalogue of Goods Manufactured & Supplied by W. Cooper Ltd. Kahn says, on his blog,

"It’s hard cover, linen-looking finish, foil stamped, printed on off-white paper — a book lovers’ book — the kind that us bibliophiles love to touch and thumb through (and feel secure in the knowledge that no stinkin’ ebook will replace the “hard” copy). Also, it’s useful: it gives homesteaders, gardeners, builders, and architects still-practical designs."

I'll note one detail I like in the chicken coop in the catalog above, the "dry run." I included a small dry run space in my coop and the chickens really like it--a place for them to hide out when it rains.

More info: http://www.shelterpub.com/_cooper/cooper-book.html

Stewart Brand on Alan Weisman: Humanity's Impact, Nature's Resilience

Alan Weisman recently wrote the book, The World Without Us. Last week he gave a talk as part of the Seminars About Long-term Thinking put on by The Long Now Foundation. Stewart Brand summarized the talk in a brief piece titled Humanity's impact, nature's resilience, closing paragraph of which was:

"Weisman's message is one of reconciliation. Wherever humanity backs its impact off even a little, nature comes swarming back. From the new part-wolf coyotes taking up residence in New England to the rare and exquisite red-crowned cranes prospering in Korea's Demilitarized Zone, accomodating nature always rewards humans."

http://longnow.org/seminars/02010/feb/24/world-without-us-world-us/

Unidentified Car in London

Shot this photo in September. I didn't take note of what type car it was, but it looks rare.

Skating Before the Storm

The storm is just hitting as I write this/ Earlier this morning I walked out to the cliffs and watched the dark clouds swirl in. The wind was blowing 30-40 mph. Yeah! The air was like elixir. This is what I call a beautiful day. Decided to go skating, since no one was in town. No surfers, fishermen, tourists. No cars. There's a section of cliffside road that's been closed to through traffic, so it's much safer to skate. I made about 3 runs; these days I focus on shifting weight from left foot for left turn to right foot for right turn. I've been thinking lately about all the automatic reactions in one's body that deal with the complexities of balancing. I never thought about this when younger but now being, um, older, I tend to observe my physical actions more. Skating helps me keep open the brain-body connection. On the last run I held my umbrella out to catch the on-shore wind blowing up from the beach and it pulled me up the hill (somewhat).

High-quality Macro Photos Shot on iPhone

"It is not so novel anymore that a cell phone comes with a built in camera; it's now the norm. But a certain phone fitted with a camera that produces high-quality macro images which rival those of stand-alone cameras finally prompted me to give up my Canon.

This slideshow is a compilation of some of my favorite iPhone shots, using its macro lens feature."
-By Trevor Reichman on February 25, 2010 on Treehugger