Wooden Domes in France

http://www.domespace.com

Salmon Cabin

Left: cabin from an old salmon boat hauled into the garden and used as an office to produce this wonderful blog of gardening, wild foods, fried zucchini flowers, strawberry jam, chickens, wild birds, frogs. Sweat equity to make your life richer.

http://www.salmoncabin.com

12' Diameter TV Dish Used For Roof

Bill Castle, builder extraordinaire and creator of Pollywog Holler eco-resort, just sent me this photo of a welcome booth at the resort he madeout of an old 12' dia. TV dish antenna. See article on one of Bill's projects, "Build a Home for $10,000 in 10 Days!" by Chris McClellan in The Mother Earth News.

Garden Work Tables From Old Pallets

This is brilliant. Cut pallet in half, 4 minimal 2x4s and voila! Pallet table plus a lot of wonderful ideas at: http://www.homegrownevolution.com/

I just ordered their Urban Homestead Book.

Following review of above website from latest CoolTools: "Mead making, beer brewing, bread baking, urban poultry raising, container planting, pirate gardening, foraging, pickling, bicycle-powered hauling, solar-oven making and anti-car culture ranting are just a fraction of what you’ll absorb plumbing the archives of HomegrownEvolution.com. Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen, husband and wife urban homesteaders, guide those of us who can’t make it back to the land on how best to incorporate aspects of it into our modern city-bound lives. They’re encouraging, but don’t preach or pretend to be perfect, and therein lies their appeal. Erik and Kelly are friends of mine, and over the past few years their website and their book, The Urban Homestead, have led my household, step by small step, to be less consumptive and more productive." -Review by Elon Schoenholz

Clingstone: House on the Rock

Clingstone, an unusual, 103-year-old mansion in Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, survives through the love and hard work of family and friends. More photos here. NY Times article here.

http://twitter.com/lloydkahn

It took me a long time to accept the Mac. The first fax I saw blew me away; how can a drawing come over the phone line? Then I got dragged into blogging. After a few years, I'm finally comfortable with it; it satisfies my compulsion to communicate (and publish pix). I skipped Facebook and MySpace, but Twitter beckoned. I'm still in the novice stage, but enthralled — 140 max spaces means you write tight, good writer's exercise. Perfect for my stream-of consciousness discoveries. Tweets go thru my mind all day long, always have. Trying to get some of them down without taking too much time, still gotta make a living. Right now I follow v. few people on Twitter. No extra time. It's pretty much an output device for me. Jeez, what I can find on Google! You know, it's a pretty goddamn interesting time on this planet right now! http://twitter.com/lloydkahn

Swimming Cities of Serenissima

"The Swimming Cities of Serenissima is a fleet of handmade boats and a crew of artists traveling the Adriatic Sea from Slovenia to Venice this May and June, 2009. We made art boats from junk and will be performing the dreamy story of a drifting metropolis during the Venice Biennale, a celebrated contemporary art exhibition.…"

Click here.

Feedback from HomeWork

We are getting an unprecedented amount of feedback these days. We get things more or less like this every day; it's quite wonderful to be connecting:

Dear Lloyd,

My name's Philip. I am 23 years old and I live in Belgium. I am going to do an apprenticeship in straw bale building at Quail Springs in July....

2 years ago I discovered Home Work. It's my favourite book. I've showed it to all my friends. Everyone who has seen it is really enthusiastic about it (nearly as much as I am). Recently I gave Builders of the Pacific Coast to a friend for her birthday. She was absolutely delighted with it. Before I didn't know these houses and people existed. Thank you for showing all that. It's because of Home Work that I'm doing this training. Ever since I've seen your book I'm dreaming about building, from when I get up until I go to sleep, every day. It gave direction to my life. It's almost spiritual....

Thank you for your time and especially for your book and the spirit it represents!

-Philip Galle

Beautiful 95-yr-old Berkeley Craftsman Home

This 1915 wood frame home in Berkeley, California was designed by Henry Gutterson, a prominent Arts and Crafts-era architect. It has paneled redwood walls and a cathedral ceiling with carved crossbeams. It's for sale for 1.6 mil, featured in the San Francisco Chronicle recently. Berkeley and Oakland are full of wonderful old (not all this exquisite and expensive) houses. You only have to drive up and down the streets to see them. Gutterson was one of the turn-of-the century architects (including the wonderful Bernard Maybeck, with whom he worked) who veered away from gaudy Victorian architecture and established the Bay Area Arts and Crafts style.

Amish Built Mini Chicken Coop

Don't put it off any longer. Get those chickens now! You'll never go back to store eggs. This little chicken coop has 3 nests and is suitable for 6-8 chickens. It's fully assembled and costs $1295 in the east and $1895 in the west. (You can also build it yrslf.) Made by Horizon Structures in Atglen, PA. They also sell pre-assembled barns, storage sheds and carports. And, if you're starting out with chickens, you can get baby chicks in the mail from Murray McMurray Hatchery in Webster City, Iowa. We've been getting chicks from them for 30 years; they have wonderful birds and are great to deal with. Order their (hard copy) catalog. It's something to pore over. We now have 15 bantam chickens.

OLD Stinson Beach Lifeguards

L-R: Jim Sylvia, Lloyd, Jim McGowan at the Stinson Beach (Calif.) lifeguard reunion last Saturday. About every 5 years, we have a reunion, reminisce about the days when we were young, buffed, and foolish. 50 years ago (ulp!).

Photo: Suzi Beattie