Talking on the ¼-acre homestead at the Maker Faire

Photo by Cornelia at Homegrown.org

I was sort of surprised to be invited to talk at the Maker Faire (in San Mateo, Calif, on May 23-24). It's mostly mechanical/digital inventions: robots (galore), high-tech gizmos, computer brilliance and wit. Amidst all this, Farm Aid had a flesh and blood, food and shelter corner of the fairgrounds, and it balanced out all the rest of the stuff.
It's a fascinating event, and crowded to the gills. Another coup for Tim O'Reilly and Make Magazine: O'Reilly really has his finger on today's digital pulse. There were a bunch of things there that were brilliant and amusing.
I gave a talk on "The ¼-acre Homestead," tracing my 40+ years of owner-homebuilding, small-scale farming, gardening, and related matters. The food/shelter angle; I've always tried to take care of this first, then to get along with making a living. A pretty good audience. People are (re-) interested in doing some of this stuff themselves. Can you figure out a way to have a roof overhead without borrowing from a bank or paying rent? I think you still can, and in cities as well as the country. I'm probably going to do a book along these lines, after we finish the book on tiny houses (for which I now have an overwhelming bunch of insanely great stuff).

The Willow Farm

"Here in Pescadero, an hour south of San Francisco, The Willow Farm is proud to offer a line of handcrafted architectural structures, furniture, and home accessories created from over 150 varieties of willow, poplar and alder. We search out and preserve exceptionally beautiful and rare varieties from around the world in our quest to bring you a continually evolving line of distinctive products."
Neil and Alix Curry
http://thewillowfarm.com/commissions-and-projects/unique-willow-creations-gallery/

Pelican Track Club, circa 2010

Sausages and beer last night at cabin in woods after run in 70º evening weather, and dip in creek. Our new running club. Everyone except me is honed for the Dipsea Race (June 13). This is the 100th anniversary of this tough cross-country race, and runners have been training hard and steady. Gonna be exciting…

Gettin back home

Much as I love NYC, there's no place like…. I got into San Francisco around noon on Monday. (JetBlue v. cool airline.) Cruised by Ocean Beach (surf blown out, but kite surfers stylin), got latte, coffee cake at Trouble Coffee, then headed for home. On my way over the mountain, I stopped at the creek, jumped in the pool, floated over to let the waterfall pound on my head. Cold water like a slap in the chops from Mount Tamalpais. OK, so I've mentioned this before…

When I got home, there was this little halibut caught by fisherman Andrew, part of which we had with store potatoes and salad from the garden.
The next night I went running along the coast, then on the way back on an inland trail, stopped off at the secret swimming hole, a somewhat-hidden pond in a little valley. It's lined with cattails, and protected from the wind so the water is like glass. I slipped in and swam across, there were birds swooping and singing all over the place. This is a blessed, magic planet, still alive in places here and there. Back to the pub for a pint of local Lagunitas pale ale. About 9 PM, headed home along the coast, listening to blues and country rock on Sirius radio, looking out at the sea and the still-darkening horizon.
It's been raining lightly off and on, very unusual in June. When the sun came out yesterday, the honeybees were all over the poppies.

Columnist Jon Carroll, about the best part of the San Francisco Chronicle these days, closed a recent column with this poetry by Bob Dylan:
Don't the moon look good, mama
Shinin' through the trees?
Don't the brakeman look good, mama
Runnin' down the Double E
Don't the sun look good
Goin' down over the sea?
Don't my gal look fine
When she's comin' after me?
If you are of a certain age and inclination, do you have Dylan/Stones/Beatles lyrics engraved in yr. brain, and know when you hear the first note, what the song will be?

Our home on CBS Sunday Morning show, May 23, 2010

I was contacted a week before I left for NYC about being part of a story on the CBS Morning Show, which airs Sunday mornings at 9 PM eastern time. The particular segment was to be titled "America's Dream Homes." When I heard it included the Hearst Castle, and a multi-million dollar home in Big Sur, I had my trepidations. When the reporter and photographer got here, they seemed pretty savvy, and I told them, "This is a home built out of used lumber and windows from chicken coops, it's pretty different from these other places you're covering." They said no, this was another aspect of "dream homes," so we walked around the homestead. I showed them the outdoor solar shower, our chicken flock, the compost bins, and inside our house, and they seemed to get it.
I thought it would end up on the cutting room floor, but lo and behold, our handbuilt homestead made an appearance. Here's the piece:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6541104n&tag=cbsnewsVideoArea.0

The segment concluded with a poem:
Be it ever so grand (shot of multi-million dollar cliffside home in Big Sur),
Or ever so humble (shot of house built out of corrugated steel grain silos),
Home is where dreams live (shot looking in gate at our home).

What do you know?

Flatiron building and street art

My last afternoon in the city, I went down to the new skate park that just got built at Chelsea Piers. My friends, twin brothers Shelter and Ivory Serra, who grew up in Bolinas and now live in NYC, were going there to skate and I met them there and shot some movies of them skating the bowl. I marvel at the grace and skill (and guts) of all these guys that skate these steep bowls.
Here are a couple of photos from earlier that afternoon. What caught my eye at the top left side of the Flatiron Building was what looked to be a person standing, looking down (barely visible here). Turns out it's a fiberglass statue of a person by British artist Antony Gormely.

I've got an overwhelming amount of photos and experiences from the last week. but also a ton of stuff to do now that I'm back home. I'll post stuff when I get the time.