Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed 1976

My brother Bob, who plays the banjo, just sent me this. Wow!

Check out Chet and Jerry here too (song starts about 1/3rd thru tape): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLqyNV1SMWE&feature=related

Huge loads on bikes in China

Amazing low cost ways to move stuff. Compare with trucking costs in U.S.
There are 12 photos in this series by French photographer Alain Delorme.
Discovered by Lew Lewandowski

Around the homestead, in the garden, in the office, and up is the hills…

Yesterday I made a bed frame, a job I'd been procrastinating about for a while, then shredded branches for compost pile, took a nap.

Today got in a good 4-5 hours working on the book, then off to the hills, for a 2-mile run to mushroom grounds. The mushroom part was half-hearted -- not happening right now -- but I just wanted to get out and run. It was raining lightly when I started. By the time I got back to my truck after the run (and a few measly chanterelles), it was sheeting. I mean, shee-it! I was soaking. Every fiber of my Maxit tights and top, every pore of my skin, was soaked. I started to climb into the cab, but saw this would soak the truck. What to do but retreat to back of camper shell, take off shoe/socks, rain pounding down -- you get to the point where you've given up keeping dry. Kind of liberating: I'm wet and I'll go with it!
Took pee in pounding rain. Seemed like the thing to do. Perfect. Then peeled of tights, shirt and hat, put them in a bucket in back of truck, stood in rain a while, got in cab, dried off, put on clothes, Lesley's hand-knitted alpaca hat, got heater going. circulation started kicking in, came home.

San Francisco 12 miles across the water, last night as storm hovered…

Sea lion jumps aboard Godfrey Stephens' sailboat 1980s

Godfrey always been an inexhaustible bundle of energy. One of his present-day projects is to pepper me with emails about sailboats, which he feels are the ultimate in tiny houses. He is responsible for a 6-page layout we just did (in the now-under-production tiny homes book) on Paul and Julie and their exquisite live-aboard) 41-foot teak sailboat. One day last week he sent me 25 emails. In my "Stephens" folder I now have 464 photos. Help!

Here is a photo taken on one of his many sailboats in the '80s, when a sea lion jumped on board. Godfrey writes:
Sailing out of Avalon, anchoring for the Night off DANA point, early in the morning, fired up the wood stove with the espresso pot on top of the Coals, main and Genoa up moving south at about 3 knots --
a Bump, and more bumps and Lo there a determined Stellar Sea Lion, suddenly made it aboard with a Huge wet Thump on the steel deck, I managed to get 3 pictures with the Spotmatic Pentax, 1982,
She stayed aboard, sad to see her leave just off the Scripps marine institute, slipping along, one could Feel her heart beat when on deck throughout the whole boat. (I)… had to shoo her off because in a JYBE the boom would hit her.
Tied up to friends that night in the Shelter Island anchorage, now gone (to the "Ponderosa House boat "), a fantastic amount of anchored liveaboards .
Thats where (I) learned how to carve two bladed wind generator blades with the adze, and attach to old computer tape drive Motor/generators…

Godfrey Stephens new website: paintings, drawings, carvings, sailboats. aventuras

Godfrey Stephens is a painter, carver, boatbuilder, and sailor of the Seven Seas, who I have known for about (ulp!) 40+ years (we met on the beach in Yelapa, Mexico during the height of hippie days). He is a native of British Columbia, and now lives in Victoria. To see his amazing carving, paintings, and drawings, go to his new website:
Carvings: http://is.gd/ifHmtl
Paintings: http://is.gd/ifHF5
Drawings: http://is.gd/ifIxg

Godfrey was featured in our book Builders of the Pacific Coast.

Left: Me, Godfrey on NorCal beach in 2008

Rain, sun, doves, Dipsea, tiny homes book rolling…

•A (sort of) warm rain started falling around dusk yesterday. Rain has become a treat for me. I love everything about it. I just got a pair of rainpants at REI so now am prepared for walking out to the cliffs during big storms that roar in from the south. The air is sweet, fresh, electric. As energizing as getting head under waterfall. Simple joys.
•Solar light bulbs - For 50 years I've made skylights with flat ("Filon") fiberglass, just interleaving it like a big shingle (on asphalt shingle roofs). It's so simple. and solar-lights the room, free of charge. (I've found translucent, not transparent, provides best light.) I mention this because a young builder was here the other day, and this had never occured to him.
•Eatin local - I had 2 doves for dinner last night. One was roadkill, the other I shot. Yes, I do some small-scale hunting, OK? My dad was a serious duck hunter and my brother and I hunted for ducks and doves when we were about 12. Wild duck is my favorite food in the world. We have finally gotten around to eating a lot of local and/or wild foods. Crabs, fish, the occasional abalone, chanterelles, Yerba Buena tea… artichokes, beets and beet tops, chard, salad greens, tomatoes…from the garden. We started out to do this 30+ years ago and it's all come to pass in the last 10 years or so. Local. Well, duh!
•End of a running (racing, that is) career - Bottom line: I've damaged my knees (20 years of fast downhill running) so at this point I'm knocking off the speed stuff. Oh I am so mature! Dumb fuck, I should have pulled out earlier. I should explain that there is a local race, the Dipsea, with tradition and romance and agony all wrapped up in a 7-mile course over the flank of a magic mountain. Me and my running friends (them even more so) have been obsessed with this great race. I'm starting to run differently. Once I give up on speed as a goal, it opens alternative paths. I'm fascinated with "chi running." Trying to land more on mid-foot than solely on heel, flex knees more for shock absorption, better posture, and the greatest thing: FEELING the trail with my feet. Running as an art, running like an Indian…

•Tiny Homes book - is rolling. Rick, Lew, and I (with page design by David) have this week started turning out pages. 10-12 so far. We're watching the book put itself together in this early phase. I've been laying out pages at random, just grabbing what looks exciting. Every day new material is coming in. Good stuff! There's going to be way more than enough for one book.

•Rain and firewood - Rain is like, if you'll excuse the expression, money in the bank. I feel secure when there's been enough rain and the earth has enough moisture for the year. Same with firewood, we've got maybe a 2-year supply now (all roadkill trees), it's comforting.

Book layout old-school

A few days ago I wrote about doing my original layout of books on paper, not on the computer. Owl posted this comment:
"One of the aspects I enjoy about the LK books I have is the ease of reading them. I find my eye travels quite naturally around the page and there is a flow to the whole book. It doesn't surprise me that they are laid out on paper during the assembly/construction after all, if the intention is to produce a physical book I would have thought it is best to design the book as close to the finished piece as you can. In the same way if I was putting together an e-book I would want to design it on something that is going to give the feel of the reader most likely to be used.
While a computer is a powerful and useful tool I feel they can only simulate a physical medium and hint at the tactile qualities."
(Above layout is very rough.)

Shipping container house for 2 in New Zealand

This is the Port-a-Bach system from New Zealand's Atelier Workshop.
"Costing around $55,000, Port-a-Bach sleeps two adults and two children comfortably, in a dwelling that folds up into a fully enclosed steel shell. It comes with large internal storage cupboards and shelves; a stainless steel kitchen; bathroom with shower, sink and composting toilet; bunk beds and dressing room. Fabric screens allow you to shape internal space, as well as shelter the outdoor deck area.
Bach (pronounced Batch) is Kiwi slang for 'Bachelor Pad…'"
From: http://is.gd/i6uo8