Author Archives: Scott

Haptic Holidays

If this holiday season is any indication, we’re beginning to see a backlash in values brought on by the worsening economy. People everywhere are simplifying, getting together and willing public celebrations into being as an antidote to the collective breath-holding pending the transition of power in Washington and all of its perilous promise. Our family’s […]

A Donkey and a Dumptruck

What do ‘Pepe’ the donkey and the baby blue dump truck have in common? They’re both about the same age for starters. They also both inhabit the same 120 acres of mixed forest, meadow and orchard owned by our friends Richard and Lisa Ernst just outside of Occidental. Richard grew up in San Francisco and […]

Berry’s Sawmill

Part of my ongoing experiment here is to develop high quality, low cost furniture from local materials for a local market.  I recently paid a visit to Berry’s Sawmill near Cazadero to check out their operation and inventory and was delighted to find an authentic, family-run mill cutting sustainable yield redwood and Douglas fir from […]

Ideal States of Comfort

I was reading Ulla Maaria’s recent column “Renting is the New Buying” where she referred  to a survey she had made among students about what ‘luxury’ meant to them. The results helped to reinforce her larger point regarding assumptions we make about what constitutes well-being, “Instead of associating luxury with money or any imaginable form […]

Bay Copse

In our region the Bay Laurel grows prolifically in the understory of second growth Coast Redwood. When mature, the tree can grow quite large and shapely and its wood has a rich, nutty brown grain I use frequently because of its availability and versatility. Yet the Bay Laurel is considered by many a weed. what […]