I’ve been collecting driftwood over the past couple of years and organizing it according to its general type (girth, length, curvature, species) and the frequency with which it can typically be found on stretches of beach near the mouth of the Russian River. I’d like to expand upon my collecting, make a kind of a […]
Category Archives: bioregion/vernacular
A Lovable Barn
Unconstrained by the rigors of domestic comportment, outbuildings often reveal the true character of a homeplace. Their practical requirements associated with daily life reflected in the interior workings- storage, work, repair- are kept in balance with their more poetic exterior. A lovable barn is where you can find shade on a hot day, rinse your […]
The Week in Bloom
The week preceding the vernal equinox welcomed the return of web-spinning spiders around our property, harvesting a new crop of air born insects brought on by the warm weather and longer days. We’re also beginning to see evidence of an oddly early annual migration of Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus), if yesterday’s swarms along route 101 […]
Frati Portico
Most Sunday mornings I cut wood with my friends Richard and Pierre on Richard’s homestead outside of Occidental. I call it chainsaw yoga and it is perhaps the only thing I do with such regularity. The routine is triply rewarding- we manage Richard’s woodlot by removing dead oak, supply ourselves with fuel to fire our […]
Stellate Geometries
The more time I spend away from the urban grid, the more I fall under the spell of non-rectilinear geometries. Straight lines and right angles are on the wane in my imagination, replaced by radial, spiral and stellate forms wherever I roam. I have a new appreciation for domes and geodesic thinking, and increasingly want […]
Windsor Longboard Roadtest
Aili took her Windsor Longboard for a test spin and loved how it handled- it carves with ease and feels rock steady going fast. The camber is just right, with just enough flex to ease road vibration and pump on a quick turn. I’m now taking advance orders for the deck on my GOODS page […]
The Week in Bloom
Superstition is the consequence of the repeated confluence of seemingly unrelated phenomena, not unlike coincidence, but with a belief system attached. For the superstitious, the minutiae of daily life appears to reflect the orbit of planetary bodies, luck and ill omen seemingly spinning in sync with the vacillating tides. The Romans called this day the […]