Though in decline in practice across the world, the patterns of seasonal subsistance still capture the imagination, evidenced in this image from the Sacramento River Delta, culled from the archives of the Department of Fish and Game. I’m interested in reviving this scale of self-sufficiency. * _uacct = “UA-4252294-1”; urchinTracker();
Category Archives: bioregion/vernacular
In Clover
The meadows and I are fully in clover right now.
Willow’s Bob
Grazing cattle keep the willow’s bob perfectly trimmed.
Black Acacia Blooms
The rains have returned and the air on the way to town is sweetened by newly bursting blossoms of black acacia (Acacia melanoxlyon). A relative of koa, wood from black acacia is dense and reddish-orange, with deep streaks of burgundy brown, and white sapwood. Properly cured, the wood is stable and resistant to rot and […]
Outbuildings of West Sonoma
My favorite buildings around here tend to be ruins, left to dissolve back into the land from which they sprung, not unlike orchard tree prunings or rusted jalopies in a culvert. There appears to be a consensus among local commercial farmers to not repair or maintain buildings once their function has been rendered obsolete by […]
Little Discoveries
We’ve had a stretch of unusually dry, balmy days, forcing the ‘flowering quince’ (Chaenomelles Japonica) to bloom early. As you may have noticed, our land was planted with many exotic species by the former owners, and there is always something in bloom, and usually something to pick and eat. I walk the grounds when I […]
What Makes a Good Day?
I saw this Purple Shore Crab yesterday (Hemigrapsus nudus) while I was Having A Good Day. Our projects overwhelm at times and it can be challenging to keep the perspective on their origins and intentions, the contour of individual days lost in a whir of activity. The conceptual underpinnings of my work and collaborations with […]