November morning over Bodega Bay The first squalls of fall spiral ashore in waves from the open ocean, lending drama to the sky and purpose to our stores of dry wood and kindling. The whales have begun their migration past Bodega Head. American Coot bob in tight clusters like black shadows in the surf while […]
Tag Archives: phenology
Fluke Opening Ceremony in Santa Cruz
Fluke presides over the crowd at the new Monterey Bay Exploration Center. Yesterday evening’s opening ceremony honoring our Fluke project at the new Monterey Bay Exploration Center in Santa Cruz was proof positive to Ene and me that this has been our most rewarding public project to date. It has been privilege enough to realize […]
Made in Jupiter
‘Jupiter’, my recently completed hydraulic press, forms two Deep Deck blanks at a time. I first started calling my new hydraulic press ‘Jupiter’ when I was forming up the concrete blocks, knowing its compressive force would exceed that of the planet Jupiter, whose gravitational pull is about three times that of Earth’s. The planet Jupiter […]
Goat Barn for the Edible Schoolyard
I designed my 118 SFÂ barn to accommodate three Oberhaslis goats in comfort. I’ve been having a lot of fun designing a tiny barn to house three Oberhaslis goats for the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley. The project is just a schematic concept thus far, but will not require much more design if I get the […]
Deep Deck Mold
The two-part concrete mold is released from the plywood form. I’m building a hydraulic press to make cold-molded skateboard decks in anticipation of scaling up my production and capabilities. The first step is to build a form around a wooden ‘blank’ to support an investment of cast concrete. I took some time to make a […]
Pieds-a-Mer
Ene’s hat and scarf complement ‘Suddenly’s late 1970’s vintage. Ene and I spent our first afternoon together aboard ‘Suddenly’, which Ene has been calling our ‘pied-a-mer’. It was a blustery day after a long overdue rainfall, so Ene sat in the cabin reading while I replaced the dock lines and installed a portable head. We […]
Destination: Boredom
Sure enough, I saw a few egret and chased a flock of bufflehead six miles to the coast when I paddled the navigable length of Estero Americano the other day, but saw no sign of coot, loon, mergenser, pelican, scaup, hawk, heron or grebe. The fact is mid-February is a relatively dormant time along the […]