Days 193 and 194: Much To Do...

Work. Sleep. Work. Drive. That week wore me out!

I'm back at the Homestead. On my three and a half hour drive I saw a hawk kill a ground squirrel. He nabbed the poor critter, and then hauled him off. An early supper.

We now head into a frenzy filled time. We have special visitors coming. I'm a week and a half away from starting a backpacking trip (that I'm not in shape for). We have much building to do. And then there is my work for pay job too. The next couple of months shall be a blur...

Much fun to have. Much work to do...

Days 191 and 192: Just Work...

At work in the Napa Valley. Just a couple of evening walks.

One of my nurse colleagues had breakfast in St. Helena today. Much to her surprise, Nancy Pelosi decided to have breakfast at the same establishment. Nancy and her husband have a house here in the Napa Valley and are seen out and about on occasion. Nancy is third in line to the Presidency. My friend reports Nancy had a couple of gentlemen with sunglasses and ear pieces accompanying her.

Day 190: Baseball...

Slept last night in Springer's backyard under the stars. The Monastic Dorm was full and I couldn't get a room. Springer obliged me with a place to throw my sleeping bag down.

Summer in Napa. The fog rolls in off of San Pablo bay, cooling the place. After work, I went and enjoyed watching Springer's son play baseball. A fine team, and a fine game. Springer's son pitched his heart out.

Best organised outdoors sport? Far and away it is baseball for me. The beauty. The grass. The sound of the baseball hitting the catcher's mitt.

Golf is for the rich. Soccer is silly. Hockey is soccer with ice and fights. Football (American style) is barbaric. Tennis is boring. Baseball combines speed with strategy; coordination with finesse'. Sprawling fields. Hot dogs. Beer. Tradition. The best sport of all.

Day 189: An "Off Grid" Home

Morning chores. All done outside (the way I like it).

Hard to leave this place to go to work for five days. Just being outside moving this and grunting with that is a treat. Birds sing everywhere. Jack rabbits wander by. Turkey vultures circle above (keeping an eye on us?). In the evenings, we sit on the couch above and watch the stars slowly emerge. Later in the evening, a breeze rushes down from the mountains, with the sound of the wind through the Ponderosa. God's air conditioner: the temperature perfect.

Yes, it is hard to leave this place. But the Napa Valley has its own charms.

Day 188: Another Mountain Lion Article

Some cultures see animals as a deity.

Angel and I took a walk in the evening. An article in the Chico paper, once again, shows our utter and total fear of mountain lion. These pieces usually start with the report of a sighting, followed by a "what to do" if you see a mountain lion--then followed by a number to call at the Fish and Game Department in order to have the mountain lion dispatched. These pieces are meant to install fear into the reader.

Luckily, the article has a comments section on line. I got into a bit of a tussle with a "Ranger" regarding the state of mountain lion in California. You can read the article here. The comments section are at the bottom (as they usually are).

And if you visit, say something nice about the mountain lion...

Day 187: Wendell Berry Rules!

It is hard to read Ed Abbey and not want to take a walk. It is hard to read John Muir and not want to head out to the Sierra, loaf of bread in hand, climb a tree and ride out a thunderstorm while swaying in the storm. Same goes for Wendell Berry.

Take this paragraph for instance (which is at the end of the 70's classic: The Unsettling of America):

...as a people we must learn to again to think of human energy, OUR energy, not as something to be saved, but as something to be used and to be enjoyed in use. We must understand that our strength is, first of all, strength of body, and that this strength cannot thrive except in useful, decent, satisfying, comely work."

Wendell Berry makes a person want to become a farmer. With horses. And now, after re-reading this classic, it is sooooo much fun to see the tide turning. All those organic farms and farmer's markets are making a difference. The next revolution will come through food: we will suddenly be eating a whole lot like our grandparents did. And we will benefit.

So I worked today. After doing the requisite mud work, I cleaned up the property. Good, sweaty, dirty work in high temperatures. Four heaping scrap wood piles became one. Things got cleaned up. Moved. Tidied.

Reading Wendell Berry makes you either want to plant a seed or take care of your property. Joni did the former; I did the latter. A good day! And I am enthusiastically happy!

Day 186: Bring the Outside In...

The past two days we've had to rescue a wayward Lesser Goldfinch that has meandered into our house. All the doors open; windows open--the birds go from our feeders and, rarely, into the house. Being birdbrained and all, they have a hard time finding an exit. I practice capture and release.

But we leave the windows and doors open anyway, as we do not have air conditioning. It is hot here in the foothills (during these hot spells I'm reminded of the summer in France that killed thousands of the elderly when it got unusually hot). A quick search on Google leads me to the stat that now only two percent of businesses and households in the US do not have AC.

The hospital I work at didn't get AC until 1981. My family back in Minnesota didn't get AC until the early 70's. Air conditioning is really a very recent phenomena. And one that has spoiled us in my view. Better to deal with the heat the natural way: Do nothing! Take a dip in a swimming hole. Pour a bucket of water over your head. Be active in the morning and in the evening. Take a siesta during the heat.

Gone are the days of sleeping on the screened in porch during warm nights. A shame really. All these industrial conveniences lead to missing out on being a creature in our environments.

Sometimes it is best to bring the outside in. To let the inside be the same as the outside. Lose the artificial environments.

Day 185: Thoreau's Anniversary

On July 4, 1845 Henry David Thoreau moved into his one room cabin on Walden Pond. In honor of the anniversary, I made mud plaster for our little cabin.

No fireworks tonight. No military music. No parades. Just Joni and me enjoying our secluded off grid home. And tonight I will read a chapter of "Walden" before turning in. But let's quote the funny little man with the strange beard one more time:

"The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the "means" are increased. The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor" - Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

Days 183, 184: Travel and Chains...

Cash coffers getting low, I picked up an extra shift last night. Drove to the Napa Valley, with the intention of working the shift last night, and then catching a talk by Jeffrey St. Clair and Josh Frank at the Socialism Conference 2010 in Oakland today. Sponsored by the Socialist Worker Newspaper, the people speaking at the conference are an eclectic mix of anarchists, socialists and other malcontents. An interesting bunch.

Got up this morning and overslept the Ferry to Oakland, so I drove home; skipped the conference.

I commute 165 miles to work. One way. Soon I will be doing this weekly. I'm not happy about the carbon impact of such long distance commuting. Thus far, I haven't found a way to avoid it. Gotta work where the work is.

The drive would make me nuts if it wasn't so gosh darned beautiful! And rural. I take the back roads across California. No cities to hazard through. Just the Northern Sacramento Valley and the Coastal Mountain Range.

My three hours plus on the road often corresponds to overlapping a meal time. All too often I've given in to the Burger Whop, Jack in the Jail sorts of places. Lately, I've decided to frequent the local diners instead.

The one below I stopped at today. I got an overpriced Tri Tip sandwich (which actually was quite good). This place (The Oasis) is on Highway 20 in the middle of nowhere.

It's a tourist trap.

But the fireplace is nice.

And the long deserted bar, a good place to relax...

Tonight we shall take a walk on the ridge. The mountain lion have been at it again. A visitor just told us some turkeys were snatched away the other night from a nearby property (once again I awoke to the pop of a pistol). I'm not sure livestock, poultry and wilderness mix.

As far as I'm concerned, we are guests on the mountain lion's property. Such losses are to be expected.

Days 181, 182: Home For A Bit...

Drove home after work last night.

Some easy mud work today; taking it easy--as I've worked the last six days. The weather is absolutely perfect. Sitting outside watching the stars last night, I thought how beautiful this place is. And I thought of a line I read from Wendell Berry the other night (and sort of summarizes why we are trying to build this rickety mud house):

"The modern home is so destructive, I think, because it is a generalization, a product of factory and fashion, an everyplace or a noplace. Modern houses, like airports, are extensions of each other; they do not vary much from one place to another. A person standing in a modern room anywhere might imagine himself anywhere else---much as he could if he shut his eyes. The modern house is not a response to its place, but rather to the affluence and social status of its owner. It is the first means by which the modern mentality imposes itself upon the world."

When I sit outside my home, I know where I am. I know where every log came from; I know where every rock in the foundation came from (dug up by us!). I know the leaky tin is from a barn down the road built in 1915. I know that this mud is from the hole out behind the shed. This house is a product of place. Of human labor. Non-industrial. A wobbly work of art!

I hope the damned thing doesn't fall down...

p.s. I've added a couple photos to earlier posts....