brrrrlington

lots of business lately. met last night with our new local film festival programming group to pick out films for our november series. travelled up to burlington to give a talk about my white river junction development projects at a rural economic conference this morning. met with the vermont film commisioner this afternoon to just talk about stuff. that was fun. took a yoga class with roger in montpelier--excellent. had dinner with roger and danny. danny cooked a super-delicious potato course. that's the news. i'm gonna paint colored dots on my trailer tomorrow.

mouse:fall

it's the time of year here in vermont when the mice come in for the winter. my cat, sitting in my lap, knows this. several mornings ago i thought i heard my cat doing away with a mouse but it turned out all the squeaking was from a sink-trapped little cutie. it was terrified as i approached, shivering, trying to be invisible in it's conspicuousness. i took a pint-sized cardboard fruit container, placed it upside down over the mouse, slid some newspaper under and carried it outside. it kept poking its little nose out the slots of the container. when i let it go it moved so fast it appeared to simply disappear. i think the cat got it a few days later.

chart

after a delicious dinner of pasta and some birthday cake with my parents, david and javier, the question of my astrological origin came up. astro.com provided the answer.

chapeau woof

my dog food chapeau.

magical

they cut the roof for a garden

inside the meditation space

window

the stove

a handmade hinge

timber framing

danny in the meditation room

i spent a couple days up in montpelier. my friend danny had his 27th birthday and he, roger and i celebrated at a hip new pizza joint in downtown montpelier that looks as groovy as that club i visited in new york a few weeks ago. we had some delicious pie there.

the next day roger and danny took me to an ashram near montpelier. i fell in love with this place. just like the homestead i visited last summer, you walk in. there is no road, just a path. you encounter a stream with a stone bridge. and then the meditation center, which is an old farmhouse or barn that's been beautifully worked over the last forty years. the photos show parts of the building. the roof has been cut away in part of it for a roof garden. the house has been cobbed (mud with straw) and the interior is somewhat cave-like. it's wonderful to sit on the floor held by the undulating walls that are inlaid with flowers. rounded windows with sheer cloth scrims let in a foggy light and an enormous stone stove radiates warmth. i really loved the feel of the place. not a square corner anywhere. i loved the window treatments, inside and out. and there some beautiful joinery made with whole logs and branches.

i remember having a dream, repeating dream, as a child with a place like this in it. the round windows and the organic walls i remember most vividly. so this visit felt like a homecoming in many ways.

this is my brain

it must be a full moon or close to it. i couldn't sleep at all last night. i drank coffee too. so, i sat in bed thinking of sex with a number of different people, replacing electric water heaters with on-demand gas, wondering about cascading style sheets for a website, going over things to do when the sun came up (get more paint, pressurize radiant heat system, rewire internet at mill, scrape a wall, and more), considering land to buy, noticing how my feet would not warm up, listening to a strange sound. no sleep. i got up at 4:30. played with cascading style sheets. very cool.

fame

this book i'm reading, essays on the blurring of art and life by allan kaprow (edited by jeff kelley) is fascinating. it's a collection of kaprow's excellent essays on art spanning 1958 to 1997. here's a short excerpt speaking about the melodramatic nature of america and the american artist: ...today [1961] vanguard artists are given their prizes very quickly instead of being left to their adventure. furthermore, they are led to believe, by no one in particular, that this was the thing they wanted all the while. but in some obscure recess of their mind, they assume they must now die, at least spiritually, to keep the myth intact. hence, the creative aspect of their art ceases. to all intents and purposes, they are dead and they are famous.

home depot: feel good and pay for it

in my wanderings today i decided to price some building supplies, mostly curious about how our new and very popular home depot fit into the mix of local merchants. so, i got prices from local plumbing suppliers, a couple local building supply houses and home depot. surprise: home depot had the highest prices. the impression i was paying more to support local businesses was simply untrue. my sample was small--i only priced a couple things: 1-1/4" EMT pipe, a 1" ball valve, and a sheet of birch plywood. for instance, the EMT was $9.90 locally, $12.59 at home depot. so my questions was: if home depot is more expensive, why so popular? i think the answer is in their slogan: You can do it. We can help." they're selling the idea that you can save money by doing projects yourself and they will make it easy and safe. it's the same idea behind a funeral home. you've got a problem, we'll help you deal. it works. i understand why. while our local building supply houses offer lower prices, they suffer in customer service, an area in which home depot excels. i wandered home depot for about fifteen minutes and was greeted and asked if i needed assistance about five times by different people who were clearly identified as helpers by their orange apron. even though i didn't buy anything, i felt attended to and welcome. this rarely happens at the local houses where i see customers frustrated, ignored and confounded by the lack of attention they get. the staff often treats inquiries as burdensome hassles. to be fair, there are some very helpful and friendly people at the local places, but it's inconsistent. interesting.

book list

my sister megan called me a while back and said that a book list on my blog would be cool so that she didn't have to hunt for book references. so, i've begun one. it's on the left sidebar, a little ways down. it has one book in it now, but i'm going to go back and dig up all my book references and list them. i'm sure that having books publically listed is going to encourage me to read more.

me and you and everyone we know

poop is an emerging theme as you will find out if you see this film. you will also learn the meaning of ))<>((. i know the world is becoming a better place. movie website

americablog

here's a blog i like reading: americablog.

poopwell

today i built a composting toilet. i started calling it the poopwell. it's a simple box with a slighly decorated top and a toilet seat. it sits over a bucket. the top hinges so the bucket can be removed easily and replaced with a clean one. now i need to find a source of sawdust. i made so many mistakes putting this together. it has lots of holes in it that shouldn't be there. but i persevered and through several constructions and deconstructions it slowly took form. it's varnished with a water based clear coat to keep it sanitary. most of it is made with birch plywood. the legs are pine. the toilet seat is oak. i decided to do a kind of wave pattern on the sides partly so that there's something to grab onto when lifting the top but also because i wanted this thing to have some flair! so a few waves along the edge to conjure flow and movement.

building the box sanding the top finished

pile-o-chips

i drove down to faerie camp destiny to check on the project there. the loggers have finished clearing and this is the chip pile. impressive. and steaming. it's composting. i put my arm into it and it's pretty darned hot about a foot into it. i had seven people in my yoga class today. record! the ends of the greenhouse are on. after putting the second end up it took me a while to trim it. when i cut the door open i was hit with an intense blast of hot air. closed up it's a cooker! i rolled up the sides and it cooled down right away.

crime

i began reading (listening actually) to freakinomics by steven levitt and stephen dubner. right off the bat it caught my attention with this revelation: the dramatic drop in crime since the mid 90's has nothing to do with the economy or police technique, as suggested by politicians and experts. rather, it was the legalization of abortion by the supreme court's ruling, "roe v. wade," in 1973 that caused the drop about 20 years later by eliminating a significant source of people who are highly prone to become criminals: unwanted children. one could then conclude that opponents of roe v. wade are arguing for an increase in crime. levitt hasn't spoken of this so far (i'm only about 1/4 of the way through), but it occurred to me that the war on drugs, ramped up in the 90's, might also be a response to roe v. wade. in the early 90's crime seemed to be on the rise and pundits predicted even more crime by the turn of the century. law enforcement, prisons and crime prevention looked like a lucrative market only to be suddenly and unexpectedly curtailed by a lack of criminals. what to do with an infrastructure built to handle an epidemic that wasn't happening? how about manufacturing criminals by changing the laws? our economy isn't structured to gracefully handle contraction. it depends on growth. with markets like law enforcement that are government funded and legislated, it seems plausible that, rather than recognizing the reduction of unwanted children lowers crime and benefits society and that shrinking the prison system would be the correct response to a dwindling crime rate, those with vested interests in crime prevention would choose to artificially alter the market to benefit themselves. maybe it's not surprising that the most conservative lobby for both the war on drugs and anti-abortion. they feed the same machine.

kittery

took an impromptu trip up to kittery, maine last weekend with barbara, mark and michael. i met them on the sidwalk outside the center for cartoon studies on saturday and they said, "come with us!" so i did. i threw a few things into my always packed bag and we headed out. sunday was michael's birthday. mia the chihuaua came with us too. she's delighful but has trouble with other dogs. sunday on the beach she rocketed after almost every dog that walked by. but after a minute of grandstanding and tail chasing she settled down. i wouldn't say she's a team player. more of a grande damme in a mini body.

enthroned

i never thought i'd ever buy a natural wood toilet seat but it seems like such a natural for a composting toilet. so, here it is, the seat to my natural crapper. do they test these things? i haven't located a bucket yet or sawdust. they will come soon. i might actually take out my regular toilet. if i do that i think i will want to have another container in the bathroom just in case i have to throw up. what does puke do to compost?

rollup

turns out the greenhuose is too hot and needs ventilation. i was planning on ventilating on the gable ends but i realized this was not going to be enough and somewhat difficult to build. so, i took an idea from the csa farm that i subscribe to and installed roll-up sides. these were pretty simple to put together. i bought 1-1/4" electrical conduit and connected the pieces together with 1" square pieces of wood pounded into the ends. these have to fit very tight since only the corners of the wood are in friction against the metal. i might have made the wood pieces slightly larger. one of them slips a bit. i imagine when they get wet the wood will expand and tighten up nicely. after assembling the pipe, i taped the end of the poly to the pipe (with randy's help and javier's tape). once the entire length was taped i simply turned the end of the pipe which takes up plastic and in turn the plastic lifts the pipe. rolled up to near the eave of the greenhouse this provides ample ventilation. it takes just a few seconds to roll it up or down so now i have good control. in the winter i suspect i'll screw down the plastic the way i had it before to prevent wind damage.

speaking of turds

some pathogenic asswipe has latched onto my blog as a means of spamming. i've turned on the verification mechanism for comments which means you'll have to copy some acid tripped out letters into a little box before blogger will accept comments.

reading and eating

this evening i'm eating and reading at the same time. i'm eating delicatta squash and buckwheat topped with a dash of maple syrup and reading about shit. the book is the humanure handbook by joseph jenkins. i've been fascinated by crap since i was a kid. i'm admitting a lot here! as a child i once got all my friends to crap in buckets out behind our family's garage. very much the young scientist i was fascinated by how each kids poop looked completely different. one of my friend's mother caught us all "in the laboratory" and wanted to know if my mom thought this was okay. i answered authoritatively, "yes!" i never heard a thing about it from the higher ups. looking back, i think what could be more natural than curiosity about this stuff that comes out of us all? jenkins book is about how our culture, western that is, has been fecophobic for centuries and has paid for that phobia dearly and needlessly in countless illnesses and deaths. our habit of crapping in purified drinking water (the stuff in your toilet) and then flushing the blackwater away to who-knows-where (most likely back into drinking water sources) is the culmination of centuries of fear and loathing of the human turd. what the west has failed to realize, according to jenkins, the east has handily mastered for millennia: human waste is valuable and safe if handled consciencously. rural korean outhouses are often decorated to attract users. what makes poop praiseworthy? if properly managed, it transforms into rich and nutritious humus, the stuff plants love to grow in--it can be made into the sweetest and least expensive plant elixir there is making the soil from which we eat richer than it was before. jenkins discusses at length the processes necessary to make human waste safe. it turns out that most wastewater processing plants at the end of all our western flushes accomplish less than a simple compost pile in a backyard. by composting humanure all human pathogens can be completely destroyed. depending on the type of composting humanure can be made safe in a matter of weeks or a couple years. what is most important is consciousness about composting, and from my casual survey most people don't know much at all about it, except that you're supposed to turn them--which isn't necessarily true! i highly recommend this book. it'll shed a lot of light into that place where the sun never shines. eating dinner while reading it...well, that depends on your constitution.

post katrina

i've been spending a lot of time tracking friends in new orleans, following the news there, hoping and praying that help comes. so far all our friends are reported to be okay, have found their way out, or have decided to stay to defend property. with some sense of sanity returning i'm breathing easier. the "blue house", the place our crew stays in for mardi gras looks like it sustained a lot of roof damage and, i'm guessing, a lot of interior water damage since the roof boards are showing. it looks like the tureau compound and gloria's house survived intact. the flooding got to within a half block of blue house. you can see the swimming pool is really dark for some reason, not clear like the other pools in the area. strange.

the tureau's place and gloria's place the blue house

roof on

the greenhouse roof went up today. not without problems. first problem was figuring out how to get the plastic up there. i ended up cutting a 12 foot 2x4 in half (this is half the length of the greenhouse) and wrapping one end of the plastic around it a couple times. then i took my 50 foot extension cord and sandwiched it between the other half which i screwed into the first. this created a 12' wide "sled" that i could pull up over the top. so i threw the other end of the extension cord over the top and began pulling. this worked really well at first, but getting to the top it began to rip the plastic. i realized at this point that i needed a ridge pole to spread the load and help the plastic skid over the top. so i installed a ridge. this wasn't easy with all the plants below and the ladders listing in the soft soil and the incredible heat under the plastic! same tearing problem occurred at the "eaves". so had to install skidders there as well. luckily i had enough plastic to pull most of the rips down to the ground level where they didn't matter so much. i still need to put the ends on and install some vents. i bought automatic vent openers that will close the vents when it's cold and open when hot. thanks to bert, wally and randy for helping out. this was definitely not a one person project!

painting

i put in ten hours yesterday scraping and painting at the mill. mostly i was inside working on this space for a filmmaker who is moving in next week. this picture doesn't do the color justice. it's a beautiful warm yellow called "semolina." i feel really great putting energy into the mill. it's been laying low and feeling neglected the last few years.

high times

this showed up on our local gas pumps. i thought, this must be an SUV notice. if it took 75 bucks to fill my car gas would have to be $6.25 a gallon. i have a feeling a lot of bicycles are going to get dusted off.

green tea

this is not the japanese variety. you wouldn't want to drink it. but plants love it. you can make it anywhere in the world that's warm in just about any kind of container. this is the stuff that fertilizer companies would rather you not know about. what is it? it's a bucket full of weeds and water. let it sit for about a week in relatively warm weather and you will get a pungent, nutritious fertilizer that plants adore. it smells just like cow manure when it's "done." no cow. no petrochemicals (except for the bucket!). turn your weeds into plant food! you can also pee on your plants--they like this too.

final planting

i've started to put in the final planting for my winter garden. made a small harvest this morning. it's hard to believe that things are ready to pick. i'm heading down to the faerie camp this afternoon to meet the loggers who are clearing land for us. i have a feeling it's going to look a bit like new orleans when they're done. logging always seems to leave a big mess and a feeling of loss. but, looking at the big picture, we're conserving about 160 acres as wilderness, so a couple acres cut is perhaps a fair price. the trees that are cut will be used, either for veneer, lumber or firewood. we're going to keep all the hemlock for our own construction. there is a satellite image of new orleans (8/31/05) at digital globe. the place i stay and most of my friend's places miraculously didn't get flooded. they're all along the river. i wonder if they knew they'd bought houses on high ground? i bet people will be thinking about that in the future, at least for a little while, until everyone forgets, which doesn't seem to take long.