My upstairs neighbor recently fought a protracted battle with my side neighbor over patio furniture. It got ugly. There’s been a low grade turf war in the building for a while now. The key element is never about the items in question. It’s always about control. Both sides have their valid concerns, but at the … Continue reading The Dreaded HOA
My friend Kirsten Dirksen at faircompanies.com just posted a new video about Water Valley, Mississippi. It demonstrates that there are plenty of great compact mixed use walkable neighborhoods out there that can be re-inhabited. Building anything of this kind from scratch is theoretically possible, but it almost never happens due to endless zoning regulations, building … Continue reading Re-inhabitation of Small Town America
Here’s my new pressure canner. This particular model can hold 19 pint jars or 14 quart jars at a time. I took one look at it and named it Hilda after my great aunt from the Polish Jewish side of the family. She’s a kind generously proportioned woman with an ample bosom who’s still going … Continue reading Re-Skilling
10,000 years ago San Francisco Bay was a dry grassy valley populated by elephants, zebras, and camels. The planet was significantly cooler and dryer back then. Sea level was lower since glaciers in the north pulled water out of the oceans. The bay isn’t that deep so a relatively small change in sea level pushed … Continue reading King Tide
Every once in a while I stumble on a gazebo. Let’s play a game I like to call, “This is Real and This is Fake.” Or if we’re to use the transect we could classify various gazebos as functioning in the correct context, or not functioning at all in the wrong environment. This gazebo is functional … Continue reading Gazeboland
Last year I engaged in a failed attempt to renovate and expand an old house in an 1890’s era neighborhood in Ohio. It ended badly. So I thought I’d do a follow up on what actually does work given the legal parameters and cultural context. I sold the house to a smart young local guy … Continue reading Doing What Actually Works
Urban planners sometimes use the concept of the transect to categorize different kinds of envirnoments. For example, the Loop in Chicago is at one end of the spectrum and Montana is at the other. Absolutely everything can be placed somewhere along a continuum from most urban to most rural. Stilettos are exactly the right footwear … Continue reading The Transect
Granola Shotgun 