I must have the flu or something because I feel bad enough to stay home from work for a couple of days.
That’s not something I do very often.
When you don’t do it very often, though, you amass a pretty big chunk of sick days….so, I guess the question is, “why not take some time off if you’re sick?”
Jenny and I watched this movie this afternoon…and it’s a good documentary….all about practices that are good for us and good to the land.
Worth watching….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZI4dq9trtY
If we can get to it, things aren’t going to stay nice forever.
Paradise + Man….doesn’t stay Paradise for long.
Wait! That’s a pretty old story, isn’t it?
Places that are hard to get to stay nice….for a while….until we figure out a way to make the journey “manageable”.
This is a nice (and short) video about some folks living off the grid in New Zealand.
How far out to you have to go before it feels like you’re really “out there”?
That’s a hard one to figure out.
After a good meal, it was time to go outside and feed Appa.
Appa is our Great Pyrenees “puppy”.
It’s hard to think of him as a puppy when he’s over a hundred pounds….but that’s what he is….a puppy.
The temperature outside was somewhere between chilly and perfect, and the sky was clear.
Appa was just distracted enough by his bowl of food to resist jumping up on me tonight….and that was nice.
It’s good.
It’s more than good.
It’s the place where the commonplace becomes close to perfect and I breathe it in and exhale a prayer of thankfulness.
I have a lot to be thankful for.
That’s something to tattoo on my soul.
I am thankful.
God….thank you.
There is something really beautiful about the things in our life that are pared down to “essentials”.
I don’t know how to do that….but it’s good.
This is a nice cabin.
I replaced the starter in my daughter’s little 1996 Sentra this afternoon…..and it was kind of a pain in the rear….but….do-able.
If you read the service manual, it will say something like….”disconnect the negative battery terminal, remove the bracket at the manifold, remove the large lead going to the body of the starter, remove the connection at the solenoid….disconnect the two bolts and remove the starter from the vehicle.”
‘Installation is the reverse of the previous process.”
How simple is that?
It’s kind of somewhere between hard and really hard.
That’s a place that becomes normal if you work on your own cars with any necessity or frequency.
You get used to discomfort.
It makes you appreciate what people who do mechanicing for a living go through.
Anyway…the car starts with some consistency again…and that’s good.
When am I going to get old enough that I don’t worry about paying someone a lot of money to do something that I know I can figure out for myself?
How dead will I be before I decide that it’s time to stop trying?
I’m glad her car runs again.
Taking money out of the instant teller in Madagascar…..the equivalent of 100 dollars American….2 months salary for the locals.
Man, we’re privileged here….even if we go to a different country, we’re privileged.
Speaking of “here”….”here” is 20° this morning.
That’s pretty chilly.
I took our Pyrenees dog, Appa, for a “pee break” when I got up early, but came back when we discovered a new dead racoon on the road.
He was too curious.
Here’s another sailing video…the choice inspired by our cold weather.
Any video that starts out with rebuilding a water pump with locally sourced bearings is alright with me.
And….they go to see the lemurs!!
Who would have thought that you could see LEMURS in MADAGASCAR????!!!
If all these SV Delos videos are this good, I’ll have to check out more of them.
Here’s their website….. https://svdelos.com/
Thankyou, Kirsten Dirksen!
Here’s a fellow who used shipping containers for his home because he didn’t have any land.
He needed something that he could build that could later be moved.
In this case, the landowner lets him live on his property in return for caretaking.
I love to see these people working things out.
I like these guys….figuring it out for themselves.
Here’s another great Kirsten Dirksen video about a couple who built a container home in the San Diego hills.
It’s kind of cool….and kind of hard.
Sometimes things that are hard can be good.
I like that they aren’t going to paint these containers….that they like the fact that the damage and scrapes are integral to the aesthetic of the home.
This house is about 720 square feet….but, because of how it’s sited and the height of the ceilings, it feels like a bigger place.
These guys are pretty creative….
I don’t know what I think about container homes….other than wondering if all the work you have to do to adapt them is worth the effort.
I’d be happy if I could do it as well as these guys seemed to do it.
There sure are a lot of containers out in the world.
We have a lot of stuff that needs moving around, don’t we?