What We Pass Over….

Posted on by February 8, 2019

I love seeing stuff like this.

Of course, some would say, “I don’t understand. This isn’t interesting. Where are the Kardashians?”

Everybody likes something different.

I remember a lot of pieces of firewood that I commented on before I threw them into the woodstove.

Flame….curl….a lot of figuring.

When you’re getting ready to burn a chunk of firewood, it’s too late to do anything with it.

Maybe you could make a knife handle or something small?

I always just burned it.

It was kind of sad to have made the mistake of missing the beauty in a piece of log.

You can’t see what’s inside of something until you get a chance to look closer.

Hopefully, you see it before you toss it into the fire.

Here’s the song that was featured at the end of the video…..nice.

Family on the trail! FAMILY ON THE TRAIL!!

Posted on by February 6, 2019

Awwwww.

Check this out!

Family of eight hikes the Appalachian Trail.

That’s a long way to go with little kids.

That’s a long way to go with “just yourself” along.

These guys got a lot of support….and caught a lot of grief….for their efforts.

I think that it was good for the kids.

Who gets to experience something big like this unless….you just go for it?

I’ve got to get ready now to run another bunch of mail around Saluda.

I’m not going to hike….just yet.

I have duties today.

Cycling Norway

Posted on by February 3, 2019

Oh…my….goodness.

We live in a beautiful area.

I’ve lived here for a while, and the beautiful has become familiar enough that sometimes I catch myself taking it for granted.

I take it for granted…until I see a deer in a field…becoming visible through dense fog…head down…grazing…unaware that I see it.

I take it for granted…until the sun hits the ridge and I notice (again) how beautiful it all is.

It’s beautiful here.

But….look at this short film of Norway!

Norway is intense!

There is so much appeal in this way of travelling through the world, too.

We need to slow down and start seeing it all.

We need to see it.

 

 

3 Years Cycling Around the World….in 2:33 minutes

Posted on by February 1, 2019

I used to think that the Tim McGraw song said, “I spent 2.7 seconds on a full length Fu Manchu”.

Turns out, it was really about a bull.

A bull named Fu Manchu.

Who knew?

Here’s a bunch of years cycling condensed into a short video.

That’s better than a whole afternoon expanded into a feature film.

What would it be like to cycle around like this?

I wonder if we could do something like this?

Maybe we should start with some car camping?

That might be a better “shake down cruise”.

This riding around looks appealing, though.

Mike Oldfield….live Tubular Bells 1973

Posted on by January 31, 2019

Listening to an autobiography by Richard Branson….and he talked a lot about this musician and the album that helped start Virgin Records.

Mike Oldfield…..and the album was…. “Tubular Bells”.

Tubular Bells was later used in the soundtrack to the movie “The Exorcist”.

That’s how most Americans became aware of this music.

Some good music came out of the early 1970’s….for sure.

 

A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity (2016)

Posted on by January 30, 2019

From the YouTube description:

A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity is a free feature-length documentary that follows a community in Australia who came together to explore and demonstrate a simpler way to live in response to global crises. Throughout the year the group build tiny houses, plant veggie gardens, practice simple living, and discover the challenges of living in community. This film is the product of hours and hours of footage that I shot during that year-long experiment in simple living. The documentary includes interviews with David Holmgren, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Nicole Foss, Ted Trainer, Graham Turner, and more.

Film by Happen Films.

Tiny House Route to Financial Freedom? Hmmmmmm…..

Posted on by January 29, 2019

I see these tiny houses that are 80 to 100 thousand dollars….and think, “how are they going to save money with something like that?”

This morning I remembered that most of the houses around these days are pretty expensive.

You could pay a million dollars for a house that’s not very impressive if you live in a high priced area.

So….a hundred thousand dollar house is going to be a bargain if your neighbors are living in houses that are really inflated in price.

I don’t have a whole lot of perspective, though.

We didn’t pay a whole lot for a gutted old house on a couple of acres back in the early 90’s.

Because we paid cash for all the improvements, it didn’t foster any debt and (after a long process of rehabbing) we had an affordable place to live.

That was a hard way to go, though.

It would have been nicer to have something….nicer….right off the bat.

When we do it again…..and we will….soon….we’ll go a different route.

You have to pay the people who can do it efficiently if you’re going to get it done in less than 10 or 20 years.

These tiny houses are nice, though.

I’m not as enamored of them as I was at first.

I think that rehabbing an existing home is a more appealing option…(RECYCLING!)…but the tiny house movement…and the reasons people got behind it….is a positive shift away from all the mega-mansions and consumeristic attitudes that some folks think they need.

They serve a need, I suppose.

So….a brand new tiny house that seems expensive might be a good option to save money.

That’s a freaking new paradigm for me….for sure.