shore birds

All together now

flight path

birds of a heart (with a sanderling hiding amongst them)

our feathered friends....and drift wood

recently on a trip up to Sebastopol i got to capture some fun bird friends all hanging out! along with a really huge piece of wood i found on the beach at Salmon Creek, i wanted to take home and make a table out of it... too large though! could not figure what type of wood it was.... good mystery.  enjoy!

Northern Flicker with a purple finch? maybe...

flicker again with his friend!

this little guy just left the branch as i snapped the photo

the grain of the huge slab of wood Meredith and i found

hand scale and texture of this wonderful wood

if only we had a small crane....

all the rains have to promise and more!!!

MUSHROOMS!!!! WOOO!!!

well the rains have come full force, and with them lots of cool mushrooms, in fact, some of my favorite and fairytale mushrooms from our favorite video games.....

Aminita!

 these pretty large aminita muscaria are EVERYWHERE! along with and not limited to- porcini, chanterelles, candy caps and more! been really fun seeing what Liam brings home from his adventures. the rainy season is a must have here in nor cal... the mushrooms have been wonderful!

Porcini mushrooms

huge Aminita!!

humanure!

well its been a long time coming people- we finally had to deal with our shit! Danny, Liam, Penny, James and of course, me, went to it!

but first a little bit about our composting toilet system.

 our composting toilet system is pretty simple- make your deposit, throw some sawdust in, and every once and a while change out a big grey trash can. when we get close to filling all our 30 or so cans, we build a big straw bale fort and dump it in! cover it with some tarps and screens so animals can't get in. hopefully 10-16 months later, its broken down and ready to use back on the farm for tree planting, and whatever plant looks hungry. 

Liam in the out house, thumbs up!

the stack ready to be transported... that is one big line of shit!

old straw

old pile broken down and ready to use! 

as you can see from the above pictures, the old pile is a cross between broken down sawdust and compost in color and texture. it has no smell, and seems perfect for use! i was truly amazed. 

breaking down the old pile with Danny!

 to close with, this was one of the most amazing experiences iv ever had. not only did we conserve hundreds of gallons of pure wonderful drinking water by not flushing it down the toilet or polluting another water source with our waste, but now we are able to use it back on the farm completing a closed energy cycle... why we are not processing all of our waste this way is beyond me, since even though it is our shit, we still need to deal with it! thanks for reading. 

oh ps... for those of your following, sorry for the empty void of posts lately! been busy here on the farm and around California! the rainy season is in full effect!

chickens wanted to help- the new straw for the new Poop Fort!

Danny in the poop fort pre-pour! +Danny Vitali 

still building the fort!

the master of the tractor, Mr. James Stark!

Penny and Danny getting after it!

time to add the poop!

poop.....

glass, art, and life.

hand made glass dogwood flowers for a project in Connecticut for an installation at a casino. 

its been 7 years since i first started working for a summer art school in the woods, teaching kids, teens and even adults everything from silk screening, ceramics, drawing, painting, welding, photography, life casting, and for the first time ever glass bead making.

color rod for beads and other small pieces.

since then it has lead me to an outdoor adventure camp teaching kayaking, surfing, standup paddle sports, windsurfing and how to connect with the ocean. but most of all it took me on a 3 and a half year adventure with Megna Glass art studio, where i apprenticed and worked for an amazing couple on hand made kitchen and bath hardware, lighting sculpture, big casino theme work, traditional Italian style bench glass blowing, fusion work, a glass press, metal work, wood work and almost everything in between.

the torch set up.

last week for the first time in nearly 2 years i purchased for my birthday my first glass torch for making beads! i only made one test, but its been such an exciting time to be able to get back into glass work.

hand made glass hardware for kitchens and baths.

below is some of the wonderful memories and work which i got to be a part of with Martian and Mariann Megna. big love to them both for teaching me so very much and being such wonderful inspiration.

2300 glass blown dogwood flowers for a big glass chandelier at a casino. doing the installation.

almost finished and the glass valance begun to be hung in the background.

a collection of hand blown cylinders for a kitchen installation in Aspen. all aspects of this piece we fabricated from scratch. 

this video is a time lapse of us creating 3 separate pieces for a lamp restoration.  

the blowing deck and studio.

furnaces

bronze casting

wood, water, glass, metal, wax, heat, hand, mind all contribute to the process.

working on one of the hand made lighting pieces at the bench.

the bench and all its glory.

Medicinal and edible plants of California

in the new class room for our lectures

 about two weeks ago was the start of the new 240 hour medicinal and edible botany course offered here at RDI. we will be diving into a year long, once a month curriculum of native plant recognition, medicine making, and field trips to the 4 main bio-regions of California- the Eastern Sierra mountains, the trinity/Klamath region in the north,  the southern deserts of the Mojave and Sonora, and the Coast Ranges regions where we are now on the lovely unusually warm Pt Reyes Seashore. Tellur Fenner of Blue Wind Botanicals will be our fearless guide, and indeed he is a wealth of knowledge. the first part of the course was just a brief intro to bio-regions, poisonous plants,  and where we will be visiting through out the year long course. we also made a little field trip up the watersheds of Mt. Tamalpais overlooking Mill Valley and the grand San Fransisco bay.

 more to come after all our "home fun" reading before our next meeting. stay tuned. for now, enjoy some photos taken on our little field trip.

Tellur with his tinctures

looking south from Mt. Tamalpais to the city on the left, and  santa cruz mountains off the horizon on the right.

 from left clock wise: Coulter Pine cone, Manzanita Berries, and Turkey Mullein

Cat Tracks, Tide Pools, and Fog Banks

Cat tracks!?

On Monday evening Dylan, Danny and I went for a evening/full moon hike up near the fire road behind the Bolinas Water Authority and storage tanks. it was a beautiful sunset complete with a fog bank that rolled into Bolinas lagoon and seemed to make our little West Marin hamlet an island. Up the road a bit i started to find and witness some really great imprints of animal tracks. Coyote and a fairly large cat were the culprits, with a few badger like tracks a little further up the road where the roads diverged at a grassy clearing with badger dig sites. the photo below is a perfect example of side by side dog and cat tracks! you can see from the dog print on the left (or coyote most likely) the clear X that is made in the middle of the paw. the dog print is actually facing south, while the cat print on the right is facing up or walking north if the top of the photo is North (which in reality it actually is). it was a little spooky since the three of us were walking into the wooded ridge, all the while following large big cat prints. Mountain Lion? i cannot put it out of my head that it is exactly what we were tracking.

coyote on the left, big cat on the right

Bolinas lagoon covered in fog.

On another note and the next day, I had the Brothers Johnny and Apollo again and this time we went to the beach with a beautiful negative tide. the tide pulls were splendid and Olivia found one of my very favorite little gastropod marine friends, the Nudibranch! this brightly colored gastropod known as the Opalescent Nudibranch (or Hermissenda crassicornis) sheds its shell after is larval stage, and is one of the main reasons i fell in love with the ocean and marine biology. with over 3,000 species these little buggers come in so many shapes and colors.

Opalescent Nudibranch!

Johnny and Apollo play at the beach

beautiful evening and fog

Danny Vitali in the grasses taking photos.

 a final note about the prints, my finger is around 4 inches... gives an idea on how large the cat. BUT, its not too much bigger then the coyote, and so it very well could be a bob cat. there were much larger cat prints on this trail bigger then the length of my finger....

nice kitty...

Poetry, Pizza, and Permaculture!!

It was a pizza party!

This past weekend was Bioneers (http://www.bioneers.org/about), a convergence that happens every year here in Marin county at the civic center. its chock filled with all sorts of special guest speakers, booths, a show case examples of sustainable and innovative technology and principles based around permaculture and sustainable living, teaching, and greatest change for the people!

Michael to the left, and the crowd going over the wonderful toppings for pizza!

 So after a little rain the night before, the weather turned out wonderful on Monday for a special Commonweal Gardens Bioneers after party hosted by the wonderful Penny Livingston, Michael Presley, and friends. Michael brought all sorts of delicious local delights for pizza toppings, as well as his very special 7 year old sour dough starter, and a pizza dough starter he made from fruit yeast he converts to wheat over a 6 day period! how cool is that! we hosted almost 40 teachers, speakers and wonderful guest of the Bioneers festival, including Penny's Hawaiian brother Kalani, and a very special guest, Joanne Cambell, a coast Miwok tribal  elder. such an honor! i manned and stoked the the pizza oven early in the morning, and tended the pizza cooking while Michael prepared and topped amazing pizzas with lamb, sausges, heirloom tomatoes, amazing cheeses made by a local cheese maker, and a plethora of other local ingredients.

 The Poetry came from some wonderful artists and poets, including Drew Dellinger (Drew Dellinger) who had some great words (obviously). right after everyone left and we cleaned up, the clouds gathered and rain came again, thanks universe! enjoy the photos below!

Liam, Olivia and Danny enjoy pizza

Matt grinding some fermented, roasted acorns for topping

Danny Checks out the Lamb and sausages Liam is preparing

Liam preparing while Kalani and Athea play some music.

Kalani and Athea

Olivia preping salad.

getting ready for pizza

in the kitchen pre-pizza

the spread!

the crowd gathers and approves!