Willits, Middle Fork eel river Yolla Bolly time, and living off grid...

For the 4th of July, i decided to head up  where a good friend of mine Jeremy Byrd, resides comfortably up on a mountain just out side of Willits CA. Jeremy and i took our first year of RDNA together, and his family is about to start practicing permaculture in Ecuador.

The mountain he lives on is a part of a herbal medicine school on a property called Motherland run by a really great woman named Donna. she has a beautiful mixed veggie, flower, herbs, and perennials, and is just mostly boarded by BLM land on the other side of the mountain, and the southern most start of the Yolla Bolly wilderness is right at her back door. the valley preceding with the mountain road we drove up seemed to have a solid little community very well connected and all aiming to be very much off grid.

Jeremy's 12x12 with attached deck, sunken bath tub, outdoor shower, and outhouse.

the tiny lofted house Jeremy was staying at had a sunken-in-the-deck tub, an outdoor shower, and an enclosed outhouse. the place was pretty roomy, had a built in passive cold storage box, a pretty sweet mini fridge, a gas heater, on demand hot water, an electric cook top and big passive solar windows to keep the well built, and very well insulated little 12ftx12ftx12ft house.

 

his electric is entirely off of a larger off grid system, with large solar panels up on the side of the hill where the veggie garden is, feeding down to a workshop that stores the batteries and runs power down to Jermey's little 12x12. the system in the winter only has to be juiced up for a couple of hours throughout the whole winter just to restore the water based battery system that is replicated throughout the property, including the system over by the little house we stayed the night in. 

The one and only Jeremy living the days.

Running the generator is maybe a few gallons of gas, and in my opinion is a good back up and one could store a pretty sweet stash of gas for the extra kick. There is a guy down the road, Jeremy says, that runs a Takahashi shop with some pretty serious equipment entirely off his solar array system, and the rest of his homestead. the neibors dream apparently is to be able to eventually create a mini grid and run lines down the valley road and help hook into the rest of the mountain on maybe 5-10 privately owned homesteads. pretty cool. as you can see in the picture of the outside of his house, he runs in at peak winter once a month or so to town to fill the two small propane tanks you see in the background. very impressive and promising to see a simple design working so well. all of the water also comes from a well that was drilled at the TOP of the mountain.

else where on the trip we took a hot drive up through round valley and up into the eel river forks that come from the Yolla Bolly wilderness. we finally found the perfect part of the river not muddied from the freak storms we had the night before, and swam amongst salmon fingerlings very much alone, peaceful, and happy to have finally got in the water. here are some photos from that journey. 

also are the photos of the small trailer converted into tiny home with its own solar rig and the same set up as Jeremy.

Old Rail line on the eel. 

our final swim spot

our small trailer quite exposed to the wilderness and sunrise.

the attached deck and further back a covered outdoor shower, and out house.

Solstice at Lairds

Danny and Meghan dropping rose petals on our way down to Lairds

Solstice, the longest day of the year, first day of summer. to celebrate there was a grand thanksgiving and soup dinner held at the fabled Lairds landing hosted by Jordan Atanat and the coasties. this was what we hoped to be our first of many annual solstice/equinox/full moon celebrations at Lairds. bringing back connection to the rhythms of the universe, nature, ancestors, and our selves in this season of plenty.

Clayton's old house

 Lairds Landing was once a artist colony, complete with a few whimsical cottages, a art studio/forge and a artist named Clayton Lewis (http://www.claytonlewis.net) that would hold parties and dinners and gatherings with all the local fisherman, boat builders, artists and other eccentrics of west marin. the magic and presence of Clayton is still there, and we all held space for Clayton, and even smelled his pipe waft through the cool solstice air as we lit a fire and created an alter on the beach. 

Nature Table

 As the light held on nearly to 9:45 in the far west of the sky, phosphorescence appeared in the lapping Tomales Bay water millions of little critters shimmering in the disturbed swirling bay. Jordan splashed through with rolled pants and the water glowed and sparkled in the final moments of our solstice celebration. 

In those final minutes of light for the first day of summer and the 2012 summer solstice a few things came to mind-

What is our relationship to the sun and earth? 

the rhythms and beats of the seasons?

How can we preserve and continue that 

presence and energy at Lairds that Clayton held?

If Clayton were to be there last night, 

what would he have wanted as a Solstice Tradition?

9:40 pm on june 20th 2012. fire light solstice at Lairds Landing. thank you Clayton Lewis

Marshall Beach and hog island, 2012 summer solstice.

Quail train

on guard Mr. Burns!

The baby quail have hatched! and papa quail (Mr. Burns, yes pop culture has invaded our naming of the quail couple) is on guard and doing his job very well...

this family of around 15 little ones has been spotted up and down the trails here at commonweal; father keeping guard, mom (Mrs. burns... obviously) and babies scurrying around eating anything that looks good... including some of our newly planted seeds. 

that's allowed... so its ok..

babies.... fox?! what??! where!??

here is a close up of mom and baby, the little ones being no more then maybe a size of a slightly larger golf ball.

mom, dad on guard, and a few little ones up front through the onions

Although there are lots of bachelor quail, and a good handful of couples, these are the only babies spotted yet- they tend to stay concentrated on the west side of wish creek, and WE THINK they live up around the garden pirate villas (again that is our nick name for the interns thanks to the last course that joined us for a two week permaculture intensive.) 

the villas are all nestled in the north west corner of the fence line where there is great habitat for the quail, birds, lots of mystery rustling at night and also foxes... hmmm watch out  for that fox is a quick one...

mrs. burns and babies

but so far so good, its close to the first week and it seems Mr. and Mrs. Burns are doing a great job.

  and the course that just joined us was excited to see the baby quail, and they all just missed them... so here are some shots for you guys.

till soon, we will keep the posts for how the quail are growing up, and hopefully nature takes its course not too brutally... we shall see though.. there are theories on how many of around the 14 or so will survive.