Insulated

My little shed is more like a little cabin now that it is fully insulated, thanks to my friend and local musician/carpenter for hire, Jim Keaveny. Thanks also to a full house at the Starlight Theater on Monday night and a generous audience which helped me to afford this last installment of the winterization process. 

Touring locally in December

Some gig opportunities have finally panned out around my region and just in the nick of time, financially speaking that is.  While music venues in large cities or saturated music scenes book many months in advance, out here it is the opposite. The venues, (restaurants, hotels, bars) book their music only when they know for certain that they will have high occupancy, and it is not uncommon to be booked for a gig the day of the show. It's like being on call and re-applying for my job every day.

The logistics behind each gig is a full time job if I count the promotional aspect of it (designing and printing flyers), and being my own roadie, sound guy, and merch person. I also have to write and practice the songs when there is time left over. I'm not complaining. I'm just letting you know why I'm not finished with my building yet. And if I wasn't doing all of the work to sustain my own creative endeavors, I'd be putting in all that work into someone else's.

Terlingua House Concert with Jack Wilson

Jack Wilson

There have been many conversations recently about setting up a house concert in Terlingua, and we finally did. Thanks to the Hunnicut family (Greg and Stephanie) for hosting us in a fantastic desert setting. I would say that the first house concert was a success.

Plums from Dishwater

I woke up yesterday morning and found that my kale starts have been eaten! It was either a rabbit, or the quail that have been showing up around here every morning. I was bummed. I waited a day too long before deciding it was time to protect them with a barrier of some sort. 

I drove to Alpine as planned, to get more insulation for the shed, as winter is approaching. My neighbors Ben and Vanessa were generous to give me their leftover insulation from their own project, and it covered over half of my 120 sq. foot ceiling. That got the ball rolling. 

While in Alpine, I decided to stop at a plant nursery that has always interested me. They had some fruit trees for sale, which also interested me. Plums, nectarines, cherries, apples, and pears. I bought a healthy looking plum tree for $25 and this made me feel much better about losing my kale this morning.   

It also makes me feel better to have an organism that will take my used dishwater and give me juicy plums. I feel that most trees, especially ones that produce food, are a form of water catchment and storage rather than water wasters.

Domania!

A small team from Marathon Texas came by a couple of weeks ago to borrow Don's dome frames for a new structure at the Marathon hostel. Whereas I had to transport the dome frame piece by piece on top of my volvo, the Marathon crew demonstrated the portability of the dome frame by coming prepared with a trailer so that they could get all of the frames in one go to Marathon, about 90 miles away. They are using Don's design for a gazebo type structure that will be finished in papercrete. You can track their progress here.

The beauty of Don's design is that the same frame can be used over and over and over again and finished out in many different ways.