RailRoad Folk Tour

I am now back in Terlingua, back from the month long RailRoad Folk tour with my friend and songwriter, Elam Blackman. While I have been a songwriter for awhile, I would consider this my first national tour. The economics and logistics of touring independently never seemed appealing to me before the idea of doing it by train. Well, it worked! We performed in Central Texas, Far West Texas, Yucca Valley, Santa Monica, SF and the Bay area, Portland Oregon, Bellingham Washington, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Chicago, and New Orleans. I could write pages and pages about it, but instead, here are way too many photos.

Hopama

It is hopeful to think that the progressive, positive, and organized counter movements which have formed over the last eight years might become empowered instead of demonized. And that when we speak up about the environment and our human role within the natural and civil world, that our voices will be absorbed instead of deflected.

Now let's remove the Bushes and plant some trees.

treehugger.com, planetgreen.com

I have been doing some freelance writing for two of my favorite sites, TreeHugger and Planet Green. Here are links to some of those articles I have written on those sites:

One Man's Paper is another Man's Palace at Eve's Garden

Solar Decathlon House Adopted by Texas Astronomical Observatory

Downtown Houston Rediscovers Green with New Eco-Centric Park

How to Travel for $2 a Gallon

How to Get Over 100 Miles Per Gallon Right Now

Interview with Lane Gosnay, Solar Car Driver & Owner of the Bugle Boy

How to Make a Simple Solar Car Shade Oven

My Trusty Old Telephone

Your Unfortunate Cigarette Butts

Combining Errands with your Exercise Routine

A Library for Clothes

I'll be getting back to this blog soon. I promise. 

It is Butterfly Season in Far West Texas

Beautiful bright yellow butterflies gracefully floating around the green summer landscape like delicate bubbles, UNTIL...

These Posts are Now Solar Powered

read the full story here.

S

S is the shape of things to come. Those things are a shower and a toilet.. Friends from the Hill Country, Elena, John, and Jaime stopped by Earth Language on their way to Taos for a several days. I met all of them at the natural building colloquium in Kerrville last year. They are on an ongoing mission to transform natural materials into functional spaces. I am ever thankful for their stop here in terlingua.

I didn’t exactly have a project in mind before their visit, other than the ongoing dome project. But together we thought of a new, and very needed addition. We decided that, while the Luggable Lou and the solar shower have been working fine, it is time to upgrade.

We brainstormed about different ways to do this. Elena drew out a simple design for a structure in the shape of an S, where the curve would serve as a wall for both the shower and the toilet, and would require less resources and labor as a result.

One thing there is an enormous abundance of out here are rocks. All shapes and sizes, great for building. We spent some time checking out the old ruins around town to see how they used the rocks for their walls. Since no one was too jazzed about using cement, we decided to dry stack the rocks, the same as they did back then. Instead of mortar, we dribbled small rocks, pebbles, and sand into the spaces between the larger rocks.

We spent two days gathering rocks…LOTS of them. We then spent one day stacking them. The wall is not as thick as the examples we saw in town, but since it is not a structure to be lived in, it doesn’t have to be as stout.

I'll be uploading some more pictures from the project, so check back SSSSSoon.

Back in Terlingua...the Adventure Starts Again

As I was driving back into Terlingua, I passed by 3 cyclists who were riding up an overpass in almost 100 degree heat. I later found out that the three cyclists were a mother, father, and son who took a year off of work and high school to ride thousands of miles around the country on a birdwatching expedition. They couldn’t leave out Big Bend, being that it boasts more varieties of birds than any other national park. This is also the time year to see them….the rainy season.

Speaking of the rainy season, Ruby, my Volvo, is patiently waiting for me on a muddy road. It'll take a couple of sunny days for the mud to dry out before I could get her home. I tried to beat an approaching storm when visiting my neighbor to pick up a 5 watt light bulb. I got to his house, but when trying to head back after giant raindrops started bombarding the ground, I didn’t get far. As a result, John Wells, my neighbor, had an unexpected house mate for the night as the road out from his house to the highway is unforgiving when it storms. The next morning, I walked the two and half miles out to the highway as the mud clung desperately to my shoes. Soon after I found out that bare feet was easier, John’s neighbor, James Kirk zoomed by on his tractor and lifted me back home.

This ended a week full of adventure which included a concert performance with friends down in an old mine shaft, an impromptu song circle with local celebrity, Butch Hancock, a visit to the almost secret Cattail falls in Big Bend, and a day of pouring a friend's adobe floor.