Sunrise Mountain Scramble in the Neighborhood

It has been a very social week, with guests visiting and camping here on my land. We took turns improvising some gourmet home cooked meals and sharing ideas about living off grid. My favorite event of the week was a pre-dawn hike up the mountain behind my house.

We woke up at 5:30 in the morning to catch this view of the sun rising over Mexico.
This is from the mountain right behind my land

Our Week of Winter

This supercooled bottle of water was just waiting for a disturbance to change properties from water to ice in seconds. This happened to me last week and took me by surprise. The next day when I found my water bottle in liquid form again while it was 15 degrees outside, I grabbed my video camera and hoped it would give a repeat performance. It did!

Other winter images...

Lennon's Ghost in Marfa

Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl
(photo by Lacey Jones)

It was a surreal evening and the product of a fluke happenstance. Last month, my good friend and gifted songwriter, Laura Gibson, informed me that she was going to be the opening act on tour for Sean Lennon's new project, the Ghost of a Sabertooth Tiger, a duo with himself and his partner Charlotte Kemp Muhl. Since Laura had a break in the tour in between Austin and Tucson, she asked me if I wanted to put together a show for her and I. As a joke, sort of, I suggested that if Sean Lennon wanted to play on the bill, we could make room. She called me back a few days later and said, "Well actually..."

And so that is how I ended up on a bill with the son of John and Yoko, the beautiful boy himself. While Sean does not lean on his heritage, he doesn't reject it either. He is the incarnate image of his 60s era father and doesn't try very hard to sound or look very different. Why should he? He seems comfortable with his inherited talent, but not necessarily the legacy. His tiny band travels with one extra trumpet player and a sound man in a modest van that they load and unload themselves.

Slinging Mud with Emilie, Jason, and Dinozard

Emilie Clepper fashions a prehistoric lizard sculpture, which we named Dinozard

Fried Asparagus Tacos

December has been a very busy month for gigs in the area. The weekly shows this month up in the Chisos mountains have gone very well and have also been well attended by international and domestic travelers. It also means that I was able to save some money this month, which I'll need since January is going to be real slow. One can learn from the vegetation out here how to be resourceful. In times when there are showers, we must open out pockets. And in droughts, we must hunker down and ration what we've caught.

Nuclear Catchment

solar reflection and digestion

Yesterday, I tagged along with my friends to a neighbor who is selling solar panels. Good quality solar panels, not the junky (though usable)  Harbor Freight panels that I currently have two sets of. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to purchase a high quality panel at almost wholesale prices. And when I installed it today, I almost doubled my energy. I can now harvest 170 watts of solar power every hour, enough to run multiple computers, lights, radio, power tools, and even a refrigerator. 

Moving Poo and Surprise Visitors

Mark and Shannon

I was ready this morning for friends Mark and Shannon to come by to gather goat manure from Don's Domeland for the Community garden in Terlingua. What I wasn't expecting was an early arrival and surprise visit from...