The recommendations below also appeared in my weekly newsletter: Ready for Rain, Issue #93 - This is About the Ham. Alone (Hulu) - We've watched six seasons of this show and look forward to more. It's a reality show where ten survivalists are dropped off in a remote,...
A debate about storing ham in a Tupperware container could have gone in a lot of directions. We found a path without hurt feelings.
The recommendations below also appeared in my weekly newsletter: Ready for Rain, Issue #92 - Hibernating in the PNW The theme for this week's recommendations: school girl comedies and con artists. Derry Girls (Netflix) - A comedy about Catholic school teenagers in...
The recommendations below also appeared in my weekly newsletter: Ready for Rain, Issue #91 - Because It's Cool We've been re-watching movies from the not-so-distant past, so that's my focus this week. Lost in Translation (Amazon) - A top ten movie for me. Scarlett...
What do you do when the power goes out? You see it as a challenge and a game to be played. We asked: how comfortable can we be without electricity?
When building a new house, it’s worth considering whether or not to run ethernet networking and if so, what products may work best. This is our plan.
This was my 2020.
The post below was sent as an issue of my newsletter, Ready for Rain. I’ve taken thousands of photos of the house project, mostly from my phone and drone. In isolation, they look like any other house photo, a point in time without context. One can only get so excited...
After 16 months in our tiny guesthouse, we’ve gotten used to it. But as the house project nears completion, the small things are becoming a bit more grating.
The pile of boxes we have stacked in the guesthouse represent a lot of decisions about the house project.
Being one with the dirt is part of the transition and how you become part of the island itself.
Since moving to Orcas Island, I've become fascinated by the geography of the area, which is quite complicated. The island is part of an archipelago in an inland sea stretching across two countries and hundreds of islands. To describe the region doesn't do it justice,...
One of the challenges of crabbing in the Salish Sea is dealing with the bait, which can sometimes get very ripe. In this case, the bait attracted our dogs, who shared the love.
Since then, the Solo Stove has become one of my favorite products because it makes backyard fires easy, safe, and clean. I often tell people that it’s an awesome piece of engineering, for what is essentially a fire pit.
When we started planning our house on Orcas Island, people often asked about our plans for a generator assuming we’d need one. For a while, we had the same assumption.
A report from May of 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic had forced shutdowns of most of the US, including Orcas Island.
I have always been ambitious and I continue to be. What has changed is the focus or desired outcome of that ambition.
A walk to our construction site ends in seeing orca whales in the water in front of the house.
In the spring of 2020, we were quarantined because of Covid-19. This was our experience early in the pandemic.
On a windy afternoon, our dog disappeared into the woods hunting for deer. This is what happened and how it felt.