Welcome Monthly Review Readers!

You must have way too much free time!

Taking a break from reading the likes of Chomsky, to visit this little blog! Having a respite from fomenting Revolution? Class struggle got you down? Welcome, comrade...

I wasn't expecting a link from the egg-headed folks at Monthly Review. But it is welcome. You see, this here bit of self-centered indulgence (complete with pictures of someone you've never met; nor might never want to know) is about a Couple with two young grand-children, who have a dream of building a residence in the wilderness. The male of this couple (me) has absolutely no home building skills. A dreamer. A nobody. All I have to my name is a nursing license and a few good intentions.

So, since you've travelled this far, why not start at the beginning? Look to the right (yeah, I know that you Lefty folk might have a hard time with that direction). Start with the introductory thing. I'm appreciative of you taking the time to visit here.

The site is intended to be a "real time" version of building a house out of sticks, straw and mud. I consider it to be building outside of the HOME DEPOT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. Natural and raw. And when the darned thing is done, round abouts September...we shall see if this middle aged radical couple can build something that is both Earth friendly and (I like this best!) cheap!! It'd be nice if the thing didn't fall down too.

And drop me a line and tell me of your struggles. Dreams. Agitations. Or just snide remarks. They are welcome! Or as Ed Abbey once said: "Better Read, than Dead".

My thanks to Mike Yates for posting the piece you'll find below. And if you haven't read his wonderful travelogue: "Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate"--it's certainly worth your time. In fact, you might be better served by going to Amazon and purchasing it now, rather than scrolling to the bottom to begin reading about this silly adventure.

But should you choose to scroll to the beginning of this blog: you have my thanks! And humility.

Wine, Fish and Bread....

Photos again from 2003. For our wedding, I wanted to celebrate, what seems to me, a holy meal of Wine, Fish and Bread (see the Gospel of John). So that's what we did. The lady in white is the local Hindu Priestess...and our friend Marge is in the foreground. That's Joni looking happy!

The backyard wedding. And our wedding outfits. Joni made the canopy, signifying the Four Directions. We also smoked a peace pipe...as Joni studied with Sunbear and is a Pipe Carrier... How's that for weird California Goofinesss!

More from 2003! I'll post more photos of me when I stop looking like Michael Moore!

Joni and Me during our (I guess we are still in it) Revolutionary Stage...

The Culprits: Joni and Me

Joni and Me. Dec. 21, 2003. Our wedding day. About to leave for our honeymoon. Notice our wedding attire. I always wanted to get married in blue jeans!

A dove visited us during the ceremony. Never saw the darned thing again. But birds are important to us. Our name comes from the Stellar Jay...which is quite a story!

On top of Mount Lassen. Forty miles from the Solar Compound (and 9,000 feet higher). Mount Shasta is in the background. A holy mountain, in my view. I'll probably never climb it. But I do have plans to hike the circumference of it (circumabmulate?). Just like those Tibetan Monks...

And a couple more...snore!

Joni and Kylie at Earth Day. Joni had to dress the part of being the School Garden Teacher. And, of course, the new Pup! Another Redwood in the background...

My favorite restaurant in Calistoga! The Calistoga Inn.

And a view of the Downtown...

Napa Valley (what we leave)

Our Calistoga Backyard....

And from the Front. This is what $600,000 will buy you in the Napa Valley.

We have a Buddha to balance our St. Francis... and yes, the tree is a Redwood

Kylie (aged 8) holding our new puppy ("Angel"). Joni had a booth for the school garden at our Earth Day festival last Saturday.

Jazmine (aged 6) with our very popular new pup!

And the Lord of the Manor, "Rocky". Our cat. He has watched over his humans for four years. He isn't too happy about the new puppy though.

Calistoga

Our backyard, here in the Napa Valley. This is our Saint Francis garden....

An aside:Emergency Rooms as Sacred Space

Emergency Rooms are sacred. Every last one of them.

They belong to my list of sacred spaces: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Yosemite Valley, Mt. Shasta, Ankara Wat, The Ganges River, Jerusalem, the Vatican, Macchu Pichu, the Black Hills, the energy vortexes of Sedona, Stonehenge, those Mounds in Missouri, the Solar Compound, all those beautiful Cathedrals in Europe, Everest, Crestone-Colorado, Red Square, the site of the Haymarket Riot, The Witch Tree along Lake Superior, Lake Titicaca, Tenochtitlan, the Grand Tetons, Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti Plain, and where-ever else you are that either takes your breath away or hones you into the truly sacred.

I thought that last piece of pizza in the fridge was still good. A snack before bed.

A few hours later my tummy informed me differently. And at three am, the first trip (of about fifteen) to the porcelain god came to fruition. Sick all day. Stomach pain beyond belief; rivaled only by a kidney stone I had once. Dehydration. I spent the day observing life from the bathroom floor, admiring the work of plumbers and the craftsmanship of "American Standard".

Usually when confronted by such a malady, I get sick once or twice, sleep for a bit, and it's over. Not this time. So about ten at night I couldn't handle it anymore and (as an RN) rather sheepishly called the Emergency Room. A friendly voice on the other end said: "Come on in".

So I did.

The hospital where I work at is in the middle of the Napa Valley. It's not an overly used ER (they just perform very basic services) and they average around sixteen visits a day. Usually they are about as busy as the Maytag Repair Man. It's a great place to go. They see you quickly.

Into my gown. A brief interview. A visit with the MD. And then the IV placement and a liter of normal saline. I'd had the pain in my stomach for 24 hours, and I was getting a bit concerned that it could be any number of problems: pancreatitis? A Gall stone?

Along comes the friendly nurse (it is now 11 pm) with IV Phenergan, and quickly followed by IV Dilaudid (a very powerful opiate). A hot flash thru my body from the synthetic heroin (those poppies in Afghanistan do have some real medicinal value), followed by blessed relief. Deep asleep, they had to give me oxygen through a nasal cannula as my O2 sats were going below ninety (90 and above ensures proper oxygenation to the brain).

I didn't care. I slept.

A few hours later, another bag of normal saline. And a blessed repeat of the Dilaudid combined with another anti-emetic (anti-nausea) medication. More sleep.

My labs came back fine. No liver problems (a relief after having consumed from half a bottle, to a bottle of wine, a day, over the last five years). Pancreas working fine (ditto the above). Just a tad low on the Potassium (OJ or a banana will fix that).

The Diagnosis: Food Poisoning and Dehydration.

A call to Joni (my spouse) at 4:00 am to pick me up, I left with more Phenergan (suppositories), Vicodin and paper scripts for the same. The next two days I spent in a Phenergan-Vicodin fog. Pleasantly hallucinating at times (this is a weird drug combination for me, once asleep on the futon I thought the living room was filled with people). But the pain was relieved. I held some fluids down.

And three days later, I can go back to the fridge (but am a bit more careful about what I choose). Fine work by the ER staff!

A word about Emergency Room Nurses. I worked for two years in a Level Two Trauma Emergency Room. But I'm no hot shot RN. I was the psychiatric guy. Since about 15% of all visits to ER's are psychiatric in nature, this ER on the western slope of Colorado had enough business to employ me full-time to do the psychiatric evaluations.

A fun job. That particular ER was filled with mostly thirty something RN's (male and female), outdoors enthusiasts. Being in the Canyon Country of Utah and Colorado, that's who are drawn to the area. They worked in the fast paced ER with all the traumas, strokes, heart attacks, sniffles and psychotics. Adrenaline charged. Then days off were filled with rock climbing, shooting rapids, skiing, snow shoeing. mountain biking, camping. More Adrenaline.

Good People. Smart People. Strong People. Calm in an emergency. Incredibly competent. Emergency RN's will help a person die in one room; then walk next door to comfort a kid with a cold. They have my utmost admiration and highest regard.

Emergency Room nurses get threatened, hit, bit, kicked and beat up by psychotics and drunks. Do that to a police officer and you'll get ten years in prison. Do it to a Psychiatric Nurse, or an Emergency Room Nurse, and you get good drugs. Go figure.

Which is why I think we need to consider Emergency Rooms as a Sacred Space. The good people who work there need to be as protected as Yosemite, the Spotted Owl and the Snail Darter. We all will visit an ER at some time in our lives. Maybe we will wait too long. We will grumble, complain and feel like we are being called an illness or an organ. The "kidney stone" in 3A. The "heart" in 7B".

But I've been on the other side of the ledger. And I see how these good folks work. They deserve our protection and admiration. Just like Yosemite.

The Money Thing....

Thought I'd lay out the expenditures thus far:

$400 Straw bale deposit--to be delivered the first week of July.
$400 Two doors and a few windows, plus miscellaneous stuff that Joni picked up.
$ 60 Consult with Structural Engineer
_________
$860 Total

We have a $23,000 budget. Thus, we have $22,140 left.

Allan Economics 101 or what did you do with your life Daddy?

Mark Anielski (author of the excellent "The Economics of Happiness", New Society Press, 2007) writes:

"I'm curious about your reflections on Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and others; you suggest you don't quite understand how they can be capitalist with a green conscience? It would be fun to unpack that all."

Thanks Mark! I am honored by your response!

From my work as a Psychiatric RN over the last sixteen years or so, I've become more and more convinced that most mental illness is caused by a lack of connection to Self, Others and our Environment. The psychotic disorders seem to be a lack of connection to self (often brought on, in my opinion, by using substances which skew reality). Psychosis is a lack of the Self being able to perceive reality. Depression is a lack on connection with others. Anti-social behavior is most definitely a lack of connection with others, and the natural environment. All mental illness is a lack of connection.

Let's make the leap from the pathology of the individual to the pathology of the Corporate.

Most of the world has slid into a western form of Capitalism. A system whereby an elite few make economic decisions which affect the multitude. Our ability to have power and control over our lives resides with graduates of business schools, CEO's, Owners of Capital thru birth or accident. Efforts to reform the power and control of the elite have been stymied over the years. Unions have been squashed. Monster Corporations think only of minimizing labor costs---and maximizing profit. Lost is the notion from Henry Ford that a worker should be able to afford the product they are making. So now we have children in Asia making products they will never be able to afford; and the culinary workers at the hospital I work at (recently given their walking papers to bring in a contract food service agency) will no longer be able to afford to purchase the services of my hospital should they become ill.

Most of Monster Capitalism suffers (just like the mentally ill) from a lack of connection to self, others and the environment.

Along come the Green Entrepreneurs. Does having a Green Consciousness do anything to change the pathology of an economic system as it has evolved in the West (and increasingly, the East)?
In my opinion they will be successful only if they enhance connection between Self, Others and the Environment. They get the last one correct (improving the connection with the Earth), but what about Self and Others?

There is no Environmental movement without social justice. Social Justice implies sociability. Enhancing social relations. Community (both natural and human). Western Monster Capitalism doesn't do that very well.

Back to the Strawbale House. Buying the strawbales from a local farmer enhances my relationship with the farmer. It didn't come from the HOME-DEPOT-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX. It enhances the farmer's life by providing a cash revenue. And it enhances my relationship with that family.

Using Adobe from the land and a few selected trees (from the Digger Pine) for the Post and Beam work, improves the land by enabling the forest to be less congested. Where we take the Adobe for the floors and walls, there will be a pond. This will enable us to create a rain catchment system. Working with the land to improve it's beauty and sustainability. Also providing water for the critters of the area.

The choice of materials matter. Exploitation of the Earth and Others matters. So if a Green Entrepreneur stops the former; they must also stop the latter. Going Green is not a get rich quick venture. It's learning to be peaceful with the Earth and with others...

Hence my skepticism of Green Entrepeneurs.

Beer Drinking Lon and Digger Dan

Back to the Compound Saturday Night. Dinner on the Coleman Stove: New York Steak, Grilled Zuchinni and a salad of Avocado and Tomato. More wine. Sleeping Bags. Stars. Snores.

Awake on Sunday, more coffee and a walk down the road to see Lon. Lon and his wife have lived on the Ridge for thirty years. Off the grid. Lon runs a construction company and his wife is a secretary at the local elementary school. I walked down the road and ran into Lon's wife Marge first.

"Lon is down at his brother's, the next property down", she said. Is everybody related on this ridge?

I walked down to Lon's brother's, and found Lon and his brother standing by a pick up truck drinking beer at 11 am. Coors. I walked up and introduced myself. They seemed hesitant about their new neighbor. I didn't tell them that I tore down their "No Tresspassing Signs" last summer. Eight months ago. I wrote about that, which is to be posted on the "Mother Earth News" website soon. It's advertised there now.

But anyway. They seemed hesitant. It was refreshing to have a neighbor on the Ridge not ask me if "I loved the Lord" within two minutes of meeting them.

After some introductory pleasentries we got to the point. Both these brothers are contractors.

"Would you be interested in doing some excavating and some Post and Beam work"? I asked.

After finding out that I planned on using logs cut from our property they both politely declined. Lon would do the excavating (dig out the site and the foundation). Dean, Lon's brother is going to be gone in July, when the Post and Beam work needs to be done. Lon is smarter than doing a project like that. They both grimaced at hearing my plans.

"You need Digger Dan".

"Who?", I said.

"Digger Dan" they said in unison.

Evidently Digger Dan is famous for doing Log construction (not permitted) in the area. He has a reputation for being inexpensive, felling the trees himself and a tad eccentric. "He won't give you an estimate" Lon said. "And he'll only work for you if he likes you". I imagined Digger Dan to be like the Green Beret character in the Monkey Wrench Gang: Hayduke Washington.

Lon agreed to visit my property later that day. And he did.

We had previously set out the dimensions of the addition with brick markers. Lon looked over the place and said he would do it in the middle of June. He'd level the land. Dig out the foundation. He also offered us some solar panels at cost.

Lon, being an "off the grid" veteran for thirty years...talked magically of the ridge. About the former owners who homesteaded the place in the 1920's. How he and his wife moved there in the later 70's. Raised a family. Chased the Meth heads off the Ridge over the last few years: "They were scary people". He talked about how he is cutting back on his construction business and what it has been like to be such a Solar Veteran. His daughter had to return home with them and is battling a lethal cancer. Very human. And noble.

A good man. I like him on my side.

................................................................................................................

We packed up and headed back to Napa Valley. We'd found a Strawbale consultant. An excavator for the addition. And possibly a log "post and beam" specialist.

Plus we had a new family member. A yellow lab. A good, productive weekend.

Saturday: Strawbale Keith and a New Family Member!

Much is made about the new "Green Economy". Obama and Hillary both mention the promise of millions of Green jobs, as we move to a more sustainable society. For the past thirty years, there have been those who have been struggling (and succeeding) to make a living as they pioneered this new economy.

These guys (and gals) are all pretty much the same. Last fall I had the privilege to hear Paul Hawken speak. Paul (a Green Entrepreneur) has written an excellent book: "Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming" (quite the title) in which he describes and defends this new environmental movement based on love of the land and also people. When you meet these folks, they almost always dress the same. Blue Jeans. Either a T-shirt or a Flannel shirt. Hiking boots (the old leather kind). And they tend to be thin. Energetic. Healthy. They look like they live their values.

Politically it's hard to pin them down, as they promote both capitalism and environmentalism. They aren't socialists (but they have morals and a community ethic); they aren't capitalists (but they promote sustainable living and products). Frankly, they befuddle me. I'm thinking of Michael Pollan, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Bill McKibben. Granola heads with values and a functioning checkbook, they seem to be.

Saturday morning we awoke, had some coffee and drove to Grass Valley to meet with our Strawbale Consultant. "Strawbale Keith" (as I'll call him) has a business next to all the other construction companies and home product stores in the growing ex-burb, foot hill town of Grass Valley, California. He runs a multitude of businesses there. His Warehouse is made out of recycled materials. Old tin. He sells "blue jean" insulation as an alternative to that nasty pink stuff. He sells solar systems (and has won awards as the "best of Sacramento" for solar installation). He also builds, thru his construction company, Strawbale houses. From the photos of them, they all looked like Strawbale McMansions.

His office had the appropriate pictures of John Lennon (from the early Beatles), a multitude of posters of "Get the US out of (insert your own country here, as we've intervened in most of them)", and in true Grass Valley California Hipness, a poster that admonishes people to eat their medical cannabis.

Somehow Joni managed to get him to be our consultant, and he kindly agreed to meet with us on a Saturday. And just like Paul Hawken and all the other Green Entrepreneurs I've ever met, you never know when you meet him if this is a business meeting, or are we going for a hike? Solar Power t-shirt. Blue Jeans. Brown leather hiking boots. Thin, lithe frame and clear eyes. He had the Green Enviro Entrepreneur Look down perfectly.

He invited us to sit with him. Joni pulled out our house plans. I sat, and the snap on my shorts Popped!! Too much Napa Valley Food and Wine for me over the last five years.

He looked at the plans; listened to us talk of adobe floors, adobe walls, Log frames and strawbale construction. He rolled his eyes ("here's another dreamer couple from the Bay Area with Good intentions but no common sense") and politely said:

"You guys are ambitious".

Joni took over from there. And her months of study about drainage, home construction, load bearing and the like...paid off. Brilliant, she sounded.

I just sat there hoping that my shorts didn't fall off from my button popping.

In the end Keith found our plans workable, with the following recommendations:

1. Build a model of it (Joni had already ordered a "strawbale model kit".

2. Find a good contractor for the Post and Beam part.

3. Don't do Load bearing Strawbale. Do Post and Beam (and he helped frame it our for us on our plans) so that you can get a roof on it, freeing up time to work on it at your own pace.

4. He gave recommendations on how to secure Posts to the Pad and the existing House.

5. Let him meet with our contractor (at a small fee) so that it is done right.

6. Do the Family Room first. Then the Strawbale addition. Don't do it all at once. (We will ignore this advice--as we need a place to sleep this winter).

7. Think about putting a trailer on the property, as he thinks there is no way this can be done by Two Amateurs with no experience (nor common sense).

..................................................................................................................................

Driving back to the Compound we stopped at a homemade sign advertising : "Pure Bred, Yellow Lab Puppies. Joni and I had talked of getting a yellow Lab. Joni had one as a child ("snuffy") and we felt that our female grandchildren needed a companion.

A neighbor at the Compound came home a few weeks ago, only to find a Mountain Lion under his porch. And the Cougar didn't run away. He didn't spook.

With a Mountain Lion in the vicinity, we feel like our Grand girls need a Guardian Angel besides us. A Yellow Lab meets that description. So we bought one. Six weeks old. Kindly. Loving. We named her "Angel" as she is to be a Guardian Angel to two delightful six and eight year old girls.

Friday April 11...

Another broken promise. We forgot to take the camera with us last weekend. So bear with me, as the following posts will be filled with text, with no visual aids. Sorry.

Friday morning, Joni braised up a lamb shank, picked some herbs from our garden and tossed it into a crock pot with some "cranberry beans". They simmered all day, until we left that afternoon and drove to Jazmine and Kylie's Mom's. We bid adieaux to the girls for the weekend and headed up to the Solar Compound.

We drove thru Sacramento and stopped in Marysville to buy a bottle of wine. Arrived at the Cabin at dusk, and brought out the Lamb.

Now I'm not a fan of crock pot meals. It seems that the crock pot takes the best of the meat, and distributes it weakly to the contents of the meal. What you end up with is a bland soup of meat that only hints of tasting like meat---and veggies that only hint of being veggies. Everything tastes the same; not necessarily good.

Not so with this Lamb made by Joni. The Cranberry Beans were exquisite. The Lamb held the flavor of Lamb and dropped from the bone. Yet the braising Joni did provided the Lamb with some texture. And the fresh herbs that Joni picked complemented everything with a savory ooze that, frankly, was the best Lamb and Beans I've ever head. Even the cheap Barefoot Merlot that was about the only wine that the liquor store had in Marysville paired nicely with the meal. Definitely a hit!!

We spread out our sleeping bags on the deck (see the photo below) and watched the moon, stars and digger pine tree tops as they swayed in the wind. Joni fell asleep first, and I listened to her breathe. Happy that she is sleeping. Resting, after working so hard for her family.

You always need a "Before" picture...

Well, this is it.

The Solar Panels are on the right. The side of the cabin has a "hefty bag" on it. This is where a prior addition was torn down (never hire a meth amphetamine abuser as your contractor, the former owners told me). Sort of reminds me of the right field wall at the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Post and Beam will go on the pad, in front of the White Van. The van sits where the Strawbale addition will go.


In the back is Joni's famous "Bird Bus". She painted this bus for the city of Crested Butte, Colorado. When they retired it from service, she was so attached to it that she bought it. Right now we use it as a spare bedroom.

Snyder, the Nearings and Grandpa K.

Inspiration.

So why buy something so far off the beaten path? A desire to escape the broken humanity that my job as a Psychiatric RN has subjected me to over the last sixteen years?

This place is remote. Isolated. Twenty miles to the nearest substantial town. No lattes within a half hour's drive.

Blame the Eco-poet, Gary Snyder. Someplace I read that Gary lived in the Sierra Foothills, and commuted to his teaching job in Davis, California. An idea started to incubate. Could I do something similar?

Then I read the classic by Scott and Helen Nearing in "The Good Life":

"We maintain that a couple, of any age from twenty to fifty, with a minimum of health, intelligence and capital, can adapt themselves to country living, learn it's crafts, overcome it's difficulties, and build up a life pattern rich in simple values and productive of personal and social good."

Scott was 47 when he bought his homestead in 1934. I'm 47 now. And as for a couple being between 20 and 50, Joni and I just snuck in under that one. Gosh it seems, according to the Nearings, we only have a few years left to do this.

As for the "minimum of health". Yup. Got that. Just the occasional kidney stone, middle aged sprawl, some sciatica, a few broken ribs (from wrestling with psychotic patients), and two broken arms from falling off my bike, have haunted me over the last couple of years. I think that fits into the minimum of requirements. Barely.

You can make your own decision regarding the "minimum... of intelligence" part. Somehow I think my brother might believe this is my shortcoming. Darned siblings!

The Nearings only did what my Peasant, Norwegian ancestors did for thousands of years. I come from a long line of non-regal paupers. What Scott Nearing did by choice (educated radical that he was), my own Grandpa K. did out of necessity. When my aforementioned Lutheran Pastor brother asked me (yet again perplexed by some silly venture of mine) why I wanted to do this, I told him: "Because I want to live like Grandpa K."

And when good ole Grandpa K. died back in the 70's, some of his last words to me were about his sadness that there are no farmers left in my family...and more importantly...that he fully expected me to carry on the tradition. I hope that a few fruit trees and a substantial garden satisfies his request.

So with Gary Snyder, Helen and Scott Nearing, my Grandpa K., and not to mention that the solar compound lies within about forty miles (as the bird flies) from one of Edward Abbey's famous fire towers, where he and other literary giants used to gaze for fires while scribbling their craft----well, that's good enough inspiration for me.

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This weekend we travel to the Solar Compound (140 miles) to meet with a structural engineer (with hand-drawn plans--thanks to Joni's planning). And to begin gathering castaway concrete for the rubble foundation.

Pictures to follow. I promise. Just have to figure out how to use the digital camera, and upload it to this blog....

Onward!

An introduction...

On the first of July, in the year 2008, my family and I will move to what I affectionately call: The Solar Compound. It is essentially a cabin, located on a ridge top, on the edge of a canyon where the Sierra meets the Cascades. An adventure.

The property itself is "off the grid". Three acres. Part of an "off the grid" community of eccentrics: retired libertarian autoworkers; disabled folk living cheaply on social security; rednecks squatting in trailers; four households of 7th Day Adventist Apocalyptic RN's who expect Jesus to finally return after a 2,000 year hiatus; Whole Earth Catalogue refugees---and various other non-conformists and cheapskate ner-do-wells.

At the age of 47, why do this?

Many reasons. Seeing as my spouse and I aren't Trustfunders we either have to rent (which we currently do in the hoity-toity Napa Valley); go deeply into debt on the downhill slope of our life expectancy (not advised)---or be very creative in finding a place to call our own.

We chose creativity over mortgage slavery.

It took two years to find this place. Our criteria was that it had to be within four hours of the ocean. It had to be beautiful. It had to be inexpensive. It had to be within a few hours of a major urban area (even homesteaders want to attend a concert now and then, or hear a favored author speak). It had to have solar potential. It had to have at least an acre of level land for a garden. And it had to be in California.

Sometimes life conspires to give you what you want.

The only problem is that the cabin currently has only 350 square feet of living space. There are four of us.
Joni (whose claim to fame is that she has the longest prison sentence in Colorado for sitting in a tree); Me (Allan---a lazy, underachiever with no claim to fame); Kylie aged 8 and Jazmine age 6 (Joni's grandchildren--my step grandchildren---who have been living with us for four years).

So what's a left wing, wine loving, soft living, semi-granola head with no carpentry, plumbing, electrical, masonry or construction skills to do? (I actually got a D minus in Shop in the seventh grade---something I haven't admitted to Joni yet).

Why, build an addition, of course!! And never mind hiring some professional to do it. We'll do it ourselves. After all, how hard could this be? (gulp).

This is our journal of the construction of a Family Room and Two bedrooms. This may not be very pretty. We plan on making mistakes (lots of them). Go ahead: Laugh. Or groan. We hope for very few casualties.

We plan on building this addition in two months; using recycled materials obtained at junk yards and "Craig's List". It will be built of Mud and Straw. Nouveau Third World Style. Our budget is $23,000. The labor will be provided by a hodge/podge of family and a few deeply deluded friends who either love us, or who owe us a favor, or both.

Follow along.... This should be a fun ride...