recent POSTS

  • Outdoor Kitchen

    Our outdoor kitchen is made of pine from the land, pine from the local sawyers and wood found in the shipping container. It sits on metal augered supports on land just above the yurt.  Its location is such that it will collect sun for the solar panels that will power the refrigerating cooler, lighting and soon a convection stove top. The metal roof tilts to the west to collect rainwater run off into a rain barrel and to provide shade during the hot months. The collected rainwater will be used for cooking, cleaning and provide for a small herb garden.  From the hilltop you will be able to see a large patch of land that has been cleared of scotch broom, dead trees and shrubs, seeded with wildflowers and will overlook a seating and dining area. It will also be near a compost heap for kitchen waste to serve as fertilizer for the herb garden.  Beside the kitchen, an area will contain a solar oven and, for now, a gas powered stove. Counter tops and cabinets still are in the designing stages and will be built with pine from the land and a small sink found in one of the abandoned trailers. Steps and pathways will be built of pine, stones and mulch. (Lauri)

  • A Bit of Muchness

    A Bit of Muchness is a synonym for the word “flood” and is the title of the display as well as in the title of one of the artists’ books on display from June 1st to June 30th 2023.  Urban Ore offers a “residency” – an opportunity to display artwork in a case by the front entrance and is one of my favorite places in Berkeley.  In fact many of the materials for the books are found there as well as on the streets of Oakland and on our land up north.  Peter Suchecki, an artist and my partner, provides the sawing and the sewing. The books are about a range of things like bird calls, politics, climate change, and being in the landscape, and are mostly connected to the natural world.

  • Logs to Lumber

    In May of 2022 we took down some dead Ponderosa pines on the land. In one of the biggest (+/-150 years) and most compromised we found incredible colors and patterns of fungus and bark beetle activity that probably aided in its demise. One of the trees had an old inclusion that ruined our Sawyer Theo’s blade. We had it cut down and milled on site into some amazing lumber–enough to build a new kitchen area, plus, plus…

    Fungus stain and the inclusion:

  • Reading the Landscape

    This was the second Reading the Landscape exhibition. The exhibition was held at the College of Environmental Design Library on the University of California Berkeley campus for Fall semester 2021. Some of the artists’ books had been shown before, some are in the collection of the library and some are new, such as the Covid and Me series. Most of the books can be found on this website.

  • YURT sited & raised

    During the summer of 2017 we chose a site for our yurt on a flattish area at the top of a hill to get a good view of the land, good drainage and also get the feeling we were in the trees. To make the smallest footprint we first put in augured spikes to act as the foundation. Using wood found on site and cedar that we got from the nearby lumber mill, we constructed the platform. Our neighbors helped us erect the pre-made frame and the put on the canvas cover complete with three screened windows and a skylight.