It’s open season at A-Z West again! (April 15th – May 15th) There has been so much happening that it’s actually been hard to post, but I’m going to start putting up images over the next few days. One daily ritual is the “hour of power” – a communal work hour that happens every day from 10:00-11:00 when everyone in the studio, office and encampment works together on the vast myriad of ongoing maintenance repair projects around the compound.
Bench (Judd’s and mine)

I made my bench 17.5″ high, the same height as Judd’s, but it is bigger so four people can comfortably have a conversation on it. At this scale it is a slightly odd height, but in a good way. (It looks a bit more like a table than a seating surface) People are generally a little confused about how to use it, but it works really well once they figure out that they are can sit on it. The one thing that I’m still having trouble with is figuring out the right covering for it. Originally I designed a really beautiful tufted alpaca rug – but as soon as it entered the house the cats started to sharpen their claws on it, making it clear that a custom made alpaca rug was going to have a limited lifespan in a household with six animals and a nine year old kid.
Judd’s bench is covered by a Persian carpet. I am personally drawn to the geometry of Turkish kilims more then the the all over patterning of Persian carpets – so a kilim was the next surface that I tried. The kilim looks great in this photograph, but it is rough to the touch, and not so soft to sit on. Also it bleeds when it gets wet, and isn’t a good surface to spill food or drinks on. (another given in this household) Then I tried two cowhides which I like more because they are soft and super durable (even red wine wipes off of the white cowhide) – but the overlapping hides feel a bit too amorphous for the crisp formal shape of the bench. More experiments are now in the works… which I’ll document as they play themselves out.


Wrap Up

In January we pull out the finished compost, sift it, and put it on the garden – and seal up the newest compost batch so that it can continue to do it’s thing for the upcoming year. Kelly and Dean got to spend a gloriously warm winter day outside this week sifting the compost – which surprised both of them with it’s dirt like qualities. (Though I believe I heard them comment that they found a few pieces of compost that harked back to their earlier formal composition.)
So that is another year-end wrap-up. 2012 is now in the vegetable planters and the residue of 2013 is under a thick layer of straw settling into it’s final season of trasnformation.
Secret Spot


Formal Fridays

How to Live?
first hike







The previous owner of their house put the water tank on the top of a pile of boulders so that it would gravity feel the house, and he carved a staircase directly into the rock.
Compound Garden
Last spring I started growing things in metal stock tanks in the middle of the shipping container compound (above)… this spring the garden is going full force. Three tanks are filled with greens (two are mine, and one is Emmett’s) and we will soon add a fourth for a summer crop of tomatoes and cucumbers. The prepper in me sometimes wishes for more room, but the high metal sides do a really good job of keeping the critters out. And I’ve been wanting to read up on vertical gardening and square foot gardening to see if there is a way to maximize the space that we already have.
