Work in progress, Mark Borthwick

Our friends Leila and Mark were here for a few days—I feel more creative since their visit.

last eclipse here till 2010

Cherry Blossom viewing

It's a magical week: all the cherry trees in our part of San Francisco are blooming. Yesterday Saul and Meara and I took a walk to Potrero Hill and saw the moon rise through the branches. There's another cherry tree between my house and Meara and Andrea's house, which I curse most of the year because it blocks my sunlight. But right now, it's magical.

Another winter post: snowflakes

I'll put up some spring photos in a moment, but I wanted to post this perfect snowflake I caught on Saul's scarf when we were in Lake Tahoe a few weekends ago. What an amazing way to learn about crystalline structure. I'd almost forgotten that snowflakes really exist, rather than just being an abstracted representation of snow, cut out of paper. Pretty rad!

In doing a little bit of research, I found out that, despite the old wives tale, two snowflakes can be alike, and in fact two identical snowflakes were found in 1988 (ok, so it's not very common).

Winter Still Life

Right now it feels like spring is in full force, but this photo is from the end of January, when the tulips Saul brought me were the only hint of spring. I love the way they look in this earthenware pot Pamela gave me in Australia. (I carried it home in my suitcase.) The Japanese teapot is from my mother, so it's a nice meeting of mothers on my table.

won't heart a bit

Building a House

I decided to build a house this year on some land that my parents have up in Northern California. At this point I'm thinking the house will be either a yurt or a geodesic dome, but perhaps by the time I get around to building it in the spring, I will come up with some sort of hybrid! People have also been putting in bids for strawbale houses etc, so time will tell. My goal is to learn how to ecologically and economically build a house that is off the grid. I want to know that it can be done by anyone (and I'm definitely the 'anyone' type when it comes to mathematical/premeditated architecture)! I'm taking this opportunity to make loads of models and revisit my very rusty geometry skills. For references, right now I'm mostly using this great book that I found from the seventies called Dome 2, by William Yarnall, as well as lots of Buckminster Fuller, of course.

I've posted pictures of my very first geodesic model, (don't mind the dents) and will continue posting my progress and various plans for how it will go...