California Mediterranean Meadow

Goin'a run about and spread the news

(George Bernard Shaw's hut & the tortoise: incluses and time-travelers.)

Cinema Moves West

(A number of other burdens are to be found in the nomadism of the American bison and Edison's Black Maria.)

(A glimpse of Carmencita inside Maria.)


The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
In the days of long ago,
Ranged where the locomotives sing
And the prarie flowers lie low:
The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass
Is swept away by wheat,
Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by
In the spring that still is sweet.
But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
Left us long ago,
They gore no more, they bellow no more
They trundle around the hills no more: --
With the Blackfeet lying low,
With the Pawnee lying low,
Lying low.

--Vachel Lindsay

coniferous repoussoir

(This cone-bearing mask devises to guide to eye, and in this particular case, nowhere but up.)

Greywater: Drumless Laundry

(Illustration for the Greywater Guerrillas of Oakland.)
A 3-way valve diverts greywater to either the sewer or out to the yard for use in irrigation, demonstrating three ways of watering: ball-valve at the surface, perforated drip line at the surface, and a subsurface valve box.

Little Farm's little dogie

Bakewell/Brown Prize submission: call for "decorative detail in architecture." Are cows ornamental? I should say so!

(For Jana)

Please don't tell what train I'm on

(For the 11 year old Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten)

Rainwater Catchment Barrel System

(For Berkeley Youth Alternatives' Bancroft Garden)

Where ya been so long?

Muddy went and made dinner,
waited so long he grew a beard,
and hoped you'd berth before he gave up.

(For Muddy Waters' "Corrina, Corrina")

The Source Revisited

(For William Christenberry and Walker Evans)

Leadbelly's Lady

"Since I Laid My Burden Down"

Some mules born in the ore mines haven't ever seen the sun.
From out of the darkness, revealing another layer closer to great buildings, these buildings are carried to the surface to rest.

On careful knees of camels and other pack animals,
strong backs now lay on straw.
I've done my time, I've done my time.