On the Safety of Cleaning Products

I had the great privilege of working with adobe yesterday while doing maintenance on our outdoor oven. While I’m terrible at plastering it was a great pleasure to work with this elemental and ancient building material that consists of just clay from the ground, sand, straw and water. There’s no need to gear up like an astronaut, with a respirator and gloves, as there is when working with concrete. The same day I showed Kelly Christopher Schwartz’...

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I Made a Little Library

...id the best I could do to make the little library look like a southwestern adobe. A neighbor gifted me a nice new piece of 3/4 plywood and most of the rest of the components came from scrap wood I had laying around. The universe kinda came together to make this project happen. I used simple rabbet joints done on the tablesaw to create the plywood box. For the doors I used mortise and tenon joints. I picked up some piece of metal flashing material...

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Our Grape Arbor

...ant varieties: Vitus Californica “Rogers Red” and Vitis vinifera x V. lambrusca “Pearl River” from LA’s most quirky nursery, Papaya Tree. The Pearl River grapes are tasty and show no signs of Pierce’s. The adobe oven was the last addition. Pizza parties are a frequent occurrence underneath the arbor. Do you have an arbor? What have you planted on it and how do you use the space underneath?...

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