Charlie Bucket's Humble Home

The tight floor plan.

Model crafted by my oldest son.

Through the front door.

Grandpa Joe, Grandma Josephine,

Grandpa George & Grandma Georgina's bed.

Through the passageway.

The Bucket's dining table with a bowl of cabbage soup.

Alas, never enough soup to fill the seven family member's bellies. Charlie's life is about to change. He found a dollar in the snow, bought two candy bars and found a Golden Ticket. He is one of five lucky children who enter Mr. Willy Wonka's factory and receive a lifetime of candy.

We are reading Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And only have two chapters left. After finishing the book, we might watch the film version starring Gene Wilder which contains perhaps my favorite movie quote ever.

"Charlie, did you hear about the boy who got everything he wanted? He lived happily ever after." -Willy Wonka

Hoping you find your Golden Ticket.

Shantyboat by Harlan Hubbard

I had not heard of Harlan or Anna Hubbard and their journey drifting down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers when our friend David loaned me Shantyboat. He's from Kentucky where the story of Shantyboat is more well known. My attention was hooked after just a few minutes of looking at Harlan Hubbard's hand drawn map at the beginning of the book that details six years aboard their homemade shantyboat.

The Hubbard's built their boat just east of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. Harlan finishes the making the boat in 1944. The river rises floating the shantyboat off the land. They moar their boat there at Brent, Ohio, before casting off down the river two years later, drifting with the current of the river during winter and harboring each spring and summer to grow food, can and restock their provisions for the following winter of drifting.

Their story captivated my imagination and shared the rewards of a simple life unfolding via an extraordinary slow journey of mindfulness. Theirs is a journey of drifting but it is not aimless or lacking intention. And while they are adrift, they nurture a rich social life building community with others who live with and near the river.

I gifted the book to Eric for his birthday and to my father for Christmas. Shantyboat is a wonderful read.

Powell's Books in Portland OR

Any trip to Portland, OR, should include time spent at Powell's Books. We enjoyed a few hours (that flew by like minutes) browsing the aisles. Powell's supports a nice display for Homegrown Evolution's The Urban Homestead.

I'm looking forward to the release of Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen's new book this year.

Catalina Adventure: Two Harbors

Toward Isthmus Cove

Two weeks after Avalon, we boarded the Catalina Express to Two Harbors on the east side of Catalina Island. Two Harbors is more rural than Avalon with only dirt roads, two restaurants and a grocery store.

Two Harbors earned its name from the two harbors, Isthmus Cove and Catalina Harbor, that rest a mere half mile opposite each other. We easily hiked the distance. The boys sailed a boat in Isthmus Cove.

We ventured south toward the yacht club.

We were greeted by a young bird, perhaps a juvenile crow, as we hiked up the mountain to Banning House Lodge which is celebrating it's centennial this year.

We enjoyed the sights at the south side Catalina Harbor and spent an hour kayaking east from the harbor. The paddling was easy and made easier by a five year old natural who paddled the entire time delighted by the bright orange Garibaldi, thick kelp forests and an enthusiastic ball-chasing Golden Retriever that tried to board our kayak.

One morning, we hiked up the steep mountainside following the recommendation of a local to find two hammocks hanging in a scrub oak. We relaxed over the harbors for over an hour and watched small planes fly below us as they made their way to Catalina airport. The rest was well earned as Eric carried both boys up the majority of the steep ascent. But what a view. What an experience.

Each night after a full day ended the same with six pages from Windsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland.

Catalina Adventure: Avalon

A few weeks ago, we ventured to Avalon with two families. Our friends graciously opened up their family's house to six adults and four kids.

Descanso Beach had undergone a major remodel with cloth covered cabanas and fancy wooden lounge chairs. We saw a baby seal resting on the beach. The staff at Descanso had marked an area for her with caution tape. At first, I was worried the seal was dead, but she rolled from her back to her front and let you observe her breathing. It was so exciting to be so close to her.

One morning we ventured to the botanical gardens and hiked up to the Wrigley Memorial to take in the view.

Not limiting ourselves to land, our group enjoyed a submarine ride to look at fish. Ilsa of RamblingLA and my oldest son saw a manta ray.

The Pencil Sharpening Patrol put in their hours.

And each night, happily tired little bodies gathered round for a reading from Windsor McCay's old Sunday comic strip Little Nemo: 1905-1914. I picked up our copy of the book as a gift to Eric when we first started dating. Who knew that later we would read from it each night to our children? I'm so glad I acted on impulse years ago and bought this book. It is now out of print and a much anticipated ritual to read six pages together each evening.

Grass Spider

Outside our kitchen door, I stumbled upon this web. Usually I find grass spiders (Agelenopsis) in our Canyon Prince grass with tunnel webs looking like a thick gossamer funneling into a black hole.


I was surprised to find this enterprising grass spider using a vacant bolt hole as it's tunnel. The web is not particularly sticky.


When prey stumbles into the web, the grass spider darts out quickly to grab it and bring it back to it's hole. We searched all day for earwigs to feed to the spider. With our hot dry weather, our typically abundant earwig population was no where to be found.

Agelenopsis identified using the Audubon Society Pocket Guide: Insects and Spiders.

Bedtime Interrupted

Our normal bedtime ritual was interrupted by this house centipede (Scutigera coleoptrata).  It scurried across the bathroom floor as we were getting ready to brush teeth.  We stopped, caught the critter and pulled out our National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America.

The house centipede is found throughout North America and is a friend that feeds on household pests.  We released the centipede outside in hopes it might get to work feasting on ants.

Bird Song Books & Bird Watching

The company behind the fabulous Bird Song books, becker & mayer!, read about my post about The Backyard Birdsong Guide: Western North America and the fix I made to the missing battery cover. Jessica generously sent over a copy with a cover in tact and the more detailed Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song. My family and I are loving it. Thank you, Jessica!

Photo by my oldest son.

With the arrival of the books, we've enjoyed a great wave of bird watching. As I was hanging up laundry, I noticed a California Thrasher. Typically, there are hard to spot because they hide under lower shrubs. I saw the usual cluster of mockingbirds, scrub jays and darting woodpeckers.

In the afternoon, a Turkey Vulture flew over head. I think the vulture was displaced from the fires. It's the first one near our house I've seen in seven years of living here.

At the Arroyo Seco, the kids and I saw a Western Bluebird and an energetic little yellow bird with distinct eye rings. I'm not sure what it was. Very bright yellow. Small. Curious. It perched on a tree above the boys and me while I listened to a local treasure hunter share about his hobby.

I'm hoping our luck holds out, and we'll spot a California Condor. Eric spotted one many years ago resting on a power line off of Calgrove in Santa Clarita.

Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture

Our friend Mark Frauenfelder wrote a nice review of the book Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture.

Mark writes about how he has been putting Shell's recommendations into practice for the last couple of years:

"When I start thinking I need to buy something I first ask myself if owning it will truly make my family's life better in some way -- Will it save us time, or consume time? Do I have to learn a new user-interface to use it? What am I going to get out of it? What would happen if I put off buying it for a year? What else could I spend the money on that might be a better choice? Is it something I can hand down to my kids or will it break? Can it be serviced and repaired at home? Will it make our household environment more pleasant, or less pleasant? Will it clutter the house? how much storage space will it consume? These are then kinds of questions I now ask myself before buying something. The one thing I don't consider is how "cheap" something is. As a result, I don't buy nearly as much stuff as I used to (it turns out that my decision not to be cheap has made me more frugal and thrifty) and the things I do buy more often end up being well-made and improve the quality of my family's life.

We couldn't agree with this approach more. I think I'll check out the book if I ever finish Infinite Jest.

Link to the complete review on Boing Boing

The Backyard Birdsong Guide

I picked up a copy of The Backyard Birdsong Guide: Western North America at an overpriced gardening store now shuttering it's doors. I have contemplated the purchase of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology audio field guide for quite some time but balked at the purchase price. The Western North America version is considerable smaller with fewer birdsongs. But the birds are exactly the ones we see on our property, so I made the dive and bought the book at a 20% discount.


The battery cover was missing. This was the last copy. I hemmed and hawed, then made the purchase. I figured I could make my own cover. I used a scrap piece of cardboard cut to size and covered it with flowered origami paper. The book is enjoyed by all.

The Wonderful World of Ed Emberley

Yesterday, the boys and I stocked up on some art supplies. I've brought home Ed Emberley books from the library in the past, but I was the one who enjoyed them the most. The concept of building a drawing by adding simple shapes failed to capture my oldest son's interest at the time.


Undeterred, I put Ed Emberley's Complete Funprint Drawing Book in our shopping cart yesterday. It's a book that merits space on every bookshelf. This morning, my oldest started flipping through the book. "Mom, I want to make a train." Following the book's example, he made a train, put it on a track and added "crazy smoke" and a car to hold the toys.


My youngest enjoyed creating with the Do A Dot art pens. I resisted these pens for a long time. After a fun afternoon of crafts with RamblingLA using these to help decorate a beautiful butterfly, I saw the light.

Working With Your Hands

Alec Soth for the New York Times

Motorcycle mechanic and writer Matthew B. Crawford makes The Case for Working With Your Hands in a thoughtful New York Times essay.

Newly christened with a masters degree, Crawford entered the white collar economy in the early 1990s with a cubicle of his own and the task to write academic journal abstracts. After eventually earning a Ph.D. in political philosophy, he opened his own motorcycle repair shop. Through his work repairing vintage motorcycles, he finds fulfilling work which combines the intellectual rigors of problem solving with tangible results. Crawford's essay is based on his newly published book Shop Class as Soulcraft.

I am reminded of a great interview of Mr. Jalopy on Studio 360°.

Built a Better Bird Feeder

My oldest son and I followed Bert's instructions in Big Bird's Busy Book at the weekly meeting of the Sesame Street Pigeon Lovers Club.


We built a simple bird feeder and filled it with some seed and apple slices.


Now, we wait and watch for birds.

Previously:
Big Bird's Busy Book Pinwheel Project
Cherished Childhood Relic Resurrected