barefootwalk

40 couldn't hit harder. Nice, cool rainy day. Everyday worries and gloomy sense of pointlessness. But at least it is beautiful out there. The photo is from back in Christmas, beautiful sunrise near Safford, Arizona. Did you see me? empty, lost and ridiculously in peace. In fact, life will happen with or without me. It is happening now, at this moment, without billions of people who left long time ago and billions of people who will born in future. It doesn’t care if you are a happy person or sad. It doesn’t care if you have built an empire or beaten, ignored and broken. It is a simple great realization that we are only a few examples of life not life itself.

 It is getting cooler. Mornings are chilly and crispy and it is fun walking. I finished my wool projects just in time. I even dyed them and they look good but even better the fabric feels amazing. If I have to do it again, I have a few improvements based on this first experiment.

 This is very nice weather and Twyla loves walking along Oconee River and sniffing every blade if grass in our way.

 It has been a long wait. After 9 months of trying to make everything work again, I decided to take a short break. The weather is getting nicer and there are so many opportunities around here. I also wanted to test some of the ideas I have been developing recently. A few worked great and a few of them failed. Twyla was super excited.

 A couple of recent projects: a 100% wool base layer pant and a single layer rectangular quilt for camping. I improved my sleeping bag last year by replacing 4 years old duck down with premium goos down (and turned the extracted duck down to a warm quilt for Twyla), now my sleeping bag is too warm for regular camping so this quilt is a great addition to the sleeping kit.

 Another change of seasons. Autumn is coming. Weather is getting cooler and it’s nice walking outside. It has been raining for the last two days and we are enjoying our daily walks.

 It will take a while until I settle in the new environment. I am hoping this is more sustainable and stable, nevertheless there so many unknowns, as usual. I started working on new projects and it seems they can easily keep me busy for a long time. I already finished the truck bed extension over summer and recently I finished a new %100 wool pants. I also have new wood stove, all tested and work great. I should post more info as soon as I have their field test results but I am already feeling confident about their performance.

 We walked on campus in a nice cool afternoon. It's hot summer but it rained this afternoon and everything was fresh and cool. This will be her last campus walk. I will still need to come on campus and teach my last course at UA and soon we both will be heading to start a new life.

 Yes, I finally had a chance to replace the upper ball joint. I didn't have the specific ball joint press so I had to use some ideas and use the general purpose press I had. I took a little long but finally I managed to do it nice and clean. I can definitely add this to my resume!

 Just spending more time with basics. I think there is an optimum point with gears. You need to have the minimum that gives you options and efficiency but not much that gears become your main hassle. This optimum point is much closer to minimum than many might think. And word of caution, minimalism is about gear not quality. Get the best quality gear but keep the number of items minimum.