Up in Sonoma county between Petaluma and Cotati Is a small town with farming roots called Penngrove That is where we went to visit the Penngrove Power and Implement Museum The heart and soul of the operation is Nancy and Steve Phillips And their dedicated family and crew They keep all the machinery running in good shape Restoring not just the equipment, but a relationship and knowledge of how things work
As gardeners, we are into plants and farming implements So of course I gravitated towards the seed sowers and tractors of all kinds That red Schramm engine had three cylinders running and three compressing See the air tank? And there was Deere, Farmall, International Harvester, and more
Inside the barn was a magical mechanical dream Full of belts, pulleys, and the hum of work being done From the Hicks marine engine used on San Francisco feluccas out at Monterey and Morro Bay To all kinds of little outboard motors with a variety of propellers There were small machines to braid lace, make furniture legs, entertain and teach the kids, A generator to reminds us of the War of the Currents between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla And plaques that emphasized the importance of READING THE INSTRUCTIONS!
Outside, more metal, pistons, and lubricated gears Check out the pull start on this USMC Caterpillar tractor And imagine a time before hydraulics on heavy equipment When a cable lifted your bucket And gravity dropped it back down
On the one hand these are relics of a time long gone They are no longer used in our very modern era Because they are too heavy, too noisy, too polluting, too slow, not safe, not enough power, difficult to start and so on But they are like the wisdom of the ages and stories of elders How else do you understand change evolution and progress If you don’t have any roots or understanding of basic engineering principles Or know about adapting to field conditions and problem solving with the tools at hand Dave told me – you need only seven tools to work on a model T Seven tools!? What?! And that thing came in how many colors?!
At the end of our visit We got a train ride on the tracks, in carts meant to haul salt from the bay And posed for pictures by the Petaluma Trolley Well if you want to meet some great folks who can take anything apart and put it back together And reacquaint yourself with fine machinery that has lasted the test of time for decades and a century or more Mark your calendars! The next Power Up is July 11th, 2026 Heres the website: https://www.facebook.com/penngrovepower/
Chugga-chugga-chugga Cinder and ashes, come along, come along! It’s important to keep trying, no matter what Little engines can do big things!
In the beginning we contrast the more sedentary farming communities with that of the hunter gatherer. And how a steady stored food supply then led to hierarchy, stratification, specialization, city states kingdoms nations and monuments. Later we talk about the production of grains, feed and livestock, the use of tractors and the modern automobile industry, and end in the garden where we are mowing, weeding, hedging, cutting.
ScreenshotEarly Model T assembly at Highland Park Plant.
Here’s the pictures. Lab will be making 2 ply rope of harakeke Phormium tenax, tying basic knots (bowline, figure eight, clove hitch, half hitch, sheet bend, timber hitch), mixing up some mortar and sticking some masonry together, clamping wood so that we can glue it or safely cut it and so on. And no I am not a big fan of gluing down mulch but if that is what the client wants – a plastic non breathing never moving landscape that is easy to blow…
Funky texture when the rip and currents make incongruent wave edges and ledges You are on it mid face and the wave buckles and underbites Empties from under you Bottom out you grip the rail of the board for the drop Or catch air, skip and do an awkward asymmetrical yogi pose
Gray whale fluke splashes next to you Out of the sky fall all manners of bird plummets Its an all you can eat buffet of shiny silver specked anchovy mackerels Its is so loud – the chirping of hunger and digestion Smells of fish throw up and guano paste
Terns diving for food in that very erratic fashion They circle one way feint Angle off another Sudden drop, pierce the surface at speed Precise trajectory fish strike!
Troupe swimming south, a family of cetaceans Pause and play in the curls, kids stick alongside the adults A lone soul bursts out of the water in all exhilaration The rest steadily cruising, come up for breath, go down, then pop up some fifty feet away Traveling at a good pace, no big hurry
Salt water feels and tastes like the womb; not that I drink it or actually remember It just works its way up my orifices and lathers down my throat paddling or duck diving On a wipeout it packs thick into the ear nose cavity, thick like grease in zerk nipples The spray jangles loose the bulk in my respiratory system, I blow out one nostril then the other Shake shake caboose droplets behind the toot toot of the steam engine nasal snorts
Bits of brown foam, algae and jellyfish surround me You push the detritus out of the way Lob a few lumps or give it a shove Tuck a piece of trash in your wrist sleeve for later, theres a lil crab holding onto the flotsam Splash at the yuck yuck some more why it keeps following me in the rip, get away!
The surface of the sea Texture is corduroy checks and swirly spirals Light exposure is tapestry of folded sheen fingers touching and holding radioactive hands Shape is the klamath sierra and coastal ranges in miniature all moving Motion is a series of shoulder rolls and pelvic twists in undulating slow motion
Sometimes it looks like crap but once you get in the water it is magic A mixture of: Sleeping on the sofa and the hot cold of the steamy spring and mountain river On the muddy dirt floor of the gladiator arena waiting for the tiger to enter Drifting on the orange yellow purple hues of the setting sun Blissed out flying on angel wings on the silky liquid mirror of the planet
Interpersonal interactions
Dude tells me after I get crushed pulling in ‘That wave was as wide as it was tall!’ I see a member of the brigade Stroking in earnest for a hump of a gem Yell GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
A dark rolling curtain of an unexpectedly large wave stands up from way outside the horizon Theres a scramble and a panic as it looms larger and fills your field of view And its too late Curl thump thud explosion and foam bounce Everyone in the line up dives, ditches, and goes for a bubble tumble hahaha
Weekend sunny first day of the fall season surfline calls it good Everybody, everybody is out – your mom, her cousin, uncle bob, old timer joe, kevin the kook Packed with bros and sisses on center every 2-3 meters, relentless jostling You paddle for a wave, uggghhhhhh One guy right in front of you, another at three o’clock, two more down the line ditching boards
Early morning sun rising out of the east lights up the sea with white blinding glare Hard to see anything when I take a right hand wave Bumpity bumpity I run a guy over cause I did not see him and he did not move Sorry sorry! He is cussing rubbing his shoulder and I broke off a fin Sigh feel bad, offer him a free shot at me on the beach but glad he declines
I used to see this dude who drove a VW Van, out in the water at Sloat Boulevard Never talked to him much, many surfers are more the silent type, maybe a head nod Then, didn’t see him for a decade or two hmmmm The other day there he was, its been like thirty years! Dor!! He was the same, riding a big wide OB gun thing on the outer bar, still stalking bulls
Always fun to run into a surfer friend outside of the watery ritual Sometimes you don’t recognize them at all without the wetsuit and sun blocked face Theres no set pattern as to their regular day to day appearance Although folks imagine them as a flip flop wearing tattered bum of sorts These days its anything but, as if they were actually a seal incognito secret agent you’d never suspect…. except the burnt face and shoulders sometimes gives it away
IN RELATION TO HUMAN CULTURE
Its free anybody can go in the ocean No admission no membership no premium No advanced reservation or online registration needed Everyone is a vip or a nobody Who cares, for sure not the seal carcass rolling around headless at the tideline
Its relatively inexpensive to start this particular hobby A hand me down wetsuit A $100 board and your are in Hope you have a ride of some kind or good public transportation Work hard so you can buy wax or a leash once in a while, very reasonable money outlay
You find your own style Follow your own line Sing your own song of the sea theres no right or wrong way to ride You make your own tradition and commitment, its all you, just go
Surfline says its poor You have the whole ocean to yourself laughing Yup its slip slop slap blowing in your face Scattered smatterings of inconsequential unformed non unidirectional catch me if you cans But again, the playground is vast and deep beyond despair or happiness there is only awe
You can go anytime, any window will do No hours of operation no holidays no closed sign On moonlit nights or a dusk sunset overhead stars emerging Crack of dawn with two hundred seagulls sitting on the sands and ravens just close enough At noon in a fog bank, folks are fishing for stripers with sand crabs and kids are making castles that will be washed away
The watery pitch is not held in by fences nor rings, cages nor lines Dont got no judges and refs, rules laws and regs, timers and whistles, cones and flags There are no clues or symbols to ascertain rank, seniority, hierarchy or who came in first ‘Time in’ is a storm connecting sea and sky with electric branches of humid charge ‘Time out’ is falling rain drops kissing the peaks of waves in between sets
The energy is pure and unfiltered True and direct, bears little resemblance to what we humans sometimes cook up on land Storm wind and water swell moving side to side up and down As they say, puts things into perspective Essential elements, planetary motion, just a bobbing cork in the infinite cauldron
The sound of water closing and falling Sounds like the continuous crash and derailment of a train, but without the metallic screeching Envelops me as if I were in the midst of a frog choir by a pond way out of the city limits The persistent background bass and accordion folds of air and water mutually squeezing I fall asleep to this sort of a lullaby
She is scary and intimidating and beautiful and gnarly and glorious All at the same time There something very attractive about the whole package – an all powerful matriarchal life form I am humbled by the forces at work, grateful to gently slide atop the rhythmic slope Repeating the old trapper hunter fisherman refrain – mother nature always wins
She don’t baby your sucking lips, pamper your ego She don’t serve you with a smile, pay you compliments or kiss your ass She is a conscious presence, forever the present in the form of a rolling wave And you are subsumed within her At home in the embryonic fluid of the queen
Mission Azul 