Intern Gino, my sister-in-law Oy, and myself work on installing metal roofing on one of the Common Ground homes.

Working on the roof is great... when the weather is nice. Great views!

Our house is the vertical collection of 2x6's just to the left of the big green forklift thingey! It just leapt from a cement slab a few days ago. What a change! We are bewildered and excited to wander through the rooms to get a sense of the space.

Many of the homes in the Common Ground project have straw bale walls in place with plaster on them. Some have even got metal roofing on them. We've really enjoyed working on the site, and have set up a separate Common Ground blog for residents and interns to share thoughts, dreams, images.

Most saturdays we've been helping Ty and Sara to sell Thai icetea and coconut stickyrice at the Lopez Farmer's Market. Here's Ty in his chef's hat giving a free Thai language lesson to a patron.

4th of July

We went to see the 4th of July fireworks. The fireworks and the reflection on the water were beautiful!

Earlier in the day we were all in the parade. It's Lopez at its most diverse -- the hippies dressed in moss and cedar bark, all the way to the folks in black hummers with "God Bless the USA" stickers and flags. We found ourselves in the Friends of Lopez Island Pool (FLIP) -- with Sara dressed as a mermaid (throwing candy), Ty as Neptune (operating a water-blasting firearm), and Chom and Chris trailing behind blowing bubbles and waving a flag.

Morning in the outdoor office

Getting work done means getting up before the kids wake up and using our 'outdoor' office. Chom's busy chatting with a colleague in Bangkok using Skype...

Family of four in 460 square feet

I love the little cabin we're living in. Fishing cabin. On the ceiling boards are names and dates written in pencil:

Julia Munson, August 19, 1937
Bee Palm, R.A. Palm, J.W. Palm
Edna May Palmer, 1934

The cabin measures 370 square feet, with a dark pantry adding another 90 square feet. We have a kingsize bed -- which Chom and I share with three year old Sara and a small zoo of Sara's stuffed animals. Big brother Ty, 5, sleeps on the couch in a sleeping bag. Cold water flows, on tap, from a 55 gallon tank on the roof. When it runs out we go out and pump it full. No toilet, but wifi reaches out to the outhouse! For hot water we use a solar cooker, augmented by an electric stove.

Yay for small living spaces and simple life!!! Outside it looks like this:

Citizen's energy reform

When we were in Bangkok, Chom did a lot of this -- policy meetings, working to bring social justice, accountability and transparency to the energy scene in Thailand. Here she's addressing a group of villagers and NGO activists at a workshop entitled "Citizens electricity reform", explaining the structure of the natural gas and electricity industry.

Here on Lopez we continue to stay in touch, to the extent we can. We're currently organizing a study tour that will bring key electricity and gas decision makers from Thai government and industries together with NGOs together to meet counterparts in Washington and Oregon. We'll visit power plants (wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, gas) and talk with a variety of high-level decision-makers to exchange ideas on power sector planning and regulation.