Carl and Ginger

I have been staying with Carl and Ginger for a couple of days now, I met them through Duncan as they are good friends with their family. Carl and Ginger are amazing!

They are two well travelled, californian, bohemian, hippie architects. Well this only begins to describe them. 

Their house is located up in the hills, towering redwoods surround the house and every day I lay in their hammock looking down on the pacific and watching the humming birds suck at the nectar from the flowers infront of me. I feel that this place has its own eco system, and you can not help but feel calm and relaxed being here. 

Bathing is another unique experience inspired by Japanese culture. To have a bath, one must first in the morning drain, what is essentially a big metal cauldron, fill it and light a fire underneath it. It is such a relaxing experience just sitting in this of hot water, watching the stars above you and listening to the bamboo screen sway infront of you. 

Carl and Ginger are wonderful people, incredibly intelligent, well travelled and educated by their travels, welcoming, caring and probably most of all giving. I find being around them inspiring, inspiring in the sense that they make me question things and consider things that I have yet considered.

Yesterday I went to watch Carl work on the job, he has an unbelievable knowledge of trees, forestry, carpentry and many of tangents of these things. Watching him I felt I learnt a lot, he was also with people who were theoretically as experienced as him, but yet they were still learning from him. In fact by sharing his knowledge with these people, Carl has probably jeporodised some of his business. But he clearly doesn't care, he wants people to benefit from his knowledge and for people to do stuff correctly. Watching some of the people ignoring his advice, was annoying to watch and very hard to understand, why would you not listen to someone who clearly knows more than you and not be willing to learn from them?! Arrogance I guess, this is  a "quality" that this couple most definitely doesn't have.

The other striking thing about them is that they are happy, extremely happy. These people are not poor, but they still have to worry about paying the bills and all the other mundane worries of life, but this is not important to them, being happy with life is and they clearly are. 

I would love to stay here and learn more from them, and one day I feel I probably will. They are absolutely amazing people and I feel very lucky to have met them.

J