Six years later, I was finally able to read about Tremayne’s “decommodified
life” in her fresh-off-the-press book, The Good Life Lab: Radical
Experiments in Hands-On
Living<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1612121012/cooltoolsbb-20>.
Captivating right from the start, Tremayne’s tale of quitting her job as
creative director of a marketing firm to “live in the waste stream”
describes her bumps and triumphs in turning an RV park into their homestead
and living a rich life spending almost no money. Both from the city, she
and her husband learn as they go, using found and tossed materials to build
structures on their property, driving a car that runs on vegetable oil,
growing their own food, concocting homemade tinctures from local plants,
and landscaping with homemade compost and free dung from a local camel
named Stanley.
Tremayne weaves her narrative with colorful charts, beautiful illustrations
by different artists, and loads of how-to projects (DIY biofuel, roasting
coffee with a popcorn maker, building a decorative fire barrel, making
mead, and constructing a sturdy and handsome papercrete dome, just to name
a few). Whether for inspiration or as a road map to creating your own
off-the-grid homestead, Tremayne’s book is a must read for any maker who
fantasizes about stepping off the consumer-centered treadmill and into a
life that is connected to nature, unhurried and meaningful.