Yreka and the Running Horse Wall

I did it.  I finally uploaded my Barter e-book to Kindle.  I have managed to manifest an extremely rich and exciting life traveling around the world and I was able to afford it by bartering for places to stay and airfare.  I use barter as a lifestyle.  This book is filled with many links to barter places and lots of stories I've collected of my own and other people's successful barters.  Here are the Contents:

Chapter One – The Way of Barter

A short history of barter and some inspiring barter stories.

Chapter Two – Bartering for Places to Live

From a farm in the Australian Outback to Bel Air, California, I've gotten to live in some amazing places with barter.

Chapter Three - Bartering With Doctors and Dentists

They have needs for different services that you could provide in a barter.

Chapter Four – Bartering for Food

Want healthy, delicious, homemade meals delivered to your door? Just barter.

Chapter Five – Bartering for Vehicles and Mechanics

Oil changes, tune-ups – I once traded a totem pole I carved with a welder who welded the axle of my car back together.

Chapter Six – Travel Barters

Airfare, places to stay, doing fun work exchanges and living with families.

Chapter Seven – Wedding and Christmas Barters

Save your money and get bigger and better with barter for anything you want or need.

Chapter Eight – Business Bartering

How to keep your business moving without using up your capital.

Chapter Nine – Serial Bartering

People who have mastered the art of trading up. One man started with one red paperclip and ended up with a house. A teenager started with a broken telephone, which he repaired, and eventually he ended up with a silver Porsche convertible. Inspiring stories.

Chapter Ten – Ask and You Shall Receive

The best ways I've found to have successful barters.

Below is my first face painting, for Lacey who was going to a fancy dress party to raise money for the local art gallery

  Below is a short (2:55 min) video I made about recycling a graffiti covered wall near my house.  It took 5 weeks, working a half an hour almost every morning.

My style of graffiti art.  It makes me feel better.

Weird weather

Below, for the last month this has been the view from my window.   The mountains have disappeared in smoke.  The fires are in Redding, about an hour's drive south, and in Oregon, about the same distance north, but the smoke is coming here. 

Hail on a hot day.

Weird clouds.

Siskiyou County is mostly mountains.

I spent most of the month of May glued to my computer watching Kilauea pour lava all over the Puna area of Hawaii.  That's exactly where I camped out for three weeks after the last time the volcano blew.  I don't know for sure but where I stayed has probably been wiped out now.  Below is the link to the blog I put up about my stay.  It was so beautiful.

http://barbarayates.blogspot.com/2015/03/

Basically, I've been divesting myself of possessions.  I started out with 60 tubs and have given most of it away and I'm now down to 10 tubs. Anyone who comes to my house gets a tub of stuff.  Thrift stores got all the clothing. Lisa got ten tubs of art stuff for kids.  I gave all my tubs of fabric to a group of women at a rehab place who are learning to quilt.  A local assemblage artist got two boxes of interesting junk - everything from antlers to cool looking metal things.  I donated boxes of books  to the Metapysical Library in Ashland and gave a tub of props to the theater.

I've totally stopped buying anything at thrift stores.  I want to be free of stuff.  What I have left is my art: goddess carvings, hand made books.and paintings.  I have to find a way to sell it all.  Any suggestions of a good web site to sell art?  What am I keeping?  My tools, photos, and some of my books.