Hello! I’m back! My name is Roland Brady, and I am an architect. I love home styles, and have built, or dream to build, every kind of home imaginable.
Rain Carrington recently wrote a story that featured a straw bale home. When she told me about that, it brought me back to one of my first loves.
Adobe homes.
Adobe homes are made with clay mud and straw. It’s mixed together to make a brick and you use those nice, thick bricks to build your home.
There is no need for insulation in an adobe home. The walls can be a foot thick or more, That mud and straw is better than the best man-made insulation you could buy.
Spanish style is what it’s called, but this is an ancient style of building a home that was utilized in the Americas, yes, but also in the Middle East. Think about it, you use what you have around you. A lot of desert places don’t have the trees to build with wood, so native peoples used what they had. Straw and clay mud. In fact, the word adobe may actually come from the Egyptian hieroglyph for brick, which translates to at-tob.
Many people who build their own homes in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and parts of California still utilize adobe today. I don’t suggest it in high-humidity areas, but the desert southwest is perfect for it.
I will give you the exterior and interior views of the home, and if you live in a place that can utilize it and would love to try, try building a shed first. Check your local building codes and HOA first, of course.
Exterior
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​As you can see, the lines are soft, the surfaces smooth. Once the bricks are in place, people use a variety of methods to smooth out the surface, like chicken wire under stucco, more of the clay mud, and more.
The logs are support beams to keep the roof or upper floors strongly in place, and the sight of them is aesthetically pleasing, breaking up the smoothness of the walls.
Your imagination and square footage are the only things to keep your imagination in line. There are ways to build roundhouses, arches, multistory homes and more. I’ve included a video here by a couple of gentlemen who do this for a living. Give it a watch!

Interior
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​As you can see, like any home of any combination of building materials, the adobe home can fit into your style. From sleek and modern to old-world, adobe is versatile. Leaving the bricks exposed, covering them completely, or glazing and painting them to leave the texture only exposed, it’s up to the homeowner how they want their home to appear.
If you want a home that feels like you’re snuggled in the earth itself, that keeps in the cool in the summer and heat in the winter, that looks like you have, at any time of the month, a big pot of posole cooking, this is the home for you.
Another plus? With the right upkeep, these can literally last for centuries. Here is proof.

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/adobe-mansion-santa-fe-new-mexico-for-sale/
Thanks for hanging with me and examining the beautiful and versatility of adobe homes. Read about me in Hell Bent for Leather, and my special book where I meet the two loves of my life is Going Down on the Farm! 
Adiós!!

Hi! I’m back! My name is Binx, but you can call me Binxie!
As I get the longing for autumn, I gravitate to the kitchen. Sure, I practically live there anyway, but in the fall, it’s my favorite place.
Breads, cakes, stews, soups and more can be found cooking in my house on any autumn day. The scents of cinnamon and sage, the warmth of the oven, they all bring autumn in as well as the golden and rusty colored leaves.
Some of my favorite things is spicy, yummy breads. I make double or triple recipes so I can give them out to all my friends. Banana Bourbon Bread, Caramel Apple Bread and of course, who can deny their pumpkin spice addiction and not eat pumpkin bread? This one is my favorite because it’s REALLY moist and delicious.
Give this a try once the days get cool and the leaves start to fall into colorful sprays on the ground! Enjoy!
Pumpkin Zucchini Bread
3 cups all purpose flour
½ teas of cinnamon
½ teas of nutmeg
¼ teas of cloves
(Or, if it’s easier, add about a teaspoon and a half of pumpkin pie spice! I know I have four bottles of it in my cabinet!)
½ teas salt
3 jumbo eggs
1 teas baking powder
1 teas baking soda
2 packed cups brown sugar
1/3 cup oil (can be vegetable, canola or peanut but watch for allergies if you plan to give as gifts!)
1 can pumpkin or pumpkin pie filling (pie filling will have sugar and spices, so if you use this, use less of the spice and sugar)
2 cups shredded zucchini (with peel, and don’t drain the juice, we want this moist!)
Optional ingredients: Chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, nuts (your preference), raisins, other dried fruits.
 
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit
Grease and flour two loaf pans
Mix together, pumpkin, zucchini, eggs, oil and sugar in one bowl, then in a separate bowl, mix together remaining dry ingredients.
Mix all together until JUST blended. Do not overwork. That leads to dense bread. Add any optional ingredients and just give a quick mix.
Pour evenly into greased and floured loaf pans.
Bake for 40-45 minutes or until toothpick poked into the center comes out clean.
Cool for around half an hour then take out of pans.
You can make a glaze of cream cheese, powdered sugar and lemon for an amazing topping, or eat warm with a pat of butter.
Happy Fall! 

Hello again!
If you didn’t read my last review, I’m Dr. Brian Lauder. I am a Doctor of Psychology, a dominant and partner to two amazing men, and, a classic movie enthusiast.
This one isn’t black and white, which may be one of the reasons my two partners didn’t immediately groan in misery when I put it on our television.
There was popcorn, hot tea, and we were cuddled on the sofa under a nice thick blanket. I set the scene because, well, I knew that once they agreed to watch it, they’d be mesmerized.
Plus, there was one more weapon in my arsenal.
James Dean.
As much as I had my only female crush on Grace Kelly, I had my first male crush, and the one that told me without a doubt I was truly gay, for James Dean. His voice, his mannerisms, the little smirk on his lips, I couldn’t contain the feelings that made my heart thrum a little faster, and my neck get hot. Hell, it still does when I watch him in the few movies he made in his unfortunately short life. He was a beautiful man that was with the world for too short a time.
Now, before I wax poetic about the man longer, I’ll get to my review.
Giant is a big movie, like the name would suggest. It’s long, coming in at 3 hours and 21 minutes. It’s sweeping in terms of the size of the cast. It starts in the northeastern United States and then moves quickly to Texas. And, like they say, everything is bigger in Texas.
Elizabeth Taylor’s character plays a young woman living in her father’s home, living a soft, sweet young life. Old manners, culture, books, discussion over the lace covered dining table makes up her quiet days. It sets her up to be seen as an American princess of sorts, falling in love with a rugged rancher who comes to her home to buy horses.
Of course, she falls madly in love with Rock Hudson’s character. He’s a strapping man with a cowboy hat. What’s not to love? He whisks her away after the wedding to Texas, where she is thrown into a place that is so far removed from the life she knew as could be.
A flat prairie land made for raising cattle and wild men and women.
Hudson’s character has a sister, one of those rugged frontier women who could sit a horse and shoot a buck better than most of her male friends. She doesn’t take a liking to the beautiful new wife of her brother, and predicts the gentlewoman will leave Texas and run home to her lace and roses life.
Well, she was wrong. After fainting once from the heat, Elizabeth’s character sets her stubborn jaw in determination, and she toughens herself enough to annoy her husband and amaze the neighbors.
I must warn you that there is terrible racism explored in this movie. There was a little village for the workers of the ranches filled with poverty, sickness and oppression. The Mexican workers lived in shacks, and when Elizabeth’s character finds this place, she is incensed with anger, and determination to help the people there.
That doesn’t sit well with her husband. But…she doesn’t care.
James Dean’s character is also an employee on the ranch. He takes a fast liking to the lady of the house, but she’s forever in love with her rancher husband. When he gets fired, he buys a little place and soon strikes oil, becoming richer than all the ranchers that had looked down on him. And he loves looking down on them, once he’s got the money to do it.
Oh, and one other surprise comes toward the end. When one of the children that the main couple have grows up, the boy not only turns his back on the family ranch, but he also marries a Mexican woman. This man is a very young Dennis Hopper.
Unrequited love, human rights, and discounting a woman’s natural strength only for her to show the world how strong she could be. Those are all the things you’ll find in this big movie called Giant. 
Note: I do not own the rights to these following photographs.