Winter Garden

It’s been raining here, practically a miracle. My romaine is very happy. Winter lettuce in the garden is pretty and eliminates those nasty surprises you forget about in your crisper—you simply nip off as many leaves as you need for each meal. Both my kids eat salad, and like to dress it themselves with Euro oils and vinegars a friend brought me.


And if you were wondering, my worms not only lived through the hot summer days, but are thriving! Yes, Kloe hearts worms.

You Count

As you may have noticed, I added a map gadget to count the visits by country to this blog. I’d experimented with counters before, but found them too difficult (or maybe I really just didn’t want to know how many, or how few, readers Kloe has). A visual map is somehow less serious.
Anyway, I’m truly thrilled to see dots from Central and South America, the Middle East, India (!), Australia, all over Europe.
Of course, some of you I know, but many of you I don’t. I’m wondering why you might look at Kloe...
Are you, like me, trying to lead a creative life in this world that doesn’t value the effort?
Are you an artist mom, a teacher, a lover of chickens/hamsters/worms (I think I killed my worms!!!)?
Are you trying to make art, find the time/money/energy to get into the studio, like me?
Are you a Turkophile?
Traveler, cook, writer, all those activities of the civilized life?
Well, if you have a blog, let me know so I can check it out. I haven’t updated my blogroll in forever, and I’ll put you on there.

Worm Palace

As you may remember if you’re following my soil-making attempts, I had a beehive in my trashcan composter, so had to throw it away (bee residue would only attract more.)
In California there’s a movement to make composting mandatory, which totally makes me laugh—you can’t even find composters at most garden shops, let alone Home Depot or Lowes. You can order them online, but they cost around $200 plus a hefty shipping fee.
So my specialty nursery (City Farmers, it’s amazing) convinced me to try worms. (His first suggestion was a horse, haha). I’m keeping a small, regular hot compost in addition.
Think worms are easy? The instruction booklet is about 20 pages long! I’m hoping the little guys are OK, they are hiding right now.

Drivel and Chocolate

Can’t concentrate on art tonight, am not in my usual serious mood.
It was Biscuit’s birthday last night (we are both 29…), Kid.01 made lava cakes. Nearly singed both our hair.
Oh, and got worms today!

OK, Back to Serious

If you’re worried, the worms are fine…
Throughout the Biennial there were red paper flyers, wrinkled up and thrown on the floor. If you picked one up, which I didn’t see many people doing, it was a list of injustices against women in Turkey, including honor killings, by Croatian artist Sanja Iveković.
In one of the school rooms there was an installation by Lado Darakhvelikze called “Ideal Media.” He was born in Kutaisi and lives in Arnhem. (I had no idea where either of these places is. So much for being educated… Georgia, on my list for places to visit.) Funny drawings on chalkboards and little videos, about how media coverage affects events. The school benches were on rockers, a nice touch.