December 31, 2016
I decide to walk

I decide to walk instead of taking the subway.  There’s sometimes nothing better than a 3-hour walk in the cold.  The streets are abandoned.  After the sun goes down, everyone disappears.  It isn’t depressing though.

I’m happy to spend time with my family.  I never know when I will see them again, but they don’t seem to mind.  Come around when I can.  When there’s time.

I’m solemnly wrapping things up.  Mapping things.  Trying to feel optimistic amidst the din of the presumed catastrophe.  I’ll wait and see. 

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December 28, 2016
I return to

I fall asleep quickly.  I’m startled to wake up the next morning in an unfamiliar place.  The sleep was so enveloping I couldn’t remember dreaming.

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December 25, 2016
making soup on Root days (& other Root-related things)

Root days always inspire me to make soup,
and today was no exception.

In the afternoon, I sautéed a chopped onion in canola oil,
added a diced potato, and four large carrots, and a touch of butter.
Then I put in some coriander and celery seed, and a handful of red lentils;
then a few cups of carrot juice and a splash of seawater.
I brought it to a boil, and then simmered until the veggies softened.
And then, because we had such a warm and sunny day, we had enough power that
I was able to use my blender wand to “fphoot fphoot” it into a purée.

This carrot soup is the second soup I made in this past week.
Last week, I made another root vegetable soup.
I started early, right after Marmalade went to school,
sautéing an onion in rosemary-infused olive oil,
then adding 2 sliced carrots, a cubed potato,
those oyster mushrooms from the firewood,
radish greens, kidney beans, and a bunch of barley.
I used ground celery seed and white pepper for seasoning,
as well as a few cups of carrot juice and leftover applesauce for the broth.

After the soup was simmering, I went outside to do some yard work.
I started by cutting more grasses to put down on the driveway,
hoping by the time all the overgrowth is trimmed
we will be able to actually walk down the driveway
without sinking into the muck.

I also scraped the muck off one of the cherry trees.
It was thicker and stickier than it looked, really awful stuff,
so I needed to get fresh topsoil to replace all that was tainted.
I then watered with our mycorrhizal-infused canal water,
and applied a thick layer of eucalyptus mulch.
I have five more trees to rehabilitate this week.

Afterwards, we went to Odemira to get the registration for the ruin,
specifying that we have a little over 32 square meters to work with,
required by the architects for their planning purposes.

After picking up Marmalade from school,
we worked some more on the cork siding,
as Root times are good times to hang things.
We were not quite finished before dinnertime,
but got a lot of the more difficult pieces in place.
Friday was another Root day, and so we were able to finish.

We even have some cork leftover, to fill in some gaps on other parts of our exterior.

Oh, another update:
Our name was accepted by the Portuguese government,
so we will be officially registered as “moonfarmers”
for agricultural research (specializing in fungus, fruits, & vegetables)
based on the aspects of the movements of the moon and stars,
and nature tourism, with our soon-to-be-renovated guesthouse,
for researchers, artists, friends, and family all looking for a retreat.

But back to today.
Although sequentially it should be a Flower time,
there was a Root trine today,
hence the carrot soup.

Santa got Marmalade a swing,
so Mohamed hung that from a branch of a cork oak tree.
Santa also got Marmalade a Hello Kitty bakery set and modeling clay,
so we spent a better part of the morning making clay pastries for the bakery.

Then I made a chocolate swirl cheesecake, which we’ve already eaten most of.

I spent a while this morning reflecting on the holidays,
which haven’t felt the same being so far
from my parents and extended family;
finally realizing that Marmalade is three,
this is really her holiday more than mine.
And we spent the day playing together,
and that is really the best thing I could do today.

Merry Christmas everyone!

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December 23, 2016
A little exploring

On Tuesday I had a free day, so I decided to go exploring; heading up a mountain that had long been on my list of places to visit and stopping for lunch at my favourite beach.

Sharp Peak is the pointy one to the left of the picture. To reach it I ran along a nice forest trail before the final steep climb, scrambling over boulders. At the top, an elderly gentleman was making tea on a gas stove. He had a very fine porcelain tea set. Classy mountaineering.

The descent took me along the jagged ridge on the horizon, before bombing down the scree escarpment to the sea. Here there is a string of three lovely beaches (I think they’re the nicest in Hong Kong.) These beaches are only accessible on foot or by boat. The boat ride can get a bit hairy, the stretch of coast is aptly named Tai Long Wan; Big Wave Bay.

I was banking on getting lunch at the beach, but the little restaurant there was closed, so I had to head a little inland to a nearby village.

The route back to the road started out across this shonky bridge:

Anyway. Running as a mode of exploring is fine, but the previous weekend I headed to Plover Cove Country Park (a place I’ve raced through a couple of times) to do some slower-paced exploring of the area’s abandoned villages.

There are several such villages and an old British garrison in the area. They were once thriving farming and fishing communities, the largest had a population of around 2000. The whole area is pretty odd; an abandoned world within sight of Shenzhen container port, one of the busiest places on the planet.

When the Cultural Revolution ended and imports started crossing the border from mainland China in 1976, Hong Kong’s agriculture and fishing industries collapsed overnight. No-one saw the collapse coming; there are stacks of building materials that have been sitting untouched for 40 years in the shells of half-built houses. Some of the village houses look as if the owners simply walked out and never returned:

There are ghost stories about some of the villages. In one village, compasses stop working and supernatural happenings are rumoured to have driven out the last few residents.

Village elders still return and put up decorations for Chinese New Year, Mid Autumn Festival and other occasions. A couple of villages have had some restoration done and a few people have returned to live in the area on weekends, opening restaurants for hungry hikers.

I think I’ll do some urbex posts in the new year, perhaps I’ll start with a visit to Gin Drinkers Line; the wartime defensive line that catastrophically failed to defend Hong Kong in December 1941.

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December 21, 2016
darkest days

Aside from the well-drilling,
I’ve tried to spend some quiet, positive time outside,
cutting back blackberries to access the ruin
and I’ve also spent a lot of time in the garden.

During Root time I picked some of our radishes.

They are an organic French Breakfast variety,
with a vibrant color, mild flavor and excellent crunch.
We love them dipped in herbed cream cheese.

Then yesterday, during the Leaf time,
I started to harvest the first of our Red Leaf Kale,
another organic variety from seeds brought over from America,
and tons of arugula, grown from organic seeds I got in Austria.

I didn’t have much time in the afternoon after all the harvesting,
but managed to make three batches of garlicky greens before the end of Leaf time:
(sauté two cloves finely chopped garlic, 1/2 cup finely ground nuts
& three huge handfuls~6 cups chopped greens in herb-infused olive oil,
just until wilted. splash with balsamic vinegar & store in glass jar under a layer of olive oil.
a few scoops of this with equal amount grated cheese makes an instant pesto,
also great stirred into soups and stews, and baked in mac & cheese or veggie lasagna).

Although the garden soil, or the rest of the property weren’t organic,
(& the pollution from well-digging definitely didn’t help any)
we are going to do everything that we can organically,
and although we can’t find any organic plants or fruit trees here,
last weekend I found some organic lettuce, spinach & eggplant seeds,
to add to the collection/crop-rotation.

Hopefully, over time, through our biologic practices,
especially mushroom farming, we will be able to purify the land.

(Oyster mushrooms are renown for their ability
to digest & remove petroleum from contaminated soil.
Aside from the spawn we’ve brought over with us,
that we are beginning to spread throughout the yard,
we found a native strain of Oyster mushrooms
fruiting on a cork oak log as we were sawing firewood.

Oysters propagate well from their myceliated stem bases,
so with proper care, we should be able to expand this strain
& spread these fungus throughout the affected areas of our yard.)

So back to the well-drilling:
late on the second day they found water with pressure,
hopefully Spring water, but we will have to get it tested to verify.
So they removed the drill, replaced the drill pipe with pvc pipe,
and capped it over for the weekend.

Today the dowser came back, to see the results of the drillers.
We have spring water, from 105 meters down,
but with only enough pressure to move it 99 meters up towards the surface,
leaving us 6 meters short, and in need of some sort of pump.
This upcoming week, we will research our options and figure out what to do next.
Unfortunately, the well drilling was way more expensive than the estimate,
leaving us with no funds for a pump, or much of anything else, really.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to rehabilitate our yard. For starters,
I have been putting all the grass clippings over the devastated driveway,
laying them over the sludge and filling in the ruts from the truck tires.
The clippings are full of seeds, to help regrow the mucked up areas.
We still need to scrap the clayish muck away from some of the fruit trees,

and then give them a proper mulching during the upcoming Root time.

And now that it’s switched over to Fruit time, the weather’s been much drier,
so Monday afternoon I did the silicon on the front wall of the bathroom.
And filled in the gaps of the insulation with scrap pieces of foam.
And after I started measuring out the wall for cutting the cork,
(which was challenging with the window frames and angled roof beams),
Mohamed got out the cork and we got to work, and are about half done.

Tomorrow is another day…
And the Winter Solstice!

So once our darkest day is over,
more light will shine,
improving our solar system for the foreseeable future.

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December 19, 2016
Dec 13

Dec 13

I had a cold last week. I hate being sick.

I find it offensive, as though the germs are deliberately attacking my ability to get stuff done.

At first I thought it was nothing major, some dry coughing, runny nose. Enough to keep me home from my day job. When I couldn’t go into work on Tuesday morning, I thought “well at least I can get things done around the house.” I walked downstairs put in a load of laundry, walked back up and that was all the energy I had for the day. Zilch accomplished.  And if that wasn’t bad enough, three days later, on Friday, I laid down to take a “short nap” at 9 am and must have turned off my alarm. Because I woke at 1:23pm.

Five days.

Five days of being flat out and getting nothing done.

The rational part of my brain says I obviously needed the rest to heal. The rest of my brain is jumping up and down with clenched hands throwing a temper tantrum of epic proportions. All. That. Time. WASTED!

Sigh.

It seems as though, for me, this hiatus is a lot about letting go. Letting go of self-imposed stress. Self-imposed expectations. Letting go of my ideas of what productivity means (more output, more checks on lists, more action!) and accepting that sometimes what seems to be unproductive is good. My jaw hurts just thinking that but I’m trying to get there.  

In the wee hours of the night when I was lying awake with hamsters running around my brain I started composing this post about the end of my clay class and the things I made and more importantly learned. I will get to that.

But then, like most trains of thought at 3 am, it took a left turn.

And I started thinking about the weather.

When I interned in England in 2002 my supervisor commented that Canadians are obsessed with the weather, she didn’t know of any other nationality who kept such a constant eye on what was happening outside and what was upcoming. At the time I was shocked and I realized it was true.  We are obsessed. But when Mother Nature is out to kill you 8+ months of the year, it’s important to pay attention. Last week it averaged about -30 C. One day, five of the coldest places ON EARTH were in my province. And everyone still has to get to work, buy groceries, and go on living, even if your skin can freeze in 10 minutes.

That internship made me fascinated with how people from other places view so-called mundane things – like distances. I discovered all the other interns, who were from countries around Europe, had a very condensed sense of distances. I had been looking into some side trips to Scotland, France, and the Netherlands. Living in Canada I see it as no big deal to drive 3 hours for a visit. I know lots of people who go that far for a daytrip. I told the other interns I was thinking of driving to Scotland for 3 days and they acted as if I were mad. One woman from the Czech Republic was flabbergasted – her family had a cottage three hours from Prague and they felt it too far to drive for less than a week. As an undergrad I’d drive 8-10 hours home for a 3-day weekend (similar to the trip I thought to take to Scotland). But a half-dozen interns is a small sample, do other people feel the same way? Distance is a set thing, a solid measurable number, but peoples’ perceptions of, and relationship to it, seem so different.

Another thing that interests me lately is peoples’ experience of wildlife – I wonder is it a ‘Canadian-thing’, ‘a Calgary-Thing’, or…what? I live inner city in a city of about 1.2 million people. I often joke to my husband that in the event of a ‘real zombie apocalypse’, at the rate we hike, it would take a week to get to the city limits. My son’s school is even further towards the downtown. But this is an email we received from his school yesterday:

Seriously. Bobcats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobcat (It’s probably actually a Canadian Lynx but that’s mostly semantics, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_lynx ).

I had been wondering why we hadn’t had as many hares around the yard this year. There’s usually two-four who camp out on our front lawn, plus ones we see roaming the back alley. Now I guess I have my answer.

Bobcats.

And I was worried letting Arthur walk to school because of reckless drivers!  Ha!

Do people in other places/cities/countries have things like this happen? Bobcats this far into town are a new thing, but hares, deer, coyotes, cougars, and even the occasional bear are all normal-ish to have in the suburbs here. It seems to me that Calgary is unusual in having so much wildlife, or am I wrong?

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December 19, 2016
Mighty SCOBYs

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December 15, 2016
uncovering the future

The big well drilling machine arrived the other day.
It is huge. And next to it, an even larger generator to run it.

Since we moved in,
we’ve been doing things very minimally,
mostly by hand, using machinery as little as possible.
And now that this monstrous thing has showed up,
I feel intimidated by the sheer size and scale of it;
and I guess the noise will be more than the sight of it.
Much more…

However, we trust the man we hired,
and hope that he is able to find Aqua Nascente:
Spring water, drinkable water, on the hillside right above our house.
He seems fairly sure that he will be successful,
and once the artesian well is dug,
our water worries will be over.

(The previous system had an unpredictable flow,
required almost weekly maintenance,
and was agricultural irrigation water from the Mira river,
which flowed from Santa Clara lake in the mountains.
Although unpolluted, it was surface flowing and not pure.
And it ran through many farms, some that are larger, agrochemical farms.)

Also, we will be able to use the artesian well
for both our house and the guesthouse in the rebuilt ruin,
as well as having faucets for the outdoor kitchen,
and perhaps an outdoor shower stall.

As an update for rebuilding the ruin,
we met with eco-architects today
to discuss our construction possibilities.
They specialize in low-impact design,
utilizing native materials, including taipa and adobe.
I’m hoping we can reuse and reinforce the existing walls,
as I really like their antiquated, from-the-earth, aesthetic.

And they seem think it is possible.
They design and build with their own-made materials:

including earthen bricks and tile, as well as reclaimed roof tiles,
and custom windows and doors from reclaimed wood.
Their office is a testing ground for various materials and techniques,
so it was a really fun and informative visit.

One of the architect, João, agreed to come for a site-visit next week.
At that point, we’ll have a better idea of what of the ruin we can reuse.

In order to get clearer photos for the architects,
I spent hours cutting away blackberry bushes from the exterior walls.
On the second day, I uncovered a small stone and brick structure.
Yesterday I cut away to reveal an old outdoor bread oven,
with a cool domed brick interior.

Although it was covered in blackberries,
the side and back vents still seem clear,
but the front will need some rebuilding.
I was planning on building a traditional outdoor bread oven,
as they are great for my homemade pizzas and flatbread,
and keep the house cool during the long summer months.

And it is in a great location.
since it is only a few meters from the ruin,
where we hope to put a grape arbored terrace.
The architects have designed and built several terraces and arbors,
including some using antique timbers.
I’ve got to clear away more of the blackberries this weekend,
so that proper measurements can be taken next week.

On our return from the architects,
our hearts were broken…

To begin with, the sound and vibration are awful.
And we feel guilty for the disturbance to all our animal neighbors,
especially the moles that have tunnels near the digging site.

To move the well-digging machinery into place,
the laborers drove the trucks through our front yard,
tearing up huge patches of our land.

And after a certain point in the drilling,
the drill began sputtering out a grey slick spray,
which began running down the property,
like a polluted stream through our little Shangri-La.
It seems to be a thick layer on the surface, like foamy oil slick,
but had begun to pool and puddle halfway down the front yard.

After the men left, Mohamed cut a trench to divert the flow,
and after nightfall, it began to rain,
so we are anxious and unsure about
the state of our yard come morning.

We spent part of the afternoon in shock,
wondering if this well was the right thing to do,
because we never intended to pollute our yard,
and fear it will take more than the mushrooms we brought
to heal the damage that this machinery is causing.

Luckily, the architects are low-impact and environmentally-sensitive,
which has been the silvery lining in what would otherwise have been a nightmare.

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December 12, 2016
The big one

This was the race I’ve been building up to; 100km with over 6000m of climbing, reportedly the toughest 100km race in HK and my first attempt at the distance.

Here is the start/finish, the last 5km of the course ran along the ridge in the background, Pat Sin Leng. But I had a lot of running to do before getting there.

We set off on a beautiful morning at Plover Cove Reservoir, the sun stayed out all day. A few runners were caught out by the heat, but conditions were pretty nice. 

A nice thing about running long distances is that going at slow speed it is easy to chat with the runners around you. For the first 20km I was among a pretty sociable pack of runners. And the scenery was lovely.

I was aiming to finish inside of 18 hours. The week before the race I made an elaborate chart of the split-times of runners who had finished this course in 18 hours in previous years and used it as a basis for planning my day. 

I also arranged to have some support waiting for me at two of the aid stations. Here I am leaving aid station 6 wearing a fresh pair of socks, approaching the 60km mark, just before Tai Mo Shan, the tallest mountain along the route.

I reached the summit of Tai Mo Shan at nightfall. The next aid station had some good potato soup on offer, which really hit the spot. As I passed 70km, further than I’ve ever gone before, I saw fewer and fewer fellow runners. At 72km there was a deep river-crossing, that fresh pair of socks were definitely not fresh any more.

From here on I concentrated on keeping a steady pace. The mind wanders into some bizarre territory when you spend this long running alone at night in the forest.

Did I imagine it or was there a dead fish on the side of the trail back there?

I had been taking care to eat plenty of food all day, but by the final aid station I was starving. I chomped down a bowl of thick gooey congee (a rice-based porridge), half a sandwich, a cup of tea, some energy drink, two cups of Coke. I ate it all way too fast and most of it came straight back up again.

One more big climb up to that ridge. My Cantonese is not great, but I knew that Pat Sin Leng means Eight Somethings Ridge. If I had done more research I would have known that it means Ridge of the Eight Immortals. If I had given it some thought, I should have realised that the name Eight Immortals refers to the eight more peaks between me and the finish line.

From where I was running along the top of the ridge I could see the lights of the finish line 500 vertical meters below. 

With my GPS watch reading 94km, a sharp mountain peak emerged from the darkness ahead of me. One last climb I thought to myself. 

But then, a second peak appeared beyond the first. Any minute mow the trail was going to turn downhill all the way to the finish. But every time the trail began to descend, another of the eight peaks would be appear out of the dark.

Until eventually, after nearly 98km, the trail turned and headed down towards the finish.

Well, nearly. There was one last little hill before the finish line, but no big deal. After 101km in 17 hours and 43 minutes I was back where I started. Time for a drink with some other finishers.

My legs were feeling pretty ok all things considered. The biggest challenge of the night was going to be getting a cab back from the remote finish area to my flat. I should do a post on Hong Kong Taxis, they don’t always make life easy for you.

The next morning I headed to a German Christmas market, the perfect place to replace some of the thousands of calories I’d just burned.

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December 11, 2016
Toronto 2016 Report

We had a great time speaking to a group of art students in the “Professional Practice” class at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada last weekend.  Some were reported to be playing a video game or what-not throughout the talk, (can’t blame them!)  but there were quite a few enthusiastic students who asked engaging questions, and we felt better about the future of the “artworld” (;  These kids are super lucky to have a progressive professor invite RFAOH to discuss a reality and alternative approaches to our contemporary time in the arts. (When we were in school, the artists who came to talk were often “too successful”^^)   In bringing our own perspective to these young artists on how or what it means to work in this domain given our bizarre/daunting times, we were reminded of this point made by Ben Davis in a recent article in artnet news:

“…some soul-searching assessment of the limits of our own gestures, and some clear-eyed analysis of what rhetoric is effective and what is not, is going to be very, very important in the years to come. It will not be enough to languish in mythological beliefs about art’s value as a humanistic salve, or even to fly the flag for “political art” as a genre.  We have to debate strategy.”

Artists have never had it easy at any time in history, but it surely feels like now is a peculiar time to be practicing art, within an abyss of information and “democratic” access to cultural capital (but not to real capital), where, once again, “everyone is an artist”.  Our old friend and a known neon artist (but retired from the “artworld”, he claims) told us that he’s now often commissioned by art galleries to make a piece for their clients who have a “great idea” for a neon work but do not know how to make it or where to go to have it made.  So the gallery who is in the know asks him to make it and sells it to these people, and our friend goes to hang “their art” at their home without his name attached.  Are we too naive to be stunned by this?  Even though nothing like New York or London, Toronto is a big enough city with a big enough art community to offer these bizarre stories (a hip restaurant brazenly ripping off an artist’s work that everyone knows yet no apology or compensation in court; a major public gallery deleting a small artist’s online project to protect their “brand”) — all are real inspirations for RFAOH, often more so than art exhibitions.

But once again, the highlight of our presentation visit was the chance to meet with one of our current residents Joyce Lau at a local brewery (how counterintuitive is it?), and to visit our ex-resident Ryan Ringer‘s hiatus project Grey Tiger! Unfortunately Ryan was too busy working the cafe to come and share his experiences at our talk, but we were very happy to see him and his project in person. (Sorry we forgot to take photos of his storefront but he’s got great drinks!)
We hope that 2017 will continue to bring more of these opportunities to gather the real people from our virtual community together.  Please send any request for a visit our way! 

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December 11, 2016
corking around

It was a beautifully warm and sunny Sunday.
So today we hung cork while the sun shined.

We bought the battery-powered drill on Saturday,
and it was a lot smaller than the picture suggested,
small enough, in fact, for Marmalade to use it
(with our supervision, of course).

So Mohamed put in some foam insulation to fill in the missing pieces,
then I re-measured the wall to plan where to out the panels
(they are 1 meter x 1/2 meter, and 5 cm thick,
but of course, our wall isn’t).

Luckily the cork panels are easy to cut,
even though almost 2 inches thick,
it cut like stale bread.
And even easier to hang,
especially with our new drill.

We hung the top pieces while Marmalade was distracted
playing with her lego-like fire truck that she got from Pai Natal
(a.k.a. Santa) at her holiday party at school.
Then when she started to get interested in our work,
we let her push the trigger to operate the drill,
while I held the screw and drill near the bit,
and Mohamed held the panels.

Within a few hours, we had a whole new exterior bathroom wall.
The second one will require a lot more measuring and cutting,
to fit around the windows, so we’ll tackle that when we get the time.

And they have a really nice natural smokey smell!
All in all, they are a great product,
locally-made, carbon-negative, 100% natural cork,
steam-treated, with no additives, and no production waste

Otherwise, since it was a Fruit time,
Marmalade helped me plant some more peas in the garden.
I also cleared some of the overgrowth from around the cherry trees.
Phew.

Tomorrow’s my birthday,
so I’ll be making a cheesecake.
And since the oven will be on,
roasting a small hokkaido squash for a soup for dinner.

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December 9, 2016
baby steps: part two

So the first two weeks of school has been exhausting…
Marmalade hasn’t been excited to go,
and each morning has been a struggle to get her ready and into the car.
By pick up time, she seems like she had okay days,
playing independently and with the other children,
and participating in most of the class projects.
This Friday her class had some sort of performance,
and Marmalade was supposed be the sun, so we were excited,
hoping that she’d somehow integrate into the group.
But as soon as she saw me, she clinged on and wouldn’t participate.
She did watch the other children perform, and enjoyed their holiday party afterwards.

It was really unreal to be there, as parents among other kindergarten parents,
but unalike in every which way. But they are very friendly.
We will keep trying to get Marmalade adjusted to school.

Over the past weekend, we saw fruit trees for sale while out getting groceries.
Since it was a Fruit time, we bought a pomegranate tree, an apricot tree,
another peach tree, and our first raspberry bush.
Unfortunately, it was down-pouring all weekend;
so the holes were easy to dig but filled up fast,
so it was like trying to plant the trees into soup.
We got them in, pruned them a little,
and once the rain finally stopped, the ground firmed up.
They seem okay, and the raspberry now has green buds emerging.

On Monday I spent hours in the garden,
clearing the very bottom garden box,
and planting the cloves from two heads of garlic,
and carrots and radish seeds (as it was a Root time).
Some of the onions emerged during the Root time,
and more have followed their lead, so we will have plenty.
I weeded around the first radishes I had planted,

accidentally harvesting two; they were delicious.

I have been harvesting a lot of arugula,
almost daily for sandwiches and into whatever we have for dinner.
And the oyster mushrooms we brought have been continuing to fruit,
so they’ve been added to pasta sauce (with sun-dried tomatoes and capers)
and into a tomato barley soup I made over the weekend.

Otherwise, our cork siding has been delivered.
It is 5 cm thick, so more than our hand drill can manage.
Luckily, a battery-recharging power drill goes on sale this Saturday at a nearby store,
so hopefully that will help us along.

In the meantime, I began putting silicone sealant
along all the window frames and other edges to keep the moisture out.
We need to fill in the few bits of foam that are missing from the exterior insulation.
And recently we heard a gnawing noise in the other wall of the bathroom.
Inspecting outside, I saw two small holes bored in the siding;
so that will be another project.

Yesterday morning while Marmalade was in school,
I went into the nearby forest and sawed a downed eucalyptus tree into firewood.
Our neighbors warned that January and February can get quite cold here,
so aside from all the housework and garden work,
we are collecting, cutting, and stockpiling firewood.
We’ve only been having fires sporadically so far,
mostly to dry the house out (and the laundry),
since it really hasn’t been very cold yet.

And we’ve met with a well digger last week,
as we want to put an artesian well on the hill above the house.
He seems to be an intuitive, and through his dowsing,
was able to find two intersecting water lines
only a few feet from where we wanted the well dug.
He is now applying for the permits and should begin in a few weeks.
He’s a very cool guy; I hope to video his dowsing during his next visit.

Otherwise, we are just trying to keep on keeping on.
Mohamed unclogged the water system again this morning.
And spent the afternoon testing all the batteries of our solar system,
and after testing, decided to remove four of the oldest batteries,
that were probably draining the system more than helping us out.
Since it was a Leaf day, I spent the morning weeding out the arugula and kale patches.
And everyday I try to clear our more of the overgrowth,
somedays the waist-high grasses along the paths,
somedays, when I’m feeling brave, or ready for the blood loss,
I tackle some more of the blackberry bushes.

Tomorrow afternoon we switch over to Fruit time,
so Marmalade wants to help me plant some more peas.
I love getting her into the garden!

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December 7, 2016
Finding Home, Finding Love and Finding Work: the Proximity Between Us

It’s 8,500km kilometers as I type away (when en route from Singapore to Zurich). This is finally over, I meant my time in Singapore… Pardon my tone but it was hard being there; the anxiety, the panics, the stress and so on. Work was hardly possible — except during my first week — with everything going on at home now. 

One would accuse me of being an escapist. Perhaps I am, but I am also very much so trying to face the problems that I (and everyone else) have of; finding home, finding love and finding work. I do not expect these things to magically be resolved and therefore I’m constantly telling myself that it is okay to be in such a state — a state of precarity — I just have a more unconventional approach, that’s all. Moreover, it’s been way past that question of, “why leave, not stay”, it is exactly because of my failure to see and grasp the reality of staying after that trauma. Despite that, my heart is dying to stay but my soul gets sucked dry each time I try. 

I’m glad we did not meet (yes, I said it) although we did briefly and coincidentally crossed path. And the reason being because we are just not ready to see each other again, or maybe it is really just me. Being friends is wishful thinking because the moment we fell in love we both knew going back would be impossible (as our history has shown). I am accepting that “we” will become memories we hold dear to. Since all else has failed, my insistence on moving on and letting go came on so strong after that trauma, it is only fair that we both try to let this love go, just like how we held on to it. 

Chances are, I’m going to be drifting for a few years but that’s fine as long as I’m doing something. I will naturally “settle” once I find a place that gives me a reason to. The possibilities of moving back to Singapore is high considering the urgency but then, how possible is it for me to maintain life both in Amsterdam and Singapore? In terms of work, at the moment (as I always say at the end of the year) it looks promising. My main task would be completing my masters thesis and graduating from the DAI in June with a kick-ass research on hand. Then, hopefully ending my hiatus and kicking off with a Demasculinized research residency with Andre in Switzerland and then a research (I cannot disclose yet) in Beijing for two months before returning to Singapore for a bit and Amsterdam during late fall. 

Off to school for now! 

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December 7, 2016
Brew day set-up

I have some other photos too, but figured this gives a good idea of what a brew day looks like. Next post will be more exhilarating — I swear! 🙂

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December 5, 2016
Dec 5

Dec 5

I love Christmas. Mostly.

I love lights, treat foods, music, the tree, the presents (to a degree…).

I love the preparations – cooking, and making, and visiting Christmas markets.

One of our biggest traditions is unpacking the tree and setting it up. We take out all the special ornaments and talk about where each one came from – these from Mommy’s Aunt for each of the boys’ first Christmas’s…this bell Mommy gave to Daddy…this was from Nanny and Poppy… each has a story and memory. This year it’s going to be melancholy. Over 20 years more than a few came from my mother-in-law. Telling those stories is going to be hard. I always want my boys to remember the joy and adoration she felt for them. But I know Ned at 4 will have no solid memories of her. Only shadow memories of the stories we’ve repeated so often he thinks he remembers. That hurts my heart in ways I can’t even articulate.

I thought this was going to be a cheerful post about the Christmas markets we went to this weekend and how we all loved it.

But apparently not.

Some of my clay came back, fortunately not too dark. The rest will hopefully go though the kiln this week.

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December 5, 2016
Nov 28

Nov 28

(and yes, I posted this Dec 5th. I seem to be making a habit of writing and then posting late.  😥 )

This has been a good week.

Despite lots of things going on I could feel anxious about I feel cheerful and marginally hopeful. Always a good feeling – and then my dark side says “We’ll see how long it lasts” – but whatever, today it is good.

I made several things – we did glazing in Clay class so that was kind of thrilling (last day sadly but yeah, I work there so I can keep doing more!) I had a lot of works to glaze and have never really done it before so it’s totally one big experiment.  I have a couple pieces I really want to turn out for Christmas presents but otherwise am just excited to see what happens in the kiln. We had the choice of staining some pieces under the glaze to bring out the texture – I was possibly a little too enthusiastic and may end up with very Nightmare before Christmas style decorations.

At my other job we have an ‘upcycled art’ charity auction each year, my colleagues and I decided to contribute. :’P

Super silly but still fun. I made the ring and they made the stand from materials we found in the lab.

And I did a few press molded eggs from a porcelain sample a friend gave me. I’m super enjoying carving them.  I haven’t carved anything in at least a decade and had forgotten how wonderful it feels when a blade is slicing just perfectly through the material.

We started putting up Christmas lights – they’re always my favorite part. Even without decorations, just sitting and seeing the lights on the tree feels cozy and relaxing.

Cheers!

Lee

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December 1, 2016
First Brew Day! What a doozy!

Just did my first big brew day with kombucha and beer experiments, and boy was it a humdinger (I googled synonyms for “doozy” and that’s the word that I got –haha. Why not? :)! It was a rather ambitious day of trying out different combinations. I’m excited to see the results!

From left to right, top to bottom, these are my different blends:

1. Wort with ale yeast
2. Wort with kombucha and ale yeast
3. Sweet tart kombucha with fresh sweet tea and ale yeast (3:1 ratio kombucha to sweet tea)
4. Sour kombucha with fresh sweet tea and ale yeast (5:4 ratio kombucha to sweet tea)
5. Wort with kombucha and SCOBY
6. Wort with SCOBY (no starter kombucha)
7. Wort with kombucha and  SCOBY (anaerobic fermentation)
8. Kombucha with SCOBY
9. Kombucha with SCOBY
10. Kombucha with SCOBY
11. Kombucha with fresh sweet tea (no SCOBY), souring, to blend with wort after fermentation

More details and photos to come!!

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December 1, 2016
Roman Toasts

ArtNews.com has been running a series of interviews titled “How to fix the Art World” (part 1 2 3). Honestly, not all the concerns or answers are golden but here’s a line from Liam Gillick in the part two segment, which may resonate with our interests. (though it’s ironic that unlike ourselves, he clearly has a “career” in the arts) 

“There are two things guaranteed to undermine any self-respecting artist: One is the word “career”; the other is the notion of having a “career” in the “art world.” There is something wrong with the whole concept. A world-conquering imperialist claim that overreaches combined with a diminished sense that we are just part of a “world” within the world—a special bubble apart from reality.” 

We often wonder about the rhetoric of “career” which is normally associated with income/money, and thus, an almost impossible definition for the majority in the arts.  Would replacing the term “career” with “profession” be any better? And if neither works, what is it that we do as art or artists — “hobbies”? “volunteering”? “lifework?”  Lack of funds limit a lot of possibilities for sure but it’s the rhetoric that limits our world, our perception, imagination, freedom and ultimately, empathy. 

In light of all this, we also wanted to share “Dirty talks : Money“, the inaugural issue of an online publication Station to Station by Transartists.  It’s a great read with no necessarily satisfying conclusions.  We have been invited to contribute to their next issue to “make the *magic* happen”, and we plan to talk about “visibility” as one’s bread and butter.  Stay tuned. 

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