Ene spins the composter above our vegetable garden MIX, our bike-powered compost tumbler, has found a final home on the Wowhaus compound, perched atop what remains of a pool deck, above our vegetable garden. The tumbler quickly breaks down our kitchen scraps, mixed with ashes and sawdust, and dumps the mixture into a garden bed […]
Monthly Archives: July 2009
Wowhaus Goes to Town
One of the wonderful things about having a rural home and studio is that going to town is always pretty thrilling, even for a long day of Wowhaus project-related meetings, as is occasionally our charge. Ene and I gussy up a bit, put on our shoes, pack up and head south, catching up on the […]
Rooftop Lizard Habitat
Artist Mark Brest van Kempen explains his water catchment/recycling system We spent an inspiring evening yesterday at the home of our friend Mark Brest van Kempen, an Oakland-based artist whose work “draws our attention to nature’s role as source, setting and savior“. Mark’s house and studio are a kind of living laboratory nestled in the […]
Giant Eucalyptus
Taking a break under a giant bluegum eucalyptus on Whitaker Bluff The eucalyptus was planted extensively throughout California by Australians during the Gold Rush for use as timber. They mistakenly thought the wood to be well suited for railroad ties, but the trees took differently to the soil and tended to grow in spirals, the […]
The Week in Bloom
Shell Beach, from the Kortum Trail I thought appreciatively of Bill Kortum as we hiked the section of the California Coastal Trail named in his honor. Bill is an environmentalist of local renown who has been instrumental in protecting the coastline for public use. The late morning fog kept us cool as we made our […]
Running Fence Revisited #1
A section of the fabric from Christo’s ‘Running Fence’ (1976) is used as a backdrop for the Salami Toss at the Occidental Fire Department’s annual summer barbecue. When Christo and Jeanne-Claude realized their seminal Running Fence project in West Sonoma County in the mid-1970’s, they traded materials used to construct the 24 mile long fence […]
Scent Memory (Yankee Beach Cottage)
In the powdered donut drawer, a bank’s blue ballpoint pens. Beneath the white pine floor damp sand beds cedar cellar beams. Above the front screen door, the transom’s wavy pane’s trimmed, pinned with enough loving imperfection to shed a season’s rains in a blow, sweetening the chamfered glow.