chroniques d’une fraise

I’m posting for one reason and one reason only: The Compostopedia. It includes The Big Book of Compost, readable in-line at that link or by download. It’s “a searchable PDF of the 1956 World Health Organization manual on Composting”; “one of the best resources on composting [they] have ever seen.” Indeed it is!!

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The City of Nice, through La Maison de l’Environnement, is giving out free “individual” composters currently, as they do every year. (Several other French cities and communes do the same — check with yours. I’ve also heard of US and UK cities with […]

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After three months of on and off rain, which is not at all normal for Nice (usually the late spring-early summer rains only last about a month), the sun has finally started to heat up the city.
As I’d hoped, the technician was able […]

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This is my cat. As you can see, he may pretend to be sweet and snuggly and sleepy and all that most of the time, but in reality, he’s a stealer of souls and strikes when you least expect it.
Today I had to […]

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My new terrace, finally clean! And this photo only shows two thirds of it (doesn’t show my windows, on the right, nor the part behind me). My privacy blinds are more for show than actual effectiveness, apparently, but they do help a bit. […]

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The Daily Show’s Holistay bit is great. I had a brief “heh?” moment when John Hodgman snootily says he’s going to Monaco, not necessarily because it’s a 20-minute, 10-euro train ride from where I live, but because it’s a rather boring place to […]

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EDF, the main French electricity supplier, finally hooked me up yesterday (Monday), meaning Malo and I fully moved in just then. All of my things had been moved two weeks earlier; luckily I’d kept essentials — and Malo — at my old place […]

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I’ve had a hankering for baked potato with chives, which helped remind me that chives are easy to grow. Once again I walked to the Fiol gardening store, and once again I was tempted by other plants as well. On a tight budget […]

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My neighbors across the quiet residential alley from my balcony probably wonder why I contort myself so strangely to take photos of plants: every once in a while I’ll spot someone staring at me oddly. Today I got on my back to see […]

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My air plants arrived this week. They’re too small to put in the glass candleholders I’d found, but were just right for the two bonsai pots from the same secondhand store. I also got a bell cup to hold one of the tillandsia. […]