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Monthly Archives: July 2010

All work and no play: Not

Self-portrait: Ken Ilgunas in the Dan River Quite a lot of work has gotten done at Acorn Abbey this summer. But Ken still has time to go on five-mile runs (2.5 miles each way) to the Dan River. There’s a swimming spot. Yesterday, Ken went on a hike in which he followed the little stream […]

Browser wars

Once upon a time, in the innocent early days of Web browsing, it was pop-up ads that drove us crazy. Browsers responded by including built-in pop-up blockers. That helped, for a while. But advertising fiends are always going to find new ways of annoying us with ads we don’t want to see, trying to sell […]

Animals running wild

A deer hides in the woods and watches. Ken just happened to have his camera ready. Ken Ilgunas posted an item on his blog today with lots of photos, with the title “The Animals of Acorn Abbey.” There’s also a video of Ken chasing a groundhog out of the sweet potato patch. I suppose I […]

Two more chicken pictures

Portrait of Ruth by Ken Ilgunas Ken took a lot of chicken pictures today. Here are a couple of them. Ruth, by the way, is a Golden Comet chicken, and Chastity is a Barred Rock. Ruth seems to have the most personality. She was the dominant chicken in the pecking order for a long time, […]

Garden life

Front to back: Ruth, Chastity, and Ken. Ken is watering a young blueberry bush.

Carolina morning

From the road Recently a reader asked for more pictures of the grounds of Acorn Abbey. I admit that I’m stingy with such photos. This is because it will be years before the abbey looks the way I want it to look — overgrown and blooming. Ken and I have planted a lot of stuff […]

American cable and broadband: A ripoff

A screen shot from the web site of Orange SA, a French telecom company Periodically I check broadband costs in France, just to see how badly we have fallen behind in the United States. In France, you can get a package that includes Internet service, television, and telephone for 34.90 euros — about $45 — […]

Southern style tomato sandwiches

Ken’s first taste of Bunny bread Once upon a time, when you grew up in the South, tomato sandwiches were what you had for lunch. For a proper Southern tomato sandwich, the whitest, fluffiest bread you can find is in order. Here at the abbey, I bake all the bread, whether it’s biscuits, sourdough loaves, […]

Some good theology…

I passed this sign in front of a church on a trip to the Yadkin Valley and back today. The church is on a country road between Siloam and Pinnacle.

Bat houses

I finally got my bat houses put up yesterday. There were carpenters here to work on making Acorn Abbey more waterproof, and while they were here I asked them to use their ladder to put up the bat houses. I bought the bat houses from the Organization for Bat Conservation. The bat houses are at […]