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Monthly Archives: September 2010

Water independence and water security

The gauge shows the 3.5 inches that fell last night. To me, few things are as disturbing as a drought. And few things make me feel more secure than the sound of water rushing in my little stream. I can hear the water now through the upstairs open window that faces the woods. The remnants […]

Patience gives up

Patience, back in the chicken lot after three months on the nest One often reads that the broodiness has been bred out of modern chickens. Not completely. Patience, one of my Barred Rock hens, sat on the nest (on infertile, roosterless eggs) for three months. She finally ventured out yesterday. While she was brooding, nothing […]

Self-serve pumpkins and hay

I wish more farmers would put out self-service roadside stands. This one is near Sandy Ridge, five miles or so north of Acorn Abbey. I bought a bale of hay, but I’m not yet ready for pumpkins. Next month, when the weather is nice and cool, I’ll make pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie.

A real monastery in Stokes?

While driving back from Cana, Virginia, today (a trip to get organic fertilizers — more on that later) I took a different route home on N.C. 704 through northern Stokes County. I was surprised to see a sign pointing to a Greek Orthodox monastery. I couldn’t resist driving part way down their long driveway and […]

Tough tilling

That’s young turnips in the raised bed. It’s amazing how fast that half an inch of rain that fell Wednesday dried out when the 90-degree heat returned. When I started tilling in the garden area Friday morning, the moisture was barely noticeable. The new tiller is very aggressive, though, so in spite of the sticks […]

Rain at last

Weather Underground The most miserable hot and dry spell of the summer finally came to an end tonight. Who’d have thought that we’d have that hot and dry spell in September? Unfortunately, it was a smallish storm that didn’t benefit a lot of people, but it left .5 or .6 inch here. That’s enough to […]

A chocolate fit made me do it

I had a chocolate fit this evening, and I thought of brownies. If I’ve ever made brownies before, I don’t remember it. As usual, I turned to the 1943 edition of Irma Rombauer’s Joy of Cooking. She has a recipe for brownies that uses molasses mixed with the sugar. I substituted olive oil for the […]

September: It's the new August

I had expected some relief in September from the hot, dry summer. But it’s been three weeks since we had rain, and temperatures are still hitting 90. The forecast for the next week looks much the same. The fields are full of yellow flowers, though. That’s the best thing about this time of year. The […]

John Twelve Hawks and the Vast Machine

It’s been a long time since I’ve kept up with what’s new in science fiction. In the early 1980s, I ran a very popular and very literate computer bulletin board (remember those?) called Science Fiction Writers Network. Some of the big names were regulars there, including most notably Orson Scott Card, who won both the […]

La saison de la soupe est ouverte!

Vegan cream of mushroom soup The low temperature last night was about 50 degrees, and today at noon we were up to only 72. So I decided that today is the official start of soup season. This was a vegan soup made with mushrooms, minced onions, celery, and carrots. All that was sautéed in olive […]