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Monthly Archives: December 2011

The magic of oranges

Saturday, December 24, 2011

One of the compensations for the bleakness of winter is that the oranges start pouring out of Florida and California. As far as I can tell, in this part of the country, the winter trucking of oranges north from Florida works pretty much the same as it did when I was a child in the […]

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The hens aren't retired after all

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

My hens abruptly stopped laying back in the summer after two years of laying strong. I had no eggs at all during August, September, October, November, and much of December. I still have a great deal to learn about chickens. The only theory that I could come up with was that they had already reached […]

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First shiitake mushrooms

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

A few days ago we had yet another round of unseasonably warm weather and rain. That caused my first shiitake mushrooms to pop out. They had frozen by the time I found them, and they won’t be edible, but at least it’s a good sign. I’m hoping it means that I will have a decent […]

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It's good I like turnips

Friday, December 9, 2011

I’m sure I’ll never get over the thrill of knowing that supper came home in a wheelbarrow rather than a grocery bag. I harvested the remaining turnips today, because they’d stopped growing, and the risk of a hard freeze is increasing. It seems strange that the garden is still producing turnips, mustard, and kale during […]

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Royalty, rusting

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

[Click here for High-Res] Fortunately I’ve never been badly afflicted with a craving for fancy cars. However, I’ve had a thing for Jaguars ever since I was a teen-ager — the sedans, not so much the sporty types. I came across this old guy today on a country backroad north of me, parked outside a […]

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LED lighting

Saturday, December 3, 2011

There are five LEDs in these spotlights, in finned aluminum heat sinks. LED light bulbs are still pricey, but the cost has been coming down, and the variety of bulbs available is increasing. I wanted interesting lighting for my living room, which has a 21-foot ceiling and lots of planes and angles. My concept was […]

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How your privacy is bought and sold

Friday, December 2, 2011

Thanks to a WikiLeaks document dump, we now know more than ever about how private corporations are spying on all of us (unless you’re off the grid) and selling the data to whoever will pay for it, including, of course, governments. If you use a cell phone or a computer, you are being monitored. One […]

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