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Monthly Archives: November 2008

Your cauliflower is calling you…

OK, so cauliflower lacks color. But we don’t hold that against taters or chardonnay, do we? Now that the fresh greens have died out and the garden is in winter mode, we’re back to the winter diet. One of the vegetables that even the country grocery stores have during the winter is cauliflower. Cauliflower is […]

The garlic bed

Now that the turnips and mustard are clear of the raised bed, I’ve planted the garlic. The burlap cover is to keep the cat out. After the garlic has a good start, I’ll remove the burlap. The cat, Lily, ruined a third of the turnip and mustard crop by flinging dirt before the plants were […]

The gothic moon

The waning moon, 6:45 a.m., November 23, 2008.

Lesson learnt, turnipwise…

My pitiful turnip crop, 2008. That’s mustard on the right. I head eaten turnip and mustard greens for weeks and weeks, but last night the poor turnips froze. I wasn’t careful enough. Turnips don’t mind frost, but they sure didn’t like the hard freeze we had last night. According to my outdoor thermometer, the low […]

Apple trees

An old-fashioned limbertwig You’d think that for all the work I did planting apple trees this week that there’d be something more photogenic. But at this point there’s not really much to see. Each tree is four feet tall (with almost a foot of it underground). And each tree is heavily pruned. I planted nine […]

So the deflationists were right

The Baltic Dry Index measures the cost of shipping by sea. All of a sudden, worldwide shipping has drastically slowed. The cost of commodities like copper have fallen rapidly. It has been clear for two years that an economic calamity lay ahead. What was not clear, though, was whether the bust would be accompanied by […]

Another mess of greens

Of all the low-intensity gardening I did this year, the mustard greens probably were the most productive for the least effort. I just sprinkled some seeds in the raised bed, and, ka-boom, instant greens. The rain of the last three days has rejuvenated them. I think I’ll harvest all the turnips next week.

Cat portraits

Lily in the morning light — James-Michael Gregg A friend was visiting from California a couple of weeks ago, and he took hundreds of photos of Lily with his iPhone. Two photos, in particular, caught light and color in a wonderful way. I used Gimp to apply an “oilify” effect. Lily in the morning shadow

Where late the sweet birds sang

Early fall has very quickly become middle fall. Though these pear trees up the road still have most of their leaves, the leaves on the trees in the woods are turning brown and falling. Summer’s lease hath all too short a date. A bare, ruin’d choir of woods below my house A briar berry A […]

Guns?

Some of my friends back in San Francisco might be surprised to know that I’ve bought a couple of guns since I moved to North Carolina. But I haven’t the slightest guilt about it. Being able to competently use a firearm is a great skill. Though I was a pretty good shot when I was […]