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Monthly Archives: August 2014

Caboose for sale

How often do you get a chance to buy a caboose? This one is on U.S. 311 just south of Madison, N.C.

Green lanterns

Some people around here call these Chinese lanterns, and others call them Japanese lanterns. Though they seem exotic, they can become invasive. Obviously they love rich, organic soil, and each year they volunteer in and around the garden. Can you espy the moth?

Beans on a wire

Garden note for next year: The beans love growing on the fence on the lower side of the garden.

Not a spring chicken anymore

Can you tell which egg is the first egg from a spring chicken, now five months old? Spring chickens usually start laying in August. With a little experience and encouragement, they learn to lay larger eggs.

Peanut butter: a cream substitute

Several times recently I’ve written about quick pasta dishes based on garden vegetables and a sauce made of cream heated in a skillet until it thickens. There’s also a vegan and no-cholesterol alternative: peanut butter sauce. To make the peanut butter sauce, gradually add water to peanut butter in a bowl, and stir it in. […]

Software review: Scrivener for Macintosh

Scrivener is an application particularly designed for writers. It has templates for fiction, non-fiction, academic work with footnotes, screenplays, etc. It is available for Macintosh, Windows and Linux. I’m a nerd. I have been using Macintoshes since the 1980s. I use Adobe InDesign for publishing work, and I’m very happy with it. But InDesign isn’t […]

Divitiacus, a Druid

For at least 200 years, the Druids have been hopelessly romanticized. The Druids, of course, were the highest caste of the Celts. With the exception of making war (from which Druids were exempt), the Druids performed the leadership functions of the Celts — priests, judges, scientists, and philosophers. Maddeningly little is known about them. Many […]