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Monthly Archives: June 2018

Hiding in the woods indeed

I watched this doe for a good while yesterday. She couldn’t see me. I was at a window facing the orchard gate. She skulked out of the woods and made for the nearest patch of clover. Then she tore at the clover as though she was starving. Though her ribs were slightly visible, I don’t […]

Old Scotland and the modern world

How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The true story of how Western Europe’s poorest nation created our world and everything in it. By Arthur Herman. Random House, 2001. 472 pages. The title and subtitle of this book contain quite a lot of hyperbole. Of course the Scots didn’t create the modern world and everything […]

The paradoxes of purity

Jakub Józef Orliński, YouTube. What is he singing? Please don’t play the video yet. We’ll watch it in a second. Far more than we realize, the idea of purity affects how we see, and how we react to, the world. Yet we’re barely conscious of our reactions based on purity. We can’t talk about purity […]

The lingering darkness

The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. Catherine Nixey, Houghton Miflin Harcourt, 316 pages. It is remarkably difficult, even with rational and educated contemporary minds, to challenge the belief that the church and the Christian religion have been a force of steady moral progress in the world. Yet that belief is easy […]

The elusive okra bloom

An okra flower. Click here for high-resolution version. I have been trying to get a photo of a fully open okra flower, but I still have not succeeded. Okra is a relative of hibiscus, and its flowers are much like hibiscus flowers. The photo above, of a not-yet-fully-open flower, was taken at 9 a.m. two […]

Two theories of gardening

A thriving squash plant, with lots of room and some pampering. Notice how dry the soil is. I’ve already learned a lot from my experiments with this year’s garden. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, my plan this year was to plant sparsely, leaving plenty of space between things for cultivating and for weed control. […]

The eve of self-destruction

Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, Paige Patterson, Paul Presslar Slogging through the news each morning (and afternoon, and evening) is increasingly dangerous to the mental health of rational, morally sane people. Yet I hold my nose and continue to do it. Whether we acknowledge it or not, Americans really are living through a Manichaean period of […]

Roasted okra

Okra roasts beautifully. The seeds are tender, but with a slight crunch. They’re a bit like fresh corn kernels, or fresh peas. If seared and not overcooked, I think okra would be great in curries. I also want to experiment with using okra as a thickener in sauces for stir-fries, avoiding the dreaded cornstarch.

Refrigerator pickles

It takes 10 minutes or less to make a quart of refrigerator pickles — just long enough to heat some vinegar and sugar, throw in some spices, and pack the jar. Three days’ worth of cucumbers from four flourishing cucumber vines yielded enough surplus cucumbers for two quarts of refrigerator pickles. If you Google, you’ll […]

The squash kicks in

Squash-tofu curry, cucumbers in sour cream I picked the first yellow squash today. I already had decided that it would go into a squash-tofu curry. The abbey’s cucumber plants are climbing high and producing excellently. Unless one has enough cucumbers to pickle, cucumbers have to be eaten fresh every day. I decided on cucumbers in […]