Trying to take care of my little piece of the planet
Apologies to a former high school student of mine for the title of this post, since it’s a takeoff on his satirical column entitled: “My New Filing System is Unstoppable“. Warning: his cartoons are replete with F-bombs and not for the sensitive or politically correct. Some of his other work routinely appears in Rolling Stone, [...]
Posted on July 27th, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening | 4 Comments »
Between my wife’s sailing, my work with trees for firewood and the rare opportunity to fish, I have a handful of knots committed to memory. But I realize that there are often better knots (stronger, easier to tie/untie, better suited to the task and material) than the ones I often fall back on. Case in [...]
Posted on July 24th, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Leisure Projects | 1 Comment »
I’m enjoying a day off, helping to get the place ready for the arrival of my out-of-state brother for a couple of days. But for those of you chained to desks in the city, here are a couple of life in the country shots.
These are a couple of the many honeybees that are working the [...]
Posted on July 23rd, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening | 2 Comments »
I really don’t intend to turn this little blog into a soapbox (again). After all, it’s summertime in an odd-numbered year fer cryin’ out loud. But if you’re a North Carolinian who even occasionally leans to the progressive side you have to be shaking your head over the voting behavior of our new U.S. Senator, [...]
Posted on July 22nd, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Rants and Musings | No Comments »
I first listened to the audio that accompanies the video below while driving down the freeway to visit my mom tonight. When it ended, at the first opportunity, I backed up the Rachel Maddow podcast, and listened to the segment again.
The truly scary part is the way in which this previously civil town hall meeting, [...]
Posted on July 21st, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Rants and Musings | 3 Comments »
We all know that stress is bad for you. We could all probably do with more downtime, especially downtime fruitfully filled with a favorite leisure activity.
Errr. No.
Not according to the authors of “Infections of Leisure” published by American Society of Microbiology Press.
One look at the table of contents below confirms that we should [...]
Posted on July 21st, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Rants and Musings | 4 Comments »
I don’t know why this strikes me as odd, but our nation’s history includes thousands of small villages, crossroads, etc. that have simply disappeared over time. For example, Doyle, Arkansas was the birthplace of my grandfather. Try Googling Doyle now and you’ll come up dry. It doesn’t exist. Hasn’t for decades. Same is true of [...]
Posted on July 20th, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Rants and Musings | 3 Comments »
In this blog, I’ve been pretty consistent in keeping our private life separate from the blogosphere. Not for any deep and dark reason, and with the firm belief that if anyone wanted to spend a nickel and ten minutes they could correctly name and locate me and all that I hold dear. But humor me [...]
Posted on July 19th, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Nature Diary | 2 Comments »
Sometime last summer, we were watching a show on public television about a man named Bill Best and the Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center. His mission was to collect and preserve the numerous varieties of vegetables grown in the valleys around Haywood County, NC. His particular concern was a type of pole bean known as [...]
Posted on July 16th, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening | 12 Comments »
After the last couple of years, we both agreed that this year the garden would be smaller. We lied.
Our best intentions were thwarted by giving in to the urge to try something new (without substantially cutting back on the old). This year the ‘new’ was potatoes, more sunflowers, buckwheat as a cover crop, watermelons and [...]
Posted on July 15th, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening | 6 Comments »