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Tom Swift
I'm not sure I have any other images these 13 years here of a lizard. They just--at least until lately--have not been able to survive winters this far north.A generation from now, we may have...
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Boredom, Blight and Beauty
The title here came first as I sat mulling over the possibilities this morning, and so a wildflower closeup or some other oooooh-ahhhhh image would have been more appropriate perhaps, but this is what...
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Sharpshooters In our Woods
Some leafhoppers look for all the world like thorns on the side of a twig. Some are remarkably colorful or bizarrely shaped--if you take the time to look very closely. (In this image, the splash of...
View ArticleFuture for Maples: Not So Sweet
We are late to the late winter tradition of tapping maples for sap and then syrup. This is only our second season, after learning that you don’t have to have a sugar maples to get sweet returns for...
View ArticleFrozen Peas: Thousands Die Young
I have been feeling the pain these past few well-below-freezing April mornings knowing what our local vegetable farmers are suffering at the hand of winter that won't give it up.Thousands of tender...
View ArticleVegetables: Not Without Water
This time of year, the day starts early and ends late. It starts and ends outdoors.These are the HHH days, where heat, haze and humidity spawn afternoon showers--if we're lucky. If we're not, the...
View ArticleGarden Gate(d)
Don't ask me how people do it with unprotected gardens in Floyd County. We've had to enclose ours in a stockade fence against the deer, and the place only lacks razor wire around the top or it would...
View ArticleFruitless: Unpollenated Gardens
Finally in the middle of July, our garden is visible above the ground, even from the road some 30 feet away. For the longest time, it seemed like an iceberg--7/8ths below the surface, invisible.Now...
View ArticleI Come to the Garden Alone
Another few weeks and Ann will be threatening me with my life if I bring in another five gallon bucket of tomatoes or beans or squash.This is a statement of faith, as anything can happen in love, war...
View ArticleGot Legs Under Me At Last
While the cat's away...but it wasn't mice in the garden while we were out of town. It was beetles, weeds, and from the outside, deer browsing on the beans along the fence. Oh well. All that hard work...
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Tomato Horn Worm: Gotcha!
Moveable Feast: Dinner is served.As a matter of fact, dinner is almost done for the eggs embedded with great accuracy and intention by the mother wasp into this otherwise invisible garden pest--the...
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Poultry Palace Complete
Coop installation by Karl Black of Black Hawk Construction who also put up the garden shed a few years back.So you long-time readers might remember the great Chickalanche of the winter of 2014. All the...
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This Bountiful Land: Pasture First Cutting
It was not the purpose for cutting and baling hay that the grands have a place to play King (er Queen) of the Mountain.But the fact that they invented their own entertainment and burned off some...
View ArticlePeeCycling
It is true that the tomatoes are leggy and the peppers not a deep dark green as they should be. They seem to be telling me that they are in short supply of something--and probably on or all of N, P and...
View ArticleWhen Our Forests Disappear
This is the first part of a four part series in the Floyd Press, first installment in this week's edition. -- FBF When the oak leaves fell from November trees along the crest above the house, we were...
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Seeing the Forests
Found in my collections of snippets, a quote from Wendell Berry, one of the few wise men of our era, in my opinion: To destroy a forest or an ecology or a species is an act of greater seriousness than...
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Field To Fork: Food Choices and the Future
From BBC Science https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46384067 Near Coles Knob in eastern Floyd County, many acres of former mature forest are being cut (down to what’s left of the topsoil) to...
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The Future of Feeding Ourselves
Food for Thought: Can we continue to rely on the decades-old means of growing, harvesting, shipping and buying fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy and other products when COVID-19 impedes this complex...
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