3:50 PM Saturday 8/29.
It’s pouring here in Cushing, Maine. It has been pouring for hours. It seems likely from looking at the radar that it will continue to pour for several hours more. And how does the weather site describe conditions, the very same weather site that has the radar on it?
” 53.3 °F Overcast”
Overcast? Overcast? On what planet…
Not that it matters, but it does make you wonder.
in case the front page fare has got you down:
Nut House Reclaims Mounted Gorilla
Kind of a nice story, actually, about Perry’s Nut House, a time-honored Tourist Attraction on US route 1, just north of Belfast, Maine. From the Bangor Daily News (free stuffed into your mailbox edition of 9/20/09.)
That are being worked on.
Meanwhile:
Setting the bookmark to Recent Articles will land you on the blog itself instead of the welcome page.
When I started writing this thing I had no idea where it would lead. Still don’t. But I do know it’s high time to make the site more useful and that’s what I hope we’ve* done.
Posts are now filed by general interest in the banner categories, indexed by both subject and title and searchable by keyword, so you can find what you’re looking for quickly or browse to your heart’s content. Labels are self-explanatory except for Eek of the Week.
That’s for products and designs so crashingly ill-advised they do make me want to cry out. Title notwithstanding, EOTW is occasional; if I really saw eekworthy things weekly I’d be too depressed to write about them.
More new features are in the works and will be debuting shortly, so please keep an eye out for them. Glitches galore are inevitable, so please let me know about them. And please feel free to make suggestions. The work I’ve done all my life is known as service journalism and that’s not an idle promise.
* We are me and Drake Creative : Alex Tuller and Dean Temple, the brilliant ( and very patient) designers who dragged me – kicking and screaming – into putting a blog on my original website. They are to this enterprise what Kristi is to the Maine garden: absolutely essential. To say I couldn’t do it without them is the understatement of the Western World.
After writing the recent post on making brandied cherries – and not making cherry preserves now that the fruit can’t be bought in bulk, I tried to find out WHY the bulk boxes went away.
But now that I know, I kind of wish I hadn’t asked. Here’s the lowdown from Lynn Long, a cherry expert at Oregon State University Extension:
” Supermarkets were the catalyst to this change. It used to be easy for
the packing houses; put 20 pounds of cherries in a box and ship it off.
But supermarkets were concerned about the loss that occurred when people
sorted through the cherries looking for the perfect fruit. In 1996 90%
of the cherries from the Pacific Northwest were sent in bulk, loose fill
boxes and 10% in consumer packs. By 2003 it was 60% bulk and 40%
consumer pack. Now it is almost 100% consumer pack, either loose fill
bags or clam shells.
In a Northwest Cherry Growers study conducted among 1000 consumers 56%
of the respondents said that they prefer purchasing their cherries in
bags, 40% prefer clam shells and only 4% preferred bulk style
merchandising.”
I asked Mr. Long what on earth was possessing these people. He quite sensibly suggested I contact the Cherry Growers, whose study it was. But then I didn’t have the heart.
Breaking: Cows are healthier when they eat things cows naturally eat, instead of things chosen solely for the convenience of people.
Why are we suddenly hearing about this remarkable finding? One of the health benefits of feeding cows this “new” diet is that they aren’t as gassy. The gas in question (methane) is a powerful global warmer, and any chance to reduce warming gasses without irking the energy industry is bound to get ink.
Here’s the story from today’s New York Times: Greening the Herds: A New Diet to Cap Gas.
For everyone who can get to the mid-Hudson Valley this Saturday, May 16th.
Unusual ornamentals at Trade Secrets
Start out in Sharon, CT at Trade Secrets, purchasing ( or pining for) garden antiques, modern embellishments and rare plants brought by dealers and nurserypersons from all over New England.
Then head over to Millbrook, NY for Food for Thought, Plant a Row/Grow a Row, a celebration of local and home grown that offers everything from vegetable seedlings and master gardeners’ advice on growing them to chef’s demos, a wine and cheese tasting and book signings by Nava Atlas, Lee Reich – and me.
Clockwise from top: wine cap mushrooms (Stropharia rugosa annulata), Lambs Quarters, Asparagus, Rhubarb
Some of what’s growing in my garden – and could be growing in yours – right now
No, don’t worry, I’m not really going to start doing this regularly, but once you plug in to the FDA’s daily recall report, certain wonderful headlines do pop up and this morning there was:
Mrs. Grissom’s Salads Announces Voluntary Product Recall Due To Undeclared Anchovies.
The headline is courtesy Mrs. Grissom’s – the FDA just sends ’em along as written – and if you’re wondering how anchovies could slip into anything undeclared the answer is that various products were seasoned with Worcestershire sauce that did not appear on the labels
and thus might sicken an unsuspecting consumer who is allergic to fish.
This would be funnier if it weren’t for the vast assortment of pesticide residues on produce, in drinking water, in the tiny dust particles carried on the very air we breathe. Hey FDA! I’m allergic to it! Read More…
Or more accurately, brands that claim to have no connection with the plant that processed the most recent don’t-eat-it delight, can be found on this list.
