July 5, 2010

Red, White and Blue

Happy Fourth of July.

July 1, 2010

Harpers on the press

Sorry for the crassness, but this, from the always wonderful Mr. Fish, is spot on. What’s that about afflicting the comfortable? Yeah, that’s our job. Let’s do it.

June 22, 2010

Doonesbury on newspapers: The sad truth

The not so distant future.

June 17, 2010

Heat in the garden

Now I know why they say peppers love heat. I’ve been too busy this week to stop by the garden, but today I made the effort and was surprised by how much everything’s grown in a matter of days. All of my peppers– Serrano, Jalapeno, Ghost, Thai Chili, Banana and Bell — are fruiting now, [...]

June 17, 2010

Bloomsday

Yesterday was Bloomsday, or the 106th anniversary of the day on which the events of Ulysses, James Joyce’s seminal piece of literature, took place. The holiday has since become a celebration of all things Joyce, particularly in Dublin, where the 1922 novel was set. Frankie and I just missed Bloomsday when we were in Dublin [...]

May 23, 2010

1,000 balloons

May 23, 2010

In the garden – Saturday, May 22.

Garden layout: First bed at the front of the image, left to right – Mesclun, buttercrunch lettuce, spinach, green beans, onions, two types of tomato (black cherry and big beef, I believe) zucchini. Second bed, left to right – potted herbs (basil, sage, cilantro), four varieties of tomatoes (better boy, valencia, striped something something, and [...]

May 22, 2010

A westward sojourn, a week later.

Do you ever procrastinate on something, put it off for another day, week or month, and then each time you try to revisit it, it’s more and more difficult to begin because of how long you waited? Me too. Way too often. It’s been a week since we flew back to Ohio from the Southwest, [...]

April 23, 2010

Expanding the garden

Last summer, I planted a small-plot garden in my Mom’s backyard which produced an amazing amount of food for such a small amount of space. We struggled to keep up with the tomatoes, the cucumbers, the peppers, the zucchini and the onions that grew unabated. We gave bags of produce away to friends, family and [...]

April 14, 2010

Go west, young man

Some friends of mine and I are about to head west, on a car camping trip to the Grand Canyon, Death Valley and the Petrified Forest, among other stops. We’re staying with friends in St. Louis and Tulsa, and then roughing it the rest of the trip. (I say roughing it, but a Toyota Sienna [...]