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April, 2012 Issue #131

 

THE PATH FINDER

Bob demonstrates the use of a Solar Path Finder to determine the optimal placement of a hypothetical new garden for his class at Central Carolina Community College.

 

ASPARAGUS SEASON

 

One good Itey Nite deserves another. Obviously, we don't mind eating the same meal repeatedly. Especially one involving garden-picked asparagus, angel hair pasta, home made sauce and pan fried home made seitan. We enjoyed the two meals pictured within six days of each other.

 

CAMILLE'S FRIENDS

 

Mingo, Sonny and Pete look forward to breakfast every day and Camille was happy to bring it to them while Sharon was out of town. When we ride together, Sharon rides Mingo and Camille rides Sonny, Pete or Peg's mare, Hailey. As you can see, they've already begun to slick out which is horse person verbiage for lose their winter coats.

 

FUNGI 101

 

Bob taught his mushroom log plugging workshop on April 14th at Company Shops Market in Burlington. The three steps to a home made mushroom garden are drill, plug and wax. Bob is checking the wax as it heats up on a hot plate. One of the participants uses a drill with a 5/16 bit to drill holes in a sweet gum log from a tree Bob cut down a couple of months back.

 

Grand daughter and grand mother teamed up as did our friends Jenny and Alex.

 

UNSOLVED MYSTERY

 

Since Alex rode up with us and Bob had a meeting to attend after the workshop, Alex and Camille decided to go Thrift Store hunting in Burlington to kill some time. They drove around for awhile, distracted by heady conversation about memorable films, finally realized they'd missed the alleged thrift store district and turned around. Jenny had told us about another shop so we went in search of Overman's Mystery Thrift Shop and found it only to find it had apparently gone out of business. We got out of the car anyway to poke around the detritus in hopes of finding a treasure. Alex was rewarded by a paperback about how to remember names.

 

IRONY

We peeked inside the shattered glass door and saw this wistful plaque on the wall. It tickled our sense of irony to be peering into our forbidden destination, a locked and empty building, to find a cheery welcome note on the wall.

 

ALEX AND SHANNON

 

After spending a fine day with Alex, we introduced him to Spot who took to him right away. A week later, Spot enthusiastically welcomed Shannon to Trouts Farm. Amy and Shannon drove from Asheville to enjoy the Spring Grassroots Music Festival at Shakori Hills.

 

COTTON CANDY PLANT

Haruka and Camille were tickled to find a Wool Sower Gall on the branch of a white oak while on a walk in the woods. Haruka thought it looked like cotton candy with little red spots while to Camille it rather resembled a cotton ball after a shaving accident. A wasp (Callirhytis seminator) induces the oak to produce a gall in which they lay their eggs and ultimately becomes habitat for their offspring. Ingenious!

 

TINY TURTLE

 

On a Monday afternoon at work, Camille came across the tiniest turtle she'd ever seen and brought it into the office for Jenny to admire. Minutes after returning the turtle to its original location, Camille found a baby bunny, so small it  fit in the palm of our hands.

 

AERIAL YOGA

Shannon levitates Amy in an exercise designed to give both parties a good stretch. It was great to see Amy and meet Shannon when they were in town for Shakori.  They are both enjoying their studies at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine.

THIS MONTH'S QUOTES:

"No one in the American media is paying attention to the unfolding tragedy of Japan - and by this I refer not only to the unfinished Fukushima saga, but the parallel story of Japan closing down virtually its entire nuclear power industry necessitating gigantic additional imports of oil and gas to generate electric power - all of which points to the likelihood that Japan will become the first advanced industrial nation to bid sayonara to modernity and return to a neo-medieval socio-economic model of daily life." - James Howard Kunstler from his April 22nd blog entry As If Nothing Matters