from the comments
Erica, kale will grow very nicely in a container. It likes the cold, as you know. I don’t have personal experience with deer (rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, birds and lately a raccoon!). But I have heard of some things that can help if you don’t have a tall fence.
Fragrant bars of soap hung from branches or a bamboo stick, etc., about 30 inches from the ground. Think Irish Spring. Or human hair (ask a barber for trimmings) in mesh bags three feet off the ground. Plant spray made of three raw eggs in a gallon of water. Supposedly deer hate that. Also, row covers can help for a while, anyway.
I’ve also had success with mirror mobiles. I had one that was just a long fishing-wire string with small round mirrors attached. I laced it from a piece of wire protruding from a fence and nothing bothered my garden for ages. It would swing around in the sun and wind and it must have freaked out the varmints. Then the Iowan managed to knock it off onto the brick walk and broke a lot of it.
So I bought some very thin fishing wire and a bunch of little mirrors from a craft store. One mirror, glue, attached to the back of an identical mirror. Either one string or attach multiple strings to, say, a wire hanger, which is not pretty but will do the job. Speaking of, you also might string fishing wire between posts in the garden because supposedly that confuses deer.
Good luck!
2100°/451°
A short film by Alistair Banks featuring the art of Etsuko Ichikawa.
I can’t remember if I’ve already shared this particular project, but it never hurts to revisit good art.
DIY, Growing Food in Winter
These are lettuce and pea seeds I put in last week. They are growing in my back yard, in a plastic container that held spinach. Yes, it is cold. And it freezes and sleets and ices up, still. But this is winter gardening and people do it even in colder climates than northern Virginia.
You just wash a plastic container that has a lid, punch some holes in the top and bottom, put in some soil (I use a seeding mix) and sprinkle in seeds. Water, close the container, label it with a permanent marker. Place it outside in a sunny area. Now you have a greenhouse environment for your seeds to grow. I may need to transplant these into a larger container before it gets warm enough to plant in the garden.
I also have some flowers and pampas grass sprouting.
Your seeds really want to grow, even in harsh conditions. Like us, they are animated by the life force.
from the comments
It’s not possible to duplicate hush puppies that had been deep fried in an iron kettle perched on a wood fire outdoors. With the hand-cranked ice cream under a tree, still in freezers covered by newspapers. The freezers had to be repacked in fresh ice and salt and covered with newspapers and towels, left alone for a while. This “ripened” the ice cream, or hardened it. Absolute ambrosia.
from the comments
Miss Nell would start her cooking shows with, “Now as everyone knows I hate to cook so let’s get started and get out of this kitchen.”
From the Archives & Archivists (A&A) List digest:
Subject: Storage of a grass skirt
Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2012 20:43:43Hello!
Wanted to ask if anybody has any recommendations about how to properly
store a grass skirt?Thank you!
R.I.P. Don Cornelius (1936-2012)
Don Cornelius checked himself out, it would appear.
See him here — doin’ it to death — with Mary Wilson in the Soul Train line dance.
T-Rex Trying…
Hugh Murphy’s tumblr documenting The Unfortunate Trials of The Tyrant Lizard King.
(thanks, Amy)
Five Minutes with Jason Kottke
From a five minute interview with Jason Kottke at The Verge:
You wrote a post about David Foster Wallace’s idea of the Decider a few years ago. Since then, has anything changed when it comes to your process?
It’s much easier to find interesting things to read and look at online than it used to be…the web is now largely filters on top of filters on top of filters. So I don’t have to sift through as much stuff as I used to. But also around the time I posted that link, I got much better at blogging. I don’t know if the 10,000 hours thing kicked in or what, but what used to take me 6-8 hours to do now takes me 2-3 hours.
(via @tcarmody)
headline of the day
Couple caught trying to blow up car with flaming TAMPONS
from the comments
Best Pickup Line Ever.
Place the medieval techniques alongside those laid out in modern handbooks, such as Human Intelligence Collector Operations, the U.S. Army interrogation manual, and the inquisitors’ practices seem very up-to-date
The inquisitors were shrewd students of human nature. Like Gui, Eymerich was well aware that those being questioned would employ a range of stratagems to deflect the interrogator. In his manual, he lays out 10 ways in which heretics seek to “hide their errors.” They include “equivocation,” “redirecting the question,” “feigning astonishment,” “twisting the meaning of words,” “changing the subject,” “feigning illness,” and “feigning stupidity.” For its part, the Army interrogation manual provides a “Source and Information Reliability Matrix” to assess the same kinds of behavior. It warns interrogators to be wary of subjects who show signs of “reporting information that is self-serving,” who give “repeated answers with exact wording and details,” and who demonstrate a “failure to answer the question asked.”
A history of torture and interrogation in the Middle Ages, and how it compares to the standards applied in “The Global War on Terror”.
from the comments
My brother was four years older but still I fought with him, physically, like an idiot. I took quite a bit of punishment before I learned to fight dirty and run, climb a tree where he couldn’t follow, barricade myself somewhere. Sometimes I had to wait for a while but I didn’t care. He knew I would die of thirst, starve to death, if I had to. So he would give up and go away.
Captain Beefheart’s Ten Commandments of Guitar Playing
4. Walk with the devil
Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the “devil box.” And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you’re bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.
(From WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. Via Brian Beatty.)
headline of the day
Occupy Portland has developed a tactic to keep a park when the police decide to enforce an eviction
Occupy Portland stumbled on a way to use the tactical superiority of the local police department, and by extension, the fluidity of the crowd, against them.
On December 3rd, we took a park and were driven out of it by riot police; that much made the news. What the media didn’t report is that we re-took the park later that same evening, and the police realized that it would be senseless to attempt to clear it again, so they packed up their military weaponry and left. Occupy Portland has developed a tactic to keep a park when the police decide to enforce an eviction.
The tactical evolution that evolved relies on two military tactics that are thousands of years old — the tactical superiority of light infantry over heavy infantry, and the tactical superiority of the retreat over the advance.
The whole article is worth a read, and nicely summarizes Occupy Portland’s serendipitous tactical breakthrough.
(thanks, Joel)
from the comments
Did I ever tell you about the time I blew up our own mailbox with fireworks? I was a lousy prankster.
Go Bury Money, Like Now
I’m sharing a New Year’s tradition aimed at drawing wealth to you. I have no idea about its origins.
Take a bill or some coins and put the money in a plastic bag. The amount does not matter. Bury it outside your front door while saying, “I am burying my poverty.” Mark it with a stone or something you can find the next day. Seriously, people have not been able to find their buried money the next day. Do this on New Year’s Eve, before midnight. Then, on January 1, dig up the money while saying, “I am uncovering my wealth.” Do this anytime during the 24-hour period on New Year’s Day.
If you don’t have ground outside your door, not to worry, take a pot and bury your money there and place it outside your door or on the balcony. If that doesn’t work, take a bowl and cover the money with a wash cloth and put it beside the door. This is about symbolism and intent. Do not spend the money, ever. Put it away. Some say that if you spend the buried money, you’ll lose money.
If you follow these instructions, unexpected money will show up for you in the next year. Maybe because I believe, this always happens for me. Always. At least in the years the Iowan has not found, and spent, my buried money. I have heard about people who eventually have taken stacks of buried money and donated it to a good cause. For instance, they have donated it to a church or favorite charity and report all is well.
Or you could leave it tucked away in its individual sandwich bags in a hope chest or drawer. And laugh to think about what your heirs will think to find it.
What is the proper way to dispose of the American flag?
Found. December 31, 2011.
12 Indicted On Hate Crimes Charges For Hair Cutting Assaults Led By Break-Off Amish Group
I think this is my favorite story of 2011.
How to Pronounce Stieg Larsson
And other pronunciation guides from Pronunciation Manual.
(thanks, Dave)
headline of the day
Bottom line: Doc explains mysteriously massive buttocks
from the comments
My favorite part of that interview was when Tom was discussing the vinyl popping noise he had added to a couple tracks to make them sound more dated — when it was actually just a recording of chicken on the barbecue.
Phil Ochs: “I’m Going to Say It Now”
Achingly brief clip of Ochs in performance. Said to have been filmed at a Free Speech rally held in the spring of 1965 on The Oval at The Ohio State University campus in Columbus, Ohio.
from the comments
I’m a dick grabber. Ask anyone.
