New life for an old seed company. January 7, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in gardening, homesteading, Uncategorized, wit and wisdom.Tags: Landreth Seed Company, Pennsylvania seed companies, U.S. oldest seed company
6 comments
Our friend Ben and Silence Dogood are big fans of local newspapers. Yes, we do get the New York Times online, and we subscribe to (and love) The Week, a weekly news digest that captures news items from around the world, as well as cultural and culinary trends. Our computers open to MSN’s home page, so we always scan the news there as well before heading off to other sites.
But nothing can give you an insight into your own community like its local paper, whether you’re reading about a local festival or performance, the opening of a new restaurant or movie, the latest in area crime (always, in our opinion, worth scanning to make sure there hasn’t been a rash of break-ins or whatnot in our area), or letters to the editor (an interesting, if often scary, assessment of local public sentiment on pretty much any issue). Or, in our case, recent bald eagle and wildcat sightings.
So, when Silence and our friend Ben were visiting family over Christmas in Greensboro, North Carolina, we couldn’t resist reading Greensboro’s local paper, the News & Record (www.news-record.com). Imagine how surprised we were to read a feature about a seed company located in our adopted home state of Pennsylvania! Needless to say, that section of the paper came home with us, and we’d like to share the highlights with our fellow gardening enthusiasts. After all, January’s the traditional month to place your seed orders for the coming season. There’s not a moment to lose!
The article, called “In celebration of seeds,” chronicled the rise, fall, and rise of the venerable Landreth Seed Co. Founded by David Landreth in Philadelphia in 1784, Landreth seeds supplied vegetable and flower seeds to our most famous gardening Founding Fathers, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. In fact, Landreth was famous for “supplying seeds to every president from George Washington to FDR,” according to the article (emphasis mine). Let’s hope Landreth begins this happy trend again by supplying the Obamas’ organic vegetable gardens with seeds for this spring’s garden.
Getting back to the article, after almost 200 years, the company had fallen very far from its exalted pinnacle as the nation’s oldest and preeminent seed house. Landreth was selling grass seed out of a Baltimore warehouse when Barbara Melera, a venture capitalist whose passions are history and gardening, bought it six years ago, brought it back to Pennsylvania—New Freedom, in the glorious PA farm country surrounding York, to be precise—and determined to restore it to its original purpose and former glory.
In addition to bringing the focus back to veggies, herbs, and flowers, and adding a focus on heirlooms—totally appropriate, given the company’s history—Landreth is reactivating another of its innovations, specialty seed collections. In the past, according to William Woys Weaver, PA Dutch food historian extraordinaire and one of Silence’s all-time favorite cookbook authors, “Landreth… produced German seed catalogs to sell to the Pennsylvania Dutch—Weaver owns one—and French and Spanish catalogs for Caribbean customers.”
That was then—the 1800s—this is now. This year’s wonderful specialty seed collection focuses on African-American heirloom contributions to our national cuisine, the African American National Heritage Collection. To quote the article, “It comprises… heirloom seeds for 34 vegetables, grains, and herbs—like West Indian callaloo spinach and Jamaican sweet potato pumpkin—that were the dietary staples of slaves brought to this country from Africa and the Caribbean, and adopted by their descendants and others.” As Southerners, our friend Ben and Silence know that much of the cuisine we know and love came from these very plants, and you can bet we’ll be ordering a collection.
Landreth is celebrating its 225th anniversary with a seed catalogue I think you’ll definitely want (especially since this catalogue is free, while you’ll have to pay for future catalogues). We urge all of you to order a free catalogue online at www.landrethseeds.com or by calling 1-800-654-2407. How great to have a chance to participate in garden history!
Easy assistance for backyard birds. January 6, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in critters, homesteading, Uncategorized, wit and wisdom.Tags: backyard birdfeeding, Duncraft, heated birdbaths, water heaters for birdbaths, water sources for backyard birds
3 comments
I don’t know about your area, but in the part of Pennsylvania where our friend Ben and Silence Dogood live, it’s been a bitterly cold, snowy winter. And when the ground and natural sources of water like streams and ponds freeze over, backyard birds suffer. Many of us enjoy providing seed and other foods for our outdoor friends over the cold months, but not many people think to provide a source of fresh, unfrozen water. Yet access to water is far more critical to birds’ survival than access to food, just as it is for us and all creatures.
If you’re an avid backyard birdwatcher* who loves feeding the birds, and you’re starting to feel guilty about now because it hasn’t occurred to you to set out fresh water, no worries. Even the most dedicated backyard bird enthusiasts, the ones who participate in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s and Bird Studies Canada’s Project FeederWatch, which tracks winter bird populations at feeders, are slackers where providing water is concerned. According to the wonderful book Birds at Your Feeder by Erica H. Dunn and Diane L. Tessaglia-Hymes, which cites Project FeederWatch data on a species-by-species basis (invaluable if you want to know which birds are likely to turn up in your own backyard and what they prefer to eat), “water was rarely offered where freezing occurs” by the 10,000-plus Project FeederWatch participants, who, by contrast, typically provide food for wild birds year-round.
How can you provide a reliable source of water for thirsty birds when the temperature’s guaranteed to turn a dish, bowl, or birdbath of water to ice? Well, as with many things in life, there’s a high-tech and a low-tech answer.
The high-tech answer (not all that high-tech, fortunately) is to buy an immersible water heater, modified from the ones originally developed for farmers’ stock tanks, to keep the water from freezing. At the low end, you can buy a heating unit; at the high end, you can buy a birdbath with the heating unit built in beneath the bath itself, so you don’t even see it. (In either case, you’ll need a convenient outdoor outlet for the cord.)
Wild bird specialty stores like Wild Birds Unlimited (www.wbu.com) and websites like Duncraft (www.duncraft.com) offer both options. But none of this comes cheap. Duncraft offers an impressive array of pedestal and ground-level heated birdbaths, as well as some wonderfully convenient styles that attach to your deck railing to bring thirsty birds closer for your viewing pleasure. Prices for these range from $59.95 to $159.95. Ouch! Even if you want to buy a heating unit to drop into your own birdbath, prices range from $42.95 to $49.95. Duncraft’s bargain winter birdbaths are their Solar Sippers, ranging from $19.95 to $29.95. But they’ll only keep the water unfrozen if located in full sun where the temperatures never drop below 20 degrees F. Wild Birds Unlimited has a deck-mounted heated birdbath ($91.99), a heated birdbath with stand($102.99), and a heating unit for your own birdbath ($65.99).
Our friend Ben did mention a low-tech alternative. As with most low-tech options, it’s not as simple as plug it in and forget it. But it’s cheap, easy, and it’s guaranteed not to run up your electric bills. It’s the dual bowl system. Buy two inexpensive but sturdy plastic dog water dishes. Fill one with lukewarm water and set it out for your feathered friends. Check occasionally, and when it freezes, bring it inside to thaw and replace it with the second bowl, now filled with lukewarm water. Continue to alternate bowls as one freezes over and the other thaws, making sure you toss the icy water and refill the bowls with lukewarm water before setting them out. Sturdy plastic dog bowls are indestructible, and cost about $5.95 last time I looked.
There’s another low-tech alternative that our friend Ben prefers, however. It’s the indestructible yet flexible black rubber stock bowl. These containers come in a wide range of sizes and depths, and are typically used for livestock (we use them for our chickens, and they’re also a popular choice—in, of course, a much larger size—for horses). Like Duncraft’s Solar Sipper, the black color absorbs heat, keeping water unfrozen longer. But unlike any birdbath known to our friend Ben, if the water does freeze, you can apply a simple technique for ousting the ice so the bowl is ready for instant refilling: Turn the bowl upside down and stomp on it. The flexible bowl will release the block of ice (as long as it’s not too close to the rim, so there’s room for releasing), and you can refill the bowl instantly with lukewarm water. These water containers are available from farm stores like Agway and Tractor Supply (www.tractorsupply.com). Though the price varies according to size, the smaller bowls are under $10, and in our experience, they last forever, no matter how many times they get stomped.
How do you provide water for your winter guests?
* Our friend Ben makes a distinction between folks who like to watch birds casually, especially in their backyards, for pleasure, and those who treat birdwatching as a sporting event and go to great lengths to compete for most bird species seen at a bird count, travel specifically to see birds, buy spotting scopes and other costly equipment, and who will do almost anything to complete their “life lists” of species seen. The first are birdwatchers; the second, birders.
Hearty winter salads. January 5, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in gardening, homesteading, recipes.Tags: beet salad, lentil-apple salad, salad recipes, winter salads
2 comments
Silence Dogood here. In winter, I always enjoy heartier salads most—ones with lots of body and flavor. They seem to hold their own against the cold. And of course, they’re even better when they’re made with long-keeping winter staples like apples and beets. Here are two great salads that are favorites of my friends Delilah (Lentil-Apple Salad) and Lynn (Syrian Beet Salad). Enjoy them!
Lentil-Apple Salad
Cook 5 ounces of French lentils (the larger lentils get mushy) according to package directions, and allow to cool to room temperature. (Delilah prefers to use half lentils and half brown rice, and cooks the whole lot in her rice cooker.)
For the dressing, mix together:
1-2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice (to taste)
2 tablespoons white wine (or white wine vinegar if you like it sour)
1/4 cup olive oil
dash cayenne pepper, to taste
Shred one tart apple (such as Granny Smith) and toss immediately in the dressing to keep it from browning. Add the cooked lentils and 4 chopped green onions (scallions), tossing again to coat everything with the dressing. Season with salt and pepper to taste and toss a final time to distribute seasonings. Mound servings on fresh greens and sprinkle with pine nuts or slivered almonds. Serves four.
Syrian Beet Salad
3 large raw beets or 2 cups cooked beets
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro or basil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 fresh hot pepper, seeded and minced (1 tablespoon)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
If cooking raw beets, bring 2 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot. Peel beets and cut into 1/2-inch cubes. Place cubes in boiling water, lower to a simmer, and cook until tender, about 10-15 minutes. Drain beets and transfer to serving bowl.
If using leftover cooked or canned beets, cut in 1/2-inch cubes and reheat until warmed through.
Mix rest of ingredients together and pour over beets. Toss well. Serve warm. [I estimate that this recipe would serve 2-4, depending on your fondness for beets!---Silence]
You might ask yourself what you’d serve a warm beet salad with. Well, I think I’d treat it as a side dish and serve it up on the dinner plate with your other veggies and main course. I think rice or a baked potato or baked sweet potato and spinach would go well with this, and so would—dare I say it?—Delilah’s Lentil-Apple Salad. Yum! For lunch, you could mound the salad on a bed of hearty greens (such as arugula, radicchio, endive, fennel tops, Romaine, and chopped scallions) and top it with crumbled feta. Add a crusty baguette and a bottle of red wine and you have a meal!
‘Til next time,
Silence
Insulating sliding glass doors. January 4, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: draft stoppers, frugal ways to reduce heating bills, insulated curtains, reducing heating bills
5 comments
Between our fuel oil bills and our electric service’s announcement that, since they’ve been deregulated, they plan to raise electric rates by 30% in 2010 (and of course this doesn’t address future increases), our friend Ben and Silence Dogood have been trying to find ways to keep from freezing to death while cutting down on our fuel and electric use. Our first step was to turn down the thermostat to 57 degrees F. and to bundle up accordingly. (Our goal is to get it down to 55, but we’re taking it one degree at a time.) Fortunately, unless the wind is blowing, our indoor thermometer typically shows 61 degrees anyway.
Our windows in the newer part of the house—the living room, home office, bathroom, and cat-free room—have storm windows, which is a big help. The previous owners had a plexiglass panel cut to the exact outside dimensions of the big multi-paned bedroom window and framed to fit, and it makes an enormous difference. We’ve added bubble-wrap “curtains” over the drafty part of most other windows, and bubble-wrap insulation over the inside of our lone window air conditioner (along with an a/c cover for the outside). And we were the lucky recipients of a set of insulated curtains for the home office windows this fall, which has made an enormous difference in the temperature of the room. This also allowed us to transfer the two salvageable curtains from the ancient home office sets to augment the equally ancient (but insulated) curtains over the big bedroom window, which has also upped the comfort level in that room considerably. The living room curtains aren’t officially “insulated,” but they have two layers of fabric with different patterns, so they act like insulated curtains.
Other steps we’ve taken are to put a styrofoam faucet protector over our one outside faucet and to put draft stoppers at the entrances to the outside doors, the mudroom door, and a drafty closet door. Draft stoppers may be low-tech, but they make an absolutely huge difference in terms of keeping cold air out and warm air in! If you can’t stand paying for commercial versions, you can always make your own by rolling up a section of bubble wrap and securing the ends with rubber bands. We have a little space heater in the bathroom so we can make it nice and toasty while we’re showering without having to heat the whole house, then we turn the heater off once we’re finished. And we don’t have to worry about warm air escaping up our chimney since we installed a woodburning stove and the pipe and insulation block the air flow.
All of which is to say that we’re managing pretty well, all things considered, and every room is adequately warm. But the one big thing we haven’t figured out how to insulate is the sliding glass door that leads from the kitchen to the deck. When we bought the house, we bought a big curtain rod to hold curtains for the deck door, planning to purchase huge insulated curtains to draw across the deck door at night. But we’ve never put it up (or bought the curtains) because our kitchen table sits in front of the deck door, and that’s where we like to sit to read the paper, watch the birds at our feeders, eat our meals, and generally enjoy the view of our property and the fields and mountains beyond. There’s not enough room between the deck door and the wall to draw curtains fully back from the glass, and we hate the thought of blocking our light and our view. We know there’s now a clear plastic film that adheres to glass to help conserve heat, but our mutual incompetence in terms of even the smallest technical task pretty much ensures that if we tried to apply it, it would wrinkle over the entire glass surface, not ideal if your goal is to let in as much light as possible and be able to see out.
The other day, Silence was discussing our dilemma with our friend Delilah. Ever-practical, she instantly had a suggestion, which she puts into practice on her greenhouse during the winter. She suggested duct-taping a big sheet of bubble wrap to the inside surface of the immovable glass door and a second sheet to the outside of the moving door. She told Silence this would let the moving door slide freely while insulating both doors.
Thanks, Delilah! But what about our view?! If you all have any suggestions, either for our deck door or for reducing heating bills without spending much money, please let us hear from you!
Tropical fruits for the home greenhouse. January 3, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in gardening, homesteading, Uncategorized, wit and wisdom.Tags: greenhouse bananas, greenhouse plants, homegrown olives, homegrown vanilla, Logee's, tropical fruiting plants for the home greenhouse
8 comments
This year, our friend Ben was finally able to give Silence Dogood the Christmas present of her dreams. As faithful readers know, we love all the plants in our home greenhouse: the orchids, the cacti and succulents, the amaryllis, the tender ferns, the begonias, the works. But most of all, we love the plants that provide either fruit or flavoring: the lemon grass, the figs, the ‘Violetta’ purple artichokes, the cardamom, the pink lemon, the Key lime, the coffee “tree,” the tricolored pepper plants.
Silence and our friend Ben are huge fans of the Logee’s catalogue, which specializes in begonias and other houseplants but also carries a vast selection of tropicals for the greenhouse and frost-free landscape. We allow ourselves to be tempted weekly by their e-mails, since they regularly offer online-only sales. But being a lazy bastard, our friend Ben tends to drool rather than buy.
Finally, however, Logee’s made an offer even our friend Ben couldn’t refuse. Silence has wanted an olive tree, dwarf banana, and vanilla orchid (yes, vanilla beans really are produced by orchids) practically forever. And one week, Logee’s offered a sale on what they described as “unusual fruits.”
Scanning the offerings, our friend Ben reluctantly passed up the ‘TR Hovey’ papaya, ‘Ponderosa’ lemon, “tree tomato” (Cyphomandra crassicaulis) and “dragon fruit” (actually an epiphytic cactus, Hylocereus undatus). I was not at all reluctant to pass up the primitive citrus—considered one of the earliest in cultivation—known as “Buddha’s Hand,” since the fruit, which looks like a many-fingered lemon, is inedible. (You can apparently zest or candy the peel, but hey, you can do that with any lemon, and you’ll get juice as well.)
However, I was unable to pass up the vanilla orchid (Vanilla planifolia), black olive (Olea europea ‘Arbequina’), dwarf banana (Musa ‘Dwarf Lady Finger’), passionflower (Passiflora edulis ‘Possum Purple’), and “lemon guava” (Psidium littorale ‘Lemon’). After all, Silence wanted them, right? Uh, well, I’m sure she’ll be thrilled when they arrive, even if she didn’t know she wanted the passionflower and lemon guava.
Vanilla orchids, unlike most orchids, are climbing vines, and need to be provided with a trellis or other structure for climbing. Their blooms are quite delightful, resembling a smaller version of a yellow corsage orchid (Cattleyas and their numerous crosses). To get the pods that bear vanilla beans, you’ll need to hand-pollinate the blooms. And to get vanilla, you’ll need to store the mature pods in a jar of vodka, which makes homemade vanilla extract, or dry the pods and store them in an airtight container in a cool cabinet. No problem! We can’t wait.
‘Dwarf Lady Finger’ banana is described by Logee’s as follows: “One of our best bananas for home gardeners, ‘Dwarf Lady Finger’ only grows 5′ tall and produces bananas at an early age. The 4-5″ fruits are sweet and delicious. This variety is one of the earliest fruiting bananas for container growing.” That works for us!
What about that black olive? Here’s what Logee’s has to say: “‘Arbequina’ is a self-fertile olive from northern Spain that’s used for both its oil and as a table olive. Olives are easy-to-grow, rugged plants that tolerate a wide variation in temperature. ‘Arbequina’ is a great olive for pots since it flowers at an early age and produces an abundance of dark tasty fruit.” Yum!
Our friend Ben tasted passionfruit for the first time a couple of years ago and was frankly dazzled. Kiwi, go home! Our native passionfruit’s somewhat similar and far better. (It also reminded me of another tropical favorite, starfruit.) So when I saw ‘Possum Purple’, I simply had to get it to add to our greenhouse edibles. (And who could resist that name?) Logee’s has this to say about it: “‘Possum Purple’ is an amazing passionflower that has frilly flowers and delicious, sweet fruit [which are, in fact, purple]. This strong growing vine is a vigorous grower and needs a trellis for support. Grow in full sun.”
Finally, you may be wondering why our friend Ben added a “lemon guava” (in quotes because it tastes guavalike but isn’t actually a guava) to my order when I’ve never even tasted one. But the cluster of fruit in the photo looked so beautiful, and it was coupled with this description: “Known as the ‘lemon guava’, this fantastic tropical plant is well-suited to container growing. The sweet, yellow fruit arrives in abundance from summer through fall.” Sold!
Our friend Ben urges you to check out Logee’s at www.logees.com. And if you simply can’t resist, you too can sign up for their weekly e-mail temptations, I mean, sales. And should you happen to be in a philanthropic mood and wish to contribute a ‘Ponderosa’ lemon or ‘TR Hovey’ papaya or “tree tomato” or “dragon fruit” cactus to our friend Ben’s—I mean, Silence’s—stash, we will hang a plaque in the greenhouse commemorating your generous contribution. Hey, we might even invite you over to enjoy the fruits with us!
Shiloh’s resolutions. January 2, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in pets, wit and wisdom.Tags: blog humor, New Year's resolutions, Shiloh
2 comments
My New Year’s Resolutions
by Shiloh
Hi, I’m Pioneer Hawk’s Haven Shiloh von Shiloh Special, our friend Ben and Silence Dogood’s black German shepherd puppy. I just learned that people have an odd custom of drawing up New Year’s resolutions, and since this is my very first new year, I thought I’d draw up a few as well and see what I came up with. Let’s see…
* I resolve to chase the living squeak toys (Silence refers to them as “cats”) as often as possible. They like to play hide-and-seek with me, but since there are three of them, I can usually find at least one to chase through the house at top speed. If I catch one, I pin it to the ground with one paw and vigorously lick the back of its neck until it starts squeaking loudly. Silence enoys this game, too, since once she hears the squeaking she rushes into the room waving her arms and speaking very loudly. I’m always happy to brighten her day.
* I resolve to eat more rugs. I’ve only eaten six so far, and sadly, Silence and our friend Ben haven’t been replacing them lately. I actually enjoy the bare wood floors, since my feet make a very loud clacking noise when I run over them, and I think Silence and OFB enjoy this too, since they always start talking very animatedly after about half an hour of loud clacking. But I think they must miss rug-shopping, so I’ll try to see if I’ve missed any rugs just to give them an excuse to go out and buy something new.
* I resolve to get our friend Ben out of bed no fewer than twice a night to take me outside. He needs the exercise, and the fresh air is good for him.
* I resolve to play Silence’s favorite game more often. I love how much Silence enjoys this game. While she’s cooking or washing dishes with her back to me, I creep up very quietly behind her with my largest bone, then drop it on the floor, where it sounds just like a gun going off! Silence jumps straight up in the air, making an amusing high-pitched sound, then spins around with one hand clutching her chest and the other waving vigorously around. I try not to play this game more than a couple of times a week, since I want to make sure she forgets about it and enjoys the surprise every time. The game is also effective if she’s sitting down reading, but I don’t think she enjoys it so much, since she can’t jump as high when she’s sitting down.
This reminds me, I should tell you about my morning routine. What a lot of work! I get right to it at 6 a.m. every morning, gnawing loudly on my bone and dropping it with a thump onto the rug about every five minutes. Yes, it’s still dark, but hey, we’ve all been lying down for a long time by then and it’s boring! Time to get up. Not to mention that it keeps my teeth clean and sharp. After a half-hour of this, our friend Ben gets up, muttering furiously because he’s so happy to be starting his day. He takes me outside, we get the paper, then we come back in and he makes coffee. While he tries to read the sports section, I bring all the toys I can find and drop them on his feet. I know he’d rather be playing with me than reading some old paper, so I keep dropping toys on his feet, occasionally adding a gentle nip on his thigh if he seems to be forgetting.
For some reason, Silence doesn’t join us right away. But after about half an hour of fun and games, I start feeling really hungry, and then it’s time to wake her up. I sit outside the bedroom door and whine loudly, following this with a loud burst of piteous crying. Then I stand on my hind legs and pound on the door with my front paws. You’re right, this is a lot of work, but it only takes a couple of minutes and produces excellent results. Silence comes running to the door, and then she comes out and makes my breakfast and gives me my morning treats. Speaking of which…
* I resolve to beg for even more people-food treats at every meal. To get them, I apply separate techniques. In the case of our friend Ben, I sidle up as close to him as possible while he’s eating, giving him The Look. If this proves ineffective, I place my head on his thigh, still applying The Look. If even this tactic fails, I stand up with my paws on his thigh and my head at his eye level, all the while giving him The Look and drooling as necessary to drive my point home. With Silence, I use an entirely different tactic. I sit quietly a nice distance from her and tilt my head with the quizzical expression she seems to find irresistible. Hey, I say, whatever works. I also play another of Silence’s favorite games during mealtimes, chasing one or more of the living squeak toys under the table while Silence and our friend Ben are trying to eat. Silence especially enjoys this if I manage to bump the table so that everything on it bounces up and down. I know she appreciates it because she starts shrieking with delight. It was extra-fun when there were lit candles on the table, but recently I’ve noticed that Silence and OFB have stopped lighting the candles when they eat. No doubt they’re trying to economize.
* I resolve to escape as often as possible while our friend Ben and I are out feeding the chickens and OFB is a bit distracted. I can run over to the neighbors’ yard and furiously chase their little cockapoo Ollie around and around the yard. Ollie could use the exercise, and not only does he love this, the neighbors do, too: They always come running out of the house right away so they can watch us. Or I can run over to the neighbor’s on the other side, and, if he’s left the deck door ajar, run into his house to say hello to his old golden retriever, Jackson. For some reason, Jackson doesn’t seem to appreciate this—I clearly need to work on his social skills!—but the neighbor loves it. I can tell because he always comes rushing up, waving his arms and talking. Our friend Ben enjoys it, too: Whenever he comes to get me, he’s waving his arms and talking nonstop in a very loud, excited voice. Even Silence gets in on the act: When OFB comes back with me to our house, Silence starts waving her arms and speaking to him in that same loud, excited voice. For some reason, he doesn’t seem to be having quite as much fun at that point.
* I resolve to continue eviscerating my toys. This is actually a public service for Silence. After I’ve finished shredding the stuffing from each toy and spreading it all over the living room, I amble into her home office with just enough stuffing hanging out of my mouth to give her the hint that instant action is called for. I know that it’s my duty to give her something useful to do, like picking up the endless shreds of stuffing for the next half-hour, rather than sitting too long in front of her computer. I’ve heard that it’s bad for your eyes.
* I resolve to keep biting off my leashes. This is a new trick I just learned last week. Using my ultra-sharp teeth, I make a single surgically precise cut straight across the leash just beyond the spot where it forms a loop. First, I bit off my baby leash. Then Silence put on a quite snazzy leash that she told our friend Ben was very expensive. The three of us took a trip into town, and when we came home and OFB opened the door to let me out, he saw that I’d bitten off this leash as well. He was quite proud of my skill—he couldn’t stop talking about it—and Silence started talking about getting me a new metal leash. I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds like it could be quite noisy, so I’m sure we’ll all love it, especially once I figure out how to thrash it around so it makes an incredible racket.
* I resolve to bark as loudly as possible when I see another dog, since it would be very rude not to say hello. I especially resolve to bark at top volume in an enclosed space, such as the car or house, since otherwise the dog might not realize that I’m there. Our friend Ben and Silence really enjoy this when we’re in the car: They put their hands over their ears and turn around, making all sorts of funny noises and looking totally ridiculous. But much as I appreciate their attempts to amuse me, unfortunately, this distracts me from my greetings, so I have to ignore them and bark louder than ever to let the dog in question know that I’m not ignoring him or her.
* I resolve to help Silence play with her toys. Silence has a collection of very small toys that she keeps on the top tier of the three-tiered structure where the living squeak toys like to sleep. I know that she puts them up there as a sort of hide-and-seek game so that I’ll enjoy finding them, but unfortunately, I do tend to forget them now and then when they’re up there. Once I remember them, of course, I take them all down and scatter them throughout the house so Silence can enjoy finding them. Occasionally one of the living squeak toys tries to play with them, but I immediately remove them, since they’re Silence’s toys and I know she’d be most distressed if she thought they were being abused. I know she’ll soon replace them on the top tier of the structure and we can begin the game again. It’s not my favorite game, but I love Silence, and it’s really the least I can do.
Well, I guess that’s about it. Looks like another busy, productive, happy year coming up!
Your friend,
Shiloh
A New Year’s resolution worth making. January 1, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in Ben Franklin, wit and wisdom.Tags: American history, New Year's resolutions
6 comments
It’s me, Richard Saunders of Poor Richard’s Almanac fame, here today to talk about a New Year’s resolution that would benefit every American citizen. As you all know, I’m a history buff, especially addicted to Colonial and early American history. I propose that we all resolve to learn more about our own history this year.
I was prompted to think of this resolution while reading an article in our local paper called “Without history, America is doomed” by Paul Carpenter. (You can read the complete article online at www.themorningcall.com.) The article provided some results of a study by the Lexington Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, on Americans’ knowledge of American history. I quote:
“More than a third of Americans could not pick the century in which the American Revolution began. Only 42 percent were aware that the nation is a republic. Three-quarters of high school students did not know that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights. A third of Americans thought the Civil War came before the American Revolution and more than a third had no idea which country was hit by atomic bombs at the end of World War II. More than half of high school seniors thought Germany, Italy and Japan were U.S. allies in that war.”
Yikes! The Civil War preceded the Revolutionary War?!! And beyond this study, I’ll bet few of us could name all our presidents in chronological (or any other) order, or even all 50 states, much less state capitals. I wonder how many people know the name of the only man to sign all four major documents of the emerging American republic? (Yes, it was our hero and blog mentor, Benjamin Franklin. And the documents were the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, the Alliance with France, and the U.S. Constitution, in case you were wondering.)
But it’s not too late to learn. Good history books make for entertaining reading, and history programs and movies, from “1776″ to the acclaimed series on John Adams, make good viewing. I suggest a trip to your local library or bookstore where you can actually look at the books and DVDs to see which appeal most to you in terms of style and content. Used book stores are also great resources for hard-to-find history books, and for films and programs, there’s always Netflix.
I’m sure all of us could use some brushing up on our knowledge of American and world history. My knowledge of 20th-century history is appalling. I checked with fellow blog contributors our friend Ben and Silence Dogood, and though they could answer all the Lexington Study’s questions without difficulty, they also confessed to big gaps in their knowledge of history.
Silence revealed that she was seriously geographically challenged and has yet to manage to name all 50 states, even though she tries about twice a year, much less the Seven Seas, American Possessions, or all the countries on pretty much any continent beyond North America. “I thought for years that the Philippines were off the coast of South America,” she confessed. “It was so humiliating.”
Our friend Ben notes that pretty much all modern history is a mystery to him. “I could tell you all about Iceland during the time of the Icelandic Sagas (about 1000 A.D.), or about Minoan Crete,” OFB says. “But ask me about modern Iceland or, say, Holland, or the Eisenhower or George H. W. Bush administrations, and d’oh!!!”
OFB and Silence agreed to add reading up on history to their New Year’s resolutions. I’m certainly up for it. What about you?
Sincerely,
R.S.
