Poor Richard’s Almanac

It’s me, Richard Saunders of Poor Richard’s Almanac fame, back today to continue our discussion of dollars and sense—or, in this case, of gold, fraud, and cents. Five cents, to be exact. (If you’ve missed my previous posts on intriguing facts about U.S. coinage, see “Can a penny be saved?”, “Big bucks and silver dollars,” and “Don’t accept any wooden nickels.”)

Let’s start with some interesting facts about gold. Gold was indeed the “gold standard” of U.S. coinage until 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt demanded that U.S. citizens turn in their gold coins to the government and single-handedly brought about the end of an era, an era that had ironically seen its fullest flowering with the beautiful gold coins commissioned by his cousin Teddy Roosevelt. (Fortunately for coin collectors, they weren’t all melted down, and many are available on the coin market today.) But before FDR, any citizen could use gold coins as legal tender, and there was a wide range of them available, from teensy little bits of “fractional” gold (i.e., fractions of a dollar, such as 50 cents) to hefty $20 gold pieces the size of today’s quarters, but about as thick as two of them stuck together.

Gold coins have been minted in the U.S. since the early days of the Republic, starting in 1795. But they didn’t become widely available until gold was discovered in California and the Gold Rush, which began in earnest in 1849 (remember those Forty-Niners?), made gold more plentiful. Okay, so where did it come from before that?

Believe it or not, our early gold coinage came out of the South. Let me test your memory here: How many mints are there in the U.S.? If you came up with three—Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco—that’s not bad. But there’s actually a fourth, West Point, which produces American Eagle silver and gold bullion coins. However, there have been other mints, as the U.S. government tried to keep pace with Westward expansion. At one time, both New Orleans and Carson City had U.S. mints. But let’s get back to the gold. Denver wasn’t the first mint to put a “D” on their coins. That honor goes to the mint in Dahlonega, Georgia. Pre-gold rush gold coins were minted there and in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Gold coins from Dahlonega and Charlotte don’t look a whole lot like gold as we think of it today, that rich, red-gold color of California gold. The early Southern coinage was more of a pale, green-gold color. Most people never saw it anyway, though, since the common coins were silver dollars, half-dollars, quarter-dollars, dimes, and half-dimes, and copper pennies. (Two- and three-cent coins wouldn’t come along until later, but that’s another story.)

What do I mean, half-dimes? The earliest five-cent pieces were small silver coins called half-dimes, or, in their earliest incarnations, half-dismes. But these little pieces of silver were easy to lose. So in 1866, the mint produced a 5-cent piece that was much bigger—almost the size of today’s nickel—in a copper-nickel composition (that’s what our nickels are still made of today), and the “nickel” was born. It must be admitted that this new form of coinage was no thing of beauty, however. In the spirit of Civil War victory, the coin displayed a shield on one side and a big “5″ surrounded by stars and rays, then just stars, on the reverse, with “cents” at the bottom. The public, already being asked to give up a silver coin for base metal, was also being asked to accept an ugly, boring coin. But the design endured until 1883, when the mint decided it was time for a design upgrade.

And that’s where gold, greed, and good old American opportunism re-enter the picture. You see, the mint made a terrible mistake. The new coin, now the comparatively hefty size of today’s nickel, bore the bust of a rather bovine Lady Liberty on the front and the Roman numeral “V” surrounded by a wreath on the back. But in streamlining the design of the back and upgrading the previous “5″ to the more elegant Roman numeral, they left off the humble “cents” that had previously appeared in the lower part of the design.

It didn’t occur to the mint in those days to launch new coins with publicity campaigns like the ones that accompanied the release of our state quarters or the Lewis & Clark commemorative nickel series. It just made the coins and sent them out into the vast and still not entirely charted expanse of America, where news travelled slowly, a lot more slowly than unscrupulous con men.

Here’s what happened: The mint, doubtless delighted to have gotten that ugly shield off the five-cent piece and anticipating a warm reception from the public, pumped out almost 5.5 million of the new nickels. And the con men, ever alert to new opportunities, got busy right away. American citizens weren’t familiar with the new coins. They had a big old “V” on the back. There was nothing on there to indicate that this meant “5 cents.” The crooks simply had to dip them in a thin coat of gold and—voila!—they had big, hefty, shiny $5 gold pieces to put into circulation in exchange for goods or currency or change that were actually worth five dollars. It was a thief’s bonanza.

Let’s put the scam in perspective. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the annoying tendency of store clerks to run some kind of Magic Marker over your $20 bills to see if they’re counterfeits before accepting them when you’re trying to make a purchase. (Hey! Since you got them out of the ATM to begin with, isn’t it the bank’s fault if they’re counterfeits, not yours?!) But even if they find that your $20 is no good, it isn’t the end of the world. In 1883, however, it might have made the difference between making it through the week and going hungry. The average salary at that time was less than $1,000—in many cases, a lot less. Suppose you made a whopping $600 a year. If somebody pawned off a worthless “$5″ coin on you, that would be almost half a week’s wages!

Fortunately, the mint woke up to what was going on. They quickly brought out over 16 million new nickels that same year, with the same basic design but an important modification: Under the wreath, the word “cents” appeared. The scam artists were out of luck. They had to go back to trying to counterfeit actual gold pieces, which required a lot of skill, as opposed to just dipping coins in gold plate. The bonanza was over.

The mint continued to make nickels with the Liberty design until 1913, when they introduced James Earle Fraser’s marvelous buffalo nickel. (And there’s an incredible story about that, but I’ll save it for another post.) Today’s collectors can find the original 1883 “V” nickel and the 1883-1912 ”V” with “cents” nickels, which, except for the years 1885, 1886, and 1912S, are very reasonably priced. And, if you’re really lucky, you might also be able to find one of the gold-plated 1883 nickels as well. I have a little collection of fake coins, and I was able to find one locally for a pretty reasonable price. You, too, can enjoy owning this little oddity of American history. Just remember: Don’t accept any wooden nickels (or gold ones, either!).        

Our friend Ben is going to try to rise to the level needed to elegize a great horse, the filly Eight Belles, who was destroyed on the track of Churchill Downs on Saturday after a magnificent run in the Kentucky Derby. Please don’t hold it against me if I fail to rise high enough; I know it’s going to be very hard to do. But Silence Dogood has asked me to try, and try I shall, problematic as it is, painful as it is, inadequate as any tribute must be.

As you know if you love horse racing, Eight Belles came in second in the Derby after the magnificent stallion Big Brown. Big Brown is an exceptional thoroughbred, and our friend Ben and Silence by no means wish to diminish the glory of his victory. But had he not been in the race, the filly Eight Belles would have won, only the fourth filly ever to have done so, only the 39th filly ever to have raced in the Derby in its 132-year history, defeating a field of fullblooded stallions to claim her victory.

Her performance was exceptional. Her performance was extraordinary. But it was not altogether unexpected, given her descent from Northern Dancer, given her three-for-three previous wins, one by 13 1/2 lengths over another field of stallions. If “heart” were a precious metal, Eight Belles would be the gold standard. What was unexpected was that after crossing the finish line, in the cool-down segment of the track, Eight Belles would collapse, both front ankles shattered, and that the track vet would euthanize her where she lay.

Sic transit gloria mundi. God damn them!!! Silence is sitting beside me weeping as I write. Why, you might ask: Wasn’t it just a horse? Not to us, no, not “just” an anything. How can I put you in the picture? Perhaps a montage of images:

* Our friend Ben’s Kentucky clan, grandparents on down, gathered annually for the big day, Derby Day, clustered around the television with mint juleps for the adults and iced tea with fresh mint sprigs and simple syrup for the youthful Ben and siblings, eagerly discussing the horses, tracing their histories, discussing the triumphs of their ancestors and of their jockeys, the excitement building hour by hour until the starting gates crashed open.

* The girl Silence, tears streaming down her face, not because she was sorry for the horses but because the pure beauty of their running, like the beauty of pure soprano singing or the violin or ballet or any great art, was more than she could bear.

* The adult Silence, refusing to go with our friend Ben to friends’ houses to watch the Derby because she knew she would weep again at its beauty, and also knew the friends would never understand.

* Our friend Ben, speaking to every horse on every country drive, knowing them all by sight, appreciating their uniqueness, their colors, their configuration.

* Our friend Ben and Silence, rejoicing in the book Horse, Follow Closely by GaWaNi Pony Boy with its joyous communion of horse and human and its glorious photos celebrating that communion.

* Our friend Ben ruefully recounting how successful my ancestors were at mule-breeding and what dismal failures they were at breeding thoroughbreds. (Many humorous and humiliating tales to tell there! We should have stuck with mules.)

* Silence recalling how, as a girl at summer horse camp, she was riding a good-natured horse named Beauty when a novice camp counsellor, thinking that Beauty wasn’t going fast enough, came up behind the horse and brought her crop down hard against her flank. Silence coming to on the ground with Beauty reared up above her so she wouldn’t crush her by coming down.

* Our friend Ben recalling the first time riding a horse and letting it run, really run, out of a canter, out of a gallop, into a straight-out run, where horse and rider and wind and ground merged into something unlike any other experience there is.

Horses. They are the wind’s gift to man, the wind made flesh. We can never deserve them, we can only be grateful. We can only accept a gift unlooked for, a gift we can never repay.

And thus we come back to Eight Belles, that great heart, that great horse. Our friend Ben and Silence would have been devastated by her fate in any case. But then one of those synchronicities happened again. Silence received, at about the same time, one of those feel-good e-mails about a pony who’d damaged its front leg. There was no way to save the leg, and the vets considered euthanasia. But instead, they and the pony’s owners felt that this friendly creature deserved a second chance at a happy life. They amputated the lower leg, but replaced it with a prosthesis. Not only has the pony adjusted beautifully, but it’s now a poster horse for human therapy, using animals to put the heart back into gravely ill adults and children and nursing-home residents who often don’t receive a lot in the way of love and touch.

Well and well. If even an anonymous pony could be given a second chance, couldn’t Eight Belles? True, she would never have run again. True, she would never have made her syndicate owners bazillion dollars pumping out foals. But hadn’t she already earned her right to what was left of a good life? What horse, against such unbelievable odds, could possibly have done more?

I sing you the song of Eight Belles. I sing you the song of a filly, who, against all odds, put her heart out and made that great heart fly. I sing you the song of a horse who rose to meet the expectations of men. Of the men who considered her disposable, I do not sing. My own heart cannot bear the thought of it.            

Our friend Ben is enduring quite a bit of abuse from Silence Dogood at the moment. In particular, Silence is wondering if three posts in one day are really necessary. (”Despite your aspirations, Ben, people actually have other things to do than sit here reading Poor Richard’s Almanac posts! Couldn’t you wait ’til tomorrow to post this and, say, get back to work instead?!”) Well, um, actually, no.

After all, our friend Ben just fired off a post, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” attacking weeds. So it seems only fair to champion an ornamental plant that most consider a weed, pokeweed (Phytolacca americana). Pokeweed is the source of the famous poke sallet, sometimes called “poke salad,” though it’s actually a cooked dish comprised of new leaves and shoots of pokeweed boiled, then drained and cooked with bacon grease or fatback. Now, poke sallet is supposed to be delicious, not to mention the ultimate spring tonic. But our friend Ben has never tried it. The knowledge that mature poke leaves, stems, roots, and berries are poisonous gives me pause. If I want cooked greens, I’ll stick to spinach, thanks.

However. Our friend Ben knows of no plant—no plant, hear me now—that is more decorative than pokeweed. The plants emerge from the ground a beautiful red-green about now in our corner of Pennsylvania. They grow into 4- to 5-foot-tall herbaceous shrubs, with lush foliage. Then they produce long, wild-cherry-like sprays of white flowers followed by delightful berries that are green, then rose, and finally a deep purple-black. As frost sets in, the foliage turns the most stunning red-purple. For three-season splendor, you could hardly ask for more from any plant. Once the stems dry and bleach blond in winter, cut them at ground level and compost them, then wait for the show to start again in spring.

Our friend Ben is not (mercifully) the only one who loves pokeweed for its decorative properties. Our good friend Nancy Ondra recently posted about the variegated pokeweed cultivar ‘Silberstein’ on her wonderful blog, Hayefield (see our blogroll for a link). Nan generously offered to share a plant with our friend Ben and I can’t wait to try it!

But variegated or plain, pokeweed deserves a place in the shrub border. You’ll never see a more beautiful plant.     

Okay, we’ll admit it: Here at Hawk’s Haven, we’re huge Conan fans. We love “Conan the Barbarian,” and Silence Dogood also loves “Conan the Destroyer,” though our friend Ben is less enamoured of this second Conan movie. Not that we wouldn’t both love to see many, many more! Too bad Arnold Schwarzenegger had to go off and become Governor of California instead of making Conan sequels.

Springtime always reminds our friend Ben of Conan’s leitmotif, Friedrich Nietsche’s “That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” because, while I have some doubts about its application to people, there’s not even a shred of doubt in my mind that it applies to weeds. Dandelions, garlic mustard, Norway maple seedlings, celandine poppies, poison ivy, oriental bittersweet, pigweed, dock, lamb’s-quarters, solanum, bindweed, multiflora rose, sumac, some horrific polygonum from Japan that floated down the stream one day and set up shop on our banks: Hawk’s Haven certainly has its share of invasives. And of course there are also those plants that have simply overstepped their bounds, fine in their place but a nightmare in our gardens: English ivy, pachysandra, lawn grass, lilies, jewelweed, trumpetvine, monarda, goldenrods, tansy, teasel, bamboo, rose-of-Sharon.

Ack!!! One hardly knows where to begin. And no sooner have you managed to weed out one invader and moved on to the next when, horror of horrors, the first one is making a comeback! We’re organic gardeners here, so herbicides are out of the question. We go out in the gardens and pull. And then we typically give the results of our efforts to our chickens or our compost piles, unless they spread by creeping stems, in which case they’re tossed onto the lawn to dry and die. But a lot of weeds seem to enjoy pulling back. (Thank God we don’t have thistles here, the absolute worst in this respect.) And in a tug of war with nature, nature usually wins. So we’ve settled for staying one step ahead and girding ourselves for next year’s battles, because we know that, like spring itself, those weeds are going to come back.

Mercifully, spring offers the gardener some consolation in the form of self-sown seedlings from desirable plants as well. Just yesterday, our friend Ben was delighted to see that new clumps of European wild ginger (Asarum europaeum) and pulmonaria had appeared in the shaded side garden. Hellebore, hosta, and white-flowered bleeding heart seedlings had sprung up all over a small circle of highly unsatisfactory shaded lawn. (I’ve already posted about the old-fashioned bleeding heart seedlings, now handsome plants in their own right, that colonized the foundation borders in front of the house.) Even our peonies exhibit this tendency to volunteer and add to the Hawk’s Haven floral display.

So the cycle continues, the annual battle against the invaders, the annual rejoicing at the appearance of unexpected pleasures. Now that our friend Ben thinks about it, I guess that which does not kill us gardeners makes us stronger, after all.             

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post to say a huge, happy ”thank you!!!” to Deb of Aunt Debbi’s Garden (http://auntdebbisgarden.blogspot.com/) for saying such wonderful things about us and Poor Richard’s Almanac in her post, “Blogs I Dig.” (And for putting us in such great company, too!) Aunt Debbi’s posts make us laugh, and we love that. We love reading about her “putting the fear of Mom” into one of her kids, sending her spouse, Manly Man, out to do battle with a rosebush that’s attacking the local schoolbus (it’s not clear who won), or spending bazillion dollars to establish a good home for some “free” tadpoles, then watching in horror as a kid falls into the new water garden, the cats decide that she’s set out an all-you-can-eat sushi bar just for them, and then the tadpoles mysteriously disappear… because they’ve eaten each other. We can’t wait to read Aunt Debbi’s latest adventures and misadventures, and we know you’ll enjoy them, too. Just don’t try reading her posts while you’re drinking coffee! We’re still trying to get the stains out of our shirts.  

Silence Dogood here. It’s Cinco de Mayo, and that means Fiesta Night here at Hawk’s Haven! We suggest that you plug in the chile lights, crank up the Jimmy Buffett, mix up pitchers of margaritas and sangria and stick ‘em in the fridge to chill, and join the party! (And yes, it’s okay to buy that tacky parrot pinata at the grocery. Just don’t beat the poor thing to death.) Tart up the deck with some blooming tropicals, or at least with some tropical-looking blooms. And yes, why not put on that long, brilliantly colored broomstick skirt and tank top or chile-themed Hawaiian shirt and shorts? Go for it!

Incidentally, for this occasion we recommend Jimmy Buffett’s CD “Take the Weather with You,” which features “Cinco de Mayo in Memphis,” and his box set “Jimmy Buffett: Boats Beaches Bars & Ballads,” which includes his classic “Margaritaville” on the “Beaches” CD. Both are guaranteed to relax you into a party mood, even on a Monday. Honorable mention also goes to Al Stewart’s “Down in the Cellar” CD, especially for “The Night the Band Got the Wine.”

But what’s a fiesta without good food and great drinks? Our friend Ben has persuaded me to share my regionally famous refried beans recipe with you, along with two ways to serve them, and of course I have to add a few salsa recipes and our favorite drinks (including one just for kids) to the mix. Not to mention our Sunday Brunch favorite, Hawk’s Haven Huevos Rancheros. (Check my earlier post, “Come and get it: cornbread and black bean soup” for a couple of other great fiesta foods.) These are simply too good to save for once a year, so we enjoy Mexican Night at our Friday Night Supper Club at least once every couple of months, and plainer beans-and-rice fare here at home every week or two. Yum! Are you in the mood yet? Put that Jimmy Buffet in the CD player and let’s kick off this party!

           Silence’s Top Secret Disappearing Refried Beans Recipe

I call these Disappearing Refried Beans because if I make them for a gathering they have a bad habit of disappearing before I can even get any! (Our friend Ben knows better than to try that stunt.) So if you make them, make sure you save some for yourself before setting them out! I’ll be the first to admit that I love the convenience of canned beans, but you can absolutely soak your own instead, and kudos for doing it. I’m also going to say as I do with pretty much every recipe that I’m an intuitive cook who tends to just toss stuff in rather than measuring it out. I find that recipes are very forgiving in this respect (UNLESS you’re baking—don’t try this in that case unless you’re a true chef or the recipe provides options), so I encourage you to add more of what you like and less or even none of what you don’t. Courage! It’s going to be great! And if for some reason it isn’t, just serve a few rounds of margaritas or sangria before supper and everyone will love it anyway! Thus saith Silence.

3 cans pinto beans, or mix of pintos, black beans, and/or kidney beans (we’ve tried them all and they’re all good, but they will change the color of the finished dish, so be forewarned)

canola oil or butter

1 large sweet onion (Walla Walla or Vidalia type), diced

1 medium yellow onion, diced

1 large green bell pepper, diced

3-6 paste tomatoes, chopped

1 heaping tablespoon black or brown mustardseeds (do not substitute yellow mustardseeds)

1 heaping tablespoon whole cumin seeds

1 heaping tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon ground cloves

1 tablespoon salt (we like Real Salt)

1 tablespoon hot sauce or to taste (we like Pickapeppa or Tabasco Chipotle)

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro or 1 tablespoon cilantro paste

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Heat oil or butter in a heavy Dutch oven. (This is going to take up a lot more room than you think.) Add black mustardseeds, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, and salt, stirring constantly to prevent sticking. Add diced onions and saute until clarified. Add diced pepper. Once pepper has softened, add chopped tomatoes, lemon juice, and hot pepper sauce. Stir in beans and liquid from cans (if using soaked beans, I suggest that you rinse and drain them, simply replacing liquid with water or veggie stock as needed). When beans are thoroughly heated, use a heavy potato masher to squash beans into paste. (A strong arm is helpful here; thanks, Ben!) You don’t have to squash every last bean. The goal is to get a more pastelike consistency. Keep stirring to prevent sticking. Once the refried beans have reached a thick consistency, stir in the chopped cilantro or cilantro paste and serve.

Serving suggestions: We prepare bowls of chopped green onions (scallions), grated sharp cheddar or Mexican cheese blend, sour cream, fresh and prepared salsa (see below), sliced black olives, shredded lettuce, chopped fresh cilantro, diced red and yellow bell peppers, and chopped paste tomatoes (less juicy than other tomatoes, so ideal for this), and sliced jalapenos and set them all out, along with a big bowl of rice and a platter of hot white-corn tortillas so everyone can make their own favorite creations. Our friend Ben enjoys loading up crispy tortillas with beans, cheese, and toppings, and making a separate salad with the lettuce and more toppings, while I prefer skipping the tortillas and creating a platter with rice, beans, and toppings, including plenty of lettuce. Everybody will have a preference, and that’s part of the fun of setting it all out and letting everyone make their own.

As a fabulous dip: Here’s a serving alternative: Turn these yummy, spicy refried beans into the base for a 7-layer dip. Cook them until they’re really thick, then add a layer of them at the bottom of a souffle dish or other straight-sided serving dish. Top with layers of shredded cheese, salsa, sour cream, sliced black olives, chopped paste tomatoes, and shredded lettuce, and serve with lots of white-corn tortilla chips (we like Tostitos and Green Mountain Tortilla Chips) for dipping. We like this dip best when the refried beans are still hot.

           Fresh Salsa a la Silence

1 large sweet onion (Walla Walla or Vidalia type), chopped

1 large red bell pepper, diced

3-6 paste tomatoes, chopped

sliced jalapenos to taste

chopped fresh cilantro to taste

1 teaspoon salt

splash lime juice                 

Mix, chill, and serve.

           Primo Peach Salsa a la Silence

I tweaked a salsa recipe from my CSA, Quiet Creek Farm, created by CSA farmer Aimee Good, to take advantage of peach season, when we had both an abundance of ripe peaches and a ton of ripe tomatoes. Freeze or can it in a hot-water-bath canner to use anytime, or refrigerate the cooked salsa and make a Mexican Night of it within a couple of weeks. This recipe makes a ton, so feel free to adjust the quantities down as desired or give pints as gifts.

2 large or 3 medium onions (I like to use sweet onions), diced

6 sweet red bell peppers, diced

1 large or 2 small heads of garlic, minced

1/2 cup hot peppers, sliced or diced

8 quarts paste tomatoes, chopped

6 large ripe peaches, peeled, pitted, and chopped

1 1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon ground coriander

1 1/3 cups minced fresh cilantro

Cook tomatoes on medium heat in a large stockpot or Dutch oven, stirring occasionally. Saute the onions, peppers, hot peppers, peaches, and garlic in olive oil until tender. Set aside. Continue to cook the tomatoes down on medium heat until desired thickness is achieved (this may take a few hours). Once the tomatoes have reached the thickness you want, stir in the cooked veggies and peaches. Add the salt, cumin, coriander, and red wine vinegar. Add the chopped cilantro at the very end. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.

To can, pack hot salsa in hot sterilized pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space. Seal with hot sterilized lids and process in a boiling-water bath for 20 minutes. Yields about 8-10 pints.         

Gee, it’s drink time! Let’s move on from yummy main dishes and salsas to sangria and margaritas.

              Silence’s Sangria

1 bottle dry red wine

juice of two limes

juice of one lemon

juice of two oranges

1/4 cup sugar or 1/2 cup sugar syrup

1/2 cup triple sec

slices of orange, lemon and lime         

Mix all ingredients in a pitcher. Chill and serve.

            Ben’s Knock-Me-Down, Set-Me-Up Margaritas

I find straight-up margaritas too syrupy, but our friend Ben loves them, so here’s Ben’s go-to recipe. Per glass:

2 oz chilled gold tequila

1 oz chilled lime juice (juice of 1 chilled lime)

1 oz Cointreau

4 oz margarita mix (spring for the best; we like Jose Cuervo)

Make as many multiples of this basic formula as you have guests or want to. Chill pitcher until ready to serve. Serve straight up, on ice, or in a traditional margarita glass with the rim rubbed with lime juice and dipped in margarita salt.

           Chalino Special

Try this gorgeous, cranberry-colored Prohibition-era drink as an alternative to the usual margaritas and sangria. I found this recipe courtesy of MSN and Esquire. Yum! Per glass:  

3 ounces white tequila

1/2 tablespoon creme de cassis

1/2 ounce lemon juice

1/2 ounce lime juice

1/2 tablespoon simple syrup

Shake well with cracked ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a twist of lemon or lime peel.

Finally, just for kids:

            La Palomina

Per glass:

1/2 ounce lime juice

pinch of salt

grapefruit soda

slice of lime  

Combine the lime juice and salt in a tall glass and stir. Add ice, top off with grapefruit soda and lime slice, and stir again. If you can find it, use a Mexican soda like Jarritos, but if not, try a lemon-lime soda like Sprite or 7-Up with a splash of grapefruit juice. You can turn this into a refreshing adult drink, La Paloma, by adding 2 ounces of tequila (preferably reposado) to the basic recipe.

Oops! Almost forgot those huevos! Our chickens would never forgive me if I didn’t include them.

         Hawk’s Haven Huevos Rancheros

4 large eggs

butter

1 cup sliced button mushrooms

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 large sweet onion, diced (Walla Walla or Vidalia type)

chopped green onions (scallions)

Trocamare or salt and hot pepper sauce (we like Picakpeppa or Tabasco Chipotle)

White corn or flour tortillas or buttered slices of crusty baguette

Refried beans (optional)

Sliced orange and grapefruit

Sour cream

Shredded Cheddar or Mexican cheese blend

Fresh or jarred salsa or both 

Melt butter in a heavy skillet. Saute diced onion, mushrooms, and peppers until onions have clarified and mushrooms are well cooked. Push to the perimeter of the skillet and break four eggs into the center of the skillet. Liberally sprinkle eggs with Trocamare or with salt and hot sauce. When eggs have set on underside, flip them, sprinkle with more Trocamare or salt and hot sauce. Flatten with spatula and fry hard. When you break eggs into the skillet, heat white corn or flour tortillas or buttered slices of crusty baguette, and cut slices of orange and grapefruit. If you have leftover refried beans, lucky you! Heat them in a separate pan.

To serve, mound refried beans (if you have them) on a plate, top with two eggs and a generous helping of the onions, peppers, and mushrooms. Top all with green onions/scallions, shredded cheese, sour cream, and salsa to taste, and serve orange and grapefruit slices on the side and warm tortillas or slices of baguette for scooping.

This recipe serves two generously. Make more if you’re having company, and break out those margaritas! Or maybe a pitcher of Tequila Sunrises or Chalinos. Good times!!! 

Now get on out there and celebrate!

                 ‘Til next time,

                             Silence

A peek into our medicine cabinet would reveal that we’re a pretty healthy bunch here at Hawk’s Haven. You’d find a bunch of vitamins, some aspirin, and a just-in-case package of decongestant tabs (we rarely get colds, but our friend Ben has a horror of being unable to breathe). Oops, and a huge box of Band-Aids for the uncoordinated Ben’s many scrapes and scratches. Our general philosophy is that most things will cure themselves about as fast as you can cure them, and if you’re really feeling miserable, hot herb tea or a hot toddy and plenty of sleep is the best remedy. So far, our approach has served us well.

But what if being unable to get to sleep is the problem? We’ve all had those nights where wrestling with looming deadlines or looming bills or a looming performance review or some other waking nightmare has kept us tossing and turning. And as we all know, a sleepless night only adds to our worries the next day. Over the years, our friend Ben and Silence Dogood have arrived at a number of ways to keep those demons at bay, and not one of them involves reaching for a pill. Next time you’re having trouble getting to sleep, try one. They’ve all earned their One-Ben Awards for effectiveness! (What are One-Ben Awards, you ask? See my earlier post, “Ben Picks Ten: Music,” and you can read all about ‘em.)

1. Cut back on the caffeine. This one should be a no-brainer: If you’re drinking high-powered espressos, cappucinos, and French roast all day (and all night), do you really think you’re going to sleep well? Doh! Ditto for caffeinated sodas. Caffeine definitely has its place, but by mid-afternoon, it’s time to switch to decaf for the rest of the day. Give your body a break! Even decaf has some caffeine, though, so it’s best to stop drinking coffee, black or green tea, or any naturally caffeinated beverage after dinner to give yourself a chance to wind down.

2. Make a little noise. White noise, that is, the kind of low-key, repetitive sound that blocks out irregular noises like trucks roaring by, train whistles, and (our favorite) the kitty derby starting up at 3 a.m. as the cats chase each other through the house. No need for a fancy white-noise machine—a fan on low or the air conditioner does the trick nicely.

3. Drink your tea. Forget that “glass of milk before bedtime” stuff—the protein in milk is actually a stimulant. Instead, brew up a cup of chamomile tea. This gentle herb tea has earned its stripes over the centuries as a sleeping aid, and our friend Ben knows its effectiveness first-hand: within five minutes of drinking a cup, I’m out. But don’t add sugar, not even honey: It, too, is a stimulant. Our friend Ben thinks that if you can drink black coffee, you can certainly drink mild-flavored chamomile tea. But if you simply must add something, try a splash of lemon juice.

4. Or try something stronger. A glass of wine or a drink is a nice way to relax before bedtime. Port is especially warming on a cold night (our favorite is Sandeman’s Tawny Port, which has a wonderful flavor and color and isn’t syrupy-sweet like some ports). If you opt for a mixed drink, keep that bourbon or rum or Kahlua away from the coffee and cola, though!

5. Read a boring book. This one is our friend Ben’s go-to remedy, and it has never failed me. I first discovered it during an unfortunate encounter with emergency surgery that involved a hospital stay. As you know if you’ve ever been confined to bed for more than a day, it becomes increasingly hard to actually sleep, since your body isn’t tired. Fortunately, in this case, I had brought a huge, scholarly tome on the history of the Amish along that I was trying to get through. It was not, shall we say, riveting reading, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise: It could knock our friend Ben out every time within five pages. You must have a boring book lying around somewhere—an old textbook, a novel you couldn’t get through, a history or investment guide or something that sounded good but proved to be virtually unreadable. If worse comes to worst, go to the used bookstore or library discard bin and choose one to keep around just for this reason. But make sure it’s on a neutral topic—no murder mysteries or other graphic violence or disturbing stuff. The idea is to put yourself to sleep, not give yourself nightmares. (More on this in a minute.)

6. Count your blessings. Our friend Ben is embarrassed to admit that this works far better for me than any of those bizarre mind tricks that are supposed to numb you into sleep, like counting sheep or counting backwards from a hundred. Perhaps putting yourself in an attitude of gratitude simply creates a peaceful, restful atmosphere. But whatever the case, our friend Ben likes to end each day by giving thanks for all the good things the day has brought, and long before that list is complete, I’m sleeping as soundly as our cat Linus after he’s managed to shove our golden retriever, Molly, completely off her huge dog bed and gone to that wonderful place that all cats seem to find in their dreams. (Our friend Ben knows of nothing as relaxed and contented-looking as a sleeping cat. Just looking at one is enough to relax you, too.)

7. Get some exercise. It’s hard to get to sleep when your body’s not tired, even if your mind’s exhausted. This is yet another good reason to get out and get some exercise every day, whether you’re taking a walk, doing some gardening, or heading to the gym or the pool. Your body will thank you for all sorts of reasons! Just don’t exercise before bedtime. You guessed it: Exercise is stimulating, and you’ll be too pumped up to be able to relax into sleep.

8. Stop the clock. The mental clock, that is. Our friend Ben makes it a point to stop thinking about anything serious for at least a half-hour before bedtime. This is not the time to be worrying about the mortgage or having a gut-wrenching discussion or even thinking about something fun and exciting, like planning a vacation or, say, writing a blog post. Like a bulldog with a pork chop, the mind will seize on any stimulation and worry at it for hours on end. The good, the bad, and the ugly—it all needs to stop if you’re planning on sleeping anytime soon. Sweep the floor, do the dishes, clean the litterbox—mindless chores are a good way to shut yourself off.

9. Turn off the TV. I know this will be the hardest one for many of you, but watching the late-night news with its graphic gore and violence and its endless parade of bad news, or a shoot-’em-up or cut-’em-up show, or even hearing the screaming, shrieking, overloud and overhyped commercials that punctuate any show, is going to imprint violence, hysteria, and noise on your brain. And that’s not what you need when you’re trying to relax into sleep. An hour before bedtime, cut yourself off. Record or download your faves and watch ‘em after supper. (Okay, sports fans, I know there’s about as much chance of your turning off the game as cutting off your own arm. Just self-medicate with beer so you can sleep when it’s all over.) Can’t tear yourself away from the screen? This is a good time to watch favorite DVDs that you already know and love; they’re less likely to get your mind overstimulated than something new. But go for the romances or the documentaries, not the blood-and-guts thrillers, if you really plan on getting to sleep.

10. Love the one you’re with. Our friend Ben aims for a PG rating for Poor Richard’s Almanac, but in this case, we gotta go for the X. There’s nothing like a good session of loving to—I was about to say, get the kinks out, but let’s opt for “relax those tense muscles and help you drift off to sleep” instead. And, as an added benefit, remember that scientists have found that the more sex you have, the younger you look! (Hmmm, we wonder how those scientists discovered that interesting fact. And people think science is dull!)

There are actually two more techniques that our friend Ben would like to add to the list:

11. Sleep cool. Turn down the thermostat a bit before bedtime. Our friend Ben won’t claim that this saves energy, since the extra cooling in summer probably balances out the money saved on heat in winter. But it sure helps you get a better night’s sleep! That’s because you warm up your surroundings as you sleep, transferring body heat to the bedclothes. If you’re perfectly comfortable when you lie down, you’ll soon find yourself overheating, which makes for a bad night of semiconscious thrashing and turning while attempting to cool down. If, on the other hand, you start out a bit cool, you’ll soon reach a perfect temperature for nightlong comfort. Just a bit cool, though—freezing is hardly what anyone would call a restful state.

12. Make sure your bed suits you. Our friend Ben has spent far too many sleepless nights as a guest on rock-hard futons and iron-hard mattresses to ignore this point. A mushy, saggy mattress is no one’s idea of comfort, but our friend Ben has to wonder what sadist or religious zealot thought up the board-hard bed. If you’re curvy like Silence, these boardlike mattresses are especially excruciating, since they don’t conform to your curves. Aaaarrrggghhhh!!! You might as well be sleeping on the bare ground, and in fact, it might be softer. Our friend Ben suggests that you ignore the experts and find a mattress that actually feels good. New bedding not in your budget? Check out the new generation of air mattresses. Our friend Ben discovered these while staying at a friend’s, and we now have two of them at Hawk’s Haven for the comfort of our own guests. You can inflate them to the exact level of firmness that feels right to you, and they’re as comfortable as any bed our friend Ben has ever known, and more comfortable than almost all of them. As an added benefit, they cost a lot less than a mattress, too! Don’t forget the pillows when you’re thinking about comfy bedding. The right combination can make all the difference! Our friend Ben prefers a foam rubber pillow on the bottom with a plumper pillow on top—the foam rubber has just the right amount of give combined with the firmer top pillow. Check out various combinations and see what works for you!    

And finally for the bonus:

13. Stop the snoring. There’s nothing like a stentorian barrage of snoring for keeping the non-snoring partner awake and homicidal. And it doesn’t seem fair to our friend Ben to punish the non-snorer by forcing her to wear earplugs while her oblivious partner snorts, gasps, and roars through the night. I read in a blog post not long ago (but too long ago, alas, for my feeble brain cells to remember whose blog it was) that those adhesive strips that you put on your nose to open the airways really work. Though, frankly, sticking tape on your nose every night doesn’t strike our friend Ben as appealing. But I guess it’s better than being murdered in your sleep. There are also a number of stop-snoring spray cans on the market. Our friend Ben burst out laughing the first time I saw these on a pharmacy shelf: I had an instant vision of the sleepless spouse firing off a macelike blast into the face of her snoring partner. That would stop the snoring, all right! And it might have an interesting effect on the relationship, as well. A closer look revealed that the snorer was supposed to spray a few blasts into his mouth; presumably keeping the throat from drying out will help stifle the noise. Maybe between the nose strips and the sprays, a couple could at least reach detente; our friend Ben can’t say for sure, but open breathing passages and a moistened throat sound like good signs to me. And of course, there’s always that white noise. Crank it up!   

Sleep gives our bodies and minds a chance to repair and restore themselves so we can face another day. It works far better than any other restorative technique, and it’s free and available to all. It’s far too precious a resource to lose to worry, caffeine, or TV. Our friend Ben says, reclaim your right to a good night’s sleep! You’ll live longer and better if you do. (Linus would like to add his two cents here: He says that you’ll always sleep better in someone else’s bed, but only if you toss them out first.) 

Now it’s your turn. Please share your sleep-inducing techniques with us!      

Our friend Ben and Silence Dogood have been (very) slowly replacing our beloved video collection with DVDs. (Just in time for Blu-Ray! We’re Luddites, what can I say?) This week, we treated ourselves to the DVD version of one of our all-time faves, “Witness,” and of course had to watch it right away.

If you haven’t seen it—and you should—”Witness” is a drama set in Amish country, involving corrupt cops, murder, an Amish witness, the struggles of a tough Philadelphia homicide detective to adjust to the slow-paced Amish lifestyle, and the inevitable subplot romance, in this case doomed, between him and a young Amishwoman. (I suppose that, for some viewers, the romance would be the plot and the murder the subplot.) Harrison Ford stars with a superb ensemble cast that features an especially delightful performance by the Russian ballet dancer Alexander Godunov in his first film role.

There are many reasons why we love this film. Being Luddites ourselves, we’ve been fascinated by the Amish lifestyle since moving to Pennsylvania, home of the world’s largest Amish community in Lancaster County, where “Witness” was filmed. Our friend Ben’s shelves groan with books on the Amish, and I’ve read every one. Silence has Amish cookbooks, and we even have a couple of Amish-made quilts. We think that (except for the romance, of course) the film provides a great introduction to Amish life.

But what really sets “Witness” apart for us, and why we can watch it again and again (murder, after all, not being one of our favorite subjects), is the beauty of the film. The camerawork is just gorgeous. There are a lot of scenes simply of the countryside, the wind and light playing over the grain fields, a horse and buggy clopping slowly along, a water wheel turning. For us, it feels like the landscape itself is the plot, and the struggles and travails of the characters are simply textural elements.

Thus it was with amazement that our friend Ben watched the “special feature” included on the DVD, a five-part interview with the cast, director, producer, and director of photography. Our friend Ben regards all those “extras” included on DVDs as cynical marketing tricks that seldom enhance one’s appreciation of the film. But in this case, I was pleasantly surprised. The interviews were interesting and articulate, for a start. They also revealed that everyone, from the producer, director, and Harrison Ford on down, had immediately recognized that this was a special film and committed to it on first seeing the screenplay.

But two things in the interviews really struck our friend Ben: First, the director, Peter Weir, said that he and the director of photography had modeled the lighting for the film after Vermeer. Ha! What a brilliant idea. One could not do better than borrow from the greatest master of light the art world has ever known. No wonder the photography was so luminous! Our friend Ben was thrilled and astounded. (Our friend Ben feels that, in art, there is only Leonardo. But after Leonardo, Vermeer.) But the second thing was more astounding still: The producer had initially felt that Weir spent too much time on the landscape and not enough time on the plot. He complained, “You’re making a Western!”

Hmmm. A Pennsylvania Amish Western. Our friend Ben was dumbfounded, but also fascinated. The irony is that Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, produced the great Conestoga wagons (named for Lancaster’s Conestoga River) that opened the West to settlement. Fortunately, the producer let Weir have his head. The result is a movie about light and space, one of the most beautiful movies ever made.

If you’re fortunate enough to visit Lancaster County, as our friend Ben and Silence do several times a year, you too will be struck by the feeling of space expanding, stretching out around you. We love to travel out there via Route 23. To reach 23, we have to take Route 100, a typically noisy, congested, ugly road that’s notable only for its ability to get you from here to there. But once we turn right onto 23, the modern world drops away. It’s as though, with a turn of the wheel, we’ve time-traveled back to the 1800s.

Route 23 is an old ridge road that runs between two deep, broad valleys framed at the edge of vision on each side by mountain ranges. Towns, many dating to the 1700s and displaying gorgeous old stone houses, cluster on each side of the road, but the valleys are still agricultural, and the farms there are chiefly Amish. If you travel that road about now, in April, you can look down on either side and see the Amish plowing their fields with their four- or six-horse teams, the great draft horses, Percherons or Belgians, looking like something out of mediaeval chivalry. (Draft horses were originally bred to support a knight wearing full and extremely heavy armor in joust or in battle. The descendants of these fabled destriers have become pullers of Amish plows and Budweiser wagons.) Amish buggies travel the road alongside you, the carriage horses glossy in the harness of the plain grey buggies. Power lines are largely absent. Time drops away, and only space remains. Space, and the play of light and cloud across the valleys and mountains.

Coincidentally, our friend Ben is now reading William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways, a travelogue chronicling the author’s cross-country trip along the backroads in the late Seventies. Least Heat Moon is a compulsive researcher, a finder of facts. He enfolds them into his narrative like those candied red and green cherries people put in fruitcake batter, and the reader bites into them, colorful surprises in the cake-brown sameness of the roads.

Our friend Ben read with interest about how the invention of barbed wire had ended the great traditions of the Old West, the open range that made cowboys essential and their skills driving and tracking cattle legendary. With barbed wire, ranchers could cheaply put up fencing that would keep their herds contained. The open range vanished, replaced by fenced-in ranchland, and the cowboys became fence-menders and rodeo riders. The era of the Western, which began in Lancaster County with the Conestoga wagon, ended in the rangelands of Texas and Nevada with the stringing of barbed wire.

Yet the romance of the Western, of the wide open spaces, endures. It endures in movies like “Witness” that celebrate the beauty of the open fields. It endures in travels like William Least Heat Moon’s where you just get in your car or truck or van and go, head out onto the open road, not really caring where it takes you. It is a romance of light and space that has been with humanity since we first emerged onto the sunlit savannahs of Africa, with their tall grasses blowing and bright. We have left our birthplace and travelled far. But in meadow or prairie or the great sunlit spaces of the sea, we have never stopped trying to come home.  

Admiring the huge, adorable, clueless, seagreen eyes of our cat Linus the other day, it struck our friend Ben that, of all the cats I’ve ever known or seen (and trust me, I’ve been to my share of cat shows), I’ve never seen one with brown eyes. Orange, amber, yellow, every shade of green, blue, even violet (Liz Taylor, eat your heart out)—yes. But brown? Never.

As you all know from high-school biology, brown is the most common eye color. With very rare exceptions (usually among Huskies and Australian shepherds), dogs have brown eyes, though they range from near-black through chocolate to red-brown like our golden retriever Molly’s beautiful eyes. Cows? Brown. Horses? Brown. Guinea pigs? Brown. A quick chat with our friend Ben’s good friend Google puts the number of humans with brown eyes between 85 and 95%. So what’s the deal with cats?! If you know, please help our friend Ben out here.

Our friend Ben unearthed some fascinating data about human eye color while checking the stats for this. Our friend Ben’s eyes are blue, which as you’ll also recall from those high-school biology lessons is a recessive trait, so it can easily disappear if a more dominant color is present in either parent. But even so, our friend Ben didn’t realize that blue eyes are disappearing from the American scene until I read an article called “Don’t it make your blue eyes brown?” that originally appeared in the Boston Globe in October 2006. This article tracks the relatively abrupt and extremely steep decline in blue eye color in the U.S. over the past century, and gives some compelling reasons why it’s happening. The research was done by, of all things, an epidemiologist, which makes our friend Ben wonder whether I should now consider myself an endangered species or a highly contagious disease. Apparently, the highest percentage of blue eyes in the U.S. can now be found in nursing homes, and within another couple of generations, they may disappear from the scene entirely.

But this was only the beginning of the astonishing things our friend Ben turned up. Thanks to genetics, scientists have determined that all blue-eyed people are descended from a single ancestor who lived between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Before the genetic mutation that gave him blue eyes, apparently all human eyes were brown. If you have blue eyes today, you also have this genetic mutation. Wow. In the millions of years of human history, 6,000 years seems like an eyeblink (if you’ll pardon the expression in this context). The authors of the study pointed out that blue eyes are as (relatively) common as they are today because the mutation was apparently a hit. By mediaeval times, blue eyes were considered a sign of beauty and fertility, and blue-eyed women were the most sought-after. Blue eyes had become a reproductive advantage.  

And that’s not all. Scientists have found that, even today, blue-eyed men prefer blue-eyed women over all others, finding them far more attractive. Studies have shown this to be true not only in the abstract, where the men were asked to select women they found most attractive from a range of faces, but also in real life, where blue-eyed men choose blue-eyed partners much more often than partners with other eye colors. Not only do men with other eye colors not factor eye color into their choices, but blue-eyed women are also colorblind when it comes to choosing partners based on eye color: It isn’t a factor.

Our friend Ben would have simply thought these findings were somewhat curious had I not read on. You see, it’s been our friend Ben’s observation that people in general do tend to find people who look most like them to be most attractive. (Whether this springs from cultural conditioning or simple narcissism, I couldn’t say.) But the authors of this study threw a pitcher of very cold water on our friend Ben’s theory. They concluded that blue-eyed men preferred blue-eyed women because then they could determine their children’s paternity. That is to say, if a child born to a blue-eyed couple did not have blue eyes, then the husband was not the child’s biological father. So marrying blue-eyed women would give blue-eyed men a reproductive advantage in the Darwinian sense. (Of course, the men wouldn’t consciously be aware that this genetic imperative was driving their choice of mates.)

This was all very interesting, but it wasn’t the end of our friend Ben’s discoveries. Yet another article posited that blue-eyed people were considered especially attractive because pale irises allowed others to easily see when one was experiencing pleasure or excitement (in both cases, the pupil dilates). Because these are considered attractive and desirable states (remember those unfortunate women in Regency England who put laudanum drops in their eyes to enlarge their pupils and make themselves more attractive?), being able to see them confers desirability on the person whose eyes are, literally, telling all.

Our friend Ben was reminded of a conversation with a friend in grad school who claimed that he could never tell what our friend Ben was thinking because of my blue eyes. But of course our friend Ben found it much easier to “read” blue and green eyes than the dark eyes of my friend, and a lively debate ensued. In light of all this, our friend Ben would like to dispense a bit of advice: If you have blue eyes, remember that you may be giving away more of your feelings than you think. And if you have dark eyes, you may need to be a bit more demonstrative to let people know how you’re feeling.

One last thing: Blue eyes are not the rarest color. Green eyes are! Only 1 to 3% of the world population has green eyes, and as you’d expect, most of them live in Ireland, where the percentage jumps to 20%. But our friend Ben would bet that in the cat world, green is the dominant hue. It certainly is around here!  

Aunt Debbi of the super-fun and entertaining blog Aunt Debbi’s Garden was kind and generous enough to confer an “E is for Excellent” award on Poor Richard’s Almanac last week. Of course, this posed several instant challenges for our friend Ben. First, being a Luddite, I had no clue as to how to actually put the award up on our blog. Fortunately, the more techno-savvy friend who got our friend Ben, Silence Dogood, and Richard Saunders posting this blog in the first place again came to our rescue, and we are now displaying our “E” award for all to see.

But this posed another problem. You see, when an “E” is conferred on you, it is expected that you’ll in turn nominate ten blogs for the honor. Our friend Ben is not usually shy when it comes to the “Ben Picks Ten” category, as you know if you’ve read my earlier posts on music, fantasy, Southern comfort foods, and tomatoes. But in the case of great gardening blogs, our friend Ben thinks that ten is both too few and too many. I could pick one or two; I could pick twenty-five. But ten?!

However, it’s encumbent upon me to take a stab at this. But being a true Luddite, I don’t even know how to link to the blogs I’m nominating. (And Silence and Poor Richard are no help, believe me. Our hero and mentor, the great Dr. Franklin, who was the inspiration for this blog and would no doubt have founded Google and Microsoft had he been alive today, must be spinning in his grave. Sorry, Ben! We’re really doing our best.)

Okay, let’s start with some deserving blogs that I’m not nominating. Uh, say what?! You see, some of my favorite blogs have already earned this award multiple times, or, if they aren’t displaying the award, must have chosen not to do so for their own good reasons. But of course I have to mention them and the bloggers behind them anyway: Frances of Faire Garden (http://www.fairegarden.blogspot.com/). Melissa of Zanthan Gardens (http://www.zanthan.com/gardens/gardenlog/). Robin of Robin’s Nesting Place (http://robinsnestingplace.blogspot.com/). Melanie of Old Country Gardens (http://melaniesoldcountrygardens.blogspot.com/). Jodi of bloomingwriter (http://bloomingwriter.blogspot.com/). Joy of GardenJoy4Me (http://gardenjoy4.blogspot.com/). And of course Aunt Debbi herself (http://auntdebbisgarden.blogspot.com/). These blogs are great. If you don’t know them, spend some time visiting. You’ll love them as much as we do, and are sure to become regulars. They’re addictive!  

Now, on to the blogs I simply have to nominate for my “Ben Picks Ten: E for Excellent Garden Blogs” awards. Guys, gals, if I mention you here and you actually want to display the “E” on your blog, gulp. If you’re technologically savvy enough to copy it from my blog, great! Go for it. If not, I have Aunt Debbi’s directions to copy it to Blogger, if your blog’s on there, and will happily send them to you if you let me know. But if you’re on WordPress like me, I don’t have a clue. (Thank God it’s not an award for tech savvy or I’d never have won one.) In that case, good luck and God bless! Our friend Ben understands if you choose not to display the award, too. I simply have to mention you in my Top Ten because I love your blogs, and I hope Poor Richard’s Almanac readers will make the effort to discover them, too.

So here goes:

1. Hayefield (http://hayefieldhouse.com/). If I could only read one garden blog, Nancy Ondra’s would be it. It has it all: great photos, sound information, great writing. And it’s funny as hell, too. Nan is one of the most modest people I know, and she’d probably squirm if she read this, but dammit, she has everything it takes, and her blog is fantastic. Read it! You’ll be so glad you did.

2. Gardening Gone Wild (http://gardeninggonewild.com/). Another great blog with some of the best in the field contributing posts. Interested in containers, landscaping, garden photography, plants, nuts’n'bolts gardening tools and techniques? Get on over and make yourself at home!

3. Kate smudges in earth, plants and life (http://katesmudges.typepad.com/). Kate’s another one. Like Nan, she’s probably been nominated for this honor thousands of times and has simply been too modest to accept it. But let me just say, her blog is priceless and unique, earning its wide following in the garden blogosphere. On Kate smudges, plants and even bugs speak for themselves. A modern-day Beatrix Potter? Our friend Ben wouldn’t presume to say. But read Kate and you can’t help but love her and her garden world.

4. Bamboo Geek (http://bamboogeek.blogspot.com/). Sean, aka Mad Man Bamboo, endears himself to all of us at Poor Richard’s Almanac because he really, really believes in being green, and he clearly believes in practicing what he preaches. Read his blog and you’ll learn about cutting-edge developments in green living as well as great info about bamboos and other plants. Go, Sean!!!!

5. Future House Farm (http://futurehousefarm.blogspot.com/). Meg and Kelly are trying to garden organically and raise chickens in a rented house outside Philly. This alone would warm our friend Ben’s heart (chickens! organics!!!). But it’s just skimming the surface of their fantastic blog, which is a real favorite here at Poor Richard’s Almanac. First, there’s the pirate flag flying proudly over their blog (aaarrr!!!! yarrr!!!!). Then, we don’t know anyone who can caption photos so succinctly and memorably. Every time we look at their posts, we start laughing. Love them, love them, love them!!!!

6. The Deep Middle (http://deepmiddle.blogspot.com/). Like our friend Ben, Benjamin Vogt of The Deep Middle is a poet as well as a gardener. His blog bravely reveals his gardening and poetic triumphs and tragedies. It’s somewhat comforting to our friend Ben to know that I’m not the only one who hasn’t won a MacArthur “genius” award or the Yale Series of Younger Poets award. Benjamin’s posts are always good reading, guaranteed, even if you’re not a poet and haven’t read any poetry since high school. Promise!

7. Tomato Casual (http://www.tomatocasual.com/). Aunt Debbi also nominated Tomato Casual, and I’m sure she’s not the first. If you love tomatoes, this blog is simply a must-read. Reggie, Michael, Kira, and the rest of the Tomato Casual team should get endless awards for their funny, fabulous, informative posts. Reading the day’s Tomato Casual post is simply one of the best and most inspiring ways to start any day!

8. Cinj’s Chat Room (http://cbmvwag.blogspot.com/). Our Poor Richard’s Almanac contributors love Cinj for her relentless honesty. Yes!!!! Cinj posts about gardening and crafts, topics near to our hearts, but she doesn’t shy away from tackling heavier issues, either. You go, girl!!! This is real life, and somebody needs to be talking about it.

9. Barbee’s Blog (http://barbeeslog.blogspot.com/). Barbee’ blogs in Lexington, Kentucky, one of our friend Ben’s favorite cities. Her garden photos and posts put her squarely on our friend Ben’s radar. Check out her blog, you’ll love it!

10. Weed Whackin’ Wenches (http://www.weedwhackinwenches.blogspot.com/). Curmudgeon and Wing Nut enliven the gardening blogosphere with their adventures and misadventures. Aunt Debbi nominated them also—probably plenty of others have, too—but if you haven’t discovered them yet, you owe it to yourself to check out their blog (and their marauding raccoon!). Go wenches!!!!

So that’s the story here at Poor Richard’s Almanac. There are plenty of other blogs we adore. But there seems to be something about the number ten. Our friend Ben is in no position to complain! So please, start clicking the links and checking out our picks for yourself. You’ll be so happy you did!