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Resolutions for 2017 – Habitat for Birds
One of my favorite winter pastimes is backyard bird watching. We typically keep a steady supply of seed in the feeders, and occasionally put out a block of suet. Last week my youngest son and I made a fresh batch of peanut butter pine cone feeders, which the chickadees especially love. While I love putting out food for the birds,…
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Resolutions for 2017 – Homegrown Hospitatlity
When I was in Romania during the summer of 2002, we spent a week out in the country side of Șăulia, where I was so impressed that the homes grew fruit trees along the road side as a means of showing hospitality to travelers. Over the last few years of gardening, I’ve had a growing desire to make the garden…
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Resolutions for 2017 – Native Plants
This year I’m trying something a little different for making a New Year’s resolution. I don’t want to have just one semi-ambiguous goal of bettering myself. I want to have a set of attainable, clearly defined goals to better the world around me. These should be a mix of fun, challenging, and maybe even uncomfortable goals. The first goal involves…
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Grow Your Own Plants for Clay Imprints
In this post I’m going to share some of my favorite plants to use with clay — all of which grow well in my home garden, which is zone 7b and follow up with tips for making imprints with leaves. This blog space may come off as being scattered across multiple hobbies and interests, but it’s an accurate reflection of…
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Our Yard: Edible Tree and Shrub Catalogue
We are entering 2017 with a yard full of new trees. It’s time I made a list of exactly what we have out there in our vast landscape (just kidding, it’s 1/3 an acre). We took down the hairless peach because the brown rot has been out of control for years. We had tried sprays and pruning, but in the…
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How to Underglaze Imprinted Clay
This is a simple method to underglaze an imprint in your clay piece, which is a great method for decorating ornaments with vintage letterpress, lace or other one of a kind textures and making the patterns pop. You need an imprinted and bisque-fired piece of pottery, a paintbrush, underglaze, water, and a sponge or rag. While this does waste…
