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Back in a south window of my old lab, we grew lots of potted ginger with magnificent clusters of violet & white flowers. Tall, grassy/bamboo-looking thing. The leaves and stems diced very nicely for a ginger accent to any suitable dish.

In between the dotted communities, nobody lives along the British Columbia highways that so many of us drive. Highway 16 (east-west) is a classic example. Turn off on any logging road and you are faced with 1,000 square miles of wildlife-populated wilderness. There's a peace and a calm to it...

So far, I have given my twin grandsons each a compass and a respectable pair of binoculars. At age 9, I know that they have been on tenting camp trips and they are learning fire setting and fire lighting to cook on. I think their hand-eye coordination is good, they play different field sports...

The house is full of food, drink and fuel to get Rumpuss-cat and myself into winter. The grapes are really coloring up, I have a picker family all set to take off the crop to barter for root vegetables. The mountain ranges which form the valley sides cut off about an hour at each end of the day...

In Vancouver BC, there's a nursery garden which sells apple trees which have 6 scion varieties grafted on the one stock. Looks particularly silly as the apples fill out and mature. Keep it clean. Keep it snug with a little pressure. Match the cambium layers of the scion twigs with the stock...

Thanks. First, I need to consider using the zipper pulls that I can harvest from another very old winter coat.

I don't trust my poor sense of balance in the total darkness of a power failure to get me down 2 flights of stairs to start the solar power system (upstairs power points). So I ordered a pair of coal-oil/kerosene/lamp oil, glass wick lamps and the suitable fuel. I'll keep a AA x LED light with...

Thanks, T. I'll use far heavier split rings on a new Carhartt winter coat. Is that sort of paracord size? My partner complained that I looked sort of homeless so she bought me a new coat that needs trimmings.

You need rechargeable big storage batteries to really take advantage of photovoltaic output. Plate surface area determines charging capacity. I use pairs of 6VDC in series instead of single 12VDC batteries for that reason. Space and weight are not issues. You need to decide if you can get...

6PM - 9PM last night was the wildest wind (100kph gusts)/ rain (25mm)/thunder and lightning storm I have experienced here since I bought this place back in 2000. Lots of green house damage, total power failures with broken trees on the lines all over the district. Most repaired by noon today...

We've got several species of butterflies which over winter as adults. Mate in the spring, all the caterpillar stages, pupation and then again crisp, fresh adults in September. Lots of them bouncing around the past few days. Absolutely wild slashing rain/thunder/lightning storm 9PM just at...

I have a compendium titled: The Essential Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy. She suggests an alternative spelling: Cuiclacoche. Used for soups casseroles and quesadilla filling. I guess it's like all the other fungi, the gourmet mushrooms that we might forage for, that we prize so highly.

I do the majority of my wood carvings in western red cedar, yellow cedar and paper birch. I have what I call "try sticks," just lengths of each wood for testing knife edges and practicing cuts like textured surfaces. I had to have an apron made as I got hit in the chest a few times too often...

I have lots of crooked knives. I use an assortment of 8" pieces of metal tubing as mandrels. I wrap the fine silicon carbide sand paper pieces around those and secure them with strips of black electrical tape at each end. Mandrels: dull 7/32" chainsaw file, 1/4". 1/2" and 3/4" wooden dowels...

Nope. News to me. We have some expansive stands of big aspen in river bottom flats. The lower branches tend to "self prune" the thought being they are not shade tolerant. I never ever hunt or explore those places on windy days. You can hear the dead branches crashing down. The rest of our...

With the passing of my partner, I've inherited a huge collection of audio cassettes, CD's and an indeterminate number of video VCR tapes. Shelf after shelf of recording and play back equipment. She had abandoned many text books out here just as soon as she saw me building book cases. Wall...

Is one of these iPhones a crutch for a weak classroom education? Maybe a surrogate for a system that can't include every one? I have to admire the diversity of educational applications (those are "apps", right?) My kids are very successful 40-somethings. I asked them if I should get a phone...

Agriculture Canada claims that 50% of Canadian bee hives succumbed in this winter past. So the market for locally produced honey is very strong and inventory is very low. I won't buy in a grocery store what I can buy locally.

I got into a book store that had a dozen different knot books on the shelf. Specifically, I was looking for information to do rope splicing, what had been a fish boat chore some 50 years ago. I could have picked some other specific such as lashing. With no doubt in my mind, the best of the...

Probably the only preserve that I've made recently would be lime marmalade. Some times in the autumn, our little grocery store gets a load of very nice, big,unblemished limes. Two dozen will keep me busy, putzing around, for a couple of days. I have had people pick my cherries and grapes, I'm...