How to make real southern cornbread

January 1, 2012

The most iconic of southern foods, cornbread is the food of the gods.  I ate it at my grandmother’s house and my mother fixed it often as we had to have cornbread with fresh vegetables.  Certain foods just call for cornbread. When I married, my wife didn’t care for bread and I realized right away [...]

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Build a Small Cold Frame

October 9, 2011
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The plant holding area in my nursery is terraced into two section with a two foot retaining wall between them.  The wall makes a right angle on one side as the lower terrace is sort of cut into a sloped area but only two feet.  This northwest corner was where I built a small greenhouse [...]

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Butterworts in Michigan

August 30, 2011
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My friend Will sent these pictures from Michigan.  This first picture is a White Top Pitcher (S. leucophylla) that overwintered in Michigan.  It gets very cold in the area with the ground freezing solid.  I’m not sure what he did as far as protection, perhaps he will comment on that.  This next picture is just [...]

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Water Garden

July 13, 2011

Several years ago we constructed a small pond and waterfall at the back entrance of our underground home.  When it was finished, we hated it and it leaked!  After a couple of years we decided to disassemble it, replace the liner and rebuilt it.  After a lot of work we finally finished and again we [...]

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Barn

July 9, 2011

With all the tools and equipment for a blacksmith shop we needed some place to put it.  We decided to build a barn for the shop as well as storage for tools and other equipment.  I had a few girders left over from my daughter’s recently constructed home as well as a number of 4×6 [...]

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Underground Home Exterior

July 8, 2011

The front of the house is exposed with earth wrapping around each side and up a couple of feet below the windows. We covered all exposed surfaces with stone that was gathered on the property. The walls of the sunken courtyard in back were also covered with rock.  We made the front doors with mahogany [...]

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