• This weekend my family came with me to hunt fossils in the Jemez mountains of New Mexico. We hunted fossils along Route 4, where I understand collecting is legal and ethical. The fossils we were looking for are quite common,…

  • My kids blow on soup to cool it down. Sometimes they blow like a tornado and most of the soup exits the spoon rather than entering the child. I always tell them to blow gently—it will cool just as fast.…

  • Maybe you’ve stored 100 pounds of wheat kernels, 75 pounds of beans, barrels of water and you’re all set for whatever municipal unreliability may bring. One question: How will you cook the food you’ve stored? In Food Storage and Refried…

  • I love ribs, and I love the way they come out of my Masterbuilt electric smoker. Actually, it’s my dad’s smoker but I keep it safely at my house. The problem with ribs is the time. The late-night clean up,…

  • Vivitar brands a radio-frequency wireless remote that is available on a budget. The version shown below is configured for a Nikon D300; the pigtail can be changed for other camera designs. The remote has a telescoping antenna that extends to…

  • Thistle and the Bear talk about autumn, and especially about Halloween traditions. My seven year old daughter practices her typing with a writing prompt most days. When asked to type about what she likes about Halloween, the wrote this: I…

  • Three years ago I planted grapes on the west side of my house. I planted what I could get, bare sticks from my local nursery. For a green grape, I planted Niagara, which is marked as a green seeded table…

  • Cool thing in my bowl a few weeks ago. A Cheerio with a halo. Like a skinny O, the halo goes all the way around the top of the more saintly O.

  • Container gardening is ideal for the small suburban backyard without much space. It is even better suited to the arid climate because the required water is much less—in my system I water less than twice a week and use less…

  • Hanging on the wall, under the low ceiling in the basement of my childhood home was a map. It was plastic, and it had a 3D texture of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Flying over the range in my imagination I…

Join 900+ subscribers

Stay in the loop with everything you need to know.

Sign up