Page 5 of 21
Did the spider that wove this strange web outside one of my dining room windows get into somebody’s stash?
It’s a new one this year. Kind of pretty, but it sends out long tendrils that choke out everything.
Kitazawa, now based in Oakland, offers a two-color (green and black) catalogue printed on yellow paper and illustrated with line drawings. 2017 marks the company’s 100th anniversary. It…
After this extraordinarily wet winter, we had to remove some trees from our hillside lot. This gives us more of a view of the valley as well as…
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that one of the delights of gardening is browsing seed and plant catalogues. I have a handful of vendors I usually buy from, but…
After many years of working with color professionally, I know how to remove a color cast. But I like the blue cast here, and decided to leave it.
“All bitters are aromatic,” according to Mark Bitterman in his Field Guide to Bitters and Amari, “but the ones that are called aromatic are so jam-packed with aromas, bitterness,…
This dark-eyed little beauty appears to be a Brown-Headed Cowbird. Despite the finch-like bill, she is a kind of blackbird, the smallest in North America. The males are darker,…
The first question about making vermouth, I suppose, is why?* It’s a two-part question, really. Why vermouth? And why homemade? Vermouth is a fortified wine flavored with fruits…
Continuing with our bird theme, we see here a Plain Titmouse, occupying the same iochroma bush that yesterday’s Chestnut-Backed Chickadee was perched on. This poor guy is saddled with…
A chickadee couple has joined the titmouse outside the study window. This one is on one of the iochromas. Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds says that “the…
Until I complete my greenhouse (still in the fantasy stage) I won’t have a lot of space for plant propagation. But I do have a small but effective…
I love ginger beer — “vigorous reviving stuff with an edge to it,” in the judgment of Kingsley Amis. But the commercial kinds can be expensive. What’s more, home-made…
A few days after the election, a young man named Williams Sims was murdered about a mile from my home. Sims, a musician, was well-liked in the community. Police…
It’s great to get a little rain in these drought-stricken parts, even if the precipitation totals from this mild storm are likely to be modest. In the…
Generous persimmon harvest again this year. All from one tree. I could get a couple more bins like these, but I think I have enough! Got to leave…
Among the historic buildings of San Francisco is the Hallidie Building, located at 130 Sutter Street, between Montgomery and Keary Streets in the Financial District. It was listed…
A look at some of the components of the reproductive system of a flower, as well as some of the ways poppies are distinctive.
Jalapeño peppers are an easy and rewarding plant for the garden. I grow mine in containers, and they do very well. In fact, the majority of my vegetable…
French Laundry reservations are notoriously hard to get, and if you do get in you will pay a bundle for your good meal. But if you enjoy gardens you…