Clemmons Chickens Grandma Brewer was a tiny woman. Five feet tall if that. It is hard to imagine how such a small person could exude such energy. She split wood for her stove, cooked meals for a near-football team of children, hoed, raked, grew vegetables, made soap, canned all sorts of stuff, kept a spotless house, and absolutely doted on each and every one of her 15 … [Read more...]
How To Pick a Watermelon
My son, Jimmie, knowing that I am always ranting and raving about “unborn cantaloupes” that are unripe and have no flavor, sent me some information about how to pick out a good watermelon. Good timing. Watermelon season is here. My Daddy used to “thump” watermelons to pick the ripest one. I asked him once what he was listening for and he said that if he hears a muffled, hollow sound, … [Read more...]
Things Daddy Told Me
The things my Daddy told me over the years that stand out were not long dissertations or speeches. They were short and sweet pearls of wisdom gleaned from experience. Like this: “Bird dogs always hunt best by themselves. When they hunt with other dogs, they get too competitive.” We always had a pen full of bird dogs and sometimes we turned them all loose, and often one … [Read more...]
Golf Course Hotdogs
You come in at the turn – hungry, thirsty and wishing you had made that last 4-foot putt. It’s time to do something nice for yourself. Order a Golf Course Hot Dog. I don’t care if it’s a Nathan’s, a Ball Park, a Jesse Jones or whatever else brand, every hot dog you eat at a Golf Course is better than the last. Meadow Creek Golf Course, in Charlottesville, makes good dogs, as does … [Read more...]
Butter Beef
Butter beef? Really? Sounds good, doesn’t it. It is good, it’s fairly economical, and it’s easy. I saw the recipe recently and I had to try it - with my variations, of course. The recipe called for stew beef, but you never know what you’re getting with stew beef, and it’s really not that inexpensive. I rooted around and found a couple top round steaks – a bit over a pound total, … [Read more...]
Better Gardens with Eggs Shells
Loyal CvilleBuzz reader, Chuck Strauss, read my piece on Tomato Blossom End Rot last week and offered this advice. “Although I no longer have a veggie garden, I found that putting eggshells into the ground where and when we planted tomatoes helped prevent the rot—because the commercial stuff I had gotten did not work. I had started collecting the shells and kept them in plastic … [Read more...]
Look What I Caught
It’s shaping up to be another terrific year for Spanish mackerel. One of the tastiest of all saltwater fish, there was a time when the “Macs” stayed strictly in ocean waters, mostly in the Carolinas, but they began slowly inching up into the Bay. Now, they are plentiful along the western shore of the bay and up into Maryland waters. Spanish mackerel fishing is just plain good. Drone … [Read more...]
Curb Service
How do young people meet these days? There are no drive-ins! Not only are there no more drive -in movies, there are no drive-in restaurants. No place to circle the parking lot looking for girls – or boys. Boomers look back nostalgically at the days when a young lady called a carhop would take your order for a frosted mug of A & W root beer and an order of fries. You gave her two … [Read more...]
Coneflowers: Add a Bed of Beauty
My wife Nancy has spent a lot of time working in our yard and it really shows. She has watered and weeded regularly and keeps things trim with her edging and weed eaters. Throughout the yard, her flowers and shrubs are lovely. But the ones I believe both of us are proudest of are the wildflowers she planted around our birdbath. They were perennials and are flowers like you would … [Read more...]
Things Daddy Told Me
Almost every day, I remember something that my Daddy told me. Pearls of wisdom if you will. I’ll share this one. “Son, you better learn to cook because some day you may marry a woman who doesn’t know how.” As usual, he was right, and that’s good advice. … [Read more...]
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