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The View from Mudsock Heights: The Annual Plant Infestation Begins and the Wild-Eyed Hordes Descend

By Dennis E. Powell | Apr 29, 2009 at 22:24:5

Just as soon as there’s even a hint that the last freeze has passed, out they come. There are swarms of them. They burrow into the ground. They descend upon plants, especially the biggest and healthiest specimens, until soon only the spindly, weak ones remain.

The View from Mudsock Heights: With the Thaw, Unexpected Visitors Venture into the Countryside

By Dennis E. Powell | Apr 23, 2009 at 23:29:28

Out here in the woods, people seldom stop by unannounced. Every so often a logger will knock on the door to ask if it would be okay if he were to cut down my cherry, maple, and walnut trees. It wouldn’t. And sometimes there’s a surprise CARE package, so the mailman or the UPS guy will knock. If I’m not here, he’ll put the package on the back porch, where it’s safe from the elements. But beyond that, unexpected company is rare.

The View from Mudsock Heights: A New Bug Going Around Has Me Pinin’ for an Evergreen

By Dennis E. Powell | Apr 15, 2009 at 22:47:52

There is a very unpleasant little bug going around. It’s like the flu or the bubonic plague or something. It causes fever, makes breathing a chore, and makes one abnormally stupid. And I’ve got it. Which means that this would be the perfect time to run the “evergreen” column in this space. What is an evergreen column? Well …

The View from Mudsock Heights: They Might Be Slithery and Scaly and Cold, but They Really are Our Friends

By Dennis E. Powell | Apr 2, 2009 at 22:42:30

It would be a lot easier to get things done around here if there were more snakes. No, I’m not kidding.

The View from Mudsock Heights: The Story of a Very Big Ditch Passed — the Story, Not the Ditch — Through Here

By Dennis E. Powell | Mar 25, 2009 at 21:3:52

One of the first things that happened after I moved here into the woods four years ago was a visit by a friend from back east. Gerard Koeppel is a noted historian and writer who has specialized in the history of the infrastructure of New York. That is not a subject which immediately quickens the heart, but a book he wrote that was published in 2000, Water for Gotham, actually made the history of the city’s water-supply system exciting.

The View from Mudsock Heights: Always Remember: Ownership Brings Responsibility

By Dennis E. Powell | Mar 11, 2009 at 22:17:42

It’s something that folks who grew up around here have come to take for granted, in which many have participated since they were kids. Handled responsibly, they reason, there is little danger.

The View from Mudsock Heights: When the Power Goes Out

By Dennis E. Powell | Mar 4, 2009 at 22:47:50

When the power went off, it woke me up. Of course, a sensible person would have looked around, rolled over, and slept some more.

The View from Mudsock Heights: The Ancient Belching Monster in the Barn

By Dennis E. Powell | Feb 25, 2009 at 22:26:49

So call me a Luddite. Fact is, calendar notwithstanding, I shall consider spring to have arrived when I can start the Gravely without risk of dislocating my shoulder. Part of this has to do with the lifting of heavy weights to build my strength and part has to do with the weather becoming warm enough that the oil in the thing is thinner than molasses.

The View from Mudsock Heights: Feather-Shaped Soot Marks on My Wall

By Dennis E. Powell | Feb 18, 2009 at 23:42:30

Somebody’s bright idea is banging around in my chimney right now, and lest there be any doubt, I don’t much like it.

The View from Mudsock Heights: Here Comes the Vast Array of Plumage and Song

By Dennis E. Powell | Jan 28, 2009 at 23:15:22

Before it gets much warmer, I need to fetch out the ladder and put up an obstruction so the phoebes won’t build another nest over my porch swing.

The Danger of Peacemaker

By Timothy R. Butler

Here is a story. The leaders of a church have a personal agenda against someone and want to quiet him, exact revenge or what have you. They not only come at him within their church, they continue by following him outside of that church to any other church he seeks refuge at and any place he works, making a wreck of his life in the process. That is the sort of thing that only happened in the past, in dusty tales of witch-hunts in Salem or the Inquisition in Spain, right? Wrong: it is happening today, perhaps at a seemingly normal church near you.

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Looking to get acquainted with Apple's latest operating system? Mac OS X Snow Leopard Bible, the definitive Mac OS X reference, features OFB's own Timothy R. Butler alongside Galen Gruman and Mark Hattersley.

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