Life Activities & Ideas

I grew up near a small town in Western Oklahoma, with a population of around 1200. It was one of the holdouts from the inevitable change taking over our nation’s agrarian past. Each and every shop and business depended wholly on the area farmers, either directly or indirectly supporting their livelihood. Naturally, many locally sponsored…

My very first haircut took place in a barber shop next to our local bank in my small home town. The barber, “Red” Young, was an uncle on my father’s side. I hated the experience. I felt like I was being mauled. The itch of tiny hair clippings on my shoulders, back and chest (how…

Once we are born, our limited view of the world is only that which is shown to us by nearby adults and siblings. We live in a world of giants, and are only able to express our wants and needs through expression, movement, and vocalization. If we are fortunate, we are loved and every need…

By the time you read this, you will either have attended or missed the “Waxahachie Craft Beer and Music Fest”. They must have been expecting a number out-of-towners to attend. Most people I know around here drink ultra light, low carb, flavorless swill and irreverently call it “beer”. Maybe I don’t hang with the right…

When Teenagers Get Bored I was with an unlikely group of classmates. It was a lazy Sunday evening near the end of my senior year, and we were cruising the streets of my small hometown. The four of us had time on our hands and were itching for something to do. My dad had told…

I recently wrote a column about bread making and the history of same. I spoke of making sourdough bread, and at the time, I had cultured yeast already growing to create my first loaf. Before that column was published, I had eaten half of my first yummy loaf. I just couldn’t keep my hands off…

In my previous column, I mentioned Azure Standard, an online organic foods grocer, as my source for “unifine” milled flour. I’ve had several inquiries from readers wanting to know more about the company. Since joining the Ennis Farmer’s Market as a vendor of organic produce, I’ve been encouraged by a number of people in the…

When those words were first spoken, most bread was made at home, with entirely different ingredients than what we now find for sale. They likely used a grain, Emmer (Farro), a hybrid of Einkorn, which was in use as early as 12,000 B.C. Emmer was the first widely cultivated domestic wheat. It was then hybridized…

I’ve seen a number of movies and TV shows depicting scenes of earlier times with gnarly whiskered leading men, shaving with a straight razor, some feeble mirror hung on a nail, maybe a pan of water at hand. They make it look so simple and easy! If you’ve ever used a straight razor, you’d see…