Thomas "David" Franklin

Dream home: 'The Wizard of Oz' effect

2011-12-24T16:43:00.000-05:00

Dream home: 'The Wizard of Oz' effect

Seven Year Ache - Rosanne Cash; Trisha Yearwood - Music Beta

2011-06-06T13:46:00.000-04:00

Seven Year Ache - Rosanne Cash; Trisha Yearwood - Music Beta

Franklin Farms Diary

2011-06-05T20:00:00.003-04:00

The 5 chickens turned 8 weeks old today

They were watching me use my Samsung Galaxy Tab and Einstein, that's really her name, decided she could use it as well, she did pretty good for her first attempt.

Harriet Starr my banker from BB&T in Salem left me a message this week about the changes to my Bank Account.

When I went to the BB&T Saturday morning to use the ATM at the downtown Clarksburg Office it was out of order so I had to go inside, and I needed money for the Clarksburg Farmers Market, and I saw Harriet Starr there working, I thanked her for the phone message. She asked me what I had been up to since she hadn't seen me in a while and when I told her my chickens and my garden were keeping me busy, she related the following story to me.

She said that her boyfriend has chickens down at the Jackson's Mill Garden, and he lets his free range also, but when he left for a brief moment to run to the store, two stray dogs came by and killed all his chickens, even the rooster which they had chased across the road. The stray dogs were captured. I told her I try to be a good Shepard to my chickens, If I have to go anywhere they go back into the pens. What a sad story.

Sea Kale (Crambe maritima)

2011-04-05T13:31:00.000-04:00

Sea Kale

Franklin Family Tree

2011-03-06T08:21:00.000-05:00

Generations of Thomas Franklin on Dipity.

Potato

2011-03-03T10:11:00.001-05:00

The Irish discovered, it is possible to sustain yourself and even thrive on a diet made up entirely of potatoes. A teenage friend of mine decided that he needed to lose weight, and he did so by restricting his diet to potatoes – baked, canned, frozen, mashed and steamed. Perhaps it may not sound like the best weight-loss plan, but it worked for him, and he's still very fond of potatoes, as well as other vegetables, and now he is nice and trim.

During the 1700's and 1800's the Irish ate potatoes because that's what they could grow in their rocky, cold, poor soil. They made the mistake however, of not including a little diversity in their planting. When the blight began to spread in the 1840's it spread to all the fields growing the same kind of potatoes. See: Irish Potatoe Famine

Like many of our favorite vegetables, Irish or white potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) originated in the Andes Mountains of South America.

Frankly it's amazing that so many plants came from a place where the soil is poor and the temperatures fluctuate between extremes. The tough pre-Columbian farmers discovered and cultivated Potatoes some seven thousand years ago. When the conquistadors tramped through Peru in the 1500's, they began the transport of potatoes to the far corners of the world.

See: How to Plant Potaoes in your Garden.