At first glance, there are many drawbacks to growing up in the wilds of New England. For one thing, the weather leaves something to be desired. Then there’s the mass of dour-faced, eternally pessimistic inhabitants and the undercurrent of puritanical repression. Regardless, my hometown in Berkshires is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places in the country, blizzards and heat waves be damned.
Harley Rudesill sampling sap, circa 1951, via Irishtree - Ducklow Genealogy Notebook
By the end of his nearly century-spanning career, Alexander Calder (1898–1976) had worked in virtually every artistic medium, but metal was undoubtedly his muse. Raised by artist parents, Calder was encouraged to be creative from an early age, producing his first sculptures at age 11.
Calder, Untitled (Mobile), 1959, Courtesy of The JPMorgan Chase Art Collection
You might have heard the nightmarish predictions and the difficult to deny facts – a dizzying 50 billion… yes, billion honeybees dead over the last three years… and counting. If you’re not an insect lover, this might not seem troublesome until you think a bit about the bees’ intrinsic link to human survival – without their help of pollination, one third of our food supply would essentially be destroyed.
Blue Banded Bee on a Pin, Courtesy of Padil
First there was wine, beloved by the ancients. Then there was wine gone bad – a mishap of leaky casks or stashes gone past their prime that mutated into one of the most versatile products in the world. “Vin aigre” (which roughly translates to “sour wine”) is a combination of acetic acid (aka ethanoic acid) — an organic compound which is the result of the miracle of fermentation — chemical reactions activated by the slow decay of everything from grapes to beets, malts to grains.
Chemical Formula of Oxidative Fermentation: Making Acetic Acid
The science of soap is more complex than one might imagine, requiring at least a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry. Even the most basic ingredients of soap rely on key reactions with other ingredients — a give and take that makes you wonder how we ever figured out soap in the first place. It makes some sense then, that the creation of cleansing products was supposedly discovered by accident.
Ivory Advertising with WWI Soldiers, 1919 (Click on Image to Read Copy)
The Old Farmer’s Almanac
The Old Farmer’s Almanac, that periodical which has managed to endure over two centuries of political upheaval, several wars, and dramatic cultural and technological evolutions, was all done, for the most part, by remaining relatively unchanged at the steady center of America’s storm.
Robert B. Thomas Farmer's Almanac, 1907
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