Kids are back in school and everyone’s settling back into a schedule. One of the daily tasks that can get hectic is packing that school lunch or providing heathy after-school snacks. The latest edition of Homegrown from NC Extension addresses these concerns. Catherine Hill, Family and Consum…
I remember, with sad clarity, the times when I was caught in the act of inattentive listening. The most sorrowful one happened when I was yet a young mother. It was not a case of lacking age so much as lacking the wisdom to be gleaned with the experiences of aging.
Say what you mean, and mean what you say. It sounds so simple. Then why is it so hard?
Q: Why should shareholders always invest in beans?
Roughly everyone in the United States, with the possible exception of teacher-union leaders and their pet politicians, knew that learning losses from COVID-era school shutdowns were going to be big. But the latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) still reta…
“Allow me to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am,” says a refrigerator magnet in my kitchen. Because no matter what’s taking place in the world-at-large, our pets tend to have an exalted opinion of their humans.
How about a little trip to the Rocky Mountains? The mystery plant featured in this column is almost always from here in the Southeast, but this week, I thought I would mix things up a bit.
Do you feel stuck? In the doldrums? Can’t seem to get any traction?
In last week’s column I wrote about freezing food and discussed what foods don’t freeze well. I’m going to continue with the topic of freezing, but this week, it’s foods that do well when frozen.
This is not a version of the dating game. Nor is it an ad for one of the myriad on-line meeting sites continually advertised as ways to meet, greet, date, and possibly mate. Instead, it is a biblical call call to love one another as God loves us. It’s the exemplar of Teilhard de Chardin’s st…
As we once again commemorate the formal birth of the United States, it’s important to think about what makes America exceptional — what makes it, despite evident flaws, so worthy of our loyalty and affection.
This past week at the North Carolina General Assembly was filled with bills that had been waiting for consideration and the 2022-2023 budget adjustments on which we had worked since May. This produced a long week that kept us in Raleigh from Monday until Friday. On Friday, we took the final …
I am so proud of the staff of the NC Cooperative Extension Service, Master Gardener Volunteers, Extension Master Food Volunteers, 4-H members and volunteers and their families from southeastern NC. These folks picked over 770 pounds of blueberries and gave them to the Wilmington branch of th…
Summer 1962: it was the summer of Wolverton Mountain by Claude King (which was a good thing), Marilyn Monroe had just died (a sad thing) and America was soon to be gearing up for a missile crisis in the Caribbean (a very scary thing).
In a rare moment of musing over past columns, I ran across one I had written 18 years ago. To my amazement, I found it apropos to a variety of issues, challenges and possibilities we are experiencing today. It was especially notable in what I am deeming the ongoing presence of a pandemic ang…
Juneteenth is coming up next week. Juneteenth (the word is a combination of the words June and nineteenth) has been celebrated since June 19, 1865. This is the day that Union soldiers told the slaves in Galveston, Texas, that the Civil War was over and that slavery had been abolished. This w…
Let’s do lunch.”
All the “composites,” or members of the sunflower family (or aster family, if you prefer) have their tiny, reduced flowers arranged in compact heads, and each head is called a “capitulum.” Before the capitulum opens, a series of bracts surrounds it, much like the sepals surround a flower bud…
One of my most favorite people is Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun. I remember well the time we first met. It was at a conference and she was one of the speakers. Actually, it was a dual presentation. Her companion at the adjoining podium was a renowned priest-theologian.
Some people are asking if North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper might be the Democrats’ best presidential candidate in 2024.
Readers of this column know that I frequently write about topics discussed on a podcast called “Risky or Not.” In this podcast, two extension food safety specialists talk about a question they have gotten about a specific food or food practice. They look at the science and related research a…
This is the vine which the Girl Scouts tell us to recognize by its compound, trifoliolate leaves (that is with three leaflets), and which we are obliged to leave alone because it can be very problematic. Depending on one’s susceptibility to it, it can indeed cause severe contact dermatitis. …
The North Carolina hospitality industry, primarily composed of restaurants and hotels, is a multi-billion-dollar sector in the state. As a% of the state economy, its share has been growing in recent decades. The industry accounts for one out of every 11 jobs in the state. On average, every $…
It’s easy to see this one while speeding down the highway, blooming now and well into the summer. This is a perennial species, coming back year after year. It likes to grow in groups and often makes big, crowded patches. Plants produce long, tough roots from a knotty base. The foliage consis…
I grew up in a family that had guns. We learned to hunt at a young age with the proper safety precautions. We even had a course in “hunter safety” at our school. Guns were and are a way of life for the hunters within my family. I do believe in the right to bare arms and the second amendment.
According to the latest estimate from fiscal analysts at the North Carolina General Assembly, our state government will take in about $6.2 billion more in General Fund revenue over the 2021-23 budget biennium than was originally projected last year.
Whenever I read about miraculous occurrences, in Scripture and elsewhere, a little voice inside of me whispers “Oh, yeah!” I have been carefully taught to be very skeptical. If something appears too good to be true, it probably is. That attitude makes believing in miracles a bit tough. Add t…
In today’s world of sound bites and text messages, we’ve become accustomed to getting information in quick snippets. So, you may be getting tuned out if you go into too much detail.
There are so many diets floating around the internet and on social media, it’s really hard to know what works and what doesn’t and also what’s really healthy. Kelly Nordby, RDN, LDN addresses this topic on the Eat Smart, Move More, Weigh Less blog.
Hello all of Brunswick Beacon readers! I’m Savanna Tenenoff and I am the summer intern copyeditor here at the Beacon.
We’ve uttered wonderful words many times over the years. At least, I know I have. Gazing at something beautiful ... listening to a magnificent piece of music played well—all this and so much more evoke words like incredible, gorgeous, marvelous, indescribable, outstanding, even a breathtaking WOW!
It may surprise you to know this advice comes from an extremely successful businessman, Sir Richard Branson, rather than a yoga instructor. Branson is a British billionaire who is the founder of Virgin Group, which now controls 400 companies. Branson cautions us not to be a slave to technology.
We’re coming up on the first big holiday weekend of the summer. Time to clean up that grill and outdoor table to enjoy a cookout to start summer off right. It’s probably also time to brush-up on some of those summer food safety tips.
This fantastic flower was produced on a tree at what we here in Columbia call the Belser Arboretum, a seven-acre (or so) tract of forested land pretty much in the middle of the city, and two blocks from my home. The arboretum was bequeathed to the University of South Carolina in 1959 by Will…
Two hundred and fifty-one years ago this month, two large groups of armed North Carolinians camped about six miles away from each other in what is now Alamance County. A thousand state militiamen, led by North Carolina Gov. William Tryon, had come to suppress a popular revolt known as the Re…
Humans are very good at coming up with mental images of how various objects ought to look. It is a basic way of bringing order into the chaotic world in which we live. For instance, when you think of the word “flower,” you generally have a reasonably well-defined notion of what a typical flo…
In last week’s column I shared that is it perfectly safe to refreeze butter that had been frozen and defrosted. This led to questions about other foods that may have been frozen and thawed.
Ah, the Blue Ridge Parkway, truly one of our national treasures. An incredible amount of scenery and natural history abounds all along its length and all year long. Although there is no “wrong” time to be on the Parkway, unless it is snowing heavily, many people say that late spring is the b…
It was a balmy late spring day, perfect for sharing a lunch as we sat on cushioned seats to enjoy the sunshine almost as much as the conversation and meal. Maybe I got those items reversed — no matter. It yet described our camaraderie and delight that we were outdoors not cooped up in our abode.
Anger doesn’t always look the same. It can be disguised as sarcasm. Or criticism. Or jealousy. A lot of us are angry and don’t even know it.
Every now and then botanists go searching for plants in places that are not particularly pretty.
Last week I shared information about two of my favorite food safety podcasts. “Food Safety Talk” and “Risky or Not.” Both are produced by two Extension Food Safety Specialists, our own Dr. Ben Chapman from NCSU Cooperative Extension and Dr. Don Schaffner from Rutgers in New Jersey.
It was rush time, as usual. My husband and I were running late for an appointment, not as usual.
“Get over it.”
“I can’t believe this is happening.” “Why don’t things work out for me?” “Life is not fair.”
If you read this column frequently you know I’m a food safety geek. I belong to several food safety computer groups and get daily and weekly food safety updates. I also have a couple of podcasts I like to listen to regularly.
Usually, I am not allowed to go grocery shopping because I am accused of spending too much time reading the labels and otherwise dawdling while looking at produce. In my defense, I claim being a botanist, but who isn’t fascinated by the diversity of plants and plant products available today …
Do you feel stuck, like you’re not making much progress? You’re not alone. Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a lot of folks to doubt their next moves. You may not be giving yourself enough credit, though. Progress could look different than you think.
This is an alarming statistic: Nearly 80% of us are not reaching the physical activity guidelines recommended for Americans.
Sue Monk Kidd’s book, “Longings,” included two sentences that resonated with my life. I suspect they will have a similar impact on other readers. She wrote: “All my life longings lived inside me, rising up like nocturnes to wail and sing through the night … What was heard was my life begging…
Know well the condition of your flocks …
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Wilma Tatum Robbins, age 71, formerly of Brunswick County, N.C. passed away Sunday…
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