Free Republic

The Royal Mint has chosen Beatrix Potter’s thieving Peter Rabbit as the first character from children’s literature ever to appear on a UK coin. Peter, pictured in the blue jacket that he is forced to abandon in the garden of Mr McGregor when he is caught stealing vegetables, is captured on a special, coloured edition of a 50p coin available from today. The Royal Mint, which described Peter as “the most recognisable of Potter’s creations, and one of the most cherished from children’s literature”, will release uncoloured versions of the coin in change later this year.

After months of debate and public comments, President Obama’s controversial Clean Power Plan (CPP) was issued in August 2015 and published in the Federal Register on October 23, 2015. But that is hardly the end of the story. Instead the saga is just beginning—with the ending to be written sometime in 2017 and the outcome highly dependent on who resides in the White House. The CPP is the newest set of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that the Atlantic states: “anchors the Obama administration’s climate-change policy. It seeks to guide local utilities away from coal-fired electricity generation, and toward renewable...

ust 15 percent of people say they have personally benefited from ObamaCare, although more than one-third believe it has helped the people of their state, according to a poll released Monday. Most Americans -- a total of 56 percent -- say they haven't felt directly affected by the Affordable Care Act. Among those who have felt affected, more people say the law has hurt them than helped them, according to polling by National Public Radio and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Twenty-six percent of U.S. adults say they have been personally harmed by the healthcare law since its passage --...

An 8-year-old boy said he helped his mother's boyfriend grow "special medicine that can cure anything at all," The Times-Argus reportsA second-grader's story about helping a farmer grow "special medicine" plants led to the bust of an indoor marijuana growing operation in Vermont, authorities said. According to an affidavit, an 8-year-old boy told school officials and Windsor police detective Jennifer Frank that he helped his mother's boyfriend, 54-year-old Steven Mann, grow "special medicine that can cure anything at all," The Times-Argus reports. Police said they found 50 marijuana plants worth $75,000, along with two "grow rooms" next to the...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump secured support from a questionable source on Wednesday: white supremacist and former Klu Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. According to BuzzFeed, Duke explained why his listeners should back Trump on his radio show. "Voting for these people, voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage," he reportedly said in reference to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz on the "David Duke Radio Program." While Duke stopped short of an outright endorsement, the racial animus was clear from his Trump pitch (emphasis ours): I'm not saying I endorse everything about Trump,...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won't be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn't asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

fancy woodworking video 2:21

Wild tomatoes are better able to protect themselves against the destructive whitefly than our modern, commercial varieties, new research has shown. The study, published today in the academic journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development, shows that in our quest for larger redder, longer-lasting tomatoes we have inadvertently bred out key characteristics that help the plant defend itself against predators. Dual mode of resistance in wild tomatoes Led by Newcastle University, UK, the research shows that wild tomatoes have a dual line of defence against these voracious pests; an initial mechanism which discourages the whitefly from settling on the plant in the...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won't be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn't asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won't be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn't asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

A challenging, years-long survey has uncovered 14 new species of U.S. tarantula, including one named after Johnny Cash. Some, like Aphonopelma madera, live on forested "sky islands," mountains surrounded on all sides by Arizona's deserts. Others, like the tiny Aphonopelma atomicum, nestle themselves in silk-lined burrows near Nevada's nuclear test sites. And Aphonopelma johnnycashi, named for the legendary country musician, makes its home near Folsom Prison, California. True to form, adult males are mostly black, a getup of which Cash--the Man in Black--would have no doubt been proud. (Also see "New Tarantula (Not Beetle) Named After John Lennon.") To uncover...

Since it made its debut in April 2007, the publication has hewed to its own course, focusing on everything Southern from ham biscuits to bird-dog trainers... it remains tightly focused on food, drink, the land, travel, and the sporting life, including bird hunting and shotguns. Roughly 72% of subscribers live in the Southeast or Southwest... “Our audiences are very different,” said Sid Evans, the former editor-in-chief of Garden & Gun who now edits Southern Living. He noted that more than 90% of Southern Living’s subscribers are female. Women account for about 47% of Garden & Gun’s subscribers.... At a time...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won't be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn't asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won't be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn't asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won't be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn't asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

Zinnia experimental plants growing aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have staged a dramatic New Year’s comeback from a potential near death experience over the Christmas holidays, when traces of mold were discovered. ... After suffering from a serious case of space blight on the space station, the 'Space Zinnias' growing inside the orbiting outposts Veggie facility are now on the comeback trail from space based trials and tribulations. ... At first the space station Zinnias made great progress, sprouting healthily into larger plants with bigger leaves than those growing on Earth. "These plants appear larger than their ground-based counterparts...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won't be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn't asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

Call them "microgreens" or "babygreens" or even "vegetable confetti." But whatever the name, these itsy-bitsy salad fixin’s are loaded with nutrients and are tantalizing the taste buds of such celebs as Oprah Winfrey, who recently posted a picture of herself nibbling mustard lettuce microgreens. The post got almost 56,000 "likes" and over 1,100 comments.(snip) Expensive babies. Farmers must use many more pounds of seeds to grow a salad bowl of microgreens than mature greens; and the microgreens shelf life typically is five to seven days, compared to two to four weeks for mature vegetables. Accordingly, the infant plants typically sell...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won't be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn't asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

OK, this is under the gardening topic, thats the closest I could find. I had a YUGE fir tree come down at the beginning of December. Fortunately, it missed the house and shed. But it pretty much wrecked my cyclone fence. It smashed and bent the top bars, but left the posts still standing straight. It caused the weave or whatever you call it to fold down. So my first step was to buy new bars along the top, and the attachments that hold them to the posts. But the posts aren't straight, and I need to bend the bars....