Welcome To Washington, NC

After many years of work, by many different people, there is finally a place for the dogs to play.  Bravo!!!!  The park will be dedicated tomorrow, Tuesday September 22, 2009 at noon at the corner of Brown and 4th Streets.

If you received a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) or FEMA assistance in the form of a grant, and signed a Deed of Trust on your house, it may not have been cancelled on schedule.  You need to check at the Courthouse, the Register of Deeds, to see.  It will cost a couple of dollars to have them print you a copy.  Look at the date and term of the "loan".  Those who received assistance after Fran or Floyd should have had that loan forgiven by now.  If not, send a copy with a note to the City Manager, James Smith, P.O. Box 1988.

There were still 7 spots left in the milk co-op through Petals and Produce.  You get a gallon of local, organic milk each week.  Call 252-940-0012 for full details.

You can sign up to receive a basket of local vegetables for $235 for 15 weeks.  All you have to do is stop by Petals and Produce each week to pick up your basket full of goodies.  Call 252-940-0012 to see if they have any spots left.

Silly me, I thought they were called fire ants because they are red.  Unfortunately I now know it's because their bite burns like fire.  Actually, I think I'd rather stick my toe in fire than deal with these bites.  I've tried aloe, alcohol, vinegar and peroxide.  I've left a few blisters alone, popped and squeezed the others.  It doesn't matter.  The itching and burning are still intense.  The moral of this story, don't mow the yard barefoot.  Avoid ant mounds.  When you hit them with the mower, ants are sprayed elsewhere.  Hard to believe tha

It definitely sounds like the sky is falling at my house, but it's pecans hitting the roof.  It's so much better to write this word for nuts, I'm never sure how to pronounce it.  As a receptacle for bodily fluids vs.

to Marie and the rest of Gary Tomasulo's family.  Your loss is our loss.  This was a man who didn't just talk about downtown revitalization, he put on his tool belt and did it.  He turned smelly old buildings into lovely retail space without destroying the historic part.  He spoke about opening a pizza place downtown from the moment he arrived here.  La Bella Pizzeria opened in July, on Main Street just east of the Turnage Theater.  Gary Tomasulo's passing leaves a huge hole in the fabric of our town.  He will be greatly missed.

The mushroom people are finally back at the Downtown Farmer's Market on Saturday.  They expect to be there every week until the end of October when the market closes.

If you look on the orange bar above, there's a new button for politics.  I haven't quite figured out how to set up a forum, but as soon as I do you'll be able to ask the candidates questions that they can all answer.  I have provided contact information, if you have a question for a particular candidate, please contact them privately.  If you're not registered to vote, please do so now.  You can go to the Board of Elections, 252-946-2321, or get the form online, or register at the DMV when you get your driver's license.

I'm not going to make excuses, some of the information contained on this site is out of date.  Please call before going to any restaurants, we've lost a few this year.  The good news is that the site is now hosted locally by Symbiotic Networks  (252-946-1132).  I deal with a kind man who speaks both geek and human, and is patient with old folks like me.

Contrary to appearances, A Slice of Heaven is not gone.  The coffee bar is closed, but Rebecca will still be baking her very special creations, all you have to do is ask.  (252-948-2300)  Her goodies will still be available Saturday at the downtown Farmer's Market.  Buy a challah to take home, and a pastry to nibble while you listen to the musicians jam under the trees at the corner of Main and Gladden. 

It's so sad, the end of July and already it's the last of the corn, red potatoes, hot house tomatoes, zuchini, and so much more.  I haven't had my fill yet.  But butterbeans and field peas are here, and those sweet matamuskeet onions.  We still have a fall season to look forward to, and the melons aren't done yet.  If you missed the Farmer's Markets today, you can always go to the Petals and Produce store on 5th Street/264 just east of Brown Street.

has got to be the coffee bar in the parking lot behind the shops on Market Street.  The parking lot runs from Main to 2nd, east of and parallel to Market Street.  See the tables and flowers, it's the door with the Java Joe sign.  They're open from 8am to midnight, deliver downtown, and have music Friday and Saturday nights. They call it "Note's Cafe".

Where I come from, slugs are the fake coins used to gain access to the subway, or operate the wash machine.  Here, slugs are horrible slimy creatures like snails without a shell.  They live in the garden except when they get in my bathroom.  They must be coming up the drain, they love dark moist places.  You really don't want to step on them, it will make a huge mess.  Pour salt on them and their slime trails, they will curl up and die and be easily removable in a few hours, perhaps as long as a day for the big ones.

The early bird gets the worm!  The yard sale folks are out at daybreak, the Farmer's Markets start about 7:30 or 8.  There's the one downtown, at the corner of Stewart Parkway, Gladden, and Main Streets, the other one off 15th Street across from the SECU, just west of Wal-Mart and hwy17, and the man on the side of the road at 3rd Street and hwy17.  We didn't make it out last Saturday until about 10, and though we found plenty of wonderful food, the selection was smaller than it had been earlier.  There were lots of empty boxes.  Maybe we'll do bett

The secret to iced coffee is coffee ice cubes.  This is the time of year that hot beverages seem foolish.  If you put ice cubes in your coffee, you wind up with watery cold coffee.  Just pour strong coffee into an ice cube tray and freeze it.  If your freezer is frost free you'll want to bag them once they're frozen.

I recently learned that the really loud airplane is letting off passengers when it gets quiet in the sky.  Personally, I have no need to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.  I considered it once and even went for lessons.  When they expected us to jump from 10 feet, onto concrete, I reconsidered the wisdom of this idea.  But if it sounds like fun to you, you can start with tandem jumps first.  Just call the folks at Warren Field 252-946-3900.

At some point on Friday I decide that I've had enough and I go out to forage.  I make a point of dropping by Washington Wine & Gourmet to see what they are tasting this week.  Starting at about 2pm until closing they will give you a taste of two wines, and perhaps a nibble of something delicious.  Their wines are always a great value, and are not available at the local grocery stores.

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