Historic Plainfield Farmers Market

09/06/2026

09/06/2026

Planning to grill this weekend?

Give your grill some space. Use grills outdoors and keep them away from your home, deck railings, eaves, and tree branches. Never use a grill on a porch or balcony. And remember, never leave a hot grill unattended.

Find more grilling safety tips from NFPA. https://nfpa.social/4ipVcCU

09/06/2026

Dolly Parton knew country music, but what about country cooking? We put Dolly's signature chicken and dumpling recipe to the test. | Get the recipe at the link in the comments ⬇️

09/06/2026

There's a mistake almost every single person makes when buying fall mums, and they make it right there in the store, before the plant ever gets near their porch. If your mums never seem to last, this is almost certainly why.

Here's the trap. Faced with a whole display of mums, nearly everyone reaches for the same thing: the fullest, most colorful plant, the one already exploding with open blooms. It feels like the obvious best choice. It's actually the one most likely to fizzle out fast, for a reason that clicks the moment you hear it. The plants that genuinely go the distance often look less impressive at first glance, and a couple of quick checks on the shelf tell you which is which. There's also a smart moment to even make your shopping trip, and one common warning you can safely ignore. None of it is complicated, it's just the opposite of what instinct tells you to grab.

Avoid the one mistake everyone makes, and your mums finally last all season.

I laid out exactly what to do instead. It's all in the first comment.

09/06/2026

🩷🩷🩷

09/06/2026

We'll be making this coleslaw recipe in honor of Dolly Parton from 9 to 5!

09/06/2026

09/06/2026

About that pasta… 🍝

What started as a little experiment quickly became an obsession.

Durum wheat semolina, water, and bronze dies — simple ingredients, but I discovered there’s a lot more to making great dried pasta than I ever imagined.

After a lot of experimenting (and more than a few failures), Un po’ di tutto pasta was born.

And yes… there was a ridiculous amount of pasta along the way.

09/06/2026

I know my reputation at your feeder: the loudmouth, the bully, the hawk-screaming con artist who scatters the sparrows and takes what he wants.

All... somewhat true. I do imitate hawk calls to clear the buffet (it's called strategy). I am loud (it's called communication — my alarm calls warn EVERY species in the neighborhood, and they all listen).

But this month, while you're judging me at the feeder, let me show you my other job — the one that built the landscape you live in.

🌳 I AM A FORESTER:
→ Every fall, I harvest and CACHE acorns, beechnuts, and other tree seeds — burying each one individually in soil, under leaves, in lawns, a few at a time
→ The documented numbers are absurd: individual jays cache THOUSANDS of acorns in a single autumn — classic research followed jays moving thousands of acorns from a single stand in weeks
→ I carry up to five acorns at once (three in an expandable throat pouch, one in my mouth, one in my beak) and fly them MILES — far beyond where any acorn could roll or any squirrel would bother
→ I never recover them all. The leftovers, buried at ideal depth in open ground, become oaks.

🧊 THE ICE AGE RECEIPT: When the glaciers retreated ten thousand years ago, oak forests re-advanced northward far faster than acorns can roll downhill. Ecologists' leading explanation: US. Generations of jays, ferrying acorns north mile by mile, replanted the eastern forests. Your state's oaks may literally be jay plantings, compounded over millennia.

🧠 AND THE FINE PRINT ON MY CHARACTER:
→ I'm a corvid cousin — the crow family — with the intelligence to match: I test acorns for weevils before caching and remember my sites
→ The "nest-robber" charge? Studies of jay stomachs found egg/nestling remains far more rarely than the folklore claims — I'm overwhelmingly a nut-and-insect eater
→ That shimmering blue isn't even pigment — it's structural, light refracted through feather architecture. Grind my feather and it's gray. I am, scientifically, an illusion of blue.

What I like from you: oaks left standing, whole peanuts in a tray (watch me weigh them — I test-lift several and take the heaviest), and a birdbath.

Judge the feeder manners if you must.

But every oak on your street says my community service is paid in full.

Share this for the loudmouth who planted America. 💙