Questions you never asked

Hamlet was about 17 at the beginning of the play and about thirty at the end. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Jeremy has just read Hamlet in high school and he wondered about Hamlet's age. The experts are mixed on the answer but the one I like best was that Shakespeare was inconsistent.

No you cannot buy an 8 inch pie pan. Well that is a modified no. You can buy one made in France for about $37. Pyrex no longer makes that size and a metal one was non-existent. The recipes, however, continue to call for eight inch pies.

If you would like to grow an espaliered fruit tree in your yard it is best to go with apple. Figs, peaches, apricots, persimmons and pomegranates may also be espaliered. One needs a sunny wall and good soil. The self pollinating varieties are best for the beginner. Apples lend themselves to many espalier forms hedges, double cordon. vertical cordon, palmetto and Belgian fence. If you are serious now is the time to do your own research.

Julia Ward Howe wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic in one afternoon in a hotel room in Washington, DC. She came from a very prestigious and educated family and was an abolitionist and feminist. It was the two hundredth anniversary of Lincoln's birth so we sang Civil war songs at Thanksgiving dinner. Charles Darwin was also two hundred years old but I lacked songs on evolution.