Word: farm
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Nestled in the oak-dappled hills along California's central coast, the Skinner family's Huasna Valley Farm has weathered its share of calamities. There was the time that deer got into the sweet corn and nibbled through three-quarters of the fruit trees. And the year that early frost killed off much of the lettuce. And the 22 nights in one month that farmer Ron Skinner was up tending sprinklers. Last May, when the weeds got out of hand, the Skinners e-mailed their customers that "heat, lack of sleep and exhaustion" had made them wonder...
That's hardly a question most American farmers would ask of the grocery chains or corporate middlemen that purchase their crops. But the Skinners are among a growing breed of producers dedicated to "community-supported agriculture." These CSAs, also known as subscription farms, sell shares of their harvest in advance directly to the consumer. They involve shareholder families through regular newsletters, potluck parties and even farm work. The lure is not just fresher, cheaper veggies but also a sense of belonging. Thus the Skinners' dismay didn't last. A score of shareholders showed up to weed. "When you help...
Brooms were indeed associated with witches but not to the exclusion of other objects—churns, hayforks, farm animals and many other everyday objects were also supposedly ridden by witches to their gatherings. Brooms also sometimes had a protective function against witches. In Tyrolean tradition, for example, a broom placed against a door would bar a witch from moving through it. As to the question of the phallic symbol, yes, one can read it that way, I suppose, although some of the other objects (e.g., the churn) might be even better candidates. Certainly its presentation in well-known contexts...
...hunters at Educational Testing Service (ETS), the Princeton, N.J., firm that the College Board pays to write SAT questions, put together a list of books to be avoided when picking passages. On the list were 40 or so titles often assigned in good English classes--novels such as Animal Farm, Catch-22 and Native Son. ETS had a solid psychometric rationale for shunning the books: reading-comprehension questions should measure a student's ability to analyze something new, not something already assigned in English class...
According to the Herald, the state-planted tree farm was in receivership to a consortium of 12 banks, and was originally on the market for $650 million. The Herald also reported that Harvard was believed to be behind a thus-far failed bid for another massive New Zealand forest, raising the prospect that they could end up with a “super-estate...