A mushroom company in North Carolina is claiming to have successfully inoculated trees with black truffles. No one has ever been able to do this before. Black truffles can net you about $70,000 per acre, but they’ve never been able to be successfully farmed. They just happen, in a small area of France and Italy, if you’re lucky. If true, this could eventually make truffles available for the masses!

My parents (and youngest sister) drove into town this morning, staying for one day only. They’ll have spent more time on the road driving here and back from outside St. Louis, Missouri, than they’ll spend here visiting, but I’m glad they came. They’ll see the play tonight and head off after lunch tomorrow.

[The Much-to-be-feared Brown Recluse Spider](http://www.countrysidemag.com/issues/3_1998.htm#Brown Recluse), from the back issues of Countryside Magazine. I know all about this. I’ve got the scar on my big toe to show for it. Only for me, there was no surgery, no charcoal compresses. Just an attention to cleanliness and my own natural healing. It’s this spider bite that gave me my superpowers. Some of them, anyway.

“My thoughts first turn to Spring mushrooming when the cottonwoods start to leaf out and release their delightful Spring scents. Along the riverbanks and in other moist areas I begin my hunt for the elusive and well-camouflaged early morels. " Morels, Truffles and other Spring Mushrooms: an annotated slide show.

Also in the current Flagpole, of particular interest to Randy:

_In related news,The Minus 5 is preparing to embark on a brief tour of the United States in support of a split release with the Young Fresh Fellows entitled _Let The War Against Music Begin… Because We Hate You _, due out this spring on Mammoth Records. The Minus 5 is fronted by guitarist-keyboardist-songwriterScott McCaughey who led Seattle·s Young Fresh Fellows to greatness in the ’80s and ’90s and currently performs live with R.E.M. The group - comprised of McCaughey, R.E.M.’s Peter Buck , The Posies’ Ken Stringfellow , John Bamberg and Bill Rieflin - is scheduled to appear on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” on March 13.

The Flagpole writes up Baby With the Bathwater.

Sometimes you need to know the latin for a piece of dinnerware, and at times like that, the Roman Dinnerware Word List is invaluable. But why stop with dinnerware?

Today marks a year that I’ve lived in my country home. (Well, my landlord’s county home, anyway.) I knew going into this that my life would change living there, but I never could have guessed just how much better things would be. My play ends this weekend, and then I’ll put in this year’s garden. It’ll be twice the size of last year’s, which is pretty crazy (according to some people). The chickens will come soon. I’ve asked the owners if I can get a dairy cow (or maybe a couple of goats), but chances are slim of them allowing that. And, of course, I have overalls. And then, there’s Chris.

Spring is in the air, and tax refunds are in the mailbox. So far, I’ve cleaned out my Amazon shopping cart, ordered a mess of cheesemaking supplies, and got five gallons of wine bubbling. A few outstanding debts will be paid, a garden will be planted, and there should be enough left over for something nice.

A new species of camel has been discovered in the deserts north of Tibet. I suppose this will give more ammunition to the Yeti-searchers. ("If a large camel could go undiscovered for so long, it’s not far-fetched that an intelligent hominid could go uncaptured for so long in roughly the same area, now isn’t it? “)