Thriving Community News – Without the Noise
Scott Miller - Thriving News 
How to grow your own persimmon trees The wild American persimmon is a puzzling fruit. If you pick it when it looks ripe, it will taste like alum – weirdly bitter and chalky. Your mouth puckers up, but not like from a lemon. Yet if you wait until your senses are telling you that they … Read more
My Experience with Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) and Fighting the Bank Like a good Thriver, I paid ahead on my home loan. When it got below 80%, I called the bank because I didn’t see the PMI come off my payment.They told me it doesn’t come off automatically, but it will come off at a … Read more
An ice storm is not the time to be trying to remember how your generator works The power is out. You are under a lot of stress. The kids are scared and crying. The trees outside are cracking under the weight, adding to the anxiety felt in your house. You know you will have to … Read more
Autumn Olive is a superfood Autumn olive berries have a high amount of Vitamin C. The Ruby red variety has more lycopene than even tomatoes. I have autumn olive growing in my pasture, the Ruby Red, Amber (yellow), and the Punch Bowl varieties. I harvested the berries in October and froze them for use in … Read more
Is Tradition Bad or Good? – by Scott Miller. In a post earlier this summer, I shared how the fleeting scent of lilacs took me back to being five years old in Dubuque, Iowa and an elderly neighbor who had lilacs. The memory was strong, with multiple veiled layers that include smells, and feelings, and … Read more
Communication is a Negotiation Talking about the Weather is the Icebreaker When someone has a mundane conversation, like the weather, do you tune them out? If you listen then they will often get to the real story and go deeper. “Wow, the weather was hot Weds.” “Yeah, and it’s going to be hotter this weekend.” … Read more
Determining the sex of a chick by the feathers doesn’t always work in the 2nd and 3rd generation. It is Year 2 of trying to determine the sex of my newly hatched chicks by their feather shape. Year 1 was a success, as you can read here. Now it is Year 2 (with 2 generations … Read more
The Myths of Creativity “Sing in me, O Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end” – Homer’s “Odyssey”. People want to be inspired. We have an entire myth around creativity that anything artistic in our lives is the “creative spark”, … Read more
Musings from the Firepit – It’s late May and my wife and I are sitting around the fire pit on one of the few remaining cool nights before the heat sets in (tonight it will be in the mid to upper 40s in northeast Kansas). It’s a perfect night. My legs are warm and the … Read more
Are you allowed to say “I don’t know”? “The most elementary statement in science, the beginning of wisdom, is ‘I do not know’.” – Data, Star Trek: TNG. Not allowed to say “I don’t know” Believe it or not, we are not allowed to say “I don’t know” at work. Maybe not allowed, but it … Read more
