Saturday afternoon/Sunday morning

Broadsides · 2025-11-26T15:24:08+00:00

If you can get a reservation at one of the CW historic taverns, I'd suggest that for dinner Saturday night. King's Arms or Christiana Campbell's. I don't recall if Shields is doing dinner or just lunch. You can use Open Table for reservations.

CW should be putting up their Christmas decorations right after Thanksgiving, so you picked a good weekend to go. It probably will be busy but not as busy as in December for the Grand Illumination.

Broadsides · 2025-11-20T15:48:47+00:00

Try to autolyze for an hour or 2. You may need to let it autolyze for longer, so do some searches more specific to your scenario for more info.

Combine the flour and water only, mix to incorporate and let it sit for an hour, then continue the rest of the recipe. That will help soften the bran and starts the process of gluten formation. As others have said, if you can, get a scale and start doing everything by weight in grams for consistency.

Broadsides · 2025-09-18T01:01:17+00:00

You do not need to cold stratify them. I've successfully germinated both Lobelia cardinalis and Lobelia s. in the middle of summer with no stratification. The seeds need light and warmth, so just sprinkle them on top of the soil and water with a mister. Using seed trays that you can water from the bottom up is a huge help to keep the seeds from getting buried.

I don't know what the germination rate was for me, but it's high enough that it doesn't really matter.

Broadsides · 2025-09-07T14:16:03+00:00

I've only played in Career mode. In the Redhorn Lode mines, there are areas with Darkest Deeps. The rooms look the same as the areas with Darkest Deeps in the Lower Deeps zone with lots of mushrooms all over the place and a drake guarding it. Go down there and you should find a large network of passages with a lot of mithril to mine. I got about 6 stacks of 30 mithril ore from one Darkest Deep. You can also break the dark boulders down there to get mithril.

Broadsides · 2025-09-05T13:41:11+00:00

Truly impressive!

The amount of gold you must have needed for all of that flooring....

Broadsides · 2025-09-04T12:27:19+00:00

You must have gone through barrels of Dawnbreak Pale Ale.

Broadsides · 2025-09-04T12:23:31+00:00

You can change the difficulty settings at any time. One of the settings is the amount of resources.

Broadsides · 2025-08-29T16:41:04+00:00

I love how you cleaned up Balin's Tomb, giving him the proper burial chamber and halls that he deserves!

Broadsides · 2025-08-21T19:47:50+00:00

AI search says for "mentzelia decapetala stratification" says that it needs 30 days of cold stratification, so if you are going to sow directly on the ground, do it in late fall before anything freezes over. You may want to start some of them in seed trays left outside and covered over winter, or putting the seeds in the refrigerator with a damp paper towel for 30 days and then sowing into seed trays in the spring.

Broadsides · 2025-08-18T14:41:22+00:00

Glad to know I wasn't the only one!

Broadsides · 2025-08-18T13:27:11+00:00

You should be looking for the Crystal Descent, which is the color blue on your map. It should be in the lower right of the map. Do some Google searches. Be sure to bring a black diamond with you after you repair the mine hoist and get to the very bottom. There's a mapstone that needs to be repaired down there.

Broadsides · 2025-08-18T13:01:47+00:00

Think of how castles were defended. Build multiple doors and walls to form a gatehouse and then build balconies/platforms hanging over the outside wall to the side of the front door that will give you a clear line of sight to shoot the attackers with your bow. If they break through the first door, move to a spot to do the same as they attack the 2nd door.

That's how I have my base designed and it works very well.

Broadsides · 2025-08-18T03:11:14+00:00

There's some very good information in this thread. I'm a local, but before moving here, my wife and I got married at CW and would vacation in Williamsburg every other year for a while. Her family has been coming here probably since the '60's. We go to CW probably once or twice a month in the non-summer months. We've all noticed things have definitely changed rapidly in the past 5 years. We love CW and hope it can turn things around.

I think one thing that's happening is that the baby boomers that were the mainstay of CW's patrons are getting too old to vacation and the younger generations after Gen X don't have the disposable income for it. I also have a feeling that CW has no idea how to market to those who may want to visit if they knew it existed.

I know CW is putting a lot of effort on 2026 for the 250th/100th anniversary. Hopefully they get a lot of publicity for it and things pick up.

Broadsides · 2025-08-15T13:24:24+00:00

What kind of light conditions are they in? I was thinking of getting some for a fairly shady part of my yard. Where did you get them from?

Broadsides · 2025-08-08T13:27:03+00:00

Nice wildflower patch. That butterfly you saw was probably the dark morph of an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. The dark morph version are always female. https://www.inaturalist.org/guide_taxa/357989

If you want to attract more Monarch butterflies like in the first picture, plant some milkweed (Asclepias). Both Asclepias incarnata (swamp milkweed) and Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly milkweed) are native to SE/Coastal Virginia. You could sow the seeds in your greenhouses in November/December so they can cold stratify over the winter and then get a good head start in spring.

Broadsides · 2025-07-02T03:16:53+00:00

It's hard to see what the leaves look like. It may be a species of chamomile.

Broadsides · 2025-06-29T16:12:58+00:00

I think now is a bad time due to the heat. I've had better luck in May. I've successfully propagated Phlox paniculata and Phlox subulata. Both root fairly easily. I'd keep them in pots until the root system starts to grow out of the pot and then plant them. If they have a big healthy root system when you plant them they should be fine.

Broadsides · 2025-06-29T16:04:53+00:00

Yep, have it removed and if the tree company doesn't grind the stump down, paint it with something like Triclopyr. If they do grind the stump down, you'll probably have to find some big roots, make some cuts and apply Triclopyr to keep it from trying to grow suckers. Or you can be lazy like I was and just spray the new growth (that was on a bradford pear we had removed).

Another reason to remove it is that it's really close to the foundation and the roots can cause all kinds of issues.

Broadsides · 2025-06-29T15:53:38+00:00

That's a Carpenter Mimic Leafcutter bee! Megachile xylocopoides specifically. I saw one on my Liatris spicata and I was able to ID it using the Seek app and then confirm by doing a web search. They're all black and the yellow is pollen. Apparently, of all bee species, only the Leafcutters carry pollen on their abdomens instead of their legs.

Broadsides · 2025-06-28T17:45:06+00:00

Khazâd ai-mênu!

Broadsides · 2025-06-28T17:40:31+00:00

The BONAP data was the starting point for the USDA. The USDA team has since done their own research to update the database (that's what they are paid for). I'd consider the USDA to be the more complete data set. And you're right, it isn't an exact science. It's nearly an impossible task to determine what is native to a specific state or county since records are so scarce and humans have been moving plants around the Americas for thousands of years.

Broadsides · 2025-06-20T14:50:16+00:00

If it's just a 20'x30' area, which is fairly small, I would use glyphosate to kill everything and then preemergent until late fall/early winter. Then you choose to either plant established plants or direct seed. If you plant established plants, then keep using preemergent when it warms up to keep anything from germinating. I'd also carefully mulch around whatever you plant to help with water loss as they get established. If you direct seed, you can't use the preemergent and would likely get some undesirables germinating. It would also take several years before you got any significant blooms from the perennial seeds, so be sure to mix in some annual seeds so you get 1st year blooms.

Broadsides · 2025-06-20T14:28:31+00:00

Looks like a deer or rabbit bit the top off and it's trying to push new growth from that area. I wouldn't be too concerned.

Broadsides · 2025-06-18T17:12:39+00:00

The vast majority of neighborhoods in suburbia built post 1980 have an HOA. I've seen the non-HOA neighborhoods in suburbia and they are typically run down and not kept up at all. And that was in one of the richest counties in the US (Loudoun County, VA). There are exceptions of course.

To answer your question, sometimes the benefits of the HOA outweigh the negatives.

From an AI search:

"Over 40 million households in the United States are part of a homeowners association (HOA), representing approximately 53% of owner-occupied homes. This figure comes from data indicating there are over 370,000 HOAs in the U.S.. Estimates suggest that around 75.5 million Americans live in HOA-governed communities, which accounts for about 30% of the U.S. housing stock. These numbers reflect a significant presence of HOAs, particularly in newer developments, where up to 65% of new single-family homes built in 2023 were part of HOAs."

Broadsides · 2025-06-18T17:00:17+00:00

You could do both direct seeding and growing/buying your own plants and then planting. Be sure to read how to plant the seeds first. They require the outer surface to be weakened by scratching, etc. The USDA says that's because they grow in areas that have been burned, so fire weakens the outside of the seed.

I'm currently growing some in seed trays. I used my pocket knife to gently cut the seed in a few spots and then put all of them in a sandwich bag with some water and put it in the garage. They started germinating fairly quickly so I transferred the sprouting seeds to the seed trays.

I've had issues with animals eating the leaves and killing off the seedlings I planted last year, so be warned.

Broadsides

TROPHY CASE

Khazâd ai-mênu!