The Owlcroft Company owns and operates a number of web sites on a broad variety of topics. These sites are all designed to be both useful and pleasant to visit: their page layouts are intended to avoid the squeezed, small-type, multi-column, ad-cluttered, blinking-light, zooming-image visual nightmare that so many of today's sites have become. Owlcroft sites are meant as places where you can calmly relax and enjoy your visit while yet getting helped to a generous dose of information on the sites' topics.

Given below is a list of those sites, separated into three categories: those operated under their own domain names, those existing within the owlcroft.com domain, and those maintained pro bono but not owned by The Owlcroft Company. Included for each is a brief description of that site's topic.

You can make contact with The Owlcroft Company by emailing us.

(You can find out more about us as individuals, too, at: Eric's personal site and Lynn's personal site--or visit Is it a blog yet?)

The Induction Site

Induction is a wholly different method of cooking, and this site explains in full what it is, how it works, what its advantages are (it is simply the best cooking technology there is, for both professional and home cooking), and who makes units today. Induction, long popular around the world, is finally having a resurgence in North America, with new name-brand units appearing; people who want to know why will find out at this leading internet resource site.

The site also has an extensive bookshop (with both new and used books available) of titles relating to cooking.

Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works

For the civilized reader, too many--most--web sites about science-fiction or fantasy literature recall American Bandstand: "Uh, wull, Dick, I give it a 86 'cause it had a good beat an' yuh could dance to it." What one might charitably call "naive enthusiasm" abounds. But, while a cold spritzer is often welcome refreshment, when we go into a restaurant of quality and ask for the wine card, we do not expect to see Gallo Chablis or Annie Greensprings among the listings. This site seeks to be a wine card of science-fiction and fantasy literature; it is dedicated to presenting works in the fields of science-fiction and fantasy--sometimes collectively called "speculative fiction"--that get high grades for literary quality without needing any bonus points just for being science fiction or fantasy. The books are judged as literature, not as "science-fiction books" or "fantasy books".

The High Boskage House Baseball-Analysis Web Site

From one of the pioneers of modern baseball analysis--a twenty-year consultant to successful major-league ball clubs--comes this site, which not only explains thoroughly the rationale and methodology of modern analysis, but--in season--presents daily-updated detailed stats on teams and players, allowing fans to see how much players are really helping (or hurting) their team, and how well any team is really playing.

The site also has an extensive bookshop (with both new and used books available) of titles relating to baseball.

The "Matters Criminous" Web Site

The mystery-crime-detection genre is--like most literary genres--regrettably dominated by works lacking literary merit, and is indeed almost antagonistic toward such works; yet authors of substantial merit have been (and are) producing works of enduring value within the field. While this site does not pretend to be a comprehensive survey of all that is literate within the genre, it does select and describe a good number of authors and series that meet that criterion; moreover, it includes links to select further resources in the field. Possibly most important of all, it also provides a complete listing of all the books (and omnibuses) for each series, along with used-book searches for each title.

The "Growing Taste" Food-Gardening Site

A rich cornucopia of detailed information for home vegetable and fruit gardeners, the site includes immensely detailed and exact growing information for a great variety of vegetables and fruits--but above all it focuses on identifying the most flavorful varieties of each; in an era of water-swollen "hybrid vigor", where heavier and harder are the chief commercial criteria for edibles, the home gardener, who can pick those "cultivars" that make the best eating, needs help sorting through all those "best ever!" claims made for each and every variety in garden-seed catalogues, and this site provides that much-needed guidance.

The site also has an extensive bookshop (with both new and used books available) of titles relating to vegetables and fruits.

Steroids and Baseball

Everything you think you know about steroids and other "performance-enhancing" drugs in baseball is (almost certainly) wrong.

This fact-filled site draws extensively on the medical literature and detailed analysis of actual statistics to get to the truths about what steroids do and don't do for performance, whether any records are "tainted", what the extent and severity of medical side effects really are, whether American youth is being led astray by ballplayer "role models", and the formal ethics of performance-enhancing substance use in sports.

This site is an outgrowth of the High Boskage House Baseball web site described farther above on this page.

SEO Tools, Toys, and Packages

This site explains SEO ("Search-Engine Optimization") for beginners, but also offers tips and information for the more experienced. But above all, it is a repository for a good number of free software tools to actually enhance and augment sites--not "measuring tools", but actual site add-on packages. Among others are the renowned "BookAdder" package, which easily adds an entire topical Amazon/ABE bookshop (and, thereby, tens of thousands of new, relevant pages) to any site; "Weather", a local weather-conditions drop-in customizeable for virtually any spot on Earth (smallest of 4 sizes of module illustrated at left); "Rates", a currency rate-exchange module; and much more.

The site also has an extensive bookshop (with both new and used books available) of titles relating to the world-wide web--which shop is also a working demonstration of the Freebie package.

OmniKnow, the online encyclopedia

Omniknow is a free online encyclopedia with roughly two-thirds of a million entries, most illustrated, many of which include, besides the article text, a set of good-quality human-reviewed links for further information on that topic. The entries are typically quite detailed and expertly written (often by experts), and cover both conventional and unconventional topics.

What do you know about OmniKnow?

(Incidentally, if you'd like, you can get a drop-in tag just like that above--one that changes at every new page view, so your pages always have a little something new for both visitors and searchbots--to put on any page or pages of your site, for free; click here for details.

The encyclopedia has a search facility for articles--including a sophisticated "power search"--plus a search facility for finding more narrowly focussed human-reviewed links relevant to any particular article.

Mars, Mars, Mars! The Planet Mars Web Site

Day by day, it seems more and more likely that our Mars-bound spacecraft will find evidence of past, and--most exciting--possibly present life on the Red Planet. The Planet Mars web site presents a thorough but comprehensible explanation of the science of Mars: what planets are, and indeed a brief history of the entire universe, plus details about conditions for life on Mars--plus a fascinating look at the "human side" of Mars, the planet in lore and legend through the ages.

The site also has an extensive bookshop (with both new and used books available) of titles relating to Mars, astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology.

Adams County (Washington State) Useful Links

A detailed listing of virtually all of the on-line resources having to do with Adams County (Washington State), organized by locale (from individual towns up to statewide) and then by relevant topic (government, business, etc.).

The site also has an extensive bookshop (with both new and used books available) of titles relating to Washington State.

The English Language

This little site is not so much about what correct English grammar and usage are as it is a reasoned (but passionate) argument that there really is such a thing as "sound English", and thus--necessarily--such a thing as unsound English. In a time when more and more voices clamorously decry the existence of any sort of standards whatever (for English, or anything), this site explains why care with our words is essential to us as individuals and to our society and our very civilization.

The site also has an extensive bookshop (with both new and used books available) of titles relating to English Grammar and Usage, plus a short list of the truly essential reference works.

What and Where is Owlcroft?

While this site is a "guided tour" of the real, physical Owlcroft House--establishing its location, environment, and design details, as well as its appearance outside and in--it is in a more general sense an example of the effectiveness of solar design. The entire annual heating "bill" for this 2000-square-foot-plus home not far from the Canadian border is roughly one-fifth of one cord of wood!

The site also has an extensive bookshop (with both new and used books available) of titles relating to Solar House Design.

Plain Talk

A running collection of the Plain Talk columns, a more or less monthly newspaper feature on matters of political or social interest in Washington State (and, often, beyond).

(Here presented expanded from the length-limited originals.)

A Treasury Of Computer Knowledge And Links

The title is largely self-explanatory. The site includes both general and specific information and advice on hardware (including the "unsexy" but important elements such as power supplies and cases), operating systems, how to buy computers and computer components, and to use--but not abuse--the internet.

(Though some of this site's content is now dated, much is still useful.)

The History Museums of Ritzville, Washington State

The City of Ritzville (in eastern Washington State) has not one but two delightful and informative history museums--one in the old railroad depot, emphasizing but by no means limited to railroad-associated exhibits, and the other in the restored period home of Dr. Frank Burroughs, showing a typical rural-town residence of the late nineteenth century. Ritzville is right at the intersection of Interstate 90 and US 395, so anyone travelling the Pacific Northwest has a good chance of going right by--so, if that's you, be sure to stop off and visit these museums, and the city itself, an officially designated "Main Street USA" town.

The site also has an extensive bookshop (with both new and used books available) of titles relating to the American West.

The Lawsmiths (a corporation)

The Lawsmiths invented, over twenty years ago, what has now become an industry: connecting law offices with temporary needs for extra attorney assistance with well-qualified attorneys willing to work as independent contractors for such law offices. Today, The Lawsmiths operates throughout the State of California, and has served as the model for many other similar organizations throughout the nation and the world.

The site also has an extensive bookshop (with both new and used books available) of titles relating to Lawyers and Barristers.