The New Leaf Journal
The New Leaf Journal
Nicholas A. Ferrell
The New Leaf Journal is a self-hosted WordPress-powered online writing magazine. I launched the site on April 27, 2020. I created the project to host my own writing and that of my friends, which (as of this date) includes Victor V. Gurbo.
Latest Posts
I read a January 16, 2026 article in Sixth Tone titled Chilean Cherries: Why Prices in China Plunge Every Winter. I am admittedly not an expert on fruit prices in China, but I have observed similar phenomena in my home and native...
I previously published an article about seeing a working Christmas countdown clock in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, on September 29, 2025. That was not the only early sign of Christmas I saw in the early autumn. On October 10, 2025, I...
Back in August I visited Ten Ichi Mart on Smith Street on Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, with a friend. I had not gone in planning to purchase anything, but I ended up leaving with two Miya brand tea cups with snowmen on them, pictured below: In...
Going back to 2021, I have made it a tradition at The New Leaf Journal to ring in the new year by celebrating our most-visited articles of the previous year. Readers will find my past reviews of the years that were in 2020, 2021, 2022,...
I have written numerous NBA team historical surveys at The New Leaf Journal. Readers will find that I seldom rely solely, or at all, on team win-loss records. Instead, I almost always incorporate net rating, which is a team’s points...
Going back to August 2020, we traditionally publish a month-end review. I fell a little bit behind in late 2025 for reasons detailed in my review of the months- that -were in September and October, which I published on New Year’s Day,...
It is now January 2026. That means it is time for our review of the months that were in The New Leaf Journal in September and October 2025. Wait what? I put off my September and October reviews for two reasons. Firstly, I have been busy....
I introduced the concept of seasonal themes for The New Leaf Journal in my October 10, 2025 post titled Inflatable Fall Crow in Cobble Hill. As I noted in that post, I borrowed the idea from Richard MacManus’ post on his Cybercultural...
On the morning of December 29, 2025, I saw the following New York Post headline in my Miniflux feed reader entries: NYC snow pile carved into ‘crazy’ Snow King sculpture – now it’s a tourist attraction. I knew with near absolute...
I present for your reading enjoyment a short article on what I hope is a very Merry Christmas for fans of The New Leaf Journal (my first Christmas-day article since 2022). I went to Lot Less (a discount store) with a friend on Saturday,...
On December 17, 2024, I published a list tiled 54 Things I Learned in 2024. The article was inspired by Tom Whitwell’s 52 things I learned in 2024 and came very much as advertised by the title (see also his list of 52 things he learned...
I came across a perplexing December 11, 2025 headline in Smithsonian Magazine via my feed reader: Can GLP-1s Help Fat Cats Lose Weight? The First Clinical Trial Testing the Drugs for Weight Loss in Felines Has Begun. It appears that the...
I have published many articles featuring my photos of inflatable decorations around Brooklyn. Many of these inflatable decorations have been holiday-themed. Prior to my publishing this post, our holiday collection included Halloween,...
Many websites have a robots.txt file which instructs (often unsuccessfully) bots and web crawlers on proper crawling etiquette. We have a robots.txt file along with several less common .txt files. I previously wrote about adding...
On December 8, 2025, Philip Rivers, the father of 10 who had recently celebrated the birth of his first grandchild, celebrated his 44th birthday. He is a former 17-year NFL quarterback who had retired in 2021 after playing 16 seasons...