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Post by reed on Aug 16, 2019 3:57:54 GMT -5
I'v never sampled the roots. When thinning them out I notice they smell like pond scum. I reckon they could be well washed and pealed. They will need thinned this fall, maybe I'll give it a try.
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Post by steev on Aug 16, 2019 18:29:47 GMT -5
My then-ex-to-be once decided to be a sales rep for Spirulina; when she showed me the info-pamphlet, I said "that's pond scum"; our two-year-old parroted that and nearly laughed out of her high-chair. The subject was never mentioned again.
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Post by steev on Aug 19, 2019 19:11:53 GMT -5
Picked Hosui and 20th Century Asian pears, Flavor Queen pluots, Elephant Heart plums, and Purple gages.
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Post by steev on Sept 2, 2019 21:37:41 GMT -5
Picked more of the usual suspects, plus Babcock peaches.
Our wild turkeys are brown, with black and white; today I saw a foursome in the street; one had no brown, just black and white, very striking; it'd be sweet to have that one for breeding.
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Post by steev on Sept 6, 2019 18:59:38 GMT -5
Fuck me running with a corncob! Having found a really good helper, just when I'm coming into a humongous workload OTF, he's being jacked around by the Migra (undoc'ed, you know, but not as white as so many from Europe who overstay their tourist visas for years), so they've put an ankle bracelet on him until he can go through court (could be many months, regardless of whether he'll be deported or not), so he can't go as far afield as the farm. I prolly shouldn't say I despise the policies of our sinverguense Presidente Pendejo, but there it is. Say; how're his policies working out for you soybean farmers?
'Kay, I'm a tad pissed off, but it's better to be pissed off than pissed on (unless Golden Showers are your thing; not judging; chacun a son gout, n'est pas? Oui, oui, si vous plais). Right; I'm trying to laugh myself out of this shitterie; one step forward and two steps back just doesn't seem a dance I want to keep doing.
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Post by steev on Sept 16, 2019 19:58:02 GMT -5
That helper is due in court Sept 30.
Clipped the first bunch of Flame Tokay grapes; so far the birds don't seem interested, but that can change.
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Post by steev on Sept 20, 2019 0:10:40 GMT -5
I had misunderstood; that helper isn't due in court, he just has to show up at a "probation" office, so he's cool, but on a short leash; I'm gonna go with him on the 30th, to see if I can make a case for his being able to go to the farm; these ankle bracelets are like the tags in cattle's ears: make GPS computer monitoring possible. Anybody ready to be chipped for the same purpose? It would just be so you could be found, if you got the wanders, not to monitor you, of course.
Reed: you've been expressing yourself in pretty straight-up Anglo-Saxon lately; good for you; straight talk from the heartland; there are no bad words, only bad intentions in their use. Being proper and polite when you feel stepped on is just wussy and invites further stepping on, given that whoever stepped on you is inclined to do that, which they clearly are, if they've done so, whether from ignorance or intent.
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Post by reed on Sept 20, 2019 18:04:14 GMT -5
Yea, well a little extra emphasis is in order sometimes. Way things are going here in the heartland, I may expand on it.
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Post by steev on Sept 23, 2019 21:23:41 GMT -5
An expansive vocabulary is valuable.
The birds still haven't noticed my Flame Tokay grapes, but they could any day now as the grapes color up; my sweetheart said they were good, but have seeds; I replied that I hadn't realized I could just chew them up 'til I was in my 50's; she was surprised, it hadn't occurred to her; I pointed out that we were taught to spit them out when we were small children; she was all "wow, that's right". Same deal with watermelon seeds; until I went to Chinese opera and found them to be popcorn's replacement.
When I was in El Salvador, there was a pod like carob that contained hull-less green seeds wrapped in a white, soft, fibrous, sweet stuff; never did learn what it was; the green seeds were cooked and seasoned as a sort of side-dish; do I think people stripped off the sweet part in their mouths and spat out the seeds for cooking? Is a bear Catholic? Not really worse than dehydrated bee regurgitate. Speaking of which, there was a tree (I was told it was kapok, but I've no clue) the fruit of which was much favored by small fruit bats, which swallowed them whole; the maisons, rows of single rental rooms, had open eaves for ventilation, so the bats would come in at night to hang from the roof and regurgitate the pea-sized seeds onto the bed. So charming.
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Post by steev on Sept 30, 2019 21:31:52 GMT -5
Birds are working the Flame Tokay; I may get little more than I picked today; they're attracted to the redness; once I plant in a way that I can net the vines, the birds will be SOL and I'll be able to prune the vines for good color; so far the Flames on the arbor have really been for hammock-shade; got to get some muscats going; to me, they're the very taste of Summer; when I get arbors on the East and West sides of my granny-flat, I'll also mix in some Concords, not to eat so much, as for the fragrance; lying in the hammock, eating muscats, and smelling concords; pretty close to paradise, IMHO.
This weekend was cool, good for work; I hope for some good early rain, so rototilling can begin, but really, I can hope in one hand and "spit" in the other and see which fills up first; I don't expect much rain before November.
Harvested and shelled seed-peas from four varieties; soon as I can till, I'll sow them.
Doesn't look like the Oxheart carrots a client found me seed for are gonna give much to eat, planted too late; 'sokay, they'll seed next year and I'll plant them on, so it's all good.
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Post by philagardener on Oct 1, 2019 19:58:07 GMT -5
Oxheart bulks up really late in the season for me. Our climates are very different but they may surprise you yet!
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Post by steev on Oct 7, 2019 23:19:08 GMT -5
Although the birds are working them pretty hard, there's still plenty of Flame Tokay; the worst part is that the birds destroy or drop more than they eat, which makes a mess to get stuck in my waffle-stompers; the bees are working the broken grapes so furiously that their hum is louder than my tinnitis; I wonder what grape-juice honey tastes like; prolly not very distinctive, since they don't eat the skins.
My max-min thermometer said the low last week was 4F; NFW; time to get a new thermometer.
The good news is I have a line on a new helper; the bad news is he has an ankle monitor, so he can't go to the farm, where I really need help; a former helper, who often helps me find workers, says good luck finding help with dependents who don't have a monitor. Am I the only one who thinks things are looking 1938 Germany-ish?
I've got a lot of my stuff under sun-rotted tarps and the rain will be here in not too long, so I guess I'll cram water-vulnerable stuff into the house, for transfer under the house when it's on the foundation; I'm thinking shipping containers for storage eventually; the county says I have to have a 2500 gal water tank for fire control; I've got one and I want to put it atop two 20' storage containers for height/pressure.
The Oxheart carrots have nothing larger than pencils, but that may just mean I get none to eat; much more important is that I get seed next year; I do love them, if only for those huge rounds, such a visual treat. Being a guy, visual is rather important to me, as you ladies may suspect; s'pose it's the hunter part, not the gatherer.
I keep getting people checking my profile but I have no idea why or what for; are they just wondering "Who is this loon/jackass/savant?" They don't go beyond checking the profile, so it's not like they want to be involved in any dialog; what are they looking for?
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Post by steev on Oct 11, 2019 18:58:03 GMT -5
Some people have a lot of nerve. My sweetheart is selling her rental house and she has two sleeper couches that I was to pick up from there this morning; as I was driving there, she called, very upset; escrow hasn't even cleared, but she couldn't get in; they'd had all the locks changed!
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Post by steev on Oct 12, 2019 11:33:31 GMT -5
Turns out those buyers are an LLC under another LLC, not people looking for a home.
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Post by steev on Oct 16, 2019 0:38:41 GMT -5
Checked the Oxhearts; the largest are half-inch; I'd like to eat some, but seed is what really interests me; if I get them planted early enough, they'll perform well.
I'm keeping an eye on the pistachios, not having a clue about harvesting the nuts. I'm thinking raising seedlings from it would work, grafted trees being damned spendy ($75); it's not like I'm trying to be commercially profitable; I just want some nuts and they grow well OTF. I've got two males, so I need nine more females, for peak production.
The female asparagus have berries, so I guess I'll gather and plant them out; I never have too much asparagus.
Gotta move my rain-vulnerable stuff (books, comics, videotapes, like that, currently under sun-rotted tarps (yes, I'm a collector/hoarder) into the prefab before the rain starts; it's coming soon: good news, aside from this aggravation. Hey; I'm gonna need this stuff for entertainment, since I'll never get a satellite dish. I enjoy re-watching and re-reading stuff; current TV interests me not at all. My senior year in high-school, we were assigned to read "Moby Dick"; I'd read it at least yearly since I was nine; that and Bernal Diaz' "Conquest of New Spain" and Petronius' "The Golden Ass of Apulia" (I was amazed how many of the after-centerfold jokes in Playboy were from that; I only read Playboy for the articles, I assure you, having been young and proper; it was hard to find the after-centerfold page without polluting myself, but I may have managed, one hopes).
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