Anthony Powell

Nancy Reading wrote:Wow! Good diversity there Patrik - Good idea to incorporate climbers. If you have an initial trellis, you might get a quick yield whilst the rest of the hedge plants establish.

Anthony Powell wrote:Cherry plum, Prunus cerasifera, will flower and fruit trimmed to hip-height

That's interesting Anthony. My cherry plum is blooming just now - most of it only seems to bloom on the lower parts. I'm not sure whether this is just the earliest flowers, or whether the shelter is more significant. I got my first fruit last year.

Cherry plum suffers a lot from pocket plum, a fungal disease related to peach leaf curl. It results in deformed fruit that drop early. Dry weather early in the season led to many trees across the UK fruiting. Fingers crossed breezy Skye will keep spores blown away.

Cherry plum, Prunus cerasifera, will flower and fruit trimmed to hip-height

For a clipped hedge, you'll want small leaves. They go with fine branches, close together.
I have Chaenomeles speciosa (Flowering Quince) - doesn't sucker like C japonica, and has larger, more long keeping fruits that are easier to use. And Poncirus (Citrus) trifoliata - hardy in UK, spring flowers, bitter cookable fruit and long thorns. Those two are a screen behind a trimmed privet hedge.

How does a conjoined fruit occur?
Flowers and fruit are derived from stems, over evolution. As a stem develops a flower, leaves adapt to their position - bracts first (maybe), sepals and often colourful petals, anthers (bearing the microspores (pollen) that'll develop male gametes when they grow down the stigma), finally the carpels bearing the female generating megaspores and topped by style and stigma.
There are tons of variations on this theme. With apples the end of the stem bearing the flower parts extends around and above the carpels, and ultmately swells into an apple.
At any point the stem can branch, just as it sometimes does when a stem divides without needing a bud. Sometimes that's due to a boost of enthusiasm, sometimes interence from insect or something.

I saw a picture of a local saffron field - looked ripe for asparagus, or strawberries. Harvest is autumn, so minimal impact on asparagus or strawberries.

No-one said anything about non-bird eggs...
If you come across the eggs of Large White Butterfly, skim them off on you thumbnail and eat fresh. A little cabbagey. They might not get as far as the kitchen door, though - more likely harvested by the gardener than the cook.

Anthony Powell wrote:I heard something about the Yup'ip people of the Bering Sea coast of Alaska being able to forecast the weather 2 years in advance. Essential for knowing how much food reserves to put by. They were looking at when the sea ice froze and thawed, the colour of the ice and its texture and strength, the texture of the velvet on the caribou antlers... I'm told it's in 'Carbon' by Paul Hawken

Might be Yup'ik. The folklore - eg, careful what you say, the Environment has ears! But yes, they have techniques. https://eloka.nsidc.org/yupik/atlas/index.html?module=yupikatlas.module.OurChangingWorld
From a journal, with lots of links and references: Facets Journal

I heard something about the Yup'ip people of the Bering Sea coast of Alaska being able to forecast the weather 2 years in advance. Essential for knowing how much food reserves to put by. They were looking at when the sea ice froze and thawed, the colour of the ice and its texture and strength, the texture of the velvet on the caribou antlers... I'm told it's in 'Carbon' by Paul Hawken

Edward Lye wrote:

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote: At the time, they were practical and inexpensive even though they required real artisans who would fashion a shoe to very exactly match each foot of their customers.  Poplar and willows were used because they are easier to carve from one piece of wood and they resist water.

There are devices out there that can capture a 3D point cloud
of your foot to direct the robot.  

Or a traditional tech suggestion:
Make a clay mould of each foot, use to make plaster of Paris casts. Steam your basic wood soles and strap to the casts.

On the use of willow and poplar (cottonwood - named after the fluffy seeds?) - they'll contain salicilin, especially when new, so good for pain relief?

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:In the old times, in France, the poorer folks used to have wooden clogs ["sabots"]  to go to work or work in the garden. The more expensive leather shoes were for their Sunday best, to go to church.
From this tidbit, you have the following word in the English language: Sabotage, saboteur, to sabot. How are they connected to the humble wooden clogs?
When those French workers were quite unhappy with the working conditions and their low wages, they would put their clogs in the cogs of the machines they were working on, resulting in ruined machinery. [Yep, it ruined their clogs too, but they made their point!]

Would that be where 'clogging up the machinery' might come from?