Tereza Okava

some years ago i remember the center near my mother (western NJ) closed.

the combination of countries no longer accepting exported 'recyclables' (waste) and i would imagine the costs of separating/collecting/shipping seem to have made the whole notion of recycling economically unfeasable.
some countries have their own reclamation centers (we have a lot of centers for reusing plastic and paper), it doesnt seem like the US does though.

Homemade pork and cabbage gyoza, a double batch with half frozen for future meals. With some tomato/egg soup and quick cucumber/kombu pickles.

John Weiland wrote:When younger, did you nibble one color of each kernal at a time... . the yellow portion tasted more buttery.... :-)

Yes yes and definitely yes!
And those little pumpkins that come in the mix with the candy corn.... absolutely amazing. No way it's all the same.

they look great, for being only a couple months old!
but if you can get them into the ground, or into larger pots (13-15L at least) they will thrive.
Their roots might be as long as they are tall right now, and they want to go deep. Papayas can grow very quickly. They don't need nice dirt, they can take all sorts of abuse, but unless you have very big pots their growth will be limited.
In zone 10+ they should do just fine. I grow them in 9b and the tops get frostbitten but the plants generally grow back unless they're young or somehow compromised. We had hard frost in maybe August that killed the foliage and a few young plants so this summer I don't expect to get any fruit, but next year they should be back to business.

Just keep in mind- in my experience they're a tree that grows quickly and also dies quickly, very short lifespan. "Easy come, easy go" might be their motto. When they're going great, awesome, but maybe start new ones every other year or so, and don't be surprised if something happens. It's also good to have multiples in case you get all males that don't give fruit (my hummingbirds like the flowers, but I limit it to one male plant in the garden) or if you don't get the female or hermaphrodite plants you want (i know people who prefer the fruit of one or the other).

Burra Maluca wrote:

Tereza Okava wrote:you could conceivably take a deep dive into the names of the letters (mostly tree names),

I think the link with tree names is mostly down to Robert Graves' imagination and forcing the narrative to fit his ideas by chopping things up, juggling them around and mis-translating them actually. But even so it's interesting!

Ha!! That phenomenon pretty much typifies the entire field, and it repeats historically over several eras so the pile of dreck you need to wade through is pretty much never-ending... but hey, you can sell a lot of Finn's Window fortune-telling kits (just like runes!) to innocent buyers.....
The fun part is that truly, nobody really knows-- anyone who could tell us is long gone, which means we can use it rather 'creatively'....

if it's black licorice, I'd have a hard time deciding. I love both (and luckily for my body, I'm almost never on a continent where I can find this kind of candy, so it's a moot point)

so while they didnt use runes, and 11th century may be pushing it a bit, there was another writing system called Ogham script that originated in Ireland but spread and was used in parts of Scotland.
Ogham is also sometimes called edgewords, they were carved into the edges of stones. It can also be written, if you draw a center line. It's sort of hard to explain and a lot easier to just carve into the edge of a board! Scroll down past the history to see the images.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogham
you could conceivably take a deep dive into the names of the letters (mostly tree names), or you could just use them as a "code" for the kids to practice carving.
The edges on your soapstone could conceivably come in handy.

(I studied pre-medieval British English literacy and writing, specifically non-alphabet writing systems, and i think Ogham is my favorite out of the whole mess)

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:

Tereza Okava wrote:if i want a milder onion, I might slice and soak yellow ones before using (like in a salad, for example).

Can you tell us more about this?

Sure, in Japan onion salad was a favorite side dish. The onion is raw, sliced thin, and soaked briefly in salt water before it's drained and has some minimal seasonings added.
But that brief soak mellows out the raw onion. It's a trick I like to use if I'm worried about strong raw onion overpowering other things (or if I want to eat just the onion).
This is a typical recipe that shows the end product. https://www.japanesecooking101.com/onion-salad/

where i live, white onions are imported and $$$$$$, yellow onions are normal. I stick with the yellow or the red, if the color matters to me.

if i want a milder onion, I might slice and soak yellow ones before using (like in a salad, for eaxample).

Deane Adams wrote:I would try both.

Yes, try to root cuttings and cut it back.

here they grow outside, and i have had some in the yard that were impossible to kill. they are amazingly resilient plants. in a pot, maybe not so much, but with two alternatives one is bound to work. even if you trimmed the air roots they might grow back.