Burra Maluca

Quoth, absolutely belongs there!

We have his brother here.

In fact, I had a terrible job not naming this fella Quoth as Austin is such a Discworld fan.

He shares his brother's love of eyeballs too. He says these ones look a bit bloodshot, just the way he likes them...



He ate the lot of them. Though he did say they weren't like proper eyeballs. They had hard bits in the middle and weren't full of salty water like they should be.



I wonder if a painting through a raven's eyes could work?

I always felt that if I had an aura, it would be purple.

And if that aura could be represented by a stone, it would be amethyst.

A year or so after I lost my husband I was in a very strange place mentally - broken, but healing. Sort of. And very dependent on my new partner to hold me together.

I treated myself to a pack of rough amethysts, purchased online, in the hope that one of them might symbolise how I felt. And this one fit the bill perfectly!



Uncut, unpolished, falling apart at the seams somewhat. But held together by some copper stripped out of an offcut of electrical cable by my new partner, which might at first glance might look like a cage but actually keeps me from falling apart completely and allows me to face the world and shine as best I can.

It somehow captures my essence completely. Plus as it was a pack of five, he also made one up for his sister and one for his niece and there are still two smaller bits around somewhere, just in case we find a good way to use them.

Mind. Blown.

According to this article in the Smithsonian magazine, Iberian harvester ant queens produce offspring of their own species and of the builder harvester ant, seemingly by cloning males

I'm gonna have to try reading the article again in the morning when I'm a bit fresher...

Scientists recently discovered that Iberian harvester ant queens (Messor ibericus) mate with males of another species, the builder harvester ant (Messor structor). When they do, the M. ibericus queens store the M. structor male’s sperm, then use it to fertilize some of the eggs they lay. Researchers think the M. ibericus queens remove their own genetic material from the eggs’ nuclei, so that when those eggs hatch, they effectively turn out to be M. structor male clones.

"Mum, is there somewhere on permies.com I can post about all my experiments with light and space and colour and stuff?"

Iggy is one of my plushy dragons. Which, as some of you know, represent aspects of my psyche. I seem to have rather a lot of them. A multiplicity you might say. And Iggy is the young dragon who represents my more experimental, technical sort of side. The side that likes to figure out how the universe works, what the Meaning of Life is, all that sort of stuff. The dragons help me to concentrate on just one aspect of myself at a time a little more deeply. And then when I'm working on Something Big and I have the mental capacity, I let them all work together a bit more and I either go into total mental overload or, just occasionally, manage to solve a mystery, or write a story, or something like that.



"Well what exactly did you have in mind, Iggy?"

"Well there's the thread about The Dragons Play Towers of Hanoi and discover colour theory, pinkness and powers of 10 which people seemed to like. And then we had the Smaugust 2025 art challenge which lots of people joined in on. And the two posts in there about the Doppler effect and about red shift and blue shift got me thinking about things. And I'd like to explore them a bit more. And thought it might be good to share what I learn, just in case anyone else finds it interesting. Or inspiring. Or something..."

I thought for a while. It wasn't sure it was a very good fit for permies. Especially as dragons don't always interpret things the same way as most people do. But that's not necessarily a bad thing in itself. And at the very least it might be fun.

"I think we could probably fit it in somewhere. Where do you think it should go?"

We looked at the current list of all forums to see if we could find a fit.

"There's one about science and research." Iggy noticed triumphantly.

I had a look to see what the forum was supposed to be for.

This forum is a place for those interested in using and learning about science as a tool to better understand and test permaculture techniques. It is not a place for discussing the relative merits of science vs other ways of viewing the world and will be moderated hard to keep discussion on topic so that it will become a useful resource for anyone wishing to learn more and participate in research.

"I don't think your experiments are going to fit there, Iggy. They aren't directly related to permaculture. In fact I'm not even sure how I'd describe your experiments. Is it science if dragons do experiments? Is it physics if it's do with light and space?"

Iggy thought for a while.

"It's a bit like science. But it's more thought experiments than actual physics. Sort of a philosophical science."

"Maybe a bit like physics was long ago in Isaac Newton's time, when it was known as Natural Philosophy?"



"I like that name - maybe we can call the thread The Natural Philosophy of Dragons so that people know it's our ideas, not necessarily mainstream science," suggested Iggy. "I'm still not sure where it fits though..."

But I think I knew just the place for it.

"There's a forum called ethics and philosophy in the cider press. It sounds just the place for it to me!" I told him.

"Is there?" Iggy sounded surprised, but very pleased. "I think that would be just perfect! Do you think Paul will mind?"

"I shouldn't think so." I assured him. "Just make sure to write nicely and try to be as honest and helpful as you can. And find ways to do as much good as possible with what you find out."

"That sounds fair!" agreed Iggy. "Can you make the post for me?"

"Ok, I'll start the thread with an introductory post as soon as we've had lunch. And then you can think of what you experiments you want to do and how we could go about them."

It seems that scientists are finally turning their attentions to trying to understand how knitting works and wondering what a deeper understanding of the physics behind it could lead to in terms of high-tech fabrics.

Too much sun isn't good for plants and can also dry the soil out excessively. Which is why the grass is usually longer and greener under your trampoline.

I had the same effect behind my solar panels and used the space for sowing seed and growing young plants. The ducks would also use it as a safe place to hang out with their babies where they could keep an eye on them all.

This video explores some of the ways to utilise that shade to improve yields of crops like corn, tomatoes and grapes.

Black nightshade grows freely as a weed here in Portugal too.

Unfortunately I can't get over the fear factor of being raised to never go near little black nightshade berries - it's too deeply engrained in me and I just can't push through it.

I use a little stainless steel brush for any that are being stubborn. It doesn't clog up like most other things I've tried and seems pretty resilient. And effective!

The bags must be absolutely dry when you put them into the freezer.

Also the freezer must be set so that the temperature is never allowed to rise above freezing point, ever, anywhere inside.

For the most part stuff will stay frozen even if the freezer is switched off for 24 hours, but if the temperature creeps up anywhere inside the freezer, some thawing will take place and water will gather in places you'd rather it didn't and then re-freeze and stick everything together.

My freezer managed to get turned off for a couple of days a few months ago and I had frozen blocks of fruit pulp that I had to rescue which had thawed enough that they had squashed down to become flattened slabs instead of blocks. They are still good to eat, but any changes like that or like excess sticking of bags to the sides of the freezer or to each other is a sign that the temperature regulation might not be as good as it should be.

Edit to add that if stuff is warm when you put it into the freezer, it's going to melt any ice around which will then re-freeze and stick things together. Make sure stuff is as cold as possible when you put it in.

Celestial - part two
.............................................

When night came, Rubeus came and sat by my bedside and suggested I play a recording of Dragon Sleep Journey while Vermelha, Índigo, and Iggy prepared themselves for their Grand Adventure. When I'd begun to drift off to sleep and the recording had reached the part about climbing aboard my magic dragon to tour the celestial skies I found myself astride Rubeus in his full Welsh Dragon form, strong and powerful and capable of carrying me to the far reaches of the universe. And together we all flew up into the night sky towards the North Star.

It took a lot longer than I expected but we eventually reached baby bear and papa bear, better known as Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, and sent Ursula's love to them. And there, snaking his way between them further than the eye could see was a dragon so immense he was almost impossible to comprehend - Draco, the Sky Dragon King. He was so vast that he seemed completely unaware of our presence, and he was made up of so much empty space between the stars that defined him that he did, as Ursula had suggested, make the most awesome runway for Vermelha and Índigo to try out stage two of their One-Shift, Two-Shift game. I wasn't quite sure what it was going to involve but I did know that they considered themselves to be identical twins even if they were different colours and suspected the game might involve something that made them appear more similar to each other.

"Ah there you are - I've been waiting for you." said a voice behind us.  "I've been practicing, too. Here - catch this!"



And Shiva threw an oval, pointy sort of ball incredibly fast and straight down the length of the dragon-runway.

Rubeus scowled a little as he thought Shiva was throwing it all wrong. After all, rugby balls should *never* be passed forwards like that, only back or to the side. He huffed grumpily to himself at the indignity of it all but Vermelha and Índigo were having a wonderful time catching the ball and bringing it back for Shiva so he could throw it again, faster and faster each time until it was beginning to approach the speed of light.

Eventually though Rubeus had had enough. He couldn't bear to see a rugby ball being abused like that and he caught it himself and stomped off with it in the most terrible huff. Or pwdi as he would call it.  

Vermelha and Índigo seemed a little concerned, but Shiva just laughed. Which was nice to see as he'd done nothing but cry for days when we'd first found him.

"So, who's going to volunteer to be thrown next, seeing as we don't have a ball to play with any more?" asked Shiva.

"Me! Me! Me!" insisted Vermelha as the little red dragon hurtled over to Shiva as fast as her wings could carry her.

Shiva picked her up, held her just right so as get the perfect amount of spin, and threw her at the speed of light. She became a streak of red light shooting off into the distance. Eventually she came back and wanted another go.

"Faster! Faster!" she insisted. So this time Shiva ran forwards as he threw her, and she took off again at the speed of light. But this time she was orange.

"Again! Again!" So Shiva ran even faster, and this time she became a beam of yellow light!

"Iggy," I asked, "do you have any idea what's happening?"

"It's the doppler effect again, like when they were zooming along the railway track making silly noises the other day. Only now they are going even faster and instead of just the sound waves getting squooshed up closer together, now it's the wavelength of the light getting closer together."

"So you're saying that she started off appearing red but as she goes faster she changes colour?"

"Yeah, it's a bit odd because speed doesn't seem to work the same up here. But the colour sure changes!"

"Faster!!!" cried Vermelha and this time she turned green. And the next time blue, and finally indigo.

"That's enough! We've done it!" cried Vermelha.

"Oh no we haven't," insisted Índigo. "I haven't had my turn yet! I don't see why you get all the fun..."

So Índigo flew to Shiva, who picked her up and ran forwards with her and threw her at the speed of light.

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....." squealed Índigo. "No wonder you loved it so much! This is fun!"

Only she had turned violet, which Vermelha have never quite achieved.

"Faster, faster!" she insisted.

And this time when Shiva threw her, she disappeared completely!

"ÍNDIGO!!! WHERE ARE YOU???" I called out in a panic. But the dragons didn't seem to understand my concern.

"She's still there mum, look!" Iggy told me.

"I am looking. She's disappeared without trace."

"Oh, no. I forgot. You can't see beyond violet can you? I forgot humans were a bit colour-blind..."

"What do you mean?"

"Dragons can see ultra-violet. She's still there, it's just that you can't see her. We can though! Don't worry, we'll change the game so you can see her. We don't want you to worry."

And Iggy went over to have a little word with Shiva about the inadequacies of human vision and see if they could figure out a solution that kept everybody happy.

"The thing is," said Iggy "that Vermelha wants to be more like Índigo, which means her wavelength has to shift closer together, more into the blue part of the spectrum."

"You mean Vermelha has to blue-shift? Yes, that's why I've been running when I throw her, so the wavelengths get closer together." agreed Shiva.

"But to make it fair we have to also make Índigo more like Vermelha, by stretching her wavelengths out, more into the red part of the spectrum."



"But we have to do it at the same time!!!" piped up the little red and blue dragons.

"But there's only one of me! How can I throw both of you at the same time whilst running at different speeds? It's not possible!"

"Maybe I can help?" a soft, feminine voice piped up from behind us.

Shiva froze for a moment, unable to believe his ears. Then he turned and he saw her.

"KALI! You've come back to me!"

Shiva  went to embrace his partner, who he had missed dearly, but she was having none of it. She laughed and ran towards Índigo, scooping her up in her arms and running past Rubeus, calling out to him not to worry because she knew how to throw dragons properly, and off into the distance. And as she picked up speed away from us she threw Índigo back towards us in true rugby fashion, at the speed of light so that Índigo appeared pale blue as she passed us.

"Come on Shiva!" Kali called as she ran back to collect Índigo for another go. "If we practice this we should be able to get them to pass Iggy at the same time from opposite directions and have them appear the same colour. Let's aim at green, which is half way between red and indigo, to make it fair."

And gradually as they practiced their speeds and their timings, little red dragons blue shifted and little blue dragons red shifted, and sometimes they passed us at the same time and sometimes they missed a bit but eventually two identical little green dragons zoomed passed us from opposite directions.

And now nobody could deny that Vermelha and Índigo were indeed identical!



Rubeus had been watching from afar and despite his pwdi he was very impressed with the development of the game, and terribly proud of his little girls. He swallowed his pride and strode up to Kali and presented her with the rugby ball.

"Excellent skills you have there! Honour to have seen you play!"

"Why thankyou Rubeus!" and Kali bent down and kissed him gently on the cheek.

Rubeus was mortified as he really doesn't like all this soppy touchy feely stuff and he backed away rapidly.

Then she turned to Shiva and smiled at him.

"Come on, we have our ball back now - let's go and play!"



And off they went to dance and play to their hearts' content for the rest of eternity.

But we had to head home and try to get some sleep, having finally perfected the game of One-Shift, Two-Shift, Red-Shift, Blue-Shift.