Crow intelligence in action: the crows here will eat animals that have been visibly wounded/hit by cars/etc., but will NOT eat animals which do not have visible marks (ie potentially rat poisoned). #smart#birds#crows
@ai6yr The rat poisons are getting worse. It used to be you could reverse them with a Vitamin K shot. Now there is no antidote, and they cause neurological problems instead of bleeding. (Yes, my birds get accidentally poisoned on occasion and it is no longer an easy trip to the vet & they are better. They have to be put down or die a slow, painful death unable to stand.)
@compost
Unfortunately, our chickens figured out how to get into the worm bin and proceeded to eat the worms. Sometimes they are too good at finding things to eat.🤣
@ai6yr The fruits (tunas) are where the true deliciousness lies. You can juice them & freeze the juice for sorbet. Ferment them to make wine. Lots of options. The pads are more like okra & best eaten young, feed to the chickens, or composted for water.
Hmm, finding a vegetarian Indian dish to make for dinner from scratch (which doesn't require a lot of ingredients I don't have and time) is an interesting challenge 🤔
Thus, why Indian restaurants and grocery stores here with takeout counters are appealing, LOL.
@ai6yr The spice mix is always what gets you. You can mix canned chickpeas, tomatoes & random greens (spinach, kale, etc) with tumeric & other spices (or purchased yellow sauce like curry or korma) for a nice dish (from my Indian co-worker). Heat oil medium hot, add black mustard seeds until popping & spices to toast, then add chickpeas and tomatoes on lower heat until warm, then toss in greens & maybe paneer cheese until barely cooked.
@ai6yr@mattlanza Most of the areas with lower heat indexes have a lot of native vegetation. The native oaks in Houston are amazing at cooling things down (plus they have low tannin acorns). We used to have so many random people stopping to take a break under ours, especially in the summer. I also noticed that area is one of the cooler spots on the map. (The native oaks also did an excellent job reducing wind speed during the hurricane).
@HumToTable@ai6yr
If you don't test, it doesn't infect people. I think the CDC is in panic control mode, not infection control mode these days. The main reason we got so much for COVID is everyone panic-bought stuff in March 2020. Before that, it was mandates to not wear masks as that would induce panic, after people panicked, masks were suddenly ok.
@ai6yr I look at an apartment complex in Iowa when I first moved there where everyone had built 5 foot high shelves in their units with all their belongings and furniture on the elevated shelves. Apparently 2-3 feet of flooding was pretty normal in that part of town (and of course no discount on the rent for the flood risk).
#CapeGooseberry or #GoldenBerry is growing well here, looks to be very drought tolerant & best of all produces about 1-2 servings of fruit every few days for months on end. So far, it seems to produce steadily instead of a huge crop and then nothing.
@meganL It is ok. The ground cherries we got in WI were better. But the consistency of production is huge. It is definitely filling in between other fruit crops with less need to eat canned or dried fruits. Also, the chickens don't recognize them as food with the husks on, which is also good.
That project appears to have stopped sending out seeds.🙁
@compost I have extra seeds (especially green onions) and sometimes plants. But is there such a thing as too many seeds?🤔
(I used to send them for "business" day at my kid's school, where they were popular with the kids--they had school cash they earned for good behavior in class they could trade for stuff other kids brought from home to "sell").
@melanie@compost
I usually only send seeds that were harvested in the past year or less. Some seeds will keep several years, decades or even millennia someplace cool & dry (I.e. a seed vault). The store packets have expiration dates so they put out fresh seed every year (stores used to keep stuff on the shelves for years until it sold). There shouldn't be germination issues with "fresh" (under a year old) seed unless it is handled incorrectly.
I have gotten unexpired seeds that wouldn't germinate and have grown from packets that expired a decade ago.
Generally, stores that keep seeds outside (in the plant area) are not as likely to grow as those that are inside (temperature controlled). One store even had rain in its seed area due to no roof in that section.😱
“Thousands of schools across the Philippines, including in the capital region Metro Manila, have suspended in-person classes. Half of the country’s 82 provinces are experiencing drought, and nearly 31 others are facing dry spells or dry conditions, according to the UN, which has called for greater support to help the country prepare for similar weather events in the future. The country’s upcoming harvest will probably be below average, the UN said.”
@pvonhellermannn We had no A/C at our school and never got a day off, even when the high was 115 F. But the school was designed to stay cool in summer. I don't think they design to keep buildings & outside spaces cool without A/C anymore. So our heat-resistant infrastructure is disappearing at the same time temperatures climb. Not a good combination.😭
