you learn something new every day!

A quiet day, and learning something new

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So… today has turned out to be a “non” day, of recovering and staying out of the heat. I’ve been spending the time making more crochet items for the market on Saturday.

At some point, I popped onto Pinterest and a random thing showed up in my feed that caught my attention. After doing my evening rounds and checking out our linden tree, I looked it up.

It seems that a chocolate substitute can be made using the green seeds of the linden tree. Who knew?

The seeds on our tree would still be too small for this. I keep meaning to pick the flowers for tea, but somehow always miss their peak blooming time.

I looked around and found information on it at Forager Chef. This link has pretty much all the information needed to make some, including a video and a recipe.

The article says to gather the seeds in July, but they are obviously in a warmer climate than we are. Maybe at the end of July/beginning of August, the green seeds on our tree might be large enough.

I think I want to actually try this!

The Re-Farmer

Primordial

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I learned something new, yesterday.

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That belly pooch on DahBoy has a name.

It’s called the primordial pouch, and all cats have it, to some extent. Our mama cat doesn’t really have it, because she’s all big belly on stick legs, so if she has one, it’s either full, or hidden by that belly or hers. Anything Fenrir has is hidden by long, long fur.

What a big boy he is. Fenrir is so small, she can actually sit on the window ledge, walk around and even turn around on it. DahBoy has to prop himself on the plant pot.

In case you are wondering about the yellow flags in the plant pot, I had put them around our avocado tree, with yarn going from one to the other. For some reason, the cats were absolutely insistent on getting into the pot. When one of the branches got broken off, I rigged this up. It sort of worked.

Unfortunately, the avocado did not survive the winter. This was the longest I’ve ever managed to keep one alive; it was about 3-4 years old. *sigh*

I’ve got two more pits in water to start new ones. Hopefully, we’ll manage to grow a tree!

The Re-Farmer

What is this? The Answer is…

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Here is the answer to yesterday’s guessing game.

The mystery equipment sitting in our maple grove is…

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… A garden row marker.

In the above picture, you see the handle.  One would step inside it, and hold the bar in front while dragging the rest behind.

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Do you see the points?  There are three of them that would drag on the ground, creating three lines in the soil.  When the next pass was made, one of the outer markers would be dragged along in one of the previously marked lines, so that the other two new rows marked would be evenly spaced.

Seeds would be planted in the resulting lines in the soil.

When I was a kid, I remember one of these my dad had made out of wood.  I don’t know who made this metal version, though I would guess it was my late brother, using bits and pieces from other equipment and whatever else was handy.

How close was your guess?

The Re-Farmer