this is very cool! pomological.art is a new site by developer (and cider-maker!) andrew haupt, with a beautiful search interface for the @pomological.xor.blue collection
— parker higgins (@xor.blue) September 2, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Roxbury Russet is supposed to be the oldest apple cultivar bred in the United States… and one well suited to cider making.
Lots of other fruits in the archive, as well:
===
Pope Leo XIV has inaugurated a new sustainable farming project run by the Vatican.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) September 5, 2025 at 11:00 PM
JDivan Vance will no doubt be furious:
Pope Leo XIV fed fish, pet horses and visited organic vineyards Friday as he inaugurated the Vatican’s ambitious project to turn Pope Francis’ preaching about caring for the environment into practice.
Leo formally opened Borgo Laudato Si, a 55-acre utopian experiment in sustainable farming, vocational training and environmental education located on the grounds of the papal summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo. The Vatican hopes the center, open to student groups, CEOs and others, will be a model of ecological stewardship, education and spirituality for the Catholic Church and beyond…
Leo has strongly reaffirmed Francis’ focus on the need to care for God’s creation, and celebrated the first “green” Mass in the estate’s gardens earlier this summer, using a new set of prayers inspired by the encyclical that specifically invoke prayers for creation. On Friday, some 10 years after Laudato Si was published, Leo presided over a liturgy to bless the new center after touring its gardens, fishpond, farm and classrooms.
Leo recalled that according to the Bible, human beings have a special place in the act of creation, created in the “image and likeness of God.”
“But this privilege comes with a great responsibility: that of caring for all other creatures, in accordance with the creator’s plan,” he said. “Care for creation, therefore, represents a true vocation for every human being, a commitment to be carried out within creation itself, without ever forgetting that we are creatures among creatures, and not creators.”…
===
In a romance and adventure worthy of the big screen, a Pennsylvania couple is preserving the past and forging a future as the owners of the world’s oldest drive-in movie theater.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) September 6, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Baud
Couldn’t connect to BJ for a while. Not much respite there.
Marleedog
@Baud: I panicked. I thought for a moment that I might have to go out and do something productive.
Glad things are getting back to normal.
Doc H
Bluesky tip: Parker H (@xor) runs an old fruit bot @pomological.xor.blue that regularly blesses the skyline with fruit paintings.
And on the subject of bluesky, I’m finding the Nate Silver/blueskyism/butthurt discourse hilarious. Tough to find an entry point for folks who are not terminally online, but I’ll start with something I re-skeeted. “Blueskyism is literally when you’re a centrist & everything you post gets ratioed by shitposters creating inside jokes.”
lowtechcyclist
My wife told me this morning that she had to wake up because she was dreaming about killing snakes with Windex.
Baud
@Doc H:
I’m glad there are non-Twitter alternatives, but in general the way things have developed has been disappointing.
And “X” looks to have stabilized. Not sure if it’s profitable, however.
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: Yep, she definitely needed to wake up from that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@lowtechcyclist: How creative of your wife!
I read somewhere that in the early US, most apples were grown for cider, and apples had to be bred to be sweet enough to eat alone. I suspect most of the cider was alcoholic too
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
When she told me that, I just started laughing.
lowtechcyclist
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
She has truly bizarre dreams. Five seconds after I’ve woken up, I’ve already forgotten what I was dreaming about.
Splitting Image
Weird Al Yankovic at Red Rocks singing the song he was born to play:
You Can Call Me Al
eclare
One of my creatures just heard me open a bag of Chex Mix.
lowtechcyclist
@eclare:
“Surely that must be a treat! For me, right?” – the cat
BlueGuitarist
Had she recently seen “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”?
Cliosfanboy
HAPPY SLIGHTLY BELATED 10TH BIRTHDAY TO HENRY!!!!
Tony Jay
Remember when Biden (or anyone else, actually) was President and the US Open Tennis had to tell the broadcasters in advance not to show them being booed during the national anthem?
No? Me neither.
Go on, Tennis fans, boo that whiny orange fucktard.
lowtechcyclist
@BlueGuitarist:
Nope, somehow we’ve never seen that one. Need to put it on the list!
schrodingers_cat
Apples I drew for last year’s Inktober.
Bex
The garden pictured in the story about the Vatican’s new organic farm looks so much better than the “Rose Garden Club” on the site of the destroyed Rose Garden at the White House.
Deputinize America
@lowtechcyclist:
Another great one she did was My Life in Ruins. It’s super cute.
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
My cat, strangely, does not care at all about people food. My dog, however, has perfected the “woe is me, I’m starving, please please feed me” stare.
eclare
@Tony Jay:
Everyone has phones. The audio will get out.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Tony Jay:
h/t benrothenberg.com/p/us-open-donald-trump-mens-final-attendance-visit-appearance-censorship-tv-booing…
MagdaInBlack
Of apples, sorta: On my winding commute to work I pass a piece of property that had once been a farmhouse and orchard. It had old apple trees, a pond and was lined with hedge trees. I often saw deer grazing under the apple trees. I say had because someone has purchased it, cut down the trees and there is now a sign for a development with 10 “semi-custom” homes starting at $1.2 mil.(cheap for South Barrington)
I am disgusted and in mourning, mostly for those old apple trees and the hedgerow. And the deer.
Booger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The U.S. is the only place where ‘cider’ can apply to apple juice. Everywhere else cider means alcoholic, and why would one drink apple juice anyway? Thanks, Prohibition!!
lowtechcyclist
@eclare:
With our cats, it’s not that they want people food, it’s just that they think a whole bunch of similar sounds must be the sound of the cat treat container being gotten out of the cabinet. Open a bag of Chex mix? They’d be right there, looking at you like “it’s treat time, right?”
eclare
@MagdaInBlack:
That is sad. I still remember parts of a song that we sang in elementary school in a play about Johnny Appleseed.
kalakal
@lowtechcyclist: I think that’s how ours operate too
suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
Me too. Unless it was terrifying.
I am doing the colonoscopy-prep low-fiber diet and it is terrible. Normally, fruit, vegetables, and grains make up about 80% of my diet. I have lost two pounds in the last two days.
ETA: I adore those cosmic crisp apples.
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
Ahhhh, that makes sense. I am nowhere near the treat cabinet in the kitchen, so the kitty has decided to ignore me.
Deputinize America
@lowtechcyclist:
In the tangerine sized brain of Fiona the tortie-tabby, every can that gets opened may be tuna, so you beg for them all, even if they’re just beans or diced tomatoes for chili.
schrodingers_cat
@MagdaInBlack: Before we bought our house I used to rent the top floor of an old craftsman style house. Which had an old apple tree in the yard. The apples were not that sweet. But every fall there would be deer in the yard in the evening to feast on the apples
Sometimes the fallen apples would ferment and we would see slightly drunk deer unsteady on their feet.
MagdaInBlack
@eclare: I knew it was bound to happen, the spot is near high end housing and overlooks forest preserve land.
I may have to alter my route to work.
eclare
@suzanne:
That was the worst part of it for me, the pre prep diet. My normal breakfast is blueberries and nuts!
BlueGuitarist
@lowtechcyclist:
In My Big Fat Greek Wedding
put some windex on it
is the solution
to problems
M31
I love those old fruit watercolors! There is a bot posting them on mastodon if you want to see random ones daily:
mastodon.social/@[email protected]
incredibly skill painters! you start to recognize their names after a while
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Splitting Image: Loved that! Thanks for the link
MagdaInBlack
@schrodingers_cat: In my past life, our 6 acres had maybe a dozen OLD, still happily producing apple trees. Golden Delicious, Jonathon, Macintosh. We always had deer feasting in the fall, and drunken chickens too, from the fermenting fallen apples
And those trees just hummed with bees, when in bloom.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@suzanne: The prep is so much worse than the procedure itself.
M31
@Dorothy A. Winsor: oh yeah, cider = alcohol in the early US. Those legends of “Johnny Appleseed”? He was paving the way for booze!
I remember reading statistics about early America and just how much beer and (alcoholic) cider people drank, and it was something like over 1 gallon per day per person. Even accounting for low alc %, everyone must have been pretty lubricated all the time.
OK just checked some articles and it looks like around 7 gallons of pure alcohol per person per year over age 15 pre-1850. How much 4% beer is that? OK more like 1/2 gallon a day, what’s that in six-packs?
M31
also, Roxbury Russets are my favorite apple, can only get them at farmers markets in late fall, they’re pretty late ripening
Tony Jay
@eclare:
“Fake News! Radical Leftist Democrats deceptively edited out the applause (very loud) for America’s greatest and most loved President ever. Something will be done very soon. God Bless America’s President (the best). Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Kosh III
For a couple of years I was drinking hard cider and not beer. I briefly drank hard pear cider but the store selling it stopped doing so.
Cats have secret classes in how to effectively beg. Dogs can attend but pay a higher fee.
prostratedragon
@Tony Jay: Your last 5 words can be sung gustily to KC and the Sunshine Band.
Tony Jay
@Wyatt Salamanca:
They can shluuuuurp all they want, they’ll still get nothing but a rabbit punch for their efforts and be told to say “Thank You, Mister President” for their troubles.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@M31: I have an unpublished novel about a girl who’s a brewster (ie a woman brewer). In the first half of the European Middle Ages, almost all brewing was done by women. They brewed ale, which means no hops. Hops are what give beer it’s characteristic bitter taste. They also act as a preservative so their absence means the ale went bad quickly. In some places it was illegal to sell it over three days old.
Their ale could be different degrees of alcoholic because they could pour water over malted grain three different times. The first pour was the most alcoholic. The last one was called small beer.
Once hops were introduced, the beer could be produced in large amounts, shipped, etc. So it became profitable and men took over.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Wyatt Salamanca:
We just watched ‘5 September’, a docudrama about how ABC’s Olympic sports team covered the hostage crisis during the 72 Munich Summer Olympics.
The difference between then and now is eye dropping and sad. Then it was a debate about the possibility of showing people being murdered on live TV and what responsibilities the network had. Now it’s not wanting to offend the worst President ever. Sigh.
Tony Jay
@prostratedragon:
Do they still have Christmas Number One lists? Guarantee do hit in the making right there.
Kosh III
Open thread so ok here goes.
Last week I had my Medicare annual checkup with my PCP. All is good, my A1C is 5.7–it’s never been that low before!
I told him to do everything I might need so I’m getting a bone density test. Plus I got a TDAP booster and flu shot. Other vax is up to date including covid.
I’ve met deductible for the year so everything is zero out of pocket.
Currently having Physical Therapy for De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis, a repetitive stress issue. If PT doesn’t fix it I will have the surgery–this year.
6 months ago I started senior chair yoga–I am more flexible now even though I still can’t do many of the poses but I’m getting there. Plus 4 days per week I am doing senior fitness classes.
Just turned 74 so we celebrated by a short cruise with Celebrity Cruises.
Later this month I’m going to visit the 1200 acre nearby ISHA yoga center to check it out.
RevRick
Shankweilers! Just 15 miles north off 309!
Right now sitting on the deck of our Viking ship Ingvi docked in Linz, Austria looking out at the local music festival.
Linz is a fascinating city, beginning as a merchant town at a bend (Lentos in Celtic) in the Danube, became a major manufacturing center, especially steel manufacturing, which of requires engineers and managers, so various public universities, and now is doing cutting edge computer science, also attracting cutting edge art. There are 20,000 employed in the steel industry and 20,000 students. I toured the local modern art museum.
SiubhanDuinne
@lowtechcyclist:
Windshield vipers.
MagdaInBlack
@Dorothy A. Winsor: “.. so it became profitable and men took over.”
Of course.
CCL
@SiubhanDuinne: ouch.
prostratedragon
@Tony Jay: I have solid inside info that Parliament’s is a good trigger. When you’re hot, you’re hot.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kosh III: That all sounds good. Go out and celebrate some more
eclare
@RevRick:
Sounds like a nice trip!
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
What’s disturbing to me is how quickly they all rolled over, how they were willing to suddenly start treating the White House with the same bullshit deference that they would have with say, the authoritarian government of a foreign country hosting the Olympics so as to not offend them. And it’s not just them; some of the universities, law firms, corporations etc.
Did any of these cowards have any pride in being an American and defending it’s civil society and Constitution that they claimed was so important and cherished?
And they’re doing it all out in the open, right in front of us, for an incredibly unpopular president, who barely won in a very narrow election result, that didn’t even crack 50%. Are they so arrogant to believe there won’t be a backlash, especially if things go to utter shit with the economy?
Shalimar
59 Cool Things to Do in Mississippi: Adventures Across the Magnolia State
RevRick
@eclare: It has been. Started in Budapest, where my paternal grandmother came from, then on to Bratislava in Slovakia, where my maternal grandfather’s family came from. I’ve gained about 900 pounds.
They Call Me Noni
@SiubhanDuinne: Just choked on my coffee. Needed that chuckle.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
Good morning.
lowtechcyclist
@M31:
He was a bigger hero than we realized in elementary school!
Tony Jay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
You know when someone tells you something that starts off interesting and ends with you going “Well I didn’t know that, but I’m glad do now.”?
That was one of them. Thank you, Dorothy.
Kosh III
@Shalimar: I looked over the list–thrice. It doesn’t list a visit to hike/kayak/whatever at Tishomingo State Park. I’ve hiked there.
Nukular Biskits
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Interesting! Thanks for sharing that.
RevRick
Duplicate
Tony Jay
@prostratedragon:
I’ve been telling people that for years and years. Never realised I had the authority of an elected legislature backing me up. Get told, doubters!
prostratedragon
@SiubhanDuinne:
[shakes fist]
prostratedragon
@Tony Jay: They should believe you. Anybody know George Clinton? One probably should be sure of permission.
moonbat
@SiubhanDuinne: Full marks on that one!
frosty
@M31: I get about 311 six-packs per year for 7 gallons of alcohol.
7gal x 128 oz/gal = 896 oz alcohol
896 / (4% x 12 oz alcohol/can) = 1,866.66 cans
1866.66 / 6 = 311 six-packs per year, roughly one a day!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Tony Jay: @Nukular Biskits: I thought it was interesting when I stumbled on the information. Sadly, the brewster book did not sell. I’m not even sure I still have access to it on my computer.
frosty
@Kosh III: Congrats on the A1C! My highest was 5.8 and I finally found a diet that knocked it down to 5.2. Hope it stays that way when I get my annual wellness check this winter- I’ve been a little less than rigorous about it.
Baud
The tennis broadcast team should consider drowning out the booing by taking about how old Biden is.
NotMax
Weekend long watch.
Hollywood vs Reality: What Actually Happened During Apollo 13?.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
theguardian.com/sport/2025/sep/07/usta-trump-censorship-us-open-booing
Another Scott
So the 80th anniversary of the United Nations starts this month. Naturally, 47’s crew illegally revoked diplomatic visas to the Palestinian delegation. (Apparently, that was done to Arafat in the past, but at least one could make an argument that he wasn’t elected.)
In response, a few lefty news sites are saying the General Assembly voted to move to Geneva (154:2). Down in the fine print, the vote was apparently to move a particular September 22 session on Palestinian rights to Geneva (not the UN as a whole).
Google isn’t showing me any MSM sites covering it, and there’s almost nothing on the UN sites themselves. But official sites often lag.
It’s kinda kibitzing of me to ask that lefty news sites not turn every tiny bit of news that they like into Must Read Earth Shattering Blow Against USA Fascism And The Oligarchy, but it would be nice if they would tone it down.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The interesting things we are taught here!
Sounds like a book worth finishing! :-)
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Citizen Dave
TLDR: Black Raspberries: The Best!
This lifelong Hoosier is appreciating the beautiful Black Raspberry Hoosier Black Cap painting. (And the use of Black twice in the name). My favorite favorite pie is black raspberry. When I was a kid I got the taste as my Grandmother outside of Muncie would make these pies. One year I stayed with her (a little property just outside of town) for a week, going to the Delaware County Fair each day. I got to run around unsupervised, I guess. (Not any specific memories other than winning a dish at the greased glassware/throw a coin booth). She had loads and loads of county fair ribbons.
Around 30-35 years ago we would pick wild black raspberries along the old Monon railroad corridor in north Indy. Now that is the Monon Trail (recreational).
Sometime around 15 years ago I started making black raspberry pies (storebought crust). Fresh berries have all but dried up at the farmers’ markets (and you have to take out a mortgage to buy them), but frozen ones (Michigan sourced) are available anytime.
And of course I have a rotating stock of black raspberry jams around at all times.
WereBear
Johnny Appleseed wasn’t about the pie. He was about the hard cider. :)
mappy!
@M31: 1639, Hartford, Connecticut Colony (three years after settlement).
David Pieterszoon de Vries:
“These English live soberly, drink only three times at a meal,”
“ …among the incidents which happened while I was here, was that of an English ketch arriving here from the north, with thirty pipes of Canary wine. There was a merchant with it, who was from the same city, in England, as the servant of the minister of this town, and was well acquainted with him. Now, this merchant invited the minister’s servant on board the vessel to drink with him ; and it seems that the man became fuddled with wine, or drank pretty freely, which was observed by the minister. So they brought the servant to the church, where the post stood, in order to whip him. The merchant then came to me, and requested me to speak to the minister, as it was my fault that he had given wine to his countryman. I accordingly went to the commander of our little fort or redoubt, and invited the minister and the mayor, and other leading men, with their wives, who were very fond of eating cherries ; as there were from forty to fifty cherry-trees standing about the redoubt, full of cherries. We feasted the minister and the governor and their wives, who came to us ; and, as we were seated at the meal in the redoubt, I, together with the merchant, requested the minister to pardon his servant, saying that he probably had not partaken of any wine for a year, and that such sweet Canary wine would intoxicate any man. We were a long while before we could persuade him, but their wives spoke favourably, whereby the servant got free.” (John Franklin Jamison’s Narratives of New Netherland 1609 – 1664, New York, 1909. Pages 126, 127))
(Note: The servant would be indentured)
Dave
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Unless all they give you is a mild relaxant and you are also receiving an endoscopy.
Not a pleasant memory. Though yeah the prep was not pleasant either.
me
“If it’s clear and yella, you got juice there fella. If it’s tangy and brown, you’re in cider town.”
Scout211
NBC has a new opinion poll out today and part of it was all about our feels.
Polling our feelings as a new one, at least to me. But count me in that 49% of Democrats who are furious. And all jackals here, also too!
suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: This diet is crap. (More precisely, it’s not crap, and that’s bad.) White bread, meat, cheese….. no veggies, no pasta, no oatmeal or grains, no fruit.
I basically exist on those four things.
Scout211
@suzanne: Having had the experience 13 years ago of a colonoscopy without the step down diet a few days before the prep day and my second one 10 years later with the step down diet, I am here to tell you it is 1000% worth it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@suzanne: My doc let me have vanilla yogurt and vanilla ice cream even on the fasting day. That plus Gatorade made it not too bad.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Another Scott
Founders.archives.gov:
Rassin’ frassin’ disappearing waggon holes, amirite??!
I blame Joe Biden.
Best wishes,
Scott.
iKropoclast
Melania just wanted to share some of that famed Eastern European taste for beauty with the rest of the US.
Scout211
The specifics of the “deal” have not yet been announced but wouldn’t we all like to know?
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
LOL!
Gav’s team bringing it over the weekend.
x.com/GovPressOffice/status/1964503654909825282
Chief Oshkosh
@Booger: I like apple juice.
iKropoclast
Yes. One might say we have a right to know and the government has a duty to inform us.
WereBear
Apparently Alex Jones is ranting incoherently. Yes, more. I’m enjoying the clips.
He’s my canary in the coal mine.
iKropoclast
…as he does…
M31
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
that brewster novel sounds like a great idea! Brewing is all kind of magic, them yeasties are alive and need respect :-)
M31
@WereBear:
I mean, it is a day ending in -y
WereBear
OMG, hearing Alex Jones praying aloud — with cursing — has got me laughing. Soothes those old Evangelical wounds, because he is unbelievably bad at it.
CCL
@Scout211: I hate these kinds of polls. SurveyMonkey, really?
30,196 respondents. Does the party id in the poll match the real world portions of likely voters? In other words, what if only 100 “identified Dems” responded to the poll? Of that hundred, only 49 dem poll responders would equal 49%
I am an admitted know nothing, but I do remember my boss- expecting me to be thrilled – telling me that I was getting the highest percentage raise of anyone in the co. I remember responding to my boss that 5% of nothing wasn’t that great a raise.
I then proceeded to get “hired” by another firm at almost double my salary and all of a sudden my boss could match that as a counter offer.
Bleech. File this rant under “how to obfuscate with percentages.”
Tony Jay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That’s a pity. Has the talented female brewer been contracted by minions of the deeply unpopular King to provide ‘sufficient barrels of her unparalleled ale’ for his idiot son’s forthcoming investiture as Heir Apparent, while also being threatened into slipping poison into the barrels by a rival dynasty who have kidnapped her secretly magical brother, while also being approached by square-jawed rebel forces who want her to add a few extra empty barrels to the load so they can sneak revolutionary patriots into the Palace?
All she wants to do is make and sell the best ale in the Kingdoms! What’s a brewer to do?
Deputinize America
@Kosh III:
Found a dry pear cider at a microbrewery that tasted damn near like Prosecco with a pear note, tight bubbles and all.
It was phenomenal.
WereBear
@lowtechcyclist: I thought Windex was to spray on your elbows.
WereBear
@lowtechcyclist: One can work on it, and develop it as far a lucid dreaming, where you direct the action.
I’ve done it, but I’m so tired when I get to bed I forget to mentally prepare. But the whackiness is more of a genuine message.
Perhaps she want to clean the swamp.
WereBear
@Tony Jay: LOVE IT
iKropoclast
…but legitimately.
WereBear
@Tony Jay: If it helps to let the world know, he is very embarrassed at being from Queens and the son of immigrants, not WASPs.
Explains so much…
WereBear
@schrodingers_cat: That’s beautiful! Thanks.
Professor Bigfoot
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The same story, over and over and over again.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
WereBear
@schrodingers_cat: Is it on Bluesky? That’s where I share things.
Also Mastodon, but that leans nerds and geeks. My Facebook is running on autopilot because I can post through a third party, but it won’t let ME do anything on the platform.
I do have fans there, so I continue to post there for them.
WereBear
@eclare: My cat Smokepuff had a whole play, in Mime, where he would enact just how starving he was, ending with him on his side, barely able to raise (title drop) One Trembling Paw.
Then I would say, “Puff-Puff, you got treats an hour ago,” and he would spring to his feet and find his pillow.
Can’t hurt to ask.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@rikyrah:
@Baud:
Good morning
WereBear
@MagdaInBlack: Is it the kind where one family’s window is three feet from another’s? A strip of lawn you can only lie down on in one direction? Mostly giant greeting hall?
A travesty of zoning. The hidden swamp of corruption.
WereBear
@Booger: Uptight American cultists have been operating since Plymouth Rock.
Gvg
@eclare: I was still allowed to drink clear juice. I also discovered a bone broth called zoup that actually tasted good enough to drink warm and was filling to me. The others I tried were meh. It comes in a jar. Other than that popsicles. Banana pops don’t have any color they warn not to have. I hated the Italian ices. Too bitter for my taste. Especially after the prep.
I should have been eating high fiber or something before because the last time my prep didn’t work and we had to delay the procedure a day to finish clearing out. I had to call and say it hasn’t worked, I know. It was my second time. So, I had 2 days of starvation. By the 2nd day I was kind of numb.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@M31: The brew house and the bake house were often adjoining because of their common use of yeast. As I recall, it was in the air.
@Tony Jay: You should be writing fiction, Tony. :-)
@Professor Bigfoot: Yeah. They needed capital and no one was going to provide that to a woman.
Gvg
@M31: because the water wasn’t safe to drink. As soon as people started living in large groups, drinking water became polluted way way back and alcohol killed the germs. Once we understood how to do safe water and safe waste disposal fairly recently in human history, water and non alcoholic drinks came back into popularity again, not before. You could die from drinking untreated water. I am pretty sure even the kids were given mild alcohol.
MagdaInBlack
@WereBear: They’re big on giant unused barely landscaped lawns, and yes on the big entry hall.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Good morning.
Another Scott
@WereBear: Hey, human, I’m dying here. Can’t you see that!!
[ rofl! ]
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Of course not. Too DEI.
ARoomWithAMoose
Ben Collins at The Onion has been hinting giddily at something he’d approved scarce money for all week,
bsky.app/profile/bencollins.bsky.social/post/3ly6piv7oc22q
Librettist
This explains much of the current media environment:
eclare
@suzanne:
Add nuts and you have my diet. I had it done last October, and the dr said he’d see me back in ten years. Good luck to you!
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I found warmed up chicken broth a lot more palatable than Gatorade. I hate those type of drinks.
schrodingers_cat
@WereBear: I am glad you liked it. I have bsky but this picture is not posted on it. I can do that if you like.
MagdaInBlack
@WereBear: If you wish:
projades.com/siteplan/jade-estates-south-barrington
I lied: 22 homes.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@eclare: I don’t usually drink Gatorade but it has electrolytes that supposedly kept headache etc away
eclare
@WereBear:
That is precious.
iKropoclast
And that plants crave.
Another Scott
@ARoomWithAMoose: Thanks for the pointer. It finally inspired me to join with a monthly donation.
Mocking the monsters is an essential tool in our arsenal. The Onion does it very well.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
There is always the possibility that if they piss him off he will attempt to get them shut down. Now he likely wouldn’t come close to succeeding but how much would it cost them to fight him off. And while he is seemingly far less popular than he was not long ago, he still has supporters, you know people that think money is the most important thing ever. Now of course some is necessary and more is nice, but worshiping money has seemingly never been as popular as it is now, likely because he’s always been selling himself as rich, when he’s not broke but today’s uber wealthy makes him look like a pauper who eats really regularly.
eclare
@ARoomWithAMoose:
I love your nym.
trollhattan
@ARoomWithAMoose:
Action I can believe in.
You go, The Onion!
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Luckily I did not get headaches, I just could not chug the Gatorade like I could warm chicken broth.
I also think your book about the brewster sounded interesting.
WereBear
@mappy!: It puts a whole new face on what we learned when you discover that a lot of people were partly paid with beer.
Jackie
@eclare:
Supposedly FFOTUS will make his grand entrance during the prematch ceremonies. I’m recording it as that’s right dab in the middle of the M’s game. Then later I can fast forward to get to hopefully the booing! LOL I heard rumors that the actual match may be delayed due to prolonged booing. 🤞🏻
iKropoclast
I didn’t expect to click back to read this and have it be about anything other than helping friends move house.
japa21
@MagdaInBlack: I know exactly where that is. When we first moved to the Schaumburg/Hoffman Estates area, going for drives for experiencing nature was easy to do. It is less and less so.
Librettist
Cider was big with Yankee Americans until lager swilling German immigrants destroyed Chicago and your freedoms. So the nativists had to have prohibition.
First verse same as the last…
WereBear
@Scout211: So. Independents don’t think. They FEEL.
Save the money to do a bio-pic, with our candidate saving a puppy and kitten (who are besties) while uncovering a pedophile ring. Add a flashback to finding the love of their life, but this time with dramatic music and great hair.
Released just before the election. Gorgeous as a telenovela, suspenseful as an action movie, VOTE for someone who wants to RESCUE YOU and fade-out with Star Wars music…
And we’ve got the Independents. We have the creatives, judging from the sludge that issues from Hollywood with techbros as the Suits. We can do it and they can’t.
Tell me how much you want to win.
WereBear
@M31: THanks!
WereBear
@M31: THanks!
Jackie
@trollhattan:
Funny, even before reading that, when I saw who attended the affair, I tagged the majority as probable Epstein clients LOL
Dare I say Great Minds Think Alike? ;-D
Gloria DryGarden
@lowtechcyclist: if only…
I’m sorry, if only windex had a magical formula to detect con artists and serial liars, and pedophile rapists, and billionaires who like to do harm. And if only this windex special formula worked slowly, but thoroughly, on contact..
how many people we know would run t9 the store and buy some? Not for snakes, no, but for certain ones were thinking of.
Dear x, thinking of you,
sincerely,
Gloria and friends
oh sorry it’s respite. I will find something adorable to report on. I’m sorry about your wife’s nightmare, does she fear snakes?
We had a long chat yesterday, pollyannas hilarious nephews and I, about taking in a bull snake as a house partner, to remove house mice. Many more absurd animals and methods were suggested, each one of questionable safety for humans. The younger brother retold being chased by a bull snake, and the sound it makes when it roars. This subject may have arisen from the story of a bull snake in prodigal summer (by Barbara kingsolver) that takes out a nest of baby birds, which subject came from the baby birds visible, nesting in the botanic gardens parking garage, and the other nest there with a rhythmic tap tap sound, sort of like a gentle drip, which made me think a baby bird was trying to hatch through its eggshell. I was enchanted by this, of course. Although, baby birds, in September?
Was that enough sweet tangents for you?
Gloria DryGarden
@lowtechcyclist: exactly so! Aptly said!
the cat is probably “starving”
Spanky
@suzanne:
Well, I’d say “get used to it” for a lifetime of periodic colonoscopies, but the prep protocol has changed so much (for the better) over the last 20 years that I’m guessing that if the trend continues it’ll be barely worth complaining about in a decade.
schrodingers_cat
Am I the only who finds Politics Girl and her ranting annoying. Pipe down lady.
trollhattan
@Jackie:
He’s gonna grab the trophy, isn’t he.
Suzanne
@Scout211: I have no doubt that it’s worth it, for sure. It’s just….. incredibly weird. I was fully vegetarian for about a decade, and cut white rice and bread out long ago, and I do cheese really only as, like, a side course. So I’m not used to eating this way and my satiety cues are all borked.
Gloria DryGarden
Here’s a respite story
we went rafting down the Salmon river, in Idaho. 4 women in we5 suits: the river guide, her sister, and two more of us from a women’s spirituality group. We pulled the raft in at a large apple orchard, tied up near their mailbox on the river. We wandered around and tasted apples, chose the most delicious ones, our favorites, and filled a five gallon bucket with them, to eat as we continued our river trip.
the apples were delicious, it was such a joy to have so many to chose from, and to be at such a place.
one of the nephews yesterday told me how apples don’t come true to seed, which is why the named varieties tend to be grafted, once you find the ones you like
also, while wandering the apple orchard property we saw signs on the ground to answer that question, “ does the bear shit in the woods?” Indeed she does.
Thank you for the botanical drawing of the apple. Imagine a russet-colored apple in todays world…
Librettist
@trollhattan:
Silver is for Democrats.
Gloria DryGarden
@schrodingers_cat: so far, I love her. I’m grateful for her.
MagdaInBlack
@schrodingers_cat: Not a fan, same reason. On the other hand, I’m fond of “JoJo from Jerz”
Gloria DryGarden
@MagdaInBlack: oh, you had jonathons! The best! I used to buy a bushel, each fall, cook them with dates, hand mill them, the cook to half with spices, in the crock pot, to make apple butter. Also a great eating apple. Some years my store gets them in for a few weeks.
Gloria DryGarden
The Denver meetup is this afternoon at two. The sidebar notice is gone, but I continue to check my email for late replies. Looking forward to this gathering.
eclare
@trollhattan:
Just like the Club World Cup.
MagdaInBlack
@Gloria DryGarden: My favorite, altho a golden delicious allowed to ripen properly is pretty close.
I made apple everything. We made cider with a hand cranked apple grinder and press. The chickens got the pressings. (made for some pretty tasty chicken) I made roast duck (we raised ducks too) stuffed with apples. OMG, good.
Timill
@Deputinize America:
Fat Freddy’s Cat had views on that.
trollhattan
“I want this test so hard that only I, Donald J Trump, can pass it” said Donald J Trump, probably.
I do not need to point out Donald J Trump can’t pass the current one but am doing so anyway.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@eclare: The brewster book got me an agent but she couldn’t sell it to publishers, so back to the drawing board
WereBear
@MagdaInBlack: A nearby hiking trail is in a meadow with old old apple trees. Easy hike and stunning views, all four hiking seasons.
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I hate that. It must be sad as an author to see your baby not appreciated.
If you can find it, maybe serialize it here…get some buzz.
WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Dang, it sounds great!
Jackie
@trollhattan:
I wonder if a replica has been made so FFOTUS thinks he’s nabbing the original…
WereBear
@SiubhanDuinne: LOL
Jackie
@trollhattan: Passing the Citizenship Test should be a requirement to run for ALL political offices – including POTUS and VPOTUS. Seriously.
Gloria DryGarden
@MagdaInBlack: that chicken sounds delicious. I didn’t know about golden delicious being close in flavor to jonathons. Pink lady has a nice sweet tart bouquet, not the same, but in the ballpark.
iKropoclast
Wondering how Trump would do at a Turing test …
Gloria DryGarden
@MagdaInBlack: I would mourn for those apple trees too. People don’t seem to have foresight, or appreciation for things that aren’t rich-making asset builders. Maybe they’ll pave their lawns and put in a bare desert of bistro tables and white concrete..
(though I remember Barrington as a place with vast rolling green lawns.)
Gloria DryGarden
@Jackie: agree.
eclare
@iKropoclast:
He would flunk naming animals on a Speak and Spell.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: I’m curious as to how McEnroe will handle it. He can still be a loose cannon on occasion
ETA: Assuming he’s one of the commentators.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: Charming choreography!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@eclare: @WereBear: Balloon Juicers are the best
WereBear
@CCL: Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
WereBear
@Deputinize America: Pears and apples are cousins.
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Huh. That’s definitely not what the word means today! Interesting.
WereBear
@schrodingers_cat: I would like the link if you are posting your artwork, thank you.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
India pale ale would like a word. And some Simcoe.
ETA ale vs. lager is more a top/bottom fermentation distinction. Our hobby brewers only do lagers in winter because it’s usually too damn hot, w/o chilled fermentation equipment.
WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Misson accomplished, then. My first novel got me an agent.
But I was “difficult to market.” Now cross-genre is recognized.
Never be ahead of your time.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
No, they believe that it won’t matter, because we live in a dictatorship now and their real audience is one person.
That person won’t live forever, but they either think the dictatorship will or are not thinking that far ahead.
Jackie
Moved to new thread
Kayla Rudbek
@Citizen Dave: Mr. Rudbek and I were in Westfield for the tandem rally, and we were wondering where all the money was coming from to build up that area so much.
exbarrowboy
It’s sad that russet apples aren’t commercially viable in the US. Back in the UK the best know variety, the “Egremont Russet” can sometimes be found in the supermarkets. My brother still runs the family greengrocers and told me that the russets are the apples most asked after by customers. The taste is unlike the typical modern apple variants, having a strong nutty overtone.
I did my degree at Bristol, in the west of England close to traditional cider country, where farmers would often have their own orchard and make small batches of pretty rough cider as a side business. One of the local pubs didn’t serve cider as a matter of principle, the landlady having seen what it did over the long term to their regulars. My memory is that the brewing process for cider can very easily introduce some nasty substances into the mix.
George Kennan Was Right
It’s Sunday, so I’m giving politics a break. But apples. APPLES. The number 2 fruit of all time, second only to the Washington navel orange. Consumer interest in more than Red Delicious (and is there anything better than a crisp, juicy, sweet Red Delicious for a mid-afternoon snack?) seems to have spiked a Golden Age of “heirloom” apples and new hybrid strains that make it a real joy to head for the local farmer’s market when harvest starts.
The best thing I’ve ever read about apples is the first chapter of Michael Pollan’s book “The Botany of Desire”. I note that PBS apparently has a two-hour documentary of the book. Anyone seen it? Is it worth searching for?
David Collier-Brown
@Gvg: Yes: in the absence of clean water, it was “beer for breakfast” for everyone. Small beer.
The Romans liked watered wine, which was also safe if you didn’t water it too much
David Collier-Brown
@Dorothy A. Winsor: If you or a friend can do production editing, self-publishing is plausible. Personally, I had one that I was expecting to do that way, but an editor told me to pivot, and the new version has been accepted for publication, my second.
(A computer book: no plot, no characters)
evodevo
@M31:
People drank beer in lieu of water, since you couldn’t guarantee the local water wouldn’t kill you. There is a legendary tale in Lexington ky about the 1833 cholera outbreak that killed hundreds. The town drunk has a monument in the Lex. Cemetary commemorating the fact that he never got ill and helped the locals by burying the dead since there were few left to do so…
Gloria DryGarden
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I want to read it…