sweasel.com

Ok. I’ll bite. It’ll have to happen after 9pm, but sign me up.

I’ll link directly to it when it’s borned.

What sort of religion did they have there? Eastern mysticism? Fundie Christian? Raelian?

Nice pic of the Roman weasel conqueror. I came, I saw, I…bit?

Fundie Christian, Musli. Jesus freaks. There was considerable cross-breeding between the hippies and the fundies in the early ’70s.

*rubs chin*

Hmmm…Sam Houston? The Sam Houston, or a dude with his name? *totally gullible*

Portuguese bolo? Why on earth would you sauce up a hat? Though I must admit, munster/mayo/barbiecue with spam doesn’t sound half bad. At all.

The husband has a friend and coworker named ‘Sterling’. For the longest time I couldn’t remember it, so started calling him ‘Oneida’. It stuck.

It escapes my comprehension how fundies and hippies can form an alliance. But evidently there were a number of strange Christian groups out there back then. Hopefully, we’ve sobered up a bit.

Named after the Sam Houston, I’ve always assumed, PnB. I don’t think we’re related.

I don’t know, Musli. It’s a short drive from dropping acid to speaking in tongues, if’n you ask me.

Hey, I like the Legionary Weasel graphic. We can call it, uh… Lucius Vorweasel? Stoatus Pullo?

Okay, Julius Weasar?

It’s a short drive from dropping acid to speaking in tongues, if’n you ask me.

I’d have to agree.

Oneida: another “interesting” community

I came, I saw, I ate runnybabbit!

Minions, trolls, and Badgerbuggers!
I came to eat runnybabbits,
Not to praise them….

F’ing runnybabbits ate our strawberries, but I’ll hit the farmers market this weekend and no one will be the wiser 😉

A little known Roman historical tidbit. There has been a common misconception about the defeat of Hannibal. The Romans cleverly released bags of weasels in front of Hannibal’s elephants. Tha rampaging weasels frightened the elephants, causing them to panic and charge in the wrong direction.

The Romans followed up and defeated Hannibal’s army. So you see, what really strikes terror into an elephant’s heart is the dreaded Roman Rampaging Weasel.

It’s heartbreaking, TI, isn’t it?. I went on a quest for a particular variety of raspberry, found it, planted it – only for the little bastards to get right into my fruit cage and kill two of the canes.

The good news is that, today, three large raised beds magically appeared in the garden of Badger House, while a deep ditch was dug around the fruit cage and runnybabbit-poroof (ha!) wire was buried deep and wide, to keep the vermin out.

Uncle B also had a visit from….. The Ferret Man….

Runnybabbit in raspberry sauce… that’d be a just dessert.

Nah UB, I don’t eat the strawberries so it’s nothing personal, but I get tired of listening to the wailing, gnashing of teeth, and pulling of hair that goes on in the house. Most of the rest of the garden is in beds that the bunnies don’t mess w/ much, but the ‘berries are out front (not my choice). We spray a doe urine/something else awful combo that deters them except it’s rained so damned much you have to pretty much spray it every day. Problem there: that stuff smells like ass, and you can TASTE IT! when you spray it.

On a different, and slightly pervy, note. The beginnings of wailing, gnashing and pulling have begun b/c the tomatoes have failed to pollinate. I suggested “human intervention” and that we pollinate the plants (not really a big deal just have to distinguish between boy flowers and girl flowers). My sister freaked.

Edit: Helps if I read before I hit post. The tomatoes just need a good shaking, the zucs need the boy and girl flowers matched up.

Tell ya what – here in my neighborhood we have runnybabbits coming outa our collective asses. A brood of nine(?) were raised next to the house foundation, and both my neighbors had nests of ’em, too. I saw 5 halflings yesterday morning when I went out for the newspaper, and 7(!) this morning. They’re chewing through everyone’s plastic “critter fence” and getting in the gardens!

Time to get out my CO2 pellet pistol. I’m of a mind to pop some wabbit. My neighbor hits ’em with his hunting bow. Man, is he a good shot. I swear he can twang ’em right up the ass from 30 yards away – no problem.

Going out to pollinate the ‘matoes evokes such profoundly disturbing images, I just don’t want to think about it.

Yeah McGoo that’s pretty much where she was at too. But, if you want the fruit you gotta do the dirty work 😛

You plantophiles are sick…sick, I tell you!

Yeah, but there’s no database for us, and I can live as close to a ‘mato plant as I want 🙂

Gettin’ squishy!

Uh-oh. Incoming Tomato Haiku…

Tomato prevert…
Having my way with Romas
Poundin’ my Beefsteak!

Cherry Tomato,
Arousing my passion tonight.
Where’s the fuckin’ salt?

My Burpee Big Boy!
Sweet ‘mato of my desire
Give me some squishy!

We have a Todd Amish heritage ‘mato plant. Work w/ that 🙂

Plantophiles are sick? Hah! I have a vineyard Weas, I grow alcohol. 500 bottles a year, I have the most mellow and the friendliest neighbors. It’s kind of cool when your neighbors are willing to shoot trespassers on your property.

Todd County Amish
Hot tomato of my dreams
You drive me buggy!

…and from what I just read, those TC Amish are pretty rare puppies, T-I! Exotic.

Yeppers. We’ve got a baby ‘mato on it–fingers crossed.

Damn, heritage=heirloom. No reading comp at the moment.

Won’t be long, then. Full-grown, they weigh in at 1-2 lb. if what I read is right. So you won’t need many.

Yep. If you’re gonna grow stuff, you should grow interesting stuff. Anyone can grow a Better Boy.

You should consider sending Badger some seeds. Couldn’t hurt…

Is it okay to send fruit (it’s not a fucking veg) overseas? Didn’t think it was, but most of what I’ve dealt w/ was NZ and Aus and they’re extremely strict.

I think you’re right about importing “plant matter”. Like driving into California from Az. Just send him seeds. Better yet – smuggle ’em: its more fun.

Are tomato seeds one of the ones that require an extended “cold” environment before they’ll germinate? Mom used to put certain seeds in the freezer over the Winter so they would germinate the following Spring. I don’t remember what kinds, though.

Ok, Weas. Posted, you are linked, and now I must go give notice to the condemned.

McGoo… tag.
Enas…tag.
KC… tag.

Uh-oh, that’s torn it, TI. I don’t think her Ladyship realised I hand-pollinate my tomatoes.

<faints>

TI, I was in Italy and ordered a platter of grilled vegetables. I got tomatoes, zucchini, and potatoes. Yeah, um, no.

Also, SCOTUS has ruled that tomatoes are vegetables. No, I’m not kidding.

Never, ever, had problems with tomato pollination.
What varieties do you guys grow? San Marzano all the way with me. Why have hamburger when you can have steak and all that.

I’m growing a lot of representatives of the Solanaceae family this year: tobacco, aubergine, tomato, potato, chili pepper and bell pepper. I know I’m always harping on about it, but still find it fascinating that they’re all related.

Say Musli, are you familiar with Bhut Jolokia/Naga Jolokia chilis? I’ve just ordered some seeds. The consensus is that they’re the hottest chili in the world. The label on the packet simply said ‘Bhut Jolokia x 20 Caution’ so I, being somewhat of a moron said to myself, ‘Pfft, I know best’ popped a single seed on my tongue and then proceeded to suffer for half an hour.

This is probably not the thread in which to mention Mrs. Lokki’s excitement about the recent appearance of a baby runnybabbit in our Dallas suburban flower garden. She also has a brace ofwild ducks, two or three squirrels, Blue Jays, Cardinals (complete with three baby Cardinals) feeding sumptiously at Lokki’s expense. This does not include the sparrows, et al and other ‘children of Gaia’ who are too numerous to enumerate.

I can definitively tell you that baby rabbits prefer carrots to apples, celery, or summer squash. Currently they seem to prefer the prepared little pre-washed carrots although these must still be sliced into smaller pieces to meet Mrs. Lokki’s standards. Fortunately, she has not considered strawberries or raspberries yet, although I did have to convince her that fresh mango is a flavor probably wasted on young, unsophisticated runnybabbits.

Now in honor of Steamboat – Smutty Tomato Haiku

On hot summer nights
I love round ripe tomatoes
dripping warm sweet juice

My lover’s soft breasts
remind me of tomatoes
deliciously ripe

Alone in my bed
I dream of ripe tomatoes
soft and warm, squeezed tight

And seriously, I DO have a fetish for cherry tomatoes….

“Brazil nuts”? That what they’re calling them these days? Heh. Not as colorful, of course, as the old nomenclature (it was originally named after the miserly 15th letter of the alphabet).

15th? Not 14th? Or am I having another wrinkled moment?

Beautimous Musework, L.

Oh my, Lokki, that haiku, how you do go on… methinks I must go shower now.

Thimk, Steam. Thimk.

That’s interesting, Gibby – the Solanacaea family is one of my favourites, too – mostly because of its huge diversity and sheer usefulness (including the interesting sedative drugs it produces).

Then again, I am still deeply confused by what family means in this context. As I understand it, plants were categorised according to their physical similarities – so if plant X had a three lobed hairy leaf and star-shaped yellow flowers, for example, it might have been put in the same family as another similarly endowed plant, albeit one from some far flung continent with no obvious connection.

But is that a relationship or is it mere similarity?

I asked a taxonomist once and he lost me after the third sentence. I got the impression he rather hoped he might.

…duh….

Yep. A wrinkled moment.

…And anyone who speaks more than 3 consecutive words of latin by way of explanation to a civil question without immediately translating it should be slapped upside the head – every 30 seconds.

My mother once told me what she and her compatriots called Brazil nuts when she was a kid. It was racist. Also funny.

Also Mrs. Peel, I though it was the US Congress that designated tomatoes as vegetables. Better go to google, see if they can take the time from handing over dissidents to the PRC to help.

McGoo said I ought post this here. I was berating him for APOLOGIZING to me (and here I, a padawan Asshole™® who looks up to him, am crushed)… can you just imagine how I felt? A black-belt ninja Asshole™® *apologizing* for breaking the meme train? He ain’t sick but he must not be well.

So how’s about a little poetry which, had Frost lived longer, I’m sure he would have said:

“The Denny’s coffee is lovely, dark and deep. But I have Goths to smack, and hours to go before I sleep.” – Bizarro-Frost

I blame the fact the fireworks stands aren’t open until tomorrow.

Okay, Mrs. Peel. SCOTUS it was. God bless ’em.

That’s interesting, Gibby

You’re damn right it is. Do you think I’d be fascinated by something that wasn’t interesting? I’m not a kitten.

Regarding the family thing: I’ve no idea. The flowers of Solanaceae are sort of similar…sort of. Anyway, whatever it is that caused them all to be lumped together, I’m glad it did; no other family has produced so much eating, smoking and occasionally weaponising pleasure to me.

Gibby, the Jolokia is rumored to have a scoville rating up around a million to 1.2 million.

In contrast, the normal habanero is somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 to 350,000. The Red Savina peppers I grew last year are 350,000 to 600,000. All ratings are rough guidelines only because it varies from individual pepper to pepper, the growing conditions, soil, etc. (if I understand it right – everyone has a different opinion) Those numbers roughly fit my experiences.

The Jalokia peppers scare even me.

So what is with the interest in the nightshade family, anyhow? Datura is one of them, which has always interested me. I’ve found it fascinating how some plants in this family have some edible parts, others will kill you if you even look at them, and some of them (tobacco) seem to want you to keep eating them.

Gibby – isn’t it pretty much agreed nowadays that the nomenclature/categorizing scheme invented way back on <The Good Ol’ Days is woefully inadequate and inaccurate? But no one who knows it wants to change it, and everyone who doesn’t know it doesn’t care?

..And S-S – hence my “15th letter of the alphabet” comment.

I’m reading a book on Spices (for the second time because most of my books are packed and I don’t feel like buying more right now, and I’m out of fresh eye-food). Peppers and chili’s are interesting.

Solanaceae! This gives me a chance to drop one of my favorite Ambrose Bierce quotes from the Devil’s Dictionary:

Belladonna, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential similarity of the two tongues.

Sorry, Gibby. Those peppers don’t sound familiar to me.

We use a few types of peppers, but the ones we use the most for spiciness isn’t really very spicy by itself. We adjust spiciness with quantity rather than quality. This way, Mom can use the same recipe and ingredients when she makes something for home (where “you all go see-see soo-soo *roll eyes*” (what Mom says) when things are spicy (the sounds one makes when something’s spicy)) and when she makes something for a party with relatives, who like spicy stuff: all she has to do is increase the number of peppers.

We use I suppose what one would call green chili peppers (in Urdu, haree mirch or “green pepper/spicy thing”). Something spicy is called, mirchedaar.

Lemur – yeah, it was hearing about the Scoville Scale which prompted me to buy some. No more will I lie awake at night worrying that I’ve never tried the hottest chili on this rock.

I’m just interested in the family since I consume a lot of its members.

McG – I hadn’t heard that, but it makes sense. In any case, I hope they leave it be. I suspect it’d be a massive job to take it all apart from the top down. And anyway, no scientist would be able to get a grant for a project like that unless they managed to convince the granter that it had something to do with Global Warming! and how it was going to kill us all.

Lokki – I’d forgotten about Belladonna. A powerful hallucinogen and a poison. Solanaceae – the gift that keeps on giving.

Musli – No worries. I thought you might have heard of them. They’re from the Indian Subcontinent. I wish my mother could cook…

Gibby – I can’t rely upon my memory of what I read, but (IIRC) the first issue with the classical taxonomic system is that a bunch of specie, genera, family, order, etc members are dead wrong. They look like they belong in a given cubbyhole or on a particular branch or whatever, and often even have a majority of similar characteristic’s – but are totally unrelated when examined genetically.

The second issue is that the system works so darned well even with the wrinkles that there is little inclination to change it. There is also “generational” inertia, i.e. the old farts don’t want changes. I can understand that.

Long live Donnatal.

Just sayin’.

McGoo – I’m sure I read that they are now starting to work on categorisation by DNA which is, I’d have thought, the only sensible way of doing it.

Traditional Linean taxonomy (on which the current relationships are based) could only have been done by appearance and, surely, that can’t be right?

As for Gibby’s point about leaving it alone – no chance of that, I’m afraid! Bloody plant names are changing all the time, anyway. I can think of a few that have changed twice in my gardening lifetime.

Lokki – To appease all the Carlos Castaneda fans, we can’t forget Datura (Jimsonweed).

Datura!

I read about that stuff in a Trevanian novel – Eiger Sanction, I think. I have always kept it in mind in case I really wanted to take revenge on someone. A sufficiently serious opportunity has not occurred yet. But when it does, Steamboat McGoo De’ Medici will surge into action!

Yep, Badger, on both counts. The original taxonomy was done on the basis of eyeball- and, later, microscopic- observation of species. But Nature often tossed in ringers. These were only found out (for the most part) when DNA testing was done.

Ahh, systematics. Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Linnaeus started out splitting plants and animals (makes sense) and minerals (not so much sense) into three kingdoms. Current thought is that isn’t quite good enough and we’ve added domains in front of kingdoms–3 domains: bacteria, eukarya, and archaea. The wiki information is pretty decent on biological classifications.

Systematists are the extreme OCD types in the biology field, but it’s an interesting study. Most classifications were done by visual examination and grouping by an amateur “expert” naturalist in that area/group. Current classifications are typically based on mtDNA, protein, or other genetic analysis in addition to examining the species prior designation.

The bizarre things about jimson weed – it’s a weed and you can find it almost literally anywhere, and the other thing is teenagers have been known to use it to get high. Problem is the difference between trippin’ and dyin’ is like razor thin.

Neal Stephenson writes in the Baroque Cycle, of an assassin that paints his blades with nicotine, and if it is a true description… oh that’s nasty stuff.

I got really interested in plants in general McGoo, and it is frightening how many common plants can kill or make you really sick. The list is longer than the list of good things (nearly). Enough to really freak a parent out if they want to indulge in torturing themselves silly with worry.

Was the Eiger Sanction worth running down and reading?

DAMN IT!!!! We’re under another fucking t’storm warning looking at tornadoes. I’ve spent more time trapped in the basement w/ family in the last month than I care to think about.

The Eiger Sanction? Um, it’s not bad as long as you aren’t looking for a deep message or anything. The movie quoted the book almost line-for-line and was poorly acted. Eastwood could have done better if he’d dressed up the dialog for “viewing” instead of reading. But it’s sassy and has a few good lines in it.

If you want to read Trevanian, try Shibumi or Hot Night in the City. The Basque short stories are absolutely hilarious.

In Eiger Sanction the assassin Johnathan Hemlock arranges for some Datura seeds to be processed to taint some wine given to an enemy. The enemy was described as spending the rest of his life in an asylum staring into space and humming the same single tone all day long.

Cripes, TI. Sorry to hear that. (attempting to crack a joke) Perhaps if you seeded the area about 1/2 mile away with trailer parks to draw them off? Ok, bad joke. Sorry. Hope it all works out safely.

‘Goo…”Jonathan Hemlock” the assassin? Ok, that’s rich.

Navajo saying about Datura: “Eat a little, and go to sleep. Eat some more, and have a dream. Eat some more, and don’t wake up.”