Re: the new Kavanaugh accuser who said that him and his other high school (or was it college) friends would get girls drunk and run a train on them (like literal gang r*pe lets be clear about that)
At this point I’m beginning to wonder if the people hired to investigate Kavanaugh actually knew about all of this stuff and just passed it over because they didn’t think it was important. Like I’m 100% sure they spoke to people that told them he regularly attending these kinda parties were people got drunk and vague Bad Things sometimes happened (nearly always involving boys forcing themselves on inebriated girls) but they just didn’t even see it as important because that kinda shit is more than likely extremely common in the background of Federal Judges and other Influential People. The fact is that even today, people who came up in that highly insular east coast WASP prep school bougie society still view experiences like the one i described as “normal” and “part of growing up” for both the girls and the guys. and more than often, if the girl does speak up, she is ostracized by her former friends and schoolmates. This has happened more than once.
The same fraternities that gang rape drunk women are the ones that produce your judges, CEOs, congressmen, etc. Remember that.
I don’t even doubt that even in full light of all these accusations, with the accusers literally begging for an FBI investigation, the rest of the GOP genuinely still thinks Kavanaugh is a great normal dude cause they are all exactly like him.
One of the greenhouses at Tyntesfield is currently full of a ridiculous number of pumpkins, squashes and other mysterious kind of gourds. Some of them will be used in the restaurant but mostly they’ll be part of their autumn displays I think.
@qr-sa – Taking a quick look at more info to try and come up with a better description than I could off the top of my head? It sounds like maybe the Asian varieties that need to get “spoon out the insides” soft before they’re ready to eat might not be nearly as different as the type I’ve tried before.
The only variety I’ve tried was one of the non-astringent type eaten before they’re totally ripe and mushy inside. (I think the “Sharon Fruit” variety, actually.) I’m guessing that’s what I’ve seen for sale so far because they ship better. Besides the different texture at that stage, the flavor wasn’t nearly as sweet and complex. Which makes sense if it was meant to be eaten not as ripe.
(Almost like the difference between Asian pear varieties and the soft Bosc/Seckel type pears, now that I think about it. I thought maybe the persimmons were all firmer too.)
Now I’m interested in finding some of the other type, which do sound a lot more like American persimmons.
Much of the fruit on trees in a relatively sunny position at Kew after a relatively warm summer in 1996 was still not fully ripe, though it was very nearly so and ripened well off the tree
And that was a noteworthy performance 😅
It’s also very unlikely to get frosted at the appropriate time. Which, in my estimation, makes parsnips and rutabagas/swedes just about edible without the weird sweet tones (though a lot of people do want that)–but is kinda the opposite of what you need to get persimmons worth eating.
Even if we had the space, that would have to be a nope. Pretty as the trees are.
(You can find Asian persimmons here, but the flavor/texture are very different. The North American kind don’t ship worth a damn either, like pawpaws, which is why they’re not really grown commercially.)
A lot of people saying “just join a union” in response to labor practices in the US should probably know the US has attacked unions and companies do too. Some companies literally have propaganda videos telling employees they’re wrong to join a union because unions hurt the business.
Don’t forget Blair Mountain. Don’t forget Ludowe. Don’t forget every time the state’s killed workers for having the audacity to ask to be payed in something that wasn’t Monopoly money
Just had to get a chuckle at how much I associate the pawpaws with my Papaw. (Well, before almost breaking down from a sneak grief attack.)
I don’t know that I’ve had any pawpaws–or persimmons, either–since he died.
He always pretty much used hunting as an excuse to take the dogs out hiking. Kind of a shame he apparently didn’t feel like he could just say he wanted to spend the day enjoying the woods, but there you go.
They didn’t really need the meat anyway, and he rarely came back with any by the time I came along. But, he knew where to find all the good fruits and nuts, and usually did haul back some of whatever was in season. I was a particular fan of the pawpaws, so he made sure to bring me plenty whenever he could.
Of course, I’d be happy to see him without any tidbits, but that reminded me.
(Also, I had to get a bit amused at that person apparently rediscovering some traditional growing methods. You’re unlikely to have much luck cultivating a lot of things, including native fruit trees, unless you do plant more where they already like the conditions and want to grow there. Maybe especially where there’s that level of biodiversity, and the variety of conditions to go with it.)
It’s been awhile since I’ve talked about these, but it’s pawpaw season!
This is the fruit of a pawpaw tree – Asimina triloba – a wonderful fruit tree native to the eastern US / Appalachia. Many people have never heard of it, let alone tried it, because the fruits don’t last and they don’t ship worth a damn. They get bruised SUPER easily. It’s kind of like an illicit substance, people get the fruits, because they know someone, who knows of a place to get harvest them.
These came from an old employee of the plant nursery, who gave them to a still-current coworker, who shared them with everyone. In the second picture, I chomped into the fruit so you could see what it looks like inside before I devoured it.
Pawpaws taste like a cross between a mango and a banana. There’s a smoky aftertaste. It’s a complex flavor.
The trees can be tricky to grow, and there’s a huge difference from seedling to seedling, tree to tree. They are full of seeds, which I saved for V. I took the second one home to V, who shared it with some family friends who’d never tried it either.
We figured out pretty quickly how to germinate these from seed, at around a 90% success rate (one year we had a 100% success rate) – which is kind of unheard of. However, our plants struggled horribly as we experimented with where they’d be happiest. I told V they were naturally found near rivers and sure enough, our most successful plants are down by the river. They want a shallow water table. Now that we’ve figured out the germinating and what they actually want once they’re germinated, I expect we’ll have quite a few more trees in the future.
Word is that some of the farmers in neighboring counties are catching onto the pawpaw demand, and are starting to plant it too.
Technically, the fruit produces a neurotoxin, though not really in quantities thought to hurt anyone. There are breeding programs to try to breed that out though.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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