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• https://www.thehappychickencoop.com/guide-to-chicken-parasites/
• https://www.thehappychickencoop.com/guide-to-chicken-parasites-part-2/

The above links tell about all sorts of chicken parasites, both external and internal, respectively.

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https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/37RHucXpQICZQPmJdoIzTg.Jmsiuod6nQcp_qpQ6pRl_x

The above link has three videos (you may have to swipe to see the other two) of some large hornets or wasps I found on 27 Jun 2018. These wasps seemed interested in the tomato and watermelon plants, but especially the tomatoes, and especially the Stick tomatoes (I observed them several times besides this, and they gravitated toward the Stick tomatoes; I had two plants). Their preference for the Stick tomatoes isn't obvious from the footage (that's just an observation I made; I saw them quite a few times without making videos).

One of them (not in the video) was huge! It must have been about four inches long. I'd never seen anything like it. I only saw it once, but it was faster than these smaller ones in the videos (which are really fast, if you can't tell; they can change directions and fly faster than regular wasps, kind of like hoverflies fly). The big one could dart across my backyard in a second, probably. Due to its prowess, I didn't tarry too long. Fortunately, it didn't attack, even though I made a hasty retreat after I observed it, awestruck, for a while. I believe it also liked the Stick tomato. It wasn't arched much like a regular wasp; it was fairly straight, and somewhat longer proportionate to its width than the smaller ones.

The wasps would fly from plant to plant for the duration of their visits. They didn't do anything else in particular. They didn't fly around looking for places to build nests like our regular wasps.

The aforementioned 'smaller' ones are still about an inch and a half long or so (even though one appears to be the size of a regular large wasp in part of the watermelon video; it was bigger than it looked; well, they all looked bigger in person, but especially that one, although it was probably the smallest of the three).

They had bolder stripes than our other wasps, and looked thicker in general.

They're possibly Vespa mandarinia (apparently those are in Idaho now, although they weren't reported as early as my videos here), or maybe a hybrid. I'm not sure. I think their heads may have looked different.

I wonder if I'll see them again if I plant more Stick tomatoes.

In the video where you see one on a Stick tomato, listen for the sounds of its wings as it flies.

I haven't seen these since maybe July of 2018, I think. Maybe I saw one in 2019, early on, but I don't think so. I never saw them before 2018. (But we've long had plenty of small and large wasps of other sorts—not this large, though.)

I haven't noticed a decline in bees, particularly. So, hopefully these aren't killing them.

I don't know why the wasps were monitoring my plants regularly, nor what they liked about the Stick tomato. I found them very fascinating creatures. They never bothered me at all, either.

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Wikipedia says the ketogenic diet can help reduce seizures in some children with epillepsy, but it says the benefits don't always go away after discontinuing the diet (I'm paraphrasing). I hadn't heard that before:

"Around half of children and young people with epilepsy who have tried some form of this diet saw the number of seizures drop by at least half, and the effect persists after discontinuing the diet."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet

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I was reading in an old public domain dictionary that 'donkey riding' had a special meaning. I forgot what it was, but I found another one that might be the same, which says it means cheating with weights and measures, or miscounting. That might fit with the song, since it does seem to be about people making off with goods or money (in good conscience or not).

I just wanted to point this out since I don't see anyone else on the Internet pointing out the old secret or slang meaning for 'donkey riding'.

The version of the song I'm familiar with is by St. John Children's Choir in Children S Sing-A-Long Favorites, disc 2 track 8. There are a lot of cool songs on that album that I hadn't heard in other large collections of nursery rhymes, childrens' songs, and such.

One alternative is that the donkey riding could represent peace (but nursery rhymes tend to be about satirical political things, if what people say is the truth):
https://www.gotquestions.org/king-ride-donkey.html (note this link is religious)

Or it could be literal!

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https://www.argusobserver.com/users/login/?referer_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.argusobserver.com%2Fvalley_life%2Fchukars-adapt-to-new-learning-environments%2Farticle_6ad12934-8cb6-11ea-b477-77cc837acee1.html%3Fsave_asset%3D6ad12934-8cb6-11ea-b477-77cc837acee1

Yeah, I thought this was about birds, but nope. It's about college students at one of my old colleges. :) The maskot is a chukar.

The article seems to be about changes due to COVID-19.

This thread on Gardenweb began the discussion, 'What are you favorite black tomatoes?'

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2192757/what-are-your-favorite-black-tomatoes

Rather than resurrect the thread there, I figured I'd start a new one, and I might as well do it here, instead.

So, what are your favorite black/brown tomatoes, and what do you like about them? For my purposes, I'm not evaluating blue and purple tomatoes, but you can include them if you want.

• Flavor: Paul Robeson
• Sweetness: Ron's Carbon Copy and sometimes Chocolate Pear
• Earliness: Chocolate Pear
• Production: Chocolate Pear (for small tomatoes), and Black Giant (for larger tomatoes)
• Largest fruit: Black from Tula

Other black tomatoes I've tried (in no particular order) include at least these:
• Black
• African Brown Beefsteak
• Beduin
• Amazon Chocolate (no fruit)
• Indian Zebra (AKA Indian Stripe)
• Cherokee Purple (didn't eat any fruit)
• Tim's Black Ruffles (didn't eat any fruit)
• Black Vernissage
• Black Plum
• Noire De Crimee
• Black Prince (no fruit)
• Cherokee Tiger Black Pear (no fruit)

Does Girl Girl's Weird thing count as black? Mine was maroon. I've grown that.

Some black/brown tomatoes that I think/hope I'll like a lot include these:
• Chocolate Sprinkles F1
• Sunchocola F1 (I'm growing the F2, this year)
• Japanese Black Trifele (growing this year)
• Brown Berry (growing this year)
• Chocolate Cherry
• Black Cherry
• Austin's Black Cherry (growing this year)
• Wild Tiger