Radishrain

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

The variegated grape leaf hoppers came out really early, this year, but not on the grapes (which still had a while before they grew any leaves at the time: they're starting to grow leaves now, however). They're on most of the species of plants! They only ever seemed to feast on grape leaves in previous years, and they took until maybe June or July to show up. The mild winter we had this time might have something to do with it. They're everything from stuff in the mint family, to prickly lettuce, to alpine strawberries, to roses, to hollyhocks, etc., in high numbers.

Anyway, the speckles on the strawberry leaves here, which I guess aren't very visible in the pictures, are from the leafhoppers (but these plants look great anyway):

This is either Yellow Wonder or Alexandria (the plants I have of these breeds are a few years old, but they've been in this spot since spring 2019, I believe):


This is Reine des Vallees, transplanted from my bedroom last fall (there's more than one plant in this spot); it looks as big and healthy as older plants:


variegated_grape_leafhopper

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-52459140/the-trees-that-survived-the-bombing-of-hiroshima

Well, I could index before (I just had to suffer with my computer monitor to do it—which monitor apparently had a fluorescent backlight, and if you know me very well, I'm quite light-sensitive, especially to fluorescent lights). I got a new computer monitor for $60. It's an HP P204 (19.5 inch; 2020 model).

The text looked a lot better after I changed the resolution to the highest one, increased the DPI a lot, and decreased font sizes for things on my computer. It has a nice, bright display that doesn't bother me much more than my Kindle Fire HD 8 sixth edition's.

So, I indexed some to celebrate (after doing some general-purpose web stuff). I need to brush my teeth and stuff. So … until next time.

List of parasites for this host:
* Anagrus erythroneurae

'The Use of Povidone Iodine Nasal Spray and Mouthwash During the Current COVID-19 Pandemic May Reduce Cross Infection and Protect Healthcare Workers':
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3563092

Note that solutions of the kind of iodine mentioned in the article maybcontain harmful substances (when injested) in the USA.

iodine_

Remember those wonderberries that I scattered over several planting spits last year so that they would reseed? Well, they're doing it!

This spit has the most volunteers in it, I believe:


Yeah, there are bits of wood in there. We had a woodpile covering this part of the garden during the winter. Wonderberries are also sprouting copiously in areas that weren't coveree in wood, however.

https://www.kentucky.com/news/coronavirus/article242203141.html

I've been avoiding the news for a few days, but I found this in a targeted search (looking for what viruses might have combined to create COVID-19).

Media has incredible power. A large part of this power is the power to stimulate interest in activities in both children and adults. For instance, if you watch a lot of shows where the characters dance, and admirably so, you might just get more interested in dancing youself. The same goes for pretty much any interest. Many of the children's shows out there do a really good job at inspiring interests (e.g. dancing, gymnastics, singing, playing, toys and similar, reading, imagination, rescuing animals, pets, horses, horse performances, being a hero, helping others, being a good person, fashion, designing things, socializing, parties, decorating, being a good friend, making friends, showing love, combat sports, being kind, sacrificing to help others, loyalty, art, computer programming, mechanics, engineering, troubleshooting, babysitting, environmentalism, cooking, gardening, acting, writing, healing / being a doctor, etc.)

I exhort media authors to use this to enrich the world, by inspiring new, good hobbies and interests in consumers of their content.

You'll notice that I listed several virtues in my examples above. However, not only do I exhort you to inspire virtues in consumers, I also exhort you to use virtues to improve the enjoyment, impact, and quality of the media, as well as to leave the consumer feeling good. For instance, shows with the virtue of love in them (from the characters) tend to be more interesting, heart-warming, emotional, impacting, and memorable than similar shows that don't. They also help to inspire these virtues in the listeners, given admirable traits in those who use them (granted, virtues are admirable traits in and of themselves).

Consider these virtues:
* Love
* Charity
* Service
* Willingness to learn
* Humility
* Skill
* Joy
* Happiness
* Calmness
* Peace
* Patience
* Faith
* Belief
* Work ethic
* Perseverance
* Persistance
* Care
* Loyalty
* Fidelity
* Romantic love (yes, I consider that a virtue, too, although in a young children's work, you may want to showcase it with the adults, such as parents, rather than the young characters; but this suggestion isn't particularly for children's things)
* Problem solving
* Puzzle solving
* Strategizing
* Cleanliness
* Lack of complaining
* Comedy
* Longsuffering
* Goal-achieving
* Beauty (beauty, as a virtue need not be physical, although it can be, in more ways than can be captured in a photograph)
* Teaching
* Learning / education
* Understanding (others, the planet, animals, nature, science, cuktures, organizations, etc.)
* Expressing virtue where you could have or would have used a vice
* Creativity
* Devotion
* Resourcefulness
* Using what people offer you (instead of habitually declining in search of something better; this is virtuous in that it allows others to be of service, shows love to them, helps them feel valued, and allows you to realize that the grass is green enough right where you are, and that searching for greener pastures sometimes just wastes time that you could be using to actually do something productive, even if you think you could come up with something better)
* Grace (helping others with love and care for them despite their weaknesses, and despite how undeserving they are)
* Forgiveness

… and so on.

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