Shoot the Wall (A.K.A. The Rant Thread)

[Arcadia]

I have a friend who orders from them, she's very into organic/etc. too, but she's not strict, so who knows? She gave me some dried apricots of theirs that were absolutely scrumptious, but I have no idea if they were organic or not.

I don't know where in Virginia peanuts are actually grown, as it's hard to tell a peanut plant from a soy nut plant (or, in fact, weeds) when you're whizzing past the field in a car. It certainly looks like peanuts all around here, but I suspect it's not. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Yeah, probably a lot of soybeans. We have those too -- soybeans and corn.  But you definitely have more peanuts, cotton, and tobacco than we do.  Here in central Indiana, those crops are merely a novelty.

Thanks for confirming that nuts.com is an OK company.

[Pseudonym]

It needs to be the weekend! How is it not even Friday yet? Was so exhausted last night I fell asleep three hours earlier than normal.

[Pseudonym]

FRIDAY!!! 

Does anyone else hate these stupid professional email sign offs? 'Best wishes, kind regards' blah blah. 

[Pseudonym]

Why do some people insist on being chatty and 'including' you when you very clearly just want to be left alone?!

Apologies for making this thread look like a personal twitter feed. I am very bored and trying to get the time to fly. It's not working. 

[Arcadia]

On ‎6‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 1:26 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

Yeah, probably a lot of soybeans. We have those too -- soybeans and corn.  But you definitely have more peanuts, cotton, and tobacco than we do.  Here in central Indiana, those crops are merely a novelty.

Thanks for confirming that nuts.com is an OK company.

Oh, corn, yes. It's everywhere! Or is it sorghum? Definitely the most popular crop around here, whatever it is. I'm willing to bet not a single kernel of it ends up as a fresh dish. All destined for livestock feed or polymers.

Interestingly enough (or not ) I don't think I've ever seen a cotton plant in Virginia. We must have them, but not anywhere I've been. And I've only seen tobacco much further south. I do remember cotton all around where my Mom grew up in Tennessee, though, in the Memphis area. And in North Carolina, tobacco was king, at least back in the 70's. But not around here. I wonder why?

[HerlockSholmes]

Any crop that doesn’t go into making of beer is a bit of a waste of a field in my opinion👍

[HerlockSholmes]

Hic

[Arcadia]

Is that known as a hop crop?

You'd love Northern Virginia, Herl, there's a new brewery opening almost daily.

[Carol the Dabbler]

3 hours ago, Arcadia said:

You'd love Northern Virginia, Herl, there's a new brewery opening almost daily.

Around here it's wineries.  Or at least their fields are more obvious, and the tasting rooms or cafes are right there.  Whereas I have no idea where the local microbreweries grow their ingredients.  They tend to have their little restaurants in town. Would be kinda neat if they were out in the countryside, surrounded by fields of hop vines and barley.

17 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I've only seen tobacco much further south

They grow some tobacco in southern Indiana, or at least they used to.  About all I see down there these days is horse farms -- though perhaps the tobacco is still there, just not visible from the interstate.

17 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Oh, corn, yes. It's everywhere! Or is it sorghum? Definitely the most popular crop around here, whatever it is. I'm willing to bet not a single kernel of it ends up as a fresh dish. All destined for livestock feed or polymers.

If it has ears, it's corn. Sorghum's grain grows right up top on the tassels, so the difference is pretty obvious by harvest time.

Yup, the vast majority of the corn and soybeans around here are intended for livestock feed, not succotash.

Dunno what part of California you lived in, but the agriculture was one of my favorite things about Ventura County.  Forty acres of lettuce, then forty acres of artichokes, then beets, tomatoes, strawberries, you name it.  And the farmers markets, ah, the farmers markets!

[Arcadia]

Wineries are already passe here, it's beer now. Not that the wineries have closed, it's just that the newest thing is breweries. 

Southern Cal. In one place we lived in the middle of a vineyard (eating grapes, not wine grapes) and nearby were walnut farms. Yum. Lots of truck farming too.

In another place the primary crop was oil fields.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

3 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Southern Cal. In one place we lived in the middle of a vineyard (eating grapes, not wine grapes) and nearby were walnut farms. Yum. Lots of truck farming too.

Sounds like the foothills.  Several farmers from the foothills would bring their goodies to the Ventura farmers market -- walnuts, apples, and the most delectable apricots.  Others would drive in from the desert with dates. There was even a small banana plantation in a microclimate up the coast.  And of course the growers right there on the coastal plain supplied just about everything else you can think of.  *sigh*  I miss that farmers market.

[Pseudonym]

Gawd, you guys need to make a crops, goods and farming thread.

[Arcadia]

Sorry, that's the closest thing to a rant I can muster in this humidity. My hair's like this  and the rest of me is like this 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Well, you could rant about the humidity. 

Gimme half a minute and I could work up a pretty good rant about this @#$&% autocomplete.  Or at least I could if it weren't for this humidity.

[J.P.]

4 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Sorry, that's the closest thing to a rant I can muster in this humidity. My hair's like this  and the rest of me is like this 

Oh, my, I remember that. The DC bad hair weather. It was the first and only time my hair actually got curls! The rain feeling like a warm shower. And the very unwanted "gift" I brought back home: I never perspired much in my young life - until that moment when waiting in the line to George Washington house I felt something dripping down my back. And since then - I cannot stop dripping like a beeeping waterfall, even before I get really warm. And it's as icky as it sounds.

We've had this kind of weather too, which also brings extreme thunderstorms. The one we've had yesterday:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DfRJj-bXcAEGOC-.jpg

[Pseudonym]

I've spent the day walking up and down mountains, I'm definitely dripping sweat.  We could do with a good thunderstorm, though I'm not liking the look of that wind in the pic. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

2 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

We could do with a good thunderstorm....

There's another one due to come through here in about half an hour.  We've already had plenty, so please feel free to borrow this one.

[J.P.]

2 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

I've spent the day walking up and down mountains, I'm definitely dripping sweat.  We could do with a good thunderstorm, though I'm not liking the look of that wind in the pic. 

Actually - because the wind came from the south, which doesn't happen too often - it rained into my under-balcony. The first time since I have it, and it's more than a decade now.

[HerlockSholmes]

On 09/06/2018 at 11:08 AM, Arcadia said:

Is that known as a hop crop?

You'd love Northern Virginia, Herl, there's a new brewery opening almost daily.

When I was in London I spoke to a young American couple from St Louis and they told me about the proliferation of craft breweries in The States making a wide varieties of beers. Like many I assumed, mainly because of seeing tv and movies, that American’s all drunk lager and nothing else. Why do we assume that tv and movies tell us all that we need to know about another countries? I no longer think that you all live in fear of Apache raiding parties so why make assumptions from tv😃 

If I want to know something about America I’ll ask an American👍

[HerlockSholmes]

3 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

I've spent the day walking up and down mountains, I'm definitely dripping sweat.  We could do with a good thunderstorm, though I'm not liking the look of that wind in the pic. 

I went upstairs around 2 hours ago and have only just recovered👍

[Arcadia]

5 hours ago, J.P. said:

Oh, my, I remember that. The DC bad hair weather. It was the first and only time my hair actually got curls! The rain feeling like a warm shower. And the very unwanted "gift" I brought back home: I never perspired much in my young life - until that moment when waiting in the line to George Washington house I felt something dripping down my back. And since then - I cannot stop dripping like a beeeping waterfall, even before I get really warm. And it's as icky as it sounds.

We've had this kind of weather too, which also brings extreme thunderstorms. The one we've had yesterday:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DfRJj-bXcAEGOC-.jpg

Yeah, that looks like just about every day here since … well, I can't remember. A really long time.

I remember when I first moved to the DC area reading article where the reporter said something like "DC is the place where, in the summer, when the sun goes down, it's doesn't get cooler, it just gets darker." Still true to this day.....

[Arcadia]

25 minutes ago, HerlockSholmes said:

When I was in London I spoke to a young American couple from St Louis and they told me about the proliferation of craft breweries in The States making a wide varieties of beers. Like many I assumed, mainly because of seeing tv and movies, that American’s all drunk lager and nothing else. 

For all I know that may actually be true, since I don't know the first thing about beer. Couldn't tell you the difference between a lager and a logger if I tried. All I know is, I like Guinness but not Budweiser.

[HerlockSholmes]

2 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

For all I know that may actually be true, since I don't know the first thing about beer. Couldn't tell you the difference between a lager and a logger if I tried. All I know is, I like Guinness but not Budweiser.

I’m not a lager drinker but I particularly dislike Budweiser too. 

‘Thank the USA for coming up with Jack Daniels👍🥃🇱🇷

[Pseudonym]

Guiness isn't a lager (it's clearly a logger ). I'm a beer drinker, Corona is my jam, but I'm off carbs now so beer and lager are no longer on the table.  

I couldn't live somewhere hot, extreme heat makes me angry. I'd turn into a fiendishly clever murderer and refuse to be caught unless BC hunted me down whilst dressed (and acting) as Sherlock.