Slightly OT - The Wonders Of Nature

SWMBO is heavily into gardening. In fact, part of her job entails running a greenhouse. She often brings home cuttings, seeds, etc. so I wasn't surprised to see some 6" long seed pods sitting on the table by the front door last Saturday morning.

I was in the kitchen on Sunday when I heard some strange noises from the living room, like somebody had thrown marbles or something - tick-ting-tap. I looked into the living room but didn't see anything. SWMBO was upstairs, so I figured she must have made the noise.

A few minutes later I heard the noise again, this time louder, with even more of the tick-ting-tapping.

When I went into the living room and looked more closely, I found that all of pods had split in 2. Parts of the pods were on the floor and some of the seeds were 6 - 8 *feet* away from the table. The noises I heard were the seeds being shot into a lamp, a closet door, etc. Each seed was about the size of an M&M.

I called SWMBO down and when she saw what had happened she got all giddy. "Isn't nature wonderful? They must have thought the warm house meant that it was spring. The pods exploded and shot out their seeds."

Based on the location of some of seeds, it was obvious that a couple had flown right over the recliner that I usually sit in. I could have been killed! ;-)

I gotta admit, it was pretty cool. I just wish I had actually seen it happen.

Reply to
DerbyDad03
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I love gardening! Last November I planted beets in my raised beds, built a frame over it and covered it with plastic. I watered it about once every couple of weeks. Despite it being pretty cold at times, the beets grew and now that it's spring I opened the cover to let air in, but kept it directly over the top to shield it from heavy weather. I'm getting beet roots now, about 2 months earlier than I would have if I planted them in the spring. It was just an experiment, but might be something I can do every fall.

Reply to
Muggles

Well, you basically built a greenhouse. The one my wife runs is *huge*, with automatic ventilation, a 4 zone timed watering system, etc. It's part of a day-hab for special needs adults, located on a county owned farm. People with special needs, farm animals and plants. SWMBO's passions.

The seedlings for the annual plant sale fund raiser are ready for sale. The special needs adults help her in the green house and in turn the proceeds from the sale can be used for "extras" around the day-hab, outside of what the state provides as part of their care - in other words, fun stuff.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

aweee ... We're building a small greenhouse, but winter stopped its construction. It'll be a solar greenhouse when finished.

hmmm Sounds great? Do they have a website?

Reply to
Muggles

It all depends on who "they" are.

The farm is owned by the county but operated by a private company that receives money from the state to run group homes and day-habs. To make it even messier, some of the animals (mostly the cows, but others as well) are owned by a *different* private company that operates the working dairy farm owned the company that SWMBO works for.

SWMBO gets to use as much cow manure as she needs from the dairy farm for the green house and gardens even though technically the poop is owned by the company that operates the dairy farm, not the company that she works for.

In addition, some of the animals owned by the dairy farm share pens with the county owned animals in the petting zoo that is operated by the company my wife works for. We might as well toss in the "loaner" animals that local farmers lend to the petting zoo, like the spare goat, a few chickens, and some horses every now and then. Got all that?

As much as I think I understand the weird conglomeration of interested parties, I'm never sure who owns what and is loaning animals to who.

What is really cool is the fully automated milking barn. The cows know when they need to be milked and they go wait in line to enter an area that holds them still while a robotic milking machine finds their utter, attaches itself and milks them. Each cow is tagged and the system tests the milk before adding it to the main storage tank. If the milk is bad, it gets stored separately and someone is notified as to which cow it came from. There are 2 continuously running slow-motion manure scrapers which move the manure to each end of the building. The cows just step over as it comes by.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

wow ... that sounds like a huge co-op!

Reply to
Muggles

You should have called the FBI Bomb Squad at that time!!! :)

Reply to
Paintedcow

No, you would have become a pod person, like your wife.

Reply to
Neill Massello

YGM

Reply to
Eagle

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