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(Start Rant)Just a small rant about something that maybe isn't so important!I am originally from South Florida but am now living in Virginia. For the past few weeks, I have been trying to find some decent tomatoes. (without success) I have been reading the labels on all of the tomatoes .. Hydroponic and garden grown. Every Single package is from ...Mexico! Why the Hell can't I find Any tomatoes that are grown in the good ole USofA? I know Damn well that the folks in my home state still grow excellent tomatoes! Wouldn't it be less expensive to ship...

A surprise proposal by the FDA to ban the commercial harvest and sale of Apalachicola Bay raw oysters has Franklin County business and tourism leaders reeling from the implications and united in their resolve to derail the proposed economic threat. The FDA proposal has not only shocked commercial seafood interests all along the Gulf Coast, it has stunned local business and tourism leaders - especially when they learned that the FDA officials had not analyzed the economic impacts of such a proposal.

You've waited months for that new calf or goat kid to arrive. The excitement is soon over shadowed by the fact that the new calf or goat kid has not had its mother's colostrum.

HAMMONTON -- Jack Tomasello has not slept well in months, not since the summer’s torrential rains swept through his sprawling Hammonton vineyard. In its wake, the rains left behind acres of grapes now cloaked in deadly fungus. Desperate to salvage the crops, Tomasello, who runs the state’s largest winery with his brother, has risen at daybreak each morning to inspect and spray fungicide on the 70 acres of Cabernet, Riesling and Chardonnay grapes. Even so, with just a few weeks left in the harvest, the winery will most likely reap less than half of last year’s 215 tons, when weather...

Miss Piggy, the famed porcine muppet, knew a thing or two about mirrors. In fact, she was seldom without one. She may have been vain, but she was also one smart pig, given that researchers regard the ability to use a mirror as evidence of complex cognition. Now, it turns out, Miss Piggy isn't the only clever porker. Real pigs also understand the value of their reflection, according to new research, putting them in an elite group of animals. A team of animal welfare scientists at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom placed eight domesticated pigs (Sus scrofa),...

Good morning to all of you gardeners. I hope all of you are doing well this first week in November. This past week has been beautiful here in Miss. Highs in the mid 70’s, clear and dry. Great weather to clean up the yard and add to my compost pile but I just could not get motivated to do it. The indexing/archiving of this past year’s posts is still on going. Please let me know if there was a particular post that you found helpful or just interested you.

<p>Under a steel-gray sky, workers waded through the swirling mosaic of red, pink, and yellow cranberries at a Burlington County bog last week as wide-eyed onlookers snapped photos. A year’s worth of labor had come down to this moment, when the Lee family and its helpers, filled with excitement and a sense of urgency, began the autumn harvest ritual.</p>

This article is on dog packs and dogs that run with coyotes. Is the economy adding to the numbers? I think so. Instead of feeding the dogs or turning the dogs over to the humane shelter, people are just "dumping" the dogs. Not only is this not the "right" thing to do, it's a dangerous thing to do.

Good morning gardeners! Happy Halloween. Don't forget to set your clocks back one hour Sat. night! Since things have slowed down I thought I would revisit this years threads and try to locate and archive some of the great posts, advice and info you Freepers have given out over the past year. My objective would be to then put all the posts in to categories like; Fertilizer, Gardening Methods, Flowers etc. And then post all of this info in one thread at the beginning of next year. What do y’all think? Also I would like your input. Let me know...

CUSTOMS officials in Norway say they had arrested a man who tried to illegally import 14 snakes and 10 lizards into the country by taping the reptiles to his body. The snakes, king pythons that are large in size but not venomous, were rolled up in socks and taped to the man's torso, while the geckos were found in small boxes taped to his legs. The unusual load was discovered during a body search after customs officials found a tarantula in the man's luggage.

Things change, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad. For example, your kids health. Every parent wants healthy kids. But are the "times" making it harder to keep your kids healthy? Maybe. Let us take a stroll back in time. Healthy kids may just mean getting back to basics.

Good afternoon to all of you gardeners. I apologize for the late post today. Well the last days of October are upon us and the garden is finally tilled for the last time this year. I seeded it with an annual rye grass. I also started rebuilding my compost pile. The oak and pecan trees have yet to drop their leaves so I will have to wait for their contribution to the compost pile until November.

STOCKHOLM — Shopping for oatmeal, Helena Bergstrom, 37, admitted that she was flummoxed by the label on the blue box reading, “Climate declared: .87 kg CO2 per kg of product.” “Right now, I don’t know what this means,” People who live to eat might dismiss this as silly. But ...

Few days ago, I have seen a section of article” Eiffel Tower, New York's Empire State Building, Tokyo TV Tower are western three famous buildings” it amazes me, here the Tokyo TV Tower isn’t in Japan. Traditionally in geography and culture Japan belongs to east, but why the international presses reported japan as a western country? Does Japan really belong to “western countries”?

In case you missed it, here is the "Pot City, USA" television show recently shown on the A&E Network. It's pretty interesting and well worth your time to watch.

Feral Hog Festival On Tap Donna Limberger, Staff Writer Email this Print this It’s time to mark your calenders for the second annual Feral Hog Festival in Ben Wheeler. The event will be held over two days which will be Friday, October 23 and Saturday, October 24. On Friday, the Fall Feral Hog Follies, pageant and wild hog ball will be held at Moore’s Store at 7 p.m. The show will include the 2009 Hog Queen Coronation, entertainment, music and dancing. On Saturday, festivities will begin at 10 a.m. with the hog parade. Local businesses and car enthusiasts are encouraged...

ScienceDaily (Oct. 18, 2009) — Norwegian scientists have found “mummified” pine trees, dead for nearly 500 years yet without decomposition. Norway’s wet climate seems perfect for encouraging organic matter to rot – particularly in Sogndal, located on Norway’s southwestern coastline, in one of the most humid, mild areas of the country. In fact, with an average of 1541 millimetres of rain yearly and relatively mild winters, Sogndal should be an environment where decomposition happens fast. Not so. “We were gathering samples of dead trees to reconstruct summer temperatures in western Norway, when our dendrochronological dating showed the wood to be...

Good morning to all of you gardeners. It looks like the rains have finally passed by my area at least for the next week. October is typically one of the driest months here in Mississippi but we have had rain from 4 to 16 inches above normal. It will take a couple of days for my garden area to dry out before I can get in there and clean up a little more and then till in my compost.

THIRTEEN CARS and three buses wound their way to Farmleigh and another piece of history was made as the first US secretary of state to make a dedicated visit to Ireland emerged from an armoured 07 BMW. She came dressed in a royal blue “pantsuit”, feminised with a ruffle, a large silver necklace and black kitten heels, none of which detracted from that formidable gaze as she and the Taoiseach swapped diplomatic phrases under a lowering sky.

Obama successfully negotiates with the Japanese for the release of 112 year old Amelia Earhart....Ms. Earhart today......

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/vero-21439-beach-closes.html

Good morning to all of you gardeners. Running a little late with the post this morning. My garden area is now clear of plants. If the daily rain showers will just by pass me for a few days I will do a final tilling and remove a few more of the roots left behind. To all of you with Fall/Winter gardens I wish you the best.

Leafy greens: 363 outbreaks involving 13,568 reported cases of illness.Eggs: 352 outbreaks with 11,163 reported cases of illness.Tuna: 268 outbreaks with 2,341 reported cases of illness.Oysters: 132 outbreaks with 3,409 reported cases of illness.Potatoes: 108 outbreaks with 3,659 reported cases of illness.Cheese: 83 outbreaks with 2,761 reported cases of illness.Ice Cream: 74 outbreaks with 2,594 reported cases of illness.Tomatoes: 31 outbreaks with 3,292 reported cases of illness.Sprouts: 31 outbreaks with 2,022 reported cases of illness.. Berries: 25 outbreaks with 3,397 reported cases of illness.

Good morning to all of you gardeners. I started the clean up of my garden this past week. I am taking my time doing it. I started with my tomato plants and decided not to use them in my compost pile. I do plan on pulling up my landscape fabric and saving it for next season. I would like to plant winter rye grass in the garden but would like other advice from y’all. What would be a good cover for this area until spring?

Bangladesh on Wednesday awarded a farmer who killed more than 83,000 rats and launched a monthlong campaign nationwide to kill millions more, to protect crops and reduce the need for food imports. Mokhairul Islam, 40, won a first prize of a color television for killing some 83,450 rats in the past nine months in Gazipur district near the South Asian country's capital, Dhaka. He collected their tails for proof. "I am so happy to get this honor," Islam told The Associated Press after receiving a 14-inch television and a certificate amid cheers at an official ceremony packed with 500 farmers...

There are some eye-popping numbers being posted in the current annual Keeneland auction for yearling thoroughbred horses. But they aren’t the usual kinds of numbers, with gross auction revenues 41% below last year’s total, and average prices 36% below last year’s.

fruit grower Ken Morrish was left stunned when he found a golden delicious apple on his tree split exactly half green, half red down the middle. The fruit's striking colouring is thought to be caused by a random genetic mutation at odds

Fruit grower Ken Morrish was left stunned when he found a golden delicious apple on his tree split exactly half green, half red down the middle.Ken Morrish, 72, of Colaton Raleigh, Devon, did a double take when he grew a Golden Delicious apple split down the middle - one half was green and the other red Photo: ARCHANT The fruit's striking colouring is thought to be caused by a random genetic mutation at odds of more than a million to one. The apple has caused such a stir in the village of Colaton Raleigh, Devon, that Mr Morrish is inundated...

Good morning to all of you gardeners. Rain! Rain! Rain! Constant trains of thunderstorms have brought my gardening to an end for this year. My tomatoes could not handle all the water and they have drowned. My other garden plants have succumbed to the big wet also. Once things dry out a bit I will be digging up the garden and concentrate on building up my compost pile. I will miss the fresh tomatoes but have more than enough canned to get through the winter months. I enjoyed my garden very much and will now work to make next years...

Pie makers and jack-o'-lantern carvers may want to nab a pumpkin while they can. A cool summer in Minnesota, and much of the Midwest, could result in fewer pumpkins for sale this fall at farmers' markets and retail outlets. "It was too cold of a summer. The heat wasn't there," said John Blonigen, who grew about an acre of pumpkins this year on his 6-acre vegetable farm near Paynesville. He sells to local retail outlets. Instead of the usual four to five pumpkins on a vine, he's seeing two to three. "I don't know if there's going to be enough...

You could call it the high-wire harvest, and Nebraska farmers are teetering at a time when the government's income safety net is far too low to break their fall. Many, including Terry Keebler of Sterling, paid high prices for fuel, fertilizer and seed this spring. Since then, the prices of corn and soybeans have tumbled, squeezing their farming budgets so severely the University of Illinois is predicting a net loss of $8 an acre on corn and $15 an acre on beans. "It's going to be real tight," Keebler said Tuesday as he looked ahead to the start of harvesting...

Six Colorado dairies have filed for bankruptcy protection this year amid banking problems and low milk prices. Four of the banks had loans from Greeley-based New Frontier Bank, which collapsed in April... Bob Winter, a member of the Colorado Farm Bureau, says he believes more Colorado dairies are preparing to file for bankruptcy protection

I am asking all FR Chefs to help me out in finding the way to purchase the finest salts of the world. I know it can be spendy. I am not looking for Williams-Sonoma type salts. I had an oppertunity to witness a person tell me of a very black salt, lava salt and they thought it could have been from the Mid East. Any links to the best salts of the world would be much appreciated. I was givin Cleopatric. but to no avail. Thanks Chef Freepers.

I recently received e-mails from friends showing mother cows with their rectums and female organs torn from their bodies by the wolves. These cows were lying down and the blood and raw meat trailed down on their legs. You could tell they were in awful pain. I am sure hundreds of our deer and elk are suffering the same way. All you wolf lovers should take a good look at these pictures and share them with your families and your children, show them what these savage animals are really all about. Anyone that supports these evil acts are evil themselves....

(People looking for humanely raised local meat, or just a better-tasting burger, are joining up to buy directly from the ranch. Not to mention it can cut the cost by 80% compared to store-bought meat.) Picture a meat eating, bone sucking, finger-licking carnivore — not exactly the face of an environmentalist, right? But a new crop of meat eaters are greening their eating habits by demanding to know the face of their food in a quest for better quality meat that not only tastes better, but also comes from humanely treated animals.Known as cowpoolers, these people band together to buy...

Good morning to all of you gardeners. For most of us this summer’s gardening season is almost over and some of you have started fall/winter gardens. I thought it would be interesting to find out what you have planted in your winter gardens and also what you are doing now to prepare for next springs garden. If you have a favorite recipe for the foods you have grown or just a recipe you would like to share please feel free to post it.

Researchers have figured out a way to plug into the power generated by trees. Scientists have known for some time that plants can conduct electricity. In fact, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that plants can pack up to 200 millivolts of electrical power. A millivolt is one-thousandth of a volt. And although the popular potato or lemon battery experiments have shown that an electrical current can be generated by creating a reaction between the food and two different metals, power is harvested from trees through a different mechanism. "We specifically didn't want to confuse this effect with...

Talk to local gardeners, and they’re going to talk about the late spring and the unusually cool summer growing season. In that monologue, you’re going to hear about the so-so onions and slow tomatoes, but also about the stupendous production of cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower. Charles Szakacs reaped the benefits of a cool growing season when his Copenhagen cabbages more than doubled their weight and size. These select giant cabbages weighed around 19 pounds, but more came in at 15 and 16 pounds a head. “I picked one batch of 14 cabbages that weighed 183 pounds,” he said. On the...

I think I think too much ...

IF THE sinking Maldives aren't enough to galvanise action on climate change, could losing a classic beer do it? Climatologist Martin Mozny of the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and colleagues say that the quality of Saaz hops - the delicate variety used to make pilsner lager - has been decreasing in recent years. They say the culprit is climate change in the form of increased air temperature. Mozny's team used a high-resolution dataset of weather patterns, crop yield and hop quality to estimate the impact of climate change on Saaz hops in the Czech Republic between 1954 and 2006. Best-quality Saaz...

In the final days of a nearly three-year battle with lymphoma, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug was asked by his daughter if he needed anything. The 95-year-old responded: "Africa. Africa. I have not finished my mission in Africa," his daughter, Jeanie Borlaug Laube, said Sunday from Dallas. Norman Borlaug, an Iowa farmboy who graduated from the University of Minnesota, believed food was a moral right. He traveled the world as a scientist and humanitarian, becoming the Green Revolution's "Apostle of Wheat" for the high-yield grain he perfected. Borlaug, who most recently had been a distinguished professor at Texas A&M...

I figured since I had two questions, I'd combine them into one thread to make my referencing simpler and one less for everyone to look at. :) How does one truly know if a site that sells heirloom seeds is REALLY selling heirloom seeds? That's my 'caveat emptor' question. Secondly, I'm needing a cleaning kit for my carbine, but the non-specialty stores seem to have just American standard caliber kits. IIRC, isn't .308 the same as 7.62mm in diameter? Thanks for your help!

Just found out about this magazine and wanted to share.

Much was given, many were lost on this day, A man of terror tried to take our spirit away. Do not let our new found spirit and unity fade, As you look on this flag, remember this day ... 9-11-01

SNIP . . his enormous cabbage "The Beast" weighed in at 127 pounds at the Alaska State Fair's annual Giant Cabbage Weigh-Off. That's more than a pound heavier than another world-record-breaking cabbage Hubacek also grew this summer. He entered the smaller one in the "green cabbage" category Wednesday in the fair's general crop exhibits contest, where it weighed in at 125.9 pounds. That green behemoth broke a 20-year-old record set by a cabbage grower from Wales in the United Kingdom. State fair officials said that prior to the 1989 mark, the cabbage record had stood for more than a century.

Not all gardeners are no impact gardeners. Organic gardeners do their best to leave a positive impact on the environment. There are many ways of working toward leaving no impact. Here are just a few green gardening suggestions. Try to think of your own ways to leave no impact in the garden as well. Natural pesticides Organic gardeners are sure to use nature friendly pesticides that leave no impact on our water supply. This step will also protect beneficial insects such as honey bees and lady bugs. Go here for organic pesticide recipes. Barrier pest control Another good organic gardening...

Good morning to all of you gardeners. A couple of FReepers have sent me alerts to threads posted on FR that many of you gardeners might find informative or interesting. I have posted links to them below the Gardening Banner. Thanks to Freepers tubebender and Califreak.

Living Architecture: Growing your house, one chair at a time Plants are amazing: they provide food, air, medicine, and material with which we can create buildings, furniture, and art. But through an ancient yet obscure craft, still-living plants can themselves be turned into bridges, tables, ladders, chairs, works of art, and even buildings. Known variously as botanical architecture, tree sculpture, tree-shaping, tree-grafting, pooktre, arborsculpture, and arbortecture, the craft is, at its essence, construction with living plants. The concept seems to date back to prehistoric times. Perhaps the oldest examples are the living bridges of Cherrapunjee, India. 1. Root Bridges of...

OMAHA - A Nebraska company has come up with a way to make pellets that burn like coal from all the leftover parts of a corn plant. Next Step Biofuels' Russ Zeeck says these corn pellets could be a new form of renewable energy. They are made from the corn stalks, leafs and cobs left behind after harvest. Plus, converting the corn plants into pellets makes them easier to ship. Zeeck says coal-fired power plants can burn the corn pellets along with coal. Doing so might help reduce pollution, and the corn pellets would be considered a renewable source of...

Yesterday I wrote a piece for my host paper here in Berlin, der Tagesspiegel, defending American beer. Needless to say, the reaction from commenters has been swift and harsh. But because it's in German, I'm really only seeing half the debate. What do Americans think about German beer? And what do readers think about the piece? Remember, it's for a German audience, but I hope the arguments can get some discussion going. Read the piece in translation below; read it in the original German here. Dish water. Piss. A joke. There are a lot of stereotypes about American beer here...