miracles of modern science

...or crimes against nature, depending on your perspective. allow me to explain.

i've ordered a number of fruit trees to plant in our new yard from raintreenursery.com and ediblelandscaping.com, which is a virginia nursery specializing as you might guess, edible landscaping. i'm actually pretty excited. i've order blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, a variety of kiwi propagated from a specimen growing on a fence at the national arboretum in DC, a persimmon tree, an apple tree and a fruit cocktail tree.

a what?

a fruit cocktail tree. yeah, i never heard of it before either. (thanks tobin!)

commercial fruit trees are not grown from seeds. if they were, you'd never know exactly what kind of quality fruit you'd get because the seed would have genetic material from two different trees. so let's say you want red delicious apples. you grow a root system, cut it off above the ground and graft on sprig cut from a red delicious tree. the two parts fuse together and you get an tree with roots from one type of apple tree and branches and fruit from another.

well if one graft is good, obviously more is better. turns out that you can graft multiple types of fruit from the same family onto the same rootstock. so for instance, the apple tree i order has grafts from akane, jonagold, gala and spartan apples. the fruit cocktail tree is either a plum or a peach root system and grows four different kinds of stone fruit: peaches, plums, apricots & nectarines.

if anyone knows where i can get a lemon, lime and blood orange or clementine tree, let me know!

you can find it on the internet

we have a dog. she sheds a lot. we run roomba pretty regularly and it's always full. when we vacuum, we can get farther than one room at a time without having to empty the canister. when the dog gets brushed, there are literally multiple handfuls of hair that go into the trashcan. basically, there are immense amount of dog hair that the dog is no longer using. so much in fact, that i have often wondered what possible uses their might be for such large amounts of fur.

attic insulation (brown dog?)

maybe we could find some dogs on chemo we could donate it to?

a hair helmet?

or maybe, after i finish the scarf i starting knitting 5 months ago that is nearly halfway done, i can make a dog hair sweater! (for sale at amazon.com for only $13.67!)

edit: i think i should make a sweater for nana out of nana's shedded fur or is that somehow wrong?

who could be passionate about a stapler?

a question asked by the author of this blog post regarding the increase of fuel prices and people resorting to the use of motorcycles as transportation appliances instead of something to be enjoyed as a recreational vehicle. this guy is obviously not familar with the internet.

Stapler Of the Week

The Antique Stapler Collector's Website

Stapler Exchange

Stapler Museum and Hall of Fame

last remaining problem solved / you can find it on the internet - part 2

recently i received my order from http://www.discontinuedbrandnameyarn.com so i could continue working on my replica of the kremlin. mostly, i like to work on it at night lying in bed, right before i go to sleep. i find that knitting helps me relax. the only problem is, laura likes to go to sleep before me and if you're a knitter like me, you know it's damn near impossible to knit in the dark. but fear not fellow weavers, stitchers and needlers, there is a solution. the knit lite, brought to you by widget products.

you can find it on the internet

about three months ago i started knitting a scale replica of the kremilin from some very high quality, name brand yarn. unfortunately, i ran out about 2/3rd of the way through. i checked my LCS (local craft store for you non-knitters) and found that the particular yarn i need to complete the gold dome on the roof of the kremlin was discontinued. i was concerned that i might have to use some inferior, generic yarn, but thankfully no. just when i was about to give up hope, just when i thought i would have to use some run-of-the-mill yellow yarn, just when i thought i was the only one in the market for discontinued, brand name yarn, i stumbled across this website: http://www.discontinuedbrandnameyarn.com

thank you google.