I found another pic from Osborne Seed showing the color variations - will be exciting to see what color you’ve got! Sorry I can’t upload photos, it may be my instance or app bugging out.
https://www.osborneseed.com/products/cue-ball-f1-untreated-squash-seeds
To me it looks like a zucchini or squash. If it lengthens it could be a zucchini “Magda,” the color seems right. But I really think it’s a particular variety of squash (or a mutant) that is globular, called “cue ball.” I don’t know how to share a picture, so this link will have to do.
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/squash/summer-squash/cue-ball-f1-squash-seed-3359.html
The seed catalog I am looking at shows a light green, yellow, and dark green version. The dark green one is sometimes called “Eight Ball zucchini.” Light green is called “Cue Ball” and yellow is called “One Ball.” Curcubits cross pollinate routinely, so it could also be some sort of mutant - congrats on your cross breeding program! :)
I think others have covered the economies of scale and niche products creating the disparity.
But I wanted to suggest that if your grandpa is regularly eating gluten free bread, we have found that making it at home is SO much more affordable than buying a loaf at the store. (Even though gluten free flour is also more expensive.) Most of the gluten free flours have their own sandwich bread recipe, either on the bag or their website. I don’t know what flours you have access to, but they can be wildly different blends, so using their tested recipes is always best.
We’ve mastered our favorite so it takes only 15 minutes of “work” and then just time in the oven. It’s also much better than store bought! I don’t know if that’s possible for you, but it could be a lovely weekly ritual for you and your grandpa.
Also, to anyone suggesting we just eat rice and beans, I’m an old celiac. We went without bread, pasta, cake, pastries, cookies, brownies, pizza, and crackers before these products came to market. These are mostly “fun” foods that I don’t eat regularly, but usually pop up in social situations. Do you know how many sad birthdays with no cake we’ve had? How often we’ve watched our friends and family eat things we could never have? I am so grateful to the “fad” gluten free people who made it possible to have culturally/socially important foods we were missing out on for decades!!
When we first moved to Seattle, there was no such thing as fire season and no need for AC. Our AQI this year so far has been surprisingly terrific, but I’m sure we will get bad smoke before the rain comes again. I’m really feeling nostalgic for those long summers of perfect weather. It’s so stressful - especially with family who has asthma. Hope y’all are all hanging in there!
If you can, look into local jewelers who can craft you something handmade with ethically sourced stones. I’m in Seattle and we have Valerie Madison who does great engagement sets and Everling Jewelry who uses recycled metals. A local artist will be able to recommend something within your budget, and your SO can and should be involved, as another poster mentioned.
Me too!!! I still play through it once a year or so and listen to the soundtrack all the time. My favorite game of all time; one of my favorite pieces of art of all time. Guess I’m due for another round!
The practice of deadheading is to prevent the plant from setting seed so that it keeps blooming…so by definition, probably not. Typically with annuals, the seed heads need time on the plant to develop into viable seeds and dry out enough. The flowers with petals still on will almost certainly not have viable seed. Some of the dried out brown ones on the bottom? Maybe! You can crack them open over a piece of paper and see what you get.
I have five new rose bushes in the mail right now!! I can’t wait to get them in the ground. I’ve been slowly adding a cut flower garden to what was once just a big hill full of weeds, and this year I think it will finally start looking more like what I envisioned with the roses coming in.
Ugh yes, nailed it!
Thank you for posting, I never really pursued this but just downloaded Airalo for an upcoming trip and I’m really excited to not pay $10/day with my carrier!!!
No, I’m not referencing my original comment. I meant I drafted a detailed response to the water/arable land/invasives complaint about the entire cut flower industry, and all the orgs/lobbying efforts re: farmland and ag policy we are working on to change it, but deleted it.
I wrote out a long comment, but there are loads of people trying to change this industry for the better. 78% of all flowers in the US are imported and it’s a huge problem. I hope you’re able to always buy locally grown flowers from small farms like we do. (Many of whom also grow vegetables.) In our area, housing developers buying up arable farmland are the biggest challenge to small scale farms.
It’s fine to not read a whole comment, but there is still plenty of demand from people with money. Can you tell me more about why you believe the wedding industry is predatory?
Your resident lemmy wedding florist checking in!
Cheers to all of you who are excited about the deaths of small businesses just because you…don’t like the way other people get married, lol? Do you think artists should be paid, or not?
I, too, got married when I was a broke grad student and couldn’t afford the wedding I wanted. We didn’t go in debt for it! In big cities, there are a lot more wealthy people than y’all realize who are happy to pay people like me to make art. Business is down but still fine for us.
Anyway, what most people don’t realize is that certain wedding vendors have super low overhead costs, so they are mostly paying for labor. Your DJs, wedding planners, and photographers can afford to charge $3k/wedding and still pay themselves. Meanwhile, florists are spending $1-4k at wholesale for a typical wedding, before we even touch your flowers or get any pay for our time. I think we probably have the highest COGs outside of venues. Catering, cakes, and to some extent rental companies are all in the same boat - we have to pay a lot to provide you with the physical goods we show up with, and we don’t make much.
I know everyone on Reddit and probably Lemmy thinks every wedding vendor is fleecing couples at all times. Or that the price goes up because “wedding.” It doesn’t. The price is what it is because it takes a LOT of labor and materials to create an entire event from scratch. And because it’s seasonal/weird hour/weekend work, we have to pay our freelance teams really well to keep them coming back. (You think I can afford a salaried team year round?? Lol no.) I can’t think of a single colleague who inflates pricing between weddings vs. other kinds of events.
I only do $10k+ weddings, and you probably think I’m raking it in. But 75-80% of the cost of every wedding I do goes to someone else - paying my team $35/hr, paying local flower farmers fair wages for their products, buying vases or supplies, my web hosting and professional fees, insurance, etc. I still only take home A QUARTER of what my spouse does in a good year. We live in an expensive city, and I could make a lot more money doing something else, but I love what I do.
I hope this helps y’all understand at least the wedding floral business a bit better. We aren’t getting rich off weddings, there is no wedding tax, and wholesale flowers are expensive AF before we do anything with them. I can’t speak for all vendors, maybe there are unscrupulous ones out there, but most are just small businesses trying to do something we love for a living. And I don’t really understand the online hate when people are in my inbox every day asking me about their wedding date.
Cool map! And that Mandingo map is as confusing IRL, lol. In Mali, most people speak at least 2 native languages plus some French, and the dialects or languages can be completely different even 10km apart! We learned Bambara, which was a lingua franca (the irony, haha), but most people in our community spoke Ganakan and Fulakan as well.
I totally agree. I remember when being in the phone book was enough for people to run a B2C business! The current marketing landscape for small biz owners is a nightmare, both in terms of privacy and the number of places online we are expected to “be active.” A lot of people get really burnt out on it because they also don’t realize that marketing and sales is like 80% of the work, and the fun thing you love to do is like 20%.
Come hang! Sorry, I also thought you were OP when I responded, so ignore references to wedding biz things that don’t apply to you!
Aw thanks! I mostly lurked on the other site but I’d love to make this a good place for good people :) and when you can’t sleep after taking the dog out, and someone asks about the exact tightrope you’ve been walking for years, what else do you do but write a long, sleep deprived answer? Lol
Absolutely! My pleasure and I’d welcome it!
If anyone has ever worked or talked with a refugee or asylum seeker, none of this is surprising. The US gives so little assistance to resettling refugees that it’s truly embarrassing.
They get three months of bare minimum help - often through religious “resettlement” groups who receive the funds. After three months, they are expected to get a job, pay their own rent, navigate life in the US (including driving), and speak English well enough to do all of that.
They get almost no extra healthcare, rent assistance, food assistance, trauma therapy, or anything else beyond that point unless they are able to navigate the systems to do so. And to be honest, that is difficult enough for someone born here. It’s almost impossible for a new refugee. What little assistance they do get after the first 90 days is often due to community and church groups, not the US government.
Theoretically, they have case workers etc. through the resettlement agencies, but it’s a total mess. It’s an absolute disgrace, and we can and should be doing better to support refugees and asylum seekers. Especially if they are going to get dumped in a small town with no resources. I really understand residents’ frustrations, but I also hope this ugly episode teaches people how woefully inadequate our refugee program is - and helps them advocate for change! We can do better.