#What Is The Meaning Of Grape Cultivation

[lazylattedgleam]

Hello everyoneee! This is gonna be Thoughts part-5!

Thinking about a Spoof!: Caleb x fem reader (can be either MC or NON!MC, as one may interpret it)

Ok…

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🚨🚨18+ MDNI (MINORS DO NOT INTERACT🚨🚨

TW: NSFW…

Lemon lemon lemon…

Sesbian lex(?).

Fingering.

Eating out.

Punishments.

Mention of orgasms.

Use of pet-names and titles.

Reader and Caleb are both taken to be Bisexual for this fic.

Implied bondage play.

Degradation kink… (use of the word s*ut).

Magic exits in this world of Love and Deepspace. Caleb doesn’t believe in it, but you do.

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🚨If you are uncomfortable with any of the mentioned content warnings or the whole genre of this fic…then please do not proceed ahead. Thank you.🚨

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(Credits: All pictures have been taken from the net from websites, Tumblr and Pinterest.)

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It was a long ass day at the Fleet, filled with missions, meetings, surveillances over areas and the Deepspace Tunnel and what not…he was tired, exhausted even…

Plus only a few days ago, he had returned from a 5-day long Mission with his crew…plus the weather conditions were horrible out there that they had to remain on stand-by for almost an extra day and a half…

But right now, that he was back home…he didn’t want to think of anything else but you…only you…returning back to SkyHaven was only worth it because you were there waiting for him all the times…

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The time was around 04:00 in the morning when he softly unlocked the front door to enter… “Pipsqueak…?”, he silently treaded the room, only to see you were long asleep on his bed under covers…hugging the apple plushie, along with a picture of him…He smiled…you were so cute…he wished upon for the moment to never end…

After placing a gentle and delicate kiss upon your forehead, he quietly and carefully, grabbed his usual comfort clothes, which he wore at home from the closet, going to the bathroom to change…

After he was done changing he went to the kitchen, turning on the lights to get himself a drink…maybe he wasn’t too careful…as the noise resulted in you awakening from your slumber…

…

He opened the door to his fridge, when a purple liquid, a bit sparkly, poured inside one of the glasses, filled to half, the brim of the glass covered with an airplane coaster…the ones that you had gifted him just like that, because you wanted to…

Curiosity sparked within him as he took it out…even though it seemed like grape juice, but what grape juice is that sparkly?

…….

You had woken up, from some noises coming from the kitchen…a part of you alert that someone might have broken in, but the other part thought maybe Caleb had finally returned…rubbing your eyes, and stretching a bit, you get up on your toes, gently putting your plushie back under covers, as you treaded towards the kitchen yawning…

“Mmm…mmm…Caleb…?”

“Oh hey…did I wake you up? Sorry…”, holding the glass close to his mouth

“No…no…it’s alrig—WAIT NO CALEB DONT DRINK THAT—”

Too late, he already did.

…….

“Woah woah woah, calm down Pipsqueak, what’s wrong?”

“NO NO NO YOU DRANK IT FULL!”

“You weren’t supposed to…at least not yet!”

“What do you mean…what is in this?”

“Well umm…”

“Poison???”

“Duh no! It’s well umm…it’s a well…a potion…”

“Potion…”

“Yeah, it basically turns people into their opposite sex, I got it from the Apothecary and Witchcraft store that’s located down the side lane at Azure Square.”

“Pips you drunk…? Or did you sleep too much that your brain is still dreaming?”

“Whaaat! You don’t believe me the lady said it will!”

“….yep Im definitely getting a bad stomach tomorrow…”

“Just you wait till it takes effect on you!”

“Go to bed (Name)…”

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The next day when you woke up, went to the kitchen for breakfast right after freshening up…

“Soooooo feel anything different???”

“Yes I feel like I’m cultivating breasts and maybe my cock is getting transformed into a vagina…”

“You know what it will happen! I bet!”

“Oh you bet on it?”

“Yeah 100 bucks by midnight.”

“You’re on pipsqueak.”

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It was almost around midnight, when you called out to him, “CALEB! BITCH COME OUT LETS WATCH A MOVIE!”

no response

So you get up and go to his bedroom…

“Caleb where—”

You walked inside of his bedroom to see him looking horrified into the mirror.

“What the actual fuck! What!”

“Told ya~”,

“Cmon up, pay the piper Caleb—or should I say…Carly~” as he paced around the room, all twirly…

She looked so pretty with her long eye-lashes and her pretty purple eyes…the necklace that you had gifted him, travelling down her neck like a ripple on the sea…

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You eyes roamed all over his—her body, the way her now oversized tee, dropped all the way down to her bust, exposing the fine valleyed-line along her cleavage…the way her long luscious dark brown hair went all the way down to her slick back…the way her curves became ever so prominent…she looked tantalising…and oh lord her thighs…thank the heavens that she was wearing shorts tonight…

Your eyes wandered down to her ass, along the curve of it, then at the front to her—

You bit your lip, you were no better than a man…

Then a thought…an urge struck your mind like a lightning bolt…you quickly take out your phone, opening the camera and selecting the video option. You took out your selfie stick from the bedside drawer and place it on the dressing table, fastening your phone in its clutches as you hit record.

As you walk over to her…

“Pips you’ve got to help—mmf!”

You kissed her…hard, hands trailing down her back in a painfully slow rhythm,

as they reached her ass,

kneading the soft flesh…

making her let out a soft moan into the kiss,

your tongue delved deep inside of the warm wet crevices inside of her mouth…

…..

She tried to take control,

but you wouldn’t let her…not tonight…

as your tongues battled with each other for dominance, resulting in you finally winning…

You pushed her down onto the bed,

spreading her thighs as you knee at her clothed pussy,

grinding your knee against it,

while your head dipped down to marking as many love bites as possible…

Your hands, went down to her breasts,

fondling with them, and squeezing them…

thumb rubbing and rolling over her nipple through her tee…

All she could do was moan and moan and moan…moan out your name…out loud.

…

Your hands messily grabbed onto her tee “Arms up.”, you command, voice laced with lust and dominance.

She followed…like a puppy…

“Good girl~”, you said, your voice low and deep.

Your hands roughly took off the clothing, while your mouth moved down to her breasts, lavishing each one with the perfect amount of attention and care…

Your tongue lapped around her right boob, sucking and biting onto her nipple,

While your hand took care of the other..

“Look at these pretty tits for me…”, you slapped them, hard watching them bounce.

“Ahh ahh P-Pipsqueak! Nghh! More please!”,

“Hmm? What was that Colonel?”

“Please please more! Feel s’ good s’ good!”, your mouth continued its pace and job, determined to fill up her upper body in hickeys…

…

“Not so much of a pipsqueak now am I~?”

…

“Strip.”

She nodded, quickly kicking off her shorts and boxers, to all the way.

“Good girl…are you tired?”

“No…no…can handle m-more…”

You smirked as you went to the cupboard, opening it up searching for something….found it!

It was the pretty pastel pink lacy pair of panties that you owned, but never once used…

“Put it on.”

She did, struggling, as her wet slick stuck to the fabric, creating an irritating and sticky sensation…

“Lay back down.”

“I’m…I’m so gonna…get back at you Pipsqueak just you wait—ahh~!”

You hands slapped onto her breasts, noticing them bounce up and down again…

“You have a big mouth for someone who currently possesses no control Colonel~ But I’ll let it slide…just for this once~”

As you spread her legs, your head dropping down in between her thighs, as your nose rubbed against the wet patch on the panties, breathing in deeply…

“Mmmf…Cal you smell so good…”

She moaned and moaned, her fingers entangling within your hair, her thighs quivered, while you planted hickeys and kisses on both of them at equal intervals…sucking and trailing your tongue up and down the marks.

….

“Nghhh! Pips please s-stop teasing…”

“Patience babes…all comes in good time…”, your fingers continued to play with the waistband of her panties…while your other hand cupped her clothed pussy, pressing onto it.

She groaned further…

“Feel that Colonel…if you can be a bully in bed then…so can I~”

“Gosh just please!”

“What’s the magic wooooord~”

…

“Fuck me…”

“There it is…good girl…”, you slipped off the panties in a slow but steady manner, finally tossing them somewhere on the ground…

“Moan. My. Name. And remember eyes on the mirror, want you to watch yourself pretty girl~”

Your tongue finally lapped round her clit, sucking at her sensitive nub so so sloppily.

“Ahh! Ahhh! Oh fuck! (Name)! (Name)! Fuck so good!”,

Your hair came in the way, should’ve tied it up before, you thought.

Pulling away from between her legs, you reach for your hair tie, pulling your hair up into a neat tight bun, before delving back in…

“Fuck you’re so hot ahhh!”

…….

You continue your slow rhythm, tongue delving into her folds, sucking up her slick while your fingers teasing along her dripping entrance.

Her hands grip tightly onto the bed sheets for dear life, while her eyes close from the pleasure…

You stop the stimulation as she groans.

“Hey hey I said eyes on the mirror…watch yourself for me…watch how sl*tty you are for me Colonel…”

“I see your eyes closed again, I’ll stop and lock you up for the night, cuffed to the bed and blindfolded. Is that understood?”

“Y-Yes…”

You slapped at her cunt, her body jerking at the sensation.

“Yes what?”

“Yes Ma’am…”

“That’s more like it…Now watch.”

She did, barely able to keep her eyes onto the mirror, while you carry on your work…

The rhythm of your tongue unsteady, often times slowing down and then getting fast again. She hated how much she loved that…

“No coming until and unless I say so.”

“…”, she moaned, while you slapped her cunt again.

“Words.”

“Y-yes Ma’am!”

….

You finally pushed two fingers inside of her drooling hole…as she screamed out your name.

“Fuckk…so tight for me babe…look at you…so fucking tight…can’t even move my fingers…you like em so much you sl*t?”, as you pump your fingers in and our of her, quickening your pace along with each dragging motion…

“Look at you taking my fingers so so well…wonder how many you can take…can you take a whole fist Colonel?”

All she was now reduced to was a moaning and withering mess, chanting your name as if it was the only word she knew in the dictionary…her moans filled the entire room up with a melody, you know you could never forget ever again…

It was like a drug…who would’ve known you could reduce Caleb…to this…

You felt pride, beaming within yourself…

….

“Yeah…that’s it…”

“(Name)! OH FUCK!”, she screamed out, once your fingers hit her g-spot…

“Hit the spot huh? How long till you come babe?”

“Ahh! Ahhh!”

She couldn’t answer, she and transcended to another realm of ecstasy and euphoria…

“I want an answer Colonel, else I’ll stop…”

She managed somehow, “s-so so close…close…”

“Yeah? Cmon babe…come for me…come all over my fingers…make them messy…”

As you quickened your pace to the max, hitting her spot at every second….

She couldn’t hold in anymore, she’d reached her high…

She came all over your fingers…screaming your name…

The noise filled the room, as you slowly yet steadily lower your pace, getting her out of her high…

“That’s it…that’s a good girl…”

…..

Your fingers glistened with her juices…

“Look at the mess you made Colonel…what would the other Fleet officers and your subordinates say if they ever found out, what I’ve made out of you…how messy you are in bed…”, repeating along the same lines he always uses with you in bed..

You’ve just changed the phrases and added more flavour into it…

She pants and pants and pants, devoid of her ability to form even a single coherent word…

You tongue lapped around one of your fingers, sucking onto it…

“Taste so good…wanna taste?”

You shoved your other two fingers inside of her mouth, as she sucked onto them, tasting herself on your fingers…

“Yeah you like em, can tell how good you taste can’t you?”

….

You stood up reaching for the blindfold from your dresser…

“Oh but we’re faaaar from done yet…”

“Well I’ll be damned…”, soon everything went as dark as the void in space, for her…

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You gave her a few more orgasms…before being finally done…

“Now that was the perfect midnight snack~”

…..

You giggle, “Can you walk?”

“You think?”

“Pfffffft! Lmao!”

“Seriously? This is what you say after that?!”, she glares at you.

“It’s funny if you think about it Caleb! I mean now you know how I feel!”

“Am I really this mean in bed?”, she gives you puppy dog eyes, and pouts…

“Well maybe…but then you’re again all snuggly and cuddly during aftercare…”

“Will you be the same for me?”

“Of course…”, you pecked her nose…

“But first let’s get you cleaned up!”

“Oh and—”, you whisper to her ear… “Next time…I’m using a strap~”

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Bonus: You returned back around noon. He was cooking lunch, as you called out to him in a sing-song voice. “Ohhhhhhhh Caaaaalebbb~”, he turns to look behind, to notice both your hands full with two plastic bags… one contained twenty bottles of that same potion…and the other was a long purple silicone toy…

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A/N: I have nothing to say…I hope it was alright…thank you for checking it out…

(GIF Credits: Tenor)

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[mxtxfanatic]

Hello! I've seen some posts talk about JC's inferiority complex in MDZS, and there were a few things that kinda puzzled me a bit. The first was talking about how JC treated demonic cultivators post-WWX's death. That him hunting them down and capturing them were just (BS) rumors? That the original Mandarin wording in them implied he didn't really do anything that bad to those he captured? As in, no actual torture? (That he was all bark and no bite, apparently.) Even looking at when JC finally captures WWX, they spun the event to be something like "wow, yes, JC is so great at torturing people! look at him, using just a little dog to scare WWX instead of doing anything else!" What did the novel really say about all that? The other matter was more specific, to ch. 73? When JC and WWX stage their fight and then WWX's defection from the Jiang Sect. How JC then declares WWX as an enemy of the cultivation world? Did he really say something like that in the novel? What were JC and WWX's plans for their stated fight? Did JC follow those plans, or go awry? If the latter, what did he do?

These posts, in my eyes, seem to almost want to make JC look like he really wasn't as bad of a person. That his actions (in regards to WWX) weren't /that/ harmful. Almost of if the rumors in the book (and maybe in the "fandom" too), painted him much worse than he really is. Which, of course all JC stans want to make their "little purple grape" seem like he's so innocent and that even his bad behaviors actually weren't all that bad when you really look at them. (Here's me rolling my eyes.) I'm not a fan of JC, at all; I hate him, actually, lol. But the things these posts mentioned kinda make me pause. Yet given my bias against him, and my terrible memory, I couldn't really recall what truly happened in the novel.

Anon, whoever is saying any of this is just lying. Jc stans lose the battle with canon every time, so they start making up shit to make it seem like Jiang Cheng is actually a good person according to some super secret text only they have access to. Many times, they will even resort to gaslighting, such as with this example. Of all the mxtx novels, mdzs is the most translated by a variety of independent translators on top of the official, and they all say the same thing (with the exception of the official, which is another topic of discussion). You do not need to understand the original Mandarin to know the story, because every translation says the same exact thing. But if you want, we can still go through each point:

1) “Jiang Cheng doesn’t torture people! It’s all rumors!” and 2) “Jiang Cheng only goes after bad people like demonic cultivators!”

Debunked (go to the very last response in the thread): everyone around Jiang Cheng, even Jiang Cheng his damn self, acknowledges that Jiang Cheng kidnaps people to torture to death (because people seem to forget he’s a serial killer when discussing the torture). He also does not go after “demonic cultivators” at all. If he did, he would have sided with Nie Mingjue against the Jin on the Xue Yang situation. He does not. He only attacks people who remind him of Wei Wuxian or are surnamed Wen:

The owner, “No, no. It was his misfortune. The person’s surname was Wen, and that Sect Leader Jiang’s archenemy happened to have the surname of Wen as well. He’s hating on everyone in this world whose surname is Wen. Whenever he sees one, he’d grind his teeth in hatred, wanting to skin them alive. How could he give a single friendly look to...”

—Chapt. 92: Longing

3) “Jiang Cheng doesn’t torture Wei Wuxian!”

Debunked: locking someone in a room with something that makes them go blackout with terror counts as torture. Some people liking dogs does not mean that cynophobia isn’t real, and downplaying people’s actual phobias makes you a shit person. Also, Fairy isn’t a “little dog,” she is (apparently according to interviews) a Husky, and her presence is what Jiang Cheng uses to confirm “Mo Xuanyu” is actually Wei Wuxian before he brings her in specifically to torture him. Because once again, he knows how terrified Wei Wuxian is of dogs.

4) What happened during the defection?

Honestly, it would probably be best if you just reread Chapt. 73 because the lead-up to the defection is long and starts at Wei Wuxian having to prevent Jiang Cheng from potentially kicking A-Yuan, Jiang Cheng attempting to re-murderer Wen Ning, then him telling Wei Wuxian to return the Wen to the labor camps because he doesn’t care about fulfilling life debts if it gives him a bad reputation amongst the other sects. This quote is the end of all that convo:

Wei WuXian, “There’s no need to protect me. Just let go.”

Jiang Cheng’s face twisted.

Wei WuXian, “Just let go. Tell the world that I defected. From now on, no matter what Wei WuXian does, it’d have nothing to do with the YunmengJiang Sect.”

Jiang Cheng, “... All for the Wen Sect...? Wei WuXian, do you have a savior complex? Is it that you’ll die if you don’t stand up for someone and stir up some trouble?”

Wei WuXian stayed quiet. A while later, he answered, “So that’s why we should cut ties right now, in case anything I do affects the YunmengJiang Sect in the future.”

Or else, he really couldn’t make any guarantees on what he’d do in the future.

“...” Jiang Cheng murmured, “My mom said that you do nothing but bring our sect trouble. It’s true indeed.” He laughed coldly, talking to himself, “‘To attempt the impossible’? Fine. You understand the YunmengJiang Sect’s motto. Better than I do. Better than all of us do.”

He sheathed Sandu. The sword returned to its sheath with a clang. Jiang Cheng’s tone was indifferent, “Then let’s arrange for a duel.”

Three days later, the leader of the YunmengJiang Sect, Jiang Cheng, arranged for a duel with Wei WuXian.

They fought quite a fight in Yiling. Negotiations failed. Both resorted to violence.

Under Wei WuXian’s command, the fierce corpse Wen Ning struck Jiang Cheng once, breaking one of his arms. Jiang Cheng stabbed Wei WuXian once. Both sides suffered losses. Each spat out a mouthful of blood and left cursing the other. They had finally fallen out with each other.

After the fight, Jiang Cheng told the outside that Wei WuXian defected from the sect and was an enemy to the entire cultivation world. The YunmengJiang Sect had already cast him out. From then on, no ties remained between them —a clear line was drawn. Henceforth, no matter what he did, they’d have nothing to do with the YunmengJiang Sect!

—Chapt. 73: Recklessness

Notice how Wei Wuxian says tell the other clans he defected, and Jiang Cheng changes the statement to "let's arrange a duel." Also, keep in mind that everything after that conversation in the narrative reads like someone telling a legend: "They fought quite a fight. Negotiations failed. Both resorted to violence." The narration is depicting the duel the same way it depicted the opening prologue of Wei Wuxian's death: this is what the world was told about the defection battle after the fact, not necessarily the truth. Why do we know this isn't the truth? Well, Jiang Cheng had his non-dominant arm broken to make the battle seem real but also not to hamper his work too much:

Wei WuXian grinned, “How could it seem realistic if it wasn’t hard enough? It was your left hand anyways. It didn’t hinder you from writing. It takes a hundred days to heal a wound to the bone. It wouldn’t be too much even if you hung it up for three months.”

—Chapt. 75: Distance

Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian was gutted, something the legend does not mention at all:

Although he was stabbed in the stomach by Jiang Cheng, Wei WuXian wasn’t concerned at all. He stuffed his intestines back into himself and like nothing ever happened, he even got Wen Ning to hunt down a few malign spirits as he bought a few large bags of potatoes.

—Chapt. 74: Distance

Keeping in mind that Jiang Cheng still has a golden core, Wei Wuxian seemed to have put a lot of thought into how to injure Jiang Cheng in such a way that seemed serious but was actually superficial. Wei Wuxian treated the duel like it was staged. Jiang Cheng treated it like it was real and tried to kill Wei Wuxian. The only thing I'll give Jiang Cheng is that his "declaration" wasn't what damned Wei Wuxian; him refusing to stand by Wei Wuxian rescuing the Wen is what damned Wei Wuxian. The declaration was only the official statement that he had cut ties and everyone else could do what they wanted to his former shixiong.

So in short: stop letting jc stans gaslight you just because they're loud and repeat the same lies over and over again with confidence.

[meret118]

In fact, Dalla Ragione has spent more than a decade scouring the masterpieces of 15th- and 16th-century art for answers to one of the great questions of Italian agriculture: Whatever happened to the boisterous selection of fruits that, for centuries, were a celebrated part of Italian cuisine and culture? Slowly and indefatigably, she has been rediscovering those fruits, first in archives and paintings and then, incredibly, in small forgotten plots across Italy. Her nonprofit, Archeologia Arborea, is helping farmers and governments around the world preserve and even bring back into cultivation all manner of forgotten fruits. In the process, Dalla Ragione has become a globally renowned fruit detective, by recognizing in her country’s Renaissance artworks not only exceptional examples of cultural patrimony but also hidden messages from a bygone era of genetic abundance that can offer clues about how to recover what was seemingly lost.

. . .

Six centuries ago, Italy boasted hundreds of varieties for every fruit, each adapted to specific ecological niches. Apple, pear and cherry varieties across Umbria were different, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, from Venetian, Florentine or Piedmontese varieties. At the turn of the 20th century, the country was home to at least 1,000 pear varieties, according to Dalla Ragione. Today, Italy is one of Europe’s foremost producers of pears. Yet for both pears and apples, a mere four varieties each now compose more than 70 percent of the country’s production, compared with the hundreds of varieties that were common a century ago. A 2020 Atlas of Biodiversity commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture—to which Dalla Ragione contributed—documents how dozens if not hundreds of varieties of peaches, cherries, grapes and apricots once cultivated in Italy’s many regions have shrunk to a handful of uniform varieties for each fruit nationwide.

The loss of those varieties isn’t just a question of lost deliciousness. It also means that we’ve lost centuries of adaptability encoded in the genes of the fruits of yesteryear. According to Mario Marino, an agronomist working with the Climate Change Division of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, who serves on the board of advisers for Archeologia Arborea, rediscovering the descendants of those old fruits will be crucial for Italy’s ability to withstand the unpredictable and increasingly dramatic effects of climate change.

A tree in Dalla Ragione’s orchard bursts with cow-nose apples, like the one she spotted in Bellini’s Madonna With Child. They’re often mistaken for pears.

. . .

In 2017, Dalla Ragione obtained a PhD in biodiversity from the University of Perugia. For her doctoral thesis, she analyzed the genomes of hundreds of pear varieties, which led to a radical discovery: Older pears, dating back to the 15th century and earlier, have many more alleles—meaning more genetic diversity—than 21st-century varieties. “That diversity,” says Lorenzo Raggi, a researcher in agricultural genetics and biotechnologies at the University of Perugia, “can translate into a greater capacity to adapt to different conditions.” This genetic diversity also meant that there were huge differences among the fruits themselves, even those from the same roots. “One year the trees would produce fruits of one color, then the next year, another color,” Dalla Ragione says. It also gave these varieties the capacity to adapt to shifting conditions, generation after generation. They might not produce as much per tree as modern varieties, but their traits helped them survive new pests and changing weather conditions, meaning they produced fruit more steadily over decades and even centuries. 

. . .

“Industrial agriculture created a few varieties that are very productive in very precise conditions, with a lot of chemicals and a lot of water. The new varieties may be bigger and have more consistent color, but they have very few genes—few words. Their genetic patrimony is very simple. If you present the right question, they can answer, because maybe they have four or five or maybe ten words. But if you present other questions—like drought or climate change or other situations—they have no words to answer. They can’t answer because they do not have enough genetic variability inside to answer these questions. Old varieties have a big vocabulary. They have many words to answer these new questions.” 

[gravitasmalfunction]

Ashes of Love rewatch, or, what did I miss first time round because I'd never seen a cdrama before:

Eps 1-6

Jinmi is not dressed differently to the other flower fairies because she is the main character, she is dressed that way because grapes are masc

This show set my benchmark for number and awesomeness of female characters in a xianxia that was not met again until Love Between Fairy and Devil

(Pictured: Princess Suihe, chief of the bird tribe, and her sword girlfriend bodyguard, ready to give the senior flower fairy a beating)

The Empress!!! And her manipulative big-eyed facial expressions and perfectly evil little pout <3 <3 <3 Again, benchmarks were being set here and as the Fated Mates crew would put it, buttons installed

*In my loudest middle-aged bisexual voice*:

She's hot!

Various puns are now making sense, like repay/hug (bao/bao) and the "pork" eggs

The Tree!!! Sex tree you will always be famous to me!

While Sexual Harassment Uncle's sleaze was clear, the extent of the possessiveness over Jinmi in the convo between Xufeng ("I can smell her cultivation on you") and Yanyou ("Yeah because we're buddies") was not obvious to me first time round, e.g.

Just 自己人 being pals, swapping cultivation, you know! (Pictured in background: sex tree)

Official language propaganda (because if you don't speak it, how are we supposed to know you're not an idiot??? duh)

The extreme whiplash of the patriarchy reasserting itself after Jinmi gets forcefemmed starts to present as female. She's exactly as lazy a palace attendant as before but now her colleague reads that as so slutty it gives him a nosebleed. Xufeng immediately reads romantic intent into her speech and behaviour, which has not changed at all, except now she's wearing a dress. The only person treating her the same after the outfit change is Sleazy Uncle Matchmaker the Moon Immortal, and that's because he's straight up said Jinmi should bang Xufeng since the very beginning

The translations are doing their best but the scale of the casualness of how Jinmi addresses people just isn't as obvious in translation. I was missing out on character dynamics by not knowing how much potential insult there is in the way she addresses Xufeng (道友 daoyou, after she rescues him, which is what, "person who is going the same way as me"?) and Runyu (a dragon, who she saw chilling in the pond with his tail out and decided he was a fish, and instead of being offended he just never corrected her). Runyu especially, I can see now there are whole essays to be written about how he lets Jinmi address him as "fish immortal" and what it means for his character (self esteem issues much, bro?) and his attitude toward Jinmi (the casualness and disrespect implying a degree of intimacy between the two of them that is not unwelcome to him)

First time around I thought the costumes were amazing but with 5 years of cdrama under my belt now I see they are merely competent, and that's ok too!

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

I saw your mermaid post and as a fellow marine enthusiast: they could absolutely farm algae and kelp as staple crops. Kelp, for example bull kelp, grows extremely fast and almost farms itself. Algae is a little trickier, since it needs to grow on something-I imagine something like steppes or rice paddies, with large sheets of rock set out from which algae can be collected. Some more simple organisms could also be farmed, like jellyfish and tunicates, and of course sea cucumbers. I also think tubeworms would be viable livestock-just yoink them out of the shell!

Ah!! You know, I was thinking that algae (especially kelp) could be used as a stable food source, but I also figured that there should be another primary crop(s). But on further thought... all the different types of algae might just do the job. Some algae is already regularly consumed by people and contains beneficial vitamins and minerals, like spirulina! If only they were purposely cultivated to be bigger, tastier, healthier, faster-growing, algae would provide a varied selection of "leafy greens"! I really love the idea of algae being grown on rice paddy-like gentle underwater hills... the vast ocean and shallow fields of seaweed all around. Algae could also be grown vertically up to a certain depth, it would make good use of the very tall merfolk houses or underwater boulders!

....Wait, oh my cod. Sea grapes are a species of edible algae, with tiny grape-like balls. WHAT IF THERE WAS A DOMESTIC BREED WITH BIG "GRAPES".... LITERALLY SEA GRAPES.... Omgg

Uhhh uhhh anyway! I really like this idea of farming and harvesting simple animals haha. You just know bivalves are a regular source of animal protein along with fish thanks to their sessile nature! And tubeworms being harvested straight out of the tube!!! I wonder if the real things are poisonous in any way? Because a shallow water variety selected to have lots of meat seems like another good way to make use of sessile animals and possibly out of any skeletal remains of other animals. Sea cucumbers appear to be poisonous, but I mean, poison never stopped anyone from eating fugu! I can imagine it, a rare delicacy...

[kihaku-gato]

hey!! you follow my plantblr (unexpectedplantblr) and i’ve learned so much just off your tags dude. wdym pruning omg i’m so wildly unprepared how and when should i be doing that! i can’t imagine they have yt videos on shit THAT basic do they!?.

and my apples are dwarfs?? i’ve been stressing abt them so close to the house and was trying to find an arborist to help me move them but do you think they’ll be ok with just some root guard? omg i’m so sorry to bug you feel free to ignore!

There’s no issues and I welcome the asks! This enthusiasm gives me old tumblr days vibes that I think many miss these days lol.

Inevitably most domestic fruiting woody plants need a trim up of pruning for maintenance. Some types don’t need it overall or don’t need it at certain life stages, but those are the lucky cases.

While I’m currently still in the midst of pruning season as of writing this, your photos imply it’s a smidgen late for you to be doing any at all unless it’s either for major issues or dead/diseased wood; it’s generally best to get the pruning before said woody plants leaf out but while they are still dormant to reduce shock, to avoid damaging freshly sprouted growth (since if you’re early enough there’s no leaves to worry about), and keep them wasting energy on wood that’ll be cut off in the process. I recall I got my info on pruning mostly by book literature but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some niche videos on the topic online- there are yt video journals and tutorials for niche fruits like Asimina triloba cultivation/maintenance so surely less exotic stuff would have online tutorials on it. Do try to find more than one source to try to average out the answers they give lest they give different answers or overlook different details (gardening can get subjective sometimes after all). If I recall the rule for Grape vines you try to keep one “lead vine” intact to be the one to produce new yearly branches/shoots that will then produce the grapes.

Fortunately I think you don’t have to worry about any issues with skipping the livewood pruning this year; let this year just help you get more familiar with what you’re dealing with.

For next year I can at least say from my own experience a few points; universally you want to prune to remove dead, damaged, and diseased wood, as well as any branches that crisscross with each other (since those will just make damaged wood from rubbing if allowed to stay), and generally you try to not cut more than a 3rd of the live growth (even if it means you gotta wait next year to fully shape a tree if the pruning work for some reason is major- which is my case with my older unkempt trees) to avoid having the pruning reach deadly amounts (there are exceptions- most Clematis are pruned to extreme amounts most of the time, well established Grapes and Kiwis can have a lot taken off too in certain cases). Oh and big one that newbies can miss; if you're getting tools, try to get bypass type pruning tools, anvil type pruning tools do damage to live wood (since they crush moreso to cut unlike bypass) and are better for exclusively dead/removed wood.

Observe what others do to their trees of similar kind to your own; I learned a little bit on what to do with my own apple trees from seeing what other people have done to their apple trees of similar size in my region.

It’s not easy at first but set goals for what you’re pruning. In my case a good chunk of my apple trees are quite old (we’re talking hollowed-out old for many of these trees), so my goal is generally to help extend their lives as well as fruit production as a bonus, so I try to reduce the sources of major weight burden on the large crumbling branches. Another goal in my case is making it that the branches are not as high up so that they are easier to maintain and harvest from, since yet again, my trees are on the larger/older end of what to expect from an orchard.

While not an option for me consulting Arborists is definitely not a bad option if you’re free to throw the cash.

Pruning rules/goals for your dwarf apple trees will probably be slightly different from what I do for my own trees since you’re dealing with very different growth forms from my own.

I am not 100% certain your apple trees by the house are dwarves but their growth habit feels more like what I’d expect/imagine from dwarf/semidwarf trees; as to what fruit variety it could be a lot of possibilities; apple trees tend to be grafted onto rootstock that affects their hardiness/size, so you could have similar cultivars to what I have for the fruit/scionwood but would definitely have very different cultivars for the rootstock that they are attached to. If the previous owners knew what they were doing they would’ve chosen dwarf roostock cultivars to avoid them becoming troublesome so close to the house.

In my opinion dwarves or not they are a bit big already to risk moving/transplanting away from the house without a painful and risky amount of long (worst case possibly years worth) of aftercare; if that is or was truly an issue you’d be better off getting new rootstock to plant in the new locations and grafting onto them from the house specimens onto those new rootstocks (you can hire/ask experts if you can’t quite do it yourself, we had a family member of a family member help save a heritage cultivar in our orchard by getting some successful grafts from the dying tree. I plan to do some grafting myself down the road I just dk what to graft rn). I am not familiar with root guard, from what I read it's a brand of fertilizer that claims to help stimulate root growth???

Also note with the Cherry/Plum trees mention before; one of the issues for ID sometimes for them is there’s just, a lot of species, a lot hybridize together, and that’s not even considering/factoring in domestic hybrids/cultivars where the diversity can be as wide as it is for apple cultivars. It can really muddy the waters for identification down to the exact kind unless you’re dealing with a very sharp specialist or a very distinct variety, and even then some may struggle with certain cases.

Lucky you to also have something as fancy as a finger lime! I already guessed so but that definitely solidified my guess that you are in a warmer growing zone from me lol.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

LMAOOO nah dw abt embarrassing me it must be done….Id rather you see it than have me send it to someone who doesn’t match my freak and have them think im insane

Omg Karasu in the lead?? Guys…….Mira you’ve fr cultivated Karasu nation LMAOO but no you’re so right I remember seeing a poll awhile ago from someone and ofc there were the fan faves like Nagi Reo Kaiser as options and I was shocked to see Karasu there?? Ofc he was dead last in the results but not unexpected ig….also BAROU THIRD GUYS!!!! Barouism rising too??

No seriously Isagi would be sooo cooked if Nagi wasn’t there….trust I know that Nagi goal in u20 is gonna make him skyrocket I’m imagining all the edits to it now LMAO

It’s just the miraverse of content….new genre it’s called “would Mira watch this?” The parallels do go hard though I wasn’t expecting to find so many LOL

HAAHA SHIDOU lowk that’d be really funny….imagine like a 200k wc fic of Shidou shenanigans and sus quotes

Maybe I’ve been too desensitized because when you said too extreme I was expecting a lot more violence LMAO you got the perfect amount though I think when you said extreme I was thinking of Shidou level oops

NO FR?? Like he’s not gonna ever take the top spot but lowk I’ve grown to appreciate him….youre so right though LOLL closeted sweetheart >>> closeted asshole bro wait the grape candy scene was so cute I forgot to mention….its so funny how he kinda just gives it to her without saying anything about it like how people would do secret deals or something but no it’s just grape candy LMAOOO

THREE bro….the aura is crazy…to the dude who wanted your insta you should’ve been like “if you buy me a $50 cupcake I’ll give it to you” /j lowk investing in a bodyguard does not sound like a bad idea tho

OOOOOOH very excited for everything….also the whole masterlist layout for the oaeu>>>>>>>> the visuals look so CLEAN omg but guys look it’s aiku on Mira’s blog!!!! I saw the poll and have not touched it like wdym I’m supposed to choose???? Let’s see if I can be decisive for once but just know I was debating between tabieitaken and barou….speaking of im kinda curious to see which idea of mine will spark inspiration first LMAO take ur time tho im being so well fed with everything in the lineup so far

Im also laughing missing the cutoff is so funny to me because (unless I didn’t read something) it’s like if you didn’t safely get something in before the impending arrival of aiku you’re in for the long ride LMAOOOO

Ok actually real time update I just put them into a random generator to pick and voted LOL because there’s no way I’m deciding in time but I needed to show some opinion somehow….ok but anyways the main point I came back for was why is Nagi tied with your vote tracking option LMFAOOOOO I’m ngl I’ve never set up a poll here what’s the purpose of that…I just know that people aren’t supposed to pick it but I’m crying why does it have more votes than otoya and yuki

- Karasu anon

HAHA okay that is fair i will def keep you posted on any future typos 🤩 honestly they add to the experience though i mean what is a translator without occasional goofs (/j but also as someone who read a 1.5 million word novel translated online from korean #orv i am very used to wading through odd phrasing to get to the heart of a story so ngl sometimes my mind just skips over typos entirely and i don’t even notice)

unfortunately karasu nation has fallen…he’s in second now (w barou as a very close third) because SAE ITOSHI has a healthy lead 😭 honestly it was expected that man just has too many fans 😓 and most of the other characters on there aren’t AS popular (i’m sure there would’ve been more of a split if rin kaiser or isagi were included but honestly none of them were screaming oaeu to me…sae is kinda in the same category as them for me but he had strong oaeu potential hence why he’s included despite not being a miraverse all star like nagi karasu and barou)

I AM SOOO HYPE FOR THE EDITS PLSSS karasu and otoya edits from third selection?? nagi edits from the u20 game?? BAROU EDITS FROM THE U20 GAME 🤤⁉️ AHHH it’s going to be so good i just know those editors are going to cook up so many delicious concepts i’m actually hype (barely one more month we’re so close!!) and LMAOO no literally iirc nagi scored like four of the five goals against barou and naruhaya or something like if he hadn’t done that isagi would’ve had the naruhaya treatment and been out for good 😭 tik tok fans forgetting who the og goat of bllk was 😢 okay but honestly that’s why i love having nagi AND barou as my favs because one or the other is always up!! truly no losing there (and bllk bros automatically respect anyone who loves barou because most of them are barou glazers as if barou is ANYTHING like them 😒)

i guess part of it is also probably just kaneshiro using typical character archetypes too?? like girly dude white haired dude flirty dude etc etc the nagi dragon art was insane work though like what was the reason for that except to cater to us specifically

nah because yk i’d cook even for shidou 😭 but he would not be my first choice (or my second, or third, so on and so forth) HAHA he’s just a bit too chaotic plus like we’ve mentioned i don’t really find him too attractive even though ik some people do?? LMAOO omg idt i could ever write a character as violent as him especially not kiyora…like he’s chill for the most part just not hesitant to punch someone if needed i guess is how i interpreted it?? whereas shidou would just do it for funsies

I HAD FUN WRITING THE GRAPE CANDY SCENE IT JUST FELT SO HIM like the way he gives her a piece after she successfully swallows a pill as if she’s a dog or smth it’s just so innocent 😭 meanwhile reader is like “wow our tongues will match 😏” FBXJFKDS and him writing his number on the empty box so he doesn’t have to throw it away OR actually give her his number in person for fear of rejection…kiyora my underrated goat fr 🥹

JFNFJDDJSJ PLSSS just drop a quick “erm have i known you since you were four years old?? yeah i didn’t THINK so!!” and move on…i fear writing has made my standards very high hence why i’ve never been in a relationship but you’ll never catch me settling fr 🥱 if they’re not like bfb karasu or peregrine nagi or white butterfly hiori I DON’T WANT THEM 🤣 or ig someone like seabird sae would work too HAHA i’ll sacrifice the pining for a man w money and a sense of humor 🤩

OMG YAYYY I’M GLAD YOU LIKE IT i was inspired by those dollar store self help books as well as rom com movie covers when i was making it and i think it turned out well!! and then i saw one of the graphics accounts i follow had posted the green and purple hearts divider and i was like holy shit this is PERFECT it matches so so well w his entire aesthetic…also peep oliver and aiku being diff colors like his heterchromia 😮 LMAOO genuinely this is probably aiku’s first appearance on my blog (besides his cameo in the last part of fwtkac) but ahhh i’m trying to figure out which req to do next myself!! i have a few to choose from so there’s def a bit of variety…i’m thinking of your requests i’ll probably do chigiri?? because barou is part of the oaeu and idk if i feel connected enough to bachira to write for him yet 🙂‍↕️

NFJDBXSNK no because that’s literally what it is…after the gagamaru req my inbox was pretty stagnant in terms of new reqs so i was like ok let me just get these ones cleared out and then i’ll go back to posting my own things again as well 😭 literally the two hiori requests are from my 500 follower event so from back in JUNE like i need to wrap these up and post them 😭 but idm making the newer ones wait like they can go on the crazy oaeu ride w all of us in the meantime 😩

OMG WHO DID YOU END UP VOTING FOR (unless you want to keep it a secret because if so i understand 🫡) also omg that annoys me sm like fr a pet peeve…basically no one can see the results of a poll until they vote but that includes the creator of the poll?? so if you don’t want to skew the results you just make another option so you can keep track of the poll while it’s still open 🤩 but i absolutely HATE when people pick that option like are you seriously that desperate to know the answer that you pick the option that literally says it’s only for me?? it doesn’t matter what you put people will vote on it but it’s so annoying ughhhh i can’t stop putting it because i’m nosy and like to know what’s going on with the poll in real time but it fr irritates me that people pick it like literally just choose a random option if it’s that deep 😒 i think part of what annoys me is like it so clearly says don’t pick it…and then people still pick it…like were you all dropped on the heads as children or smth…ANYWAYS sorry i feel like i’m so chill normally but there’s random things that genuinely make me crash out for no reason 😭 ALSO POOR YUKI AND OTOYA they’re still behind the FOR MIRA ONLY OPTION (me rn: 🤬😡) atp i’m not going to do polls anymore…like damn sorry i tried to get you all involved why are you being stupid and illiterate rn

actually tbh it’s not that deep idk why it enrages me sm 😰 but uhhh i fear it does for some reason

[learnwithmearticles]

Napa Valley Pollution

Napa Valley, California, is home to over 1,800 wineries, representing 0.4% of the world’s wine grape production. While it pales in comparison to the largest vineyard in the world at 105,000 hectares, Napa Valley still has 18,667 hectares involved in cultivation.

It produces about 49.7 million cases of wine annually and has an estimated 34 billion dollar impact on the U.S. economy.

So why is it at risk?

The Pollution

The vineyards and wineries of Napa Valley are facing a pollution problem.

The Clover Flat Landfill (CFL) opened in 1963 to accept various local waste. It still takes in many types of waste like propane tanks, couches, and ovens, with a fee for certain kinds. The CFL is reportedly now able to recycle 50% of what it takes in. Its website also states that it currently operates at net zero emissions, meaning it makes up for the carbon emissions that it produces. It does, in fact, capture the methane gas that it produces to recycle it into electricity.

Pollution is more than just carbon dioxide, though.

Irresponsibly reported contamination and hazards at the CFL have come to light in recent months. One example is the misreported impact of the 2020 Glass Fire in California. While management of the CFL (the Pestoni family, at the time) claimed minimal impact, surfaced emails reveal that the measures to restrict erosion, eliminate sedimentation release, and manage storm water attenuation were completely destroyed. The article detailing this and other allegations, including the referenced emails, is linked here.

The CFL is to the north of Napa Valley and near two tributaries that flow to Napa River. This landfill is the primary source of the pollution the valley is facing. Increasing amounts of evidence indicate that the CFL has polluted these waterways with toxins from waste.

These toxins include chemicals and metals, such as nitrates, chromium, arsenic, iron, and zinc.

The Effects

Chromium and arsenic are potently toxic on their own, but the other pollutants listed are also very harmful if high amounts are in contact with or consumed by humans.

While studies and officials report that the waterways around Napa Valley are considered polluted, little is reported about how this might affect wine production. Many vineyards and wineries in Napa Valley refused to comment on the situation.

Waters polluted with heavy metals and chemicals can cause food to become contaminated, but the specific nature of grape cultivation and its water demands make these impacts difficult to report on.

We do know that recreation has been significantly impacted. People who fish and canoe in the Napa River have expressed concerns, and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance even sued the CFL in 2022 for violations of the Water Pollution Control Act. In 2023, the CFL agreed to implement new erosion control measures, test stormwater, and train employees to improve pollution control.

Landfill pollution affects life in the waterways, decreasing aquatic life presence and leading to unknown results of long-term stream pollution.

Investigations into the CFL’s continued practices are ongoing. Hopefully in time we will have more details for how pollution may have affected grape cultivation in Napa Valley.

Additional Resources

1.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/09/napa-valley-pollution-vineyards-wineries

2. https://napavintners.com/press/docs/napa_valley_fast_facts.pdf

3. https://uvds.com/clover-flat-resource-recovery-park/

4.https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/napa/clover-flat-landfill-napa-contamination-pestoni-glass-fire/

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

The early history of the Yates County grape industry

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Of New York State’s 62 counties, Yates County holds the distinction of being the only one whose borders touch three of the 11 Finger Lakes – Canandaigua Lake makes up the western boundary of Yates County, while Seneca Lake makes up the eastern boundary, and Keuka Lake sits right in the middle of the county and forms part of its southern boundary. That means Yates County also hosts portions of three Finger Lakes region wine trails along the three respective lakes.

Grape growing and wine producing might seem like modern-day phenomena to the untrained eye – especially since it seems new vineyards and wineries start up in the region every year. In fact, the tradition of raising grapes and turning them into wine stretches back nearly two centuries in the Finger Lakes region as a whole and almost as long in Yates County. A 1927 article in The Chronicle-Express credits the Rev. William Bostwick, of Hammondsport, with growing the first grapes in what writer Everett Wright called the Keuka Lake District. A 1974 newspaper article dates Bostwick’s achievement as 1829 but also notes the Episcopalian minister came to the Keuka Lake shore from Connecticut with some grape root stocks that he planted in a garden behind his rectory.

“It is said that the early settlers in this county found vines growing luxuriantly in the thickets, where soil and moisture were congenial,” states a newspaper article titled “Lake Keuka Grape History.” With the perfect combination and settings of soil, moisture, and air, from Bostwick’s achievement at St. James Episcopal Church in Hammondsport arose an industry around the cultivation and harvesting of grapes.

According to Lewis Cass Aldrich in his 1892 History of Yates County, New York, J.W. Prentiss grew the first crop of grapes for wine in the Finger Lakes region, in the town of Pulteney in Steuben County – four miles south of the Yates County line – in 1836. The first vineyard planted in Yates County happened in November 1855 by W.W. Shirland on a property in Benton where the towns of Benton, Torrey, and Milo meet.

Shirland planted Isabella grapes in his first crop, but he switched to the Concord variety in 1866. “The vineyard is one of the best and most productive of the many in the county,” Aldrich wrote nearly 40 years after Shirland’s first crop. However, Aldrich calls John Mead “one of the pioneers of the business,” planting his first vineyard in 1861 also in Benton near the Torrey line. Mead’s vineyard measured three acres; Isabellas made up half an acre and Concords made up “a large proportion of the balance,” while some Catawbas were also planted. Eventually, Concords replaced the Isabellas and the Catawbas were abandoned – “The Concords are still in full vigor,” Aldrich wrote. Henry Rose, planting three acres of one of the earliest crop of Delaware grapes in 1861, was another pioneer grape grower in Benton, though his vineyard was located within the Penn Yan corporate limits. “This vineyard is still in good bearing, the original vines bearing good crops annually,” Aldrich wrote.

Aldrich describes several other early vineyards – among them Franklin Culver in Kinney’s Corners (now the hamlet of Bluff Point) in 1861 and Anson Dunlap on the Seneca Lake shore at Starkey Station in 1862; William F. VanTuyl with the first grapes on Bluff Point in 1862; and Joseph F. Crosby in Barrington in 1864, surprising his neighbors by planting a whopping six acres of grapes (though Frances Dumas’ A Good Country, A Pleasant Habitation states Shirland’s vineyard also amounted to six acres). “But few grapes were planted previous to 1865 and only in small vineyards,” Aldrich wrote. “The results warranted larger, until the valley is literally filled with good productive vineyards covering hundreds of acres. Between the years 1865 and 1870 planting was done at a rapid rate; land that had previously been counted of little value, in close proximity to the shores of the lakes, some of it steep and covered with a dense growth of young timber, being counted the best for grapes.”

Riding this post-Civil War wave was the Seneca Lake Grape and Wine Company, which bought property that included a vineyard James Valentine planted in 1862 and by 1867 extended the planting to 125 acres – “probably the largest vineyard in the State of New York,” at the time, according to Aldrich. According to Dumas, the company also formed the first winery in Yates County when in 1870 it built a large stone building to manufacture wines. “The business had already been started in another building now used for a barn,” Aldrich wrote. Several other large-scale vineyards followed suit – H.P. Sturtevant & Co. starting in 1865 at the end of Bluff Point, Pratt & Jillett beginning in 1864, and the McDowell vineyard and “many others … within a year or two succeeding,” Aldrich wrote. This included Eli R. Stever planting 25 acres of the first Iona vineyard on Bluff Point in 1867; Aldrich also notes the Gulick Brown vineyards and that of J. Warren Brown.

By 1872, more than 400 acres of grapes were planted in Jerusalem alone and 140 acres in the aptly-named Vine Valley area of Middlesex, “while J.T. Henderson, C.N. Wixom, the Seneca Lake Wine and Grape Company, together with many others, kept pace on the Seneca Lake,” according to Aldrich. However, at the same time, a surplus of grapes caused the price of the fruit to drop, and Aldrich wrote, “It looked as though enough grapes had been planted to supply all demands for a long time to come.” Many people who thought about growing grapes reconsidered; vineyard lands decreased in value. Within a few years, though, the demand for grapes – and thus the price of them – began going up again, and Yates County certainly established itself as a leader among the Finger Lakes region’s grape-growing counties. By 1892, as Aldrich noted, the county hosted 7,000 acres of vineyards with an average yearly yield of 10,000 tons.

When George C. Snow planted the first Niagara grapes in 1881 on the Esperanza Vineyards on the west branch of Keuka Lake, he shipped the fruit in what Aldrich described as “a box made of wood, holding ten pounds placed in crates holding six boxes.” Later, this became a configuration of five-pound boxes with eight boxes in a crate and then three-pound boxes with 12 in a crate. Hopkins Brothers – with their factory in Penn Yan – began the first grape box operation in Yates County, selling five-pound boxes in crates and three-pound boxes in crates. James W. Stever, in Branchport, and George W. Fenton, in Barrington, soon began manufacturing baskets that quickly replaced boxes for grapes. At first, 10-pound boxes were used to ship grapes until five-pound pony baskets became the standard. In Aldrich’s time, eight basket factories operated in Yates County with an annual output of 3 million baskets.

The growth of the grape industry in Yates County contributed toward the growth of the shipping industry. Aldrich points to three main rail companies that transported Yates County grapes: the Northern Central Railroad, which hosted its own fruit shipping business, from Canandaigua to beyond; the Barnes Fruit Line that carried grapes from Hammondsport along the Erie Railroad, and the Hollowell & Wise Fast Fruit Line that traveled over the Fall Brook Railroad. Yates County grapes were generally transported by steamboat over the lakes to the various railroad hubs.

From there, the grape and wine industry in Yates County and the Finger Lakes region continued to thrive. By the end of the 19th century, according to a 2011 article in the Finger Lakes Times, the whole region boasted more than 20,000 acres of vineyards and more than 50 wineries.

[wuxiaphoenix]

Colors of Another Sky: In Vino... Sequel-Is?

AKA the perils and plotholes of needing a wine-based cure in 1600s Korea.

Oh, this is going to be fun to explain.

Ahem. I will try to sum up.

So I invented a nasty infectious curse, like the Evil Writer I am, based on folklore.

And then a cure, also based on folklore. Both of these, however, are something the locals have to take a lot of swings and misses at, because it’s not Asian folklore. The dratted black dragon is a literal Out of Context Problem for our heroes, because it’s a European dragon.

Probably Germanic. I’m still figuring out how it got to Japan in the first place, but it was running from some very determined dragonslayers. So, like any smart predator, it lit out for territory with more unwary prey.

The Japanese, and then Korean and Chinese “locals” weren’t unwary long. Unfortunately things quite deadly to an Eastern dragon (if you want to know why samurai sometimes lick their swords, well....) do pretty much zip to a Western wyrm. Meaning the only way to go after it was massed artillery and cultivators using brute magical force. It was declared dead. The Chinese generals involved swore they’d blown it to pieces and burned the body, as was appropriate for foreign monsters.

(Namhansanseong’s Demon-Callers, having fought the beast more than once, were not so sanguine. Chae, who had way too much experience with Chinese generals, didn’t buy it for a minute. The prince newly crowned king of the Korean Peninsula... well, suggesting the noble allies from the glorious Middle Kingdom might have, perhaps, been mistaken, would have been extremely undiplomatic. Why, the generals might have felt forced to stay longer to prove it! With all those troops to feed and incidents of rape and pillage rising....

The King did order the Callers to track all the places the beast had been, and watch for any signs of another winged foreign monster. That’s just common sense, right? Right.)

So think of an out of context dragon-curse as like an out of context disease. Smallpox and measles in the Americas, or cholera showing up around the world by ship traffic in the 1800s. Local healers have no idea what they’re looking at. They try what they know. It fails. They try something else. And hope not to get killed in the process.

In this story they find a cure. But it takes ingredients they don’t have, locally. Specifically, wine.

This is why I try to double-check any story-important details with research. Korea, after all, has had a drinking culture for centuries if not thousands of years... with grain alcohols. As best I can find, winemaking only got started in the late 1800s with Christian missionaries, and later the Japanese Occupation, and - it’s a mess.

Back to the safer history of the 1600s. Their best chance to import wine fast would be the Ming Dynasty. I’m sure our heroes will; they have access to trade networks, cultivators who can travel distances, and they don’t need a lot to start. Though they will need enough so every coastal town eventually has some to make emergency treatments until more help can arrive.

The problem is going to be what they find out in the process of creating the cure. Which implies certain trade sources (yes, Ming China) may no longer be safe.

Politics. Ugh. If imports are problematic you see if you can produce a local substitute. And in fact there is a local grape in Northeast Asia. The Amur grape.

A relict species, from when Manchuria was warmer and wetter. It can’t take the drought other grapes can, but it is extremely cold tolerant. It’s also very sour, unless dead-ripe. But you can make wine with it. If you have a winemaker.

...If you know where to find it.

Very sour vine fruit is not what people think of when making alcohol. And if you look at the wiki page, it has a knack for looking like other vines, and who knows how local magic might have pushed that to extremes.

Our Korean heroes might not know an Amur grape if it bit ‘em. Chae’s heritage and travels mean she’s familiar with a different species, Vitus vinifera. And all Jason knows is a name - the Amur grape. He’s lucky enough to know that specifically because “things that survive Ice Ages” is a hobby of his. But the river isn’t called the Amur on local maps....

I’m thinking this will be an excellent problem for the next book, along with trying to get camelpox for variolation. And both of those will mean Manchuria, and Jurchens, and my bunnies have their heart set on demon tigers. And maybe Ansiseong.

[vynegar]

anniv3 card liveblog dump. updated as i go. spoiler warning!

luke

i’m gone TT (it’s actually all still pretty fluffy and sweet. barely a hint of angst)

YEAHHHHHHHHHH HIGH SCHOOL!ROSA MY BELOVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ah i forgot to show you guys her new outfit in this card, she’s v cute, i’ll screenshot after this flashback scene)

agh. this expression. always so cute TT rosa it is an honor to be able to play as you 🫡

a;dlfjadkl okay i know the card wasn’t hitting (yet) but like. now with the new bgm i’m really feeling something :’) perhaps we will be budgeting for anniv3 after all

HADFJA;LDKJF;LAKJERLAJLEKRJAKLE

omg poetry reference. truly the bread and butter of this blog’s analyses

ok the interactions: i mean, they’re nice. the animation is very fluid and there’s definitely more motion and more variety than in normal card art animations (though those have been advancing over the years too!) lol i think the knowledge of how purely-fanservicey this is kinda limits how excited i get over this part

overall: i mean it’s a good card but doesn’t make me lose my mind over it like luke’s previous anniversary cards; like this is closer to the caliber of a birthday or top-up card. nothing necessarily bad about it but... i think the most emotion i felt was because the combination of a new bgm (or at least new to me) + high school era lukerosa which i have a soft spot for. 

anyway. off to watch vyn’s, which is my last hope for this anniversary really delivering on the card stories :’) also based on my quick glance at his interaction video they might have fixed the piano keys...?? BIG if true

ahhh almost forgot the keepsake!!

BIGHEAD ROSA!!! ahh i was wanting to draw her but mhy beat me to it lol

vyn

omg already >100 comments on his video. yes. my brethren. we are all broke and watching the video instead of getting the card 🤝

55 other people are watching the video literally right now. hell yeah

omg. they really did fix the piano keys XDDDDDDD

me trying to zoom in on the sheet music. LET ME PLAY IT

wow. reference to a very famous and iconic vyn card moment in this story. hint it has to do with water

what the fuck dude extreme weather even showing up in the tot cards TTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

whoaaaa okay worldbuilding: svart has its own language i guess? there are labels written in it, and the narrative calls it svart language and not like english or french or whatever

i think a fun thing about backgrounds being reused is that everyone probably has different scenes that they most strongly associate each background with. for me, this is the winery from food for thought. vyn infodumping about how to cultivate wine grapes. mixing wine with sprite. that’s MY reference to a previous vyn card for this story

VYN HAD HIS MOTHER SEND OVER THE PIANO FROM HIS CONFESSION AS THEIR MOVING IN GIFT????????????

VYN WROTE THE SHEET MUSIC!! NEON MELODY CALLBACK????? (HUGE WIN FOR ME PERSONALLY)

ok only halfway through the card rn but i Need to sleep. back tmrw to finish this and to watch marius’s (even though i’ve barely seen any of this recent cards... whoops)

WAAAAAAAAIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT HOLY SHIT THIS FUCKS SO HARD ACTUALLY??? THIS REFERENCE THEY’RE DOING?? WITHOUT STATING IT OPENLY AAAAAAHHHH THIS IS SO POWERFUL TTT

ok here’s vyn’s illustration. wet rain-soaked little meow meow

rosa forgetting about the instant noodles she’s cooking. just like me fr

hmmmm kinda criminal that they’re supposed to be playing piano here and the bgm is one of the ones that DOESN’T have piano

ok yeah they definitely fixed the piano keys. just compare this to the original anniversary PV you’ll see. NOW FIX THE SSS CARD SYSTEM NEXT

one comment saying the sheet music is liebestraum which i was kinda also suspecting since structure is very similar but some of the measures don’t match up exactly (at least not against the copy of sheet music i have). however, the section behind vyn’s right shoulder is pretty much measure 25 and the part behind his left shoulder is close to m35-36. (which... is not a song that vyn wrote xDDD we’ll say he’s alluding to or remixing it for their purposes)

you’re telling me his hand accidentally hits the piano and there’s a “pleasing sound”??? he’s falling backwards onto it and playing chords???

ok back to checking the sheet music (my priorities are exactly where they should be)

i think the two sheets here (behind his left shoulder and under his left hand) are the same page (which we said before was m35-36). it’s the only place in the song where the key signature change looks like that (in the upper right; it’s definitely the sharps pattern and not the flats) and the following sections match as well. so i think that pages goes like this:

line 1: m34-36 (and key change where five sharps are made natural)

line 2: m37-m39

line 3: m40-m42

line 4: m43-44 (not sure if that last note should have a slur tho)

it was kind of throwing me off earlier since some of the chords that would be octaves didn’t seem far apart enough on the card art, but maybe it’s a combo of perspective + shrunk down + artistic license

ok i can’t rly find a keepsake investigation video yet and i’m still just watching the interaction in the bg but this card is fine. i know i got really excited at one point but it’s because i’m especially interested in the plant motif (still have not fully stated what the exact reference was bc i’m sure i’ll point it out later). so far the cards feel like nice top-up cards (since those always make sure to have spicy/fanservice-y parts) that are trying hard to reference previous events. i checked the comments of BOTH vyn and marius videos and there was someone (different people!) asking which of the cards had a better story (because what they’d seen so far was disappointing).... does NOT bode well ufnfortunately

edit: i will say that these even feel a bit worse than top-up cards since those usually try to grapple with substantive potential issues in the relationship, while these anniv3 cards don’t. also still haven’t watched marius’s yet but yamashina jin just translated artem’s card and even she’s disappointed by the writing quality so like... widespread disappointment i suppose 😔

marius

ok yeah this is a very good continuation/evolution of the idea from tideborne romance. unfortunately i was also meh on that card

omg... marius is gonna make himself the present isn’t he....

OKAY THERE’S AT LEAST ONE (1) THING I LOVE ABOUT THIS CARD 🥺🥺 (doesn’t even get a mention in the story it’s just a visual easter egg in the bg)

artem

halfway through pt 2 and i’ve figured out how to describe how i’m feeling. you remember marius’s 1st birthday card when they were just kinda doing random things to fill up time in the plot? it’s kinda like that. (though it doesn’t have the weird ooc-ness of that card and it’s not as long)

the bear from his bday event and the eyemask from wandering heart!! actually maybe my favorite part of these cards will just be the little easter eggs in them

ok so after the “reveal” of what artem is Actually up to, i do like the card more. i really like what his true plan, i just kind of dislike how MC is kept in the dark again. it’s not even bad this time around, like it’s very much a cute surprise between lovers, but i think that stuff in his engagement left a bad taste in my mouth about it and i didn’t want to see it again lol. also, i feel like it would have been cute if mc was the one to propose moving in together (just a random thought since for all the these, it was p much the LI bringing it up)

ok this is one of the better illustrations for anniv3 cards tho.

alright. finished the card. umm nothing more to say xDDD

on the keepsakes tho; these genuinely fuck so hard. also artem's a protective charm from cloudbreak temple and red beans and he recites The Lines again.... literally why can’t we have this kind of energy in the actual card story TTTTT

[quandlesannees]

I think this last post can be viewed as a kind of disingenuous take because, while Gaiman wrote a lot about violence against children and women (minorities in general) by weak and egotistical men (usually), he made it seem like it was a means to draw attention to the cruelty of those situations in a narrative turn that prioritized the victim. He made it seems like he was writing on the side of the abused by deliberately focusing on the hypocrisy, egoism, narcissism, and self-righteousness of the abuser, who believes what they are doing is for the 'greater good'. Narratively, the violence served to cultivate a sense of disgust at the horror that was aimed at cultivating empathy for the victim. I was trying to explain this to a friend a few days ago about why this was so horrifying (as someone who adored the Sandman as a kid. And, yes, I do remember the Calliope episode....I haven't read it in a long time, so I wonder what I'd think of it now) and I said that it was because Gaiman always proposed an "ethos of vulnerability" in his work, that, in real life, he manipulated as a tool to perpetuate his abuse.

I think we need to recognize that there is a new school of misogyny that will become the dominant form in the coming years (especially in Anglophone spheres), as more people become more literate in social movement and therapy language, digitalization, lifestyle movements, a growing horror of direct physical violence (that they don't try to argue is consensual), a vague awareness of the #metoo movement (of which these men are never convinced they are a part, an abuser and rapist). It's the feminist bro misogynist, the 'socially aware' man who champions social movements as a means to draw praise for doing the bare minimum. They always center themselves at the forefront of the conversation, and often try to monetize it/use it to sell something. They think agreeability on major and distant social movements is akin to goodness and authenticity. They dance like a little performing monkey for grapes that are thrown at them, then proceed to abuse people behind the curtain while justifying it through therapy/faux philosophy speech.

What I view as so deeply nefarious in the Neil Gaiman situation is precisely that this ethos of vulnerability was proposed in the spirit of helping victims and vulnerable populations, was merely a tool he used to gain access to real vulnerable people he sought to abuse to feed his own narcissism, exactly like a villain in his book. I think the JK Rowling situation is a little different, not better by any means, but just a different dynamic.

Looking back, it's insane how spoiled we were by J. K. Rowling's unmasking.

The signs WERE all there from the beginning, from interviews to her personal life to the work itself. So when the mask finally came off for good, our eyes were shot open to all the red flags.

And a lot of folks keep expecting that same revelation every single time another beloved artist turns out to be a bastard. But here's the thing; Rowling is an outlier. Most predators are nowhere near as unsubtle. And everyone telling you all these "solutions" to make sure you don't get hurt again are in willful denial of this

"Don't trust charming people", "don't trust people who declare themselves allies of this or that cause", "charisma is a red flag". All of that may be true, but lemme tell ya - it won't save you.

Because here's the uncomfortable truth: there were zero signs. I followed Gaiman for years, both with his work and here on tumblr. Never noticed a single red flag - and looking back, I can't think of a single sign. And the same can be said for all of you.

It is possible to commit no errors and still lose.

[grapetreefoods]

Maca Powder: The Ancient Superfood for Energy and Well-Being

Maca powder has gained global recognition as a powerful superfood with a long history of traditional use. Derived from the root of the maca plant (Lepidium meyenii), which grows in the high altitudes of the Andes Mountains in Peru, maca has been used for centuries to boost energy, enhance stamina, and support overall health.

At Grape Tree, we provide high-quality Maca Powder that can be easily added to your diet to enjoy its incredible benefits. Whether you’re looking to improve endurance, balance hormones, or enhance mental clarity, maca powder is a natural and effective choice. In this article, we’ll explore the nutritional profile, health benefits, and ways to incorporate maca powder into your daily routine.

What is Maca Powder?

Maca is a root vegetable that belongs to the cruciferous family, which includes broccoli, cabbage, and kale. It has been cultivated in Peru for over 2,000 years and is often referred to as “Peruvian ginseng” due to its energising properties. The root is dried and ground into a fine powder, making it easy to consume and absorb.

Nutritional Value of Maca Powder

Maca powder is rich in vitamins, minerals, and beneficial plant compounds. Here’s what makes it a powerful superfood:

1. High in Essential Nutrients

Maca powder is packed with essential vitamins and minerals, including:

Vitamin C — Supports immune function and skin health.

Iron — Helps transport oxygen in the blood and prevents fatigue.

Copper — Essential for red blood cell formation and energy production.

Potassium — Regulates fluid balance, muscle contractions, and nerve signals.

2. Rich in Plant-Based Protein

Maca powder contains all essential amino acids, making it a great plant-based protein source, especially for vegetarians and vegans.

3. Contains Adaptogens

Maca is classified as an adaptogen, meaning it helps the body adapt to stress and promotes overall balance.

4. High in Fibre

Maca powder contains dietary fibre, which supports digestion and gut health.

5. Loaded with Antioxidants

Maca contains powerful antioxidants that help protect cells from damage and reduce inflammation.

Health Benefits of Maca Powder

1. Boosts Energy and Endurance

Maca is widely known for its ability to increase energy levels without the jitters or crashes associated with caffeine. It helps improve stamina and endurance, making it a favourite among athletes and active individuals.

2. Supports Hormonal Balance

Maca powder is often used to support hormone balance in both men and women. It may help alleviate symptoms of menopause, PMS, and irregular menstrual cycles by regulating hormone production naturally.

3. Enhances Mood and Mental Clarity

The adaptogenic properties of maca help reduce stress, anxiety, and depression while improving focus and mental clarity. Many people report feeling more alert and emotionally balanced when consuming maca regularly.

4. Improves Sexual Health and Fertility

Traditionally, maca has been used to enhance libido and fertility in both men and women. Studies suggest it may increase sperm quality in men and support reproductive health in women.

5. Supports a Healthy Immune System

The vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants in maca help strengthen the immune system, making the body more resistant to infections and illnesses.

6. Promotes Better Skin Health

Maca powder contains compounds that may help reduce acne and skin irritation, leading to a clearer and healthier complexion.

7. Aids Digestion

How to Use Maca Powder in Your Diet

Maca powder has a mild, nutty, and slightly caramel-like flavour, making it easy to incorporate into various recipes. Here are some simple ways to enjoy maca powder:

1. Add to Smoothies

Blend 1 teaspoon of maca powder into your smoothie for an energy boost. It pairs well with bananas, berries, and nut milk.

2. Mix into Coffee or Tea

Stir maca powder into your morning coffee or tea to enhance focus and energy throughout the day.

3. Use in Oatmeal or Yogurt

Sprinkle maca powder over oatmeal, yogurt, or porridge for added nutrition and flavour.

4. Bake into Desserts

Add maca powder to muffins, cookies, and energy bars to create healthier treats.

5. Stir into Soups or Stews

For a subtle nutty flavour, mix maca powder into warm soups or stews.

6. Make Maca Hot Chocolate

Mix maca powder with hot milk, cocoa powder, and honey for a delicious and nutritious drink.

7. Blend into Protein Shakes

Combine maca with protein powder, almond milk, and peanut butter for a post-workout recovery shake.

Maca Powder vs. Other Superfoods

Maca powder is unique because it boosts energy while supporting hormonal balance and mental clarity, making it a versatile and well-rounded superfood.

Is Maca Powder Safe for Everyone?

Maca powder is generally safe for most people, but here are some things to keep in mind:

Start with a small amount — Begin with 1 teaspoon per day and gradually increase to 1–2 tablespoons if desired.

Consult a doctor if pregnant or breastfeeding — While maca has been traditionally used for reproductive health, pregnant and breastfeeding women should seek medical advice before using it.

Monitor for allergies — Though rare, some people may be sensitive to maca powder.

Where to Buy High-Quality Maca Powder

If you’re looking for premium organic maca powder, visit Grape Tree. We offer natural and ethically sourced maca powder, ensuring you get the highest quality product.

Final Thoughts

Maca powder is a nutrient-rich superfood with a wide range of health benefits, from boosting energy and stamina to supporting hormonal balance and mental clarity. Its adaptogenic properties help the body manage stress naturally, making it a great addition to a healthy lifestyle.

Whether you mix it into smoothies, coffee, or baked goods, maca powder is an easy and delicious way to enhance your overall well-being. Try Grape Tree’s high-quality maca powder today and experience its amazing benefits!

[forenerblog]

From Blueberries to Bananas: Surprising Facts About True Berries

When you hear the word "berry," what comes to mind? Probably strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries, right? What if I told you that none of these are actually true berries? Yes, you read that right! On the other hand, bananas, tomatoes, and even eggplants are true berries.

So, what is a true berry? The definition comes from botany, not the grocery store. A true berry is a fruit that develops from a single ovary of a flower, has a fleshy interior, and contains seeds embedded within.

What Is a True Berry?

A true berry is a simple fruit that develops from a single ovary of a flower and has a fleshy pericarp (fruit wall) with seeds inside. Unlike aggregate fruits like strawberries (which form from multiple ovaries), true berries follow a strict botanical definition.

How Do True Berries Differ From Other Fruits?

To understand why certain fruits make the cut as true berries, let’s compare them to other common fruit types:

Drupe (Stone Fruit) – Fruits like peaches, cherries, and mangoes have a single hard seed (pit) inside.

Aggregate Fruits – Strawberries and raspberries develop from multiple ovaries, meaning each little bump on their surface is a separate fruit.

Pomes – Apples and pears have a central core that holds their seeds, unlike berries.

Now, let’s dive into some of the most unexpected true berries!

The Most Surprising True Berries

1. Bananas – The Berry That Feels Like a Snack

Yes, the humble banana is a true berry! Unlike strawberries, bananas grow from a single ovary, have a soft, fleshy interior, and contain small seeds (though they are barely noticeable in cultivated varieties).

Nutritional Benefits

Rich in potassium, which supports heart health and muscle function.

High in fiber, aiding digestion and keeping you full.

A natural source of energy, perfect for a quick snack.

Culinary Uses

Enjoyed fresh or blended into smoothies.

Used in baking for banana bread, pancakes, and muffins.

Frozen and blended into a dairy-free ice cream alternative.

2. Tomatoes – The Savory Berry in Your Salad

Surprised to see tomatoes here? Botanically speaking, they fit the berry criteria. Each tomato develops from a single ovary, has a fleshy interior, and contains seeds within its pulp.

Nutritional Benefits

High in lycopene, an antioxidant linked to heart health and cancer prevention.

A great source of vitamin C, boosting immunity and skin health.

Low in calories but rich in flavor and nutrients.

Culinary Uses

Essential in salads, pasta sauces, and sandwiches.

Used as a base for salsa, ketchup, and soups.

Roasted or grilled for a sweeter, deeper flavor.

3. Blueberries – The Superfood That Got It Right

Finally, a fruit that actually is a berry! Blueberries fit all the botanical requirements and are also packed with health benefits.

Nutritional Benefits

Loaded with antioxidants that support brain health and reduce inflammation.

High in fiber, aiding digestion and promoting gut health.

A great source of vitamin K, which helps with bone health.

Culinary Uses

Perfect for smoothies, yogurt bowls, and oatmeal.

Baked into muffins, pies, and pancakes.

Eaten fresh as a delicious and nutritious snack.

4. Kiwis – The Fuzzy Green Berry

Kiwis may look unusual, but they meet all the berry criteria. Beneath their fuzzy brown skin is a bright green, seed-filled interior.

Nutritional Benefits

Extremely high in vitamin C, supporting immunity and skin health.

Packed with fiber, aiding digestion and gut health.

Contains antioxidants that promote heart health.

Culinary Uses

Sliced into fruit salads or smoothie bowls.

Blended into fresh juices.

Used as a topping for desserts and yogurt.

5. Grapes – The Classic Berry We All Love

Grapes have always been classified as true berries, making them one of the most recognizable members of the group.

Nutritional Benefits

Rich in resveratrol, which supports heart health and longevity.

High in vitamins C and K for immune and bone health.

Contains natural sugars, providing a quick energy boost.

Culinary Uses

Enjoyed fresh as a snack.

Used in salads, cheese platters, and desserts.

Fermented into wine or blended into juices.

6. Eggplants – The Berry You Never Expected

Eggplants may seem like an odd addition to this list, but they fit all the botanical requirements of a true berry.

Nutritional Benefits

High in fiber, supporting digestion and gut health.

Contains antioxidants that protect against cell damage.

Low in calories but packed with essential nutrients.

Culinary Uses

Roasted, grilled, or baked in dishes like eggplant parmesan.

Used in Mediterranean and Asian cuisine.

Blended into dips like baba ganoush.

Health Benefits of True Berries

True berries are not just interesting from a scientific perspective—they’re also incredibly nutritious! Here’s why you should include them in your diet:

Rich in Antioxidants – Protects against oxidative stress and aging.

High in Fiber – Supports digestion and gut health.

Packed with Vitamins and Minerals – Boosts immunity, heart health, and energy levels.

Culinary Uses of True Berries

True berries can be used in countless ways in the kitchen:

Smoothies & Juices – Blend bananas, blueberries, and kiwis for a nutritious drink.

Salads & Snacks – Add tomatoes and grapes to salads for a burst of flavor.

Cooking & Baking – Use blueberries in desserts, tomatoes in savory dishes, and eggplants in stews.

Fun Facts About True Berries

Strawberries and raspberries are not true berries, but watermelons and pumpkins are!

The tiny black specks in bananas are undeveloped seeds, but wild bananas have large seeds.

A single grapevine can produce fruit for over 100 years!

Conclusion

Now that you know what a true berry is, your grocery trips will never be the same! While strawberries and raspberries don’t make the cut, true berries like bananas, tomatoes, blueberries, kiwis, grapes, and even eggplants are packed with nutrition and flavor. Whether you enjoy them fresh, cooked, or blended into a smoothie, true berries offer both health benefits and delicious versatility.

[colleenmurphy]

"He's got that cultivating music that be captivating me...."

Danny could barely believe his ears as he attempted to pop back home for senior skip day. He hadn't planned on his Mama being home, it was a Tuesday what the hell was she doing home? Carefully peeking around the corner that turned into the large kitchen and dining room he spotted his mother at the massive butcher's block his father had built for her decades ago and she was crushing something up with her long slender fingers. He could see her wedding band a heavy well made band crafted from Mexican sterling silver to match the rest of her sterling jewelry. Her long dark hair was held back and braided in twin dutch braids, her usual go to hairstyle to keep her long curls out of the way.

"What are you doing?"

Whatever Mom had in her hands went flying and her eyes widened as she scanned the room. Her brass ashtray clattered to the floor sounding like a gong and her cigarette butts went everywhere.

"Daniel Matthew Taylor!"

Crouching down to pick up what she'd dropped she glowered at Danny in such a way his body almost told him to run. A familiar smell hit his nose and he studied his mother.

"You're home on a Tuesday morning listening to rap and smoking...weed? Mama! You smoke weed?!"

Without missing a beat as she stood up to her full height she had managed to light a freshly rolled joint and hold it in as she studied her eldest son. Danny knew she had him summed up with the first glance.

"Yes as a matter of fact I do and last I checked I didn't answer to you, sir."

Pointing to the seat across from hers he noticed her stash box and her rolling papers. Same ones Dad used, same ones he used.

'Must run in the family.'

He mused as she finished picking up her ashtray and her roaches from the floor. Now the herby green smell that was on her robes made sense now. It was forever interwoven with Avon Skin So Soft and Calgon Rose Water bath beads that it made him smile.

"My Mama the pothead."

Cool sea glass blue green eyes snapped on him quick as a wink as she took a deeper hit and held the joint out to Danny to his utter surprise.

"G'on and take the damn thing, Danny. You're 18 as of an hour ago."

The surreal realization that he was in his childhood home, where he'd always known home to be smoking weed at the kitchen table he'd been spoon fed solids by the same woman holding out a joint she'd rolled just before he'd scared the life out of her.

'Hi. I'm Danny Taylor and I smoked weed on my 18th birthday with my Mom.'

That was an icebreaker if ever there was one. But being from Copperline County there were much worse drugs that parents did with their kids these days. He knew that much, his Mama was a nurse and his Daddy was a History teacher after all.

Studying the joint he could almost see his Mother's chosen rolling pattern. Twisted to the right and pointed at the end to make lighting and burning easier. He took a tentative hit from it and immediately tasted grapes and some sort of berry. It went deep into his lungs and his head swam for a moment as he watched his Mama shake her head.

"Smaller hits. Ya'll Taylors are all the damn same go big or go home. Your Dad's the same way. I mean he can hold it...you're doin' good. Let it out and taste the blueberries."

He let go and a swath of smoke enveloped the room. Danny did indeed taste the aforementioned blueberries and he smiled. He'd never smoked anything like it. Was this what being an adult was like? Better money for better weed? Less stress from having to answer to teachers?

"Wha...how.."

"Magic."

"Where do you get yours? Baker only gets so much from his uncle Pettimore anymore."

Colleen chuckled at the mention of Jon Baker and his cousin JC Pettimore. She'd gone to school with them and Gator Lerner back in the day and she smiled. She'd shown the boys how to grow and what she'd learned from her travels around the world. Her stereo system and ANC status of 1st Lt. helped her get some of the best of what she'd smoked Over There back home but that was a story her son would never know. Only Dan and Helene knew all about the magic stereo that she still owned and still was in working order. In fact that was what was playing that cassette that currently played in the background. In a few minutes the cover version they'd recorded on a whim after finding their son's newest cassette left into player of the family car. All it took was a phone call to their friends, a get together in the backyard with a fire going, a bottle of wine and weed and the product was a cover that Snoop Dogg might be tickled with.

"Who do you think they get it from?"

Realization dawned on Danny as his eyes widened and his mind slowly exploded. Sputtering cough took him as he took another hit and passed it back.

"I grow my own and have since I came home."

"From where?"

Colleen felt herself frozen in a frown for a moment as she inhaled sharply and coughed the daze away.

"Never mind that, that's a story for another time. You've been smoking the shit I've grown for nearly a year. Don't you dare tell me anything otherwise."

Danny's face fell as it fell into place. He had to have gotten his appreciation for the nifty little green plant from somewhere. He never could see his Dad stoned, Dan Sr. was too much a philosopher. He figured it came from some long haired wild child. Here she was sitting across from him looking at him wide eyed and looking twenty years younger.

"We went to Woodstock before I went to nursing school."

Danny could see it. Mama dressed in a flower print dress with her hair down barefoot and swaying to Hendrix and singing along with Janis.

"Who'd you go with? You said we?"

Passing him the tail end of the joint and motioning for him to finish it if we wanted he watched as she grabbed a wooden pipe from her stash box and load it up with some powerful smelling homegrown. It was almost purple and smelled so sweet Danny's mouth started to water.

"You've got to promise me that this story about this particular chapter of my life stays between us. Your Grammy Delaney doesn't know about this. Your Pops Harvey has no clue."

Colleen held out the wooden pipe and just as Danny felt like he was reaching for the Holy Grail she pulled it back to her chest and looked him dead in the eye.

"Promise. Me."

Looking directly into his Mother's eyes Daniel Taylor crossed his heart and nodded. He even added a locked lip and threw that metaphorical key so far away from him it landed in the Sahara somewhere inside his mind. Mama passed him the bowl and her lighter and motioned for him to smoke.

"I went with your Aunt Helene, Aunt Liz and your Uncle Charlie. We were all English majors over at Pendleton College and well...we were high on life and decided well hell that festival isn't that far from the campus so we went."

His Aunt Liz was up in Vancouver now and his Uncle Charlie was out and about touring the world with his band. Aunt Helene and Mama settled back in their hometown of Miller's Ridge along the Copperline with Mama and Daddy and the rest of Mama's family once they came back from wherever they were.

"Why can't tell Pops and Grammy about it?"

Danny noticed that his mother's natural accent had come back into full swing. Daddy was a Tidewater Virginian through and through, refined and gentlemanly and rough when needed. Mama...was a beautifully chaotic blend of Florida swamps and ocean tide pools rolling deep and sharp and heavy as the heat. A wonderfully warm mix if you knew her and jarring when she was truly angered.

"My first husband. Francis fucking Flannery."

Danny felt himself sputter up a huge cloud right directly for his mother's face which promptly disappeared. He had been under the impression that his parents had a fairytale type of romance and courtship.

"You look a little pale there,kiddo. Hand me the bowl and I'll get you a glass of water."

"No..I just..I thought Dad..."

A Cheshire Cat smile spread across Colleen's face as shook her head.

"I get it, you thought he was my first last and only. Well, I had to put up with the monster to get the prince. Anyways...Frank got handsy with me before we left for Woodstock and told me not to bother coming home he'd found someone new."

Danny felt a lump form in his throat as his mother continued only pausing to draw a few long puffs and hold them in. He could never imagine his mother of all people allowing someone to push her around. Now he realized why she was so protective of his aunts. The Benson Incident sprang to mind and he still remembered Dad's prosthetic leg connecting with Joel Benson's face. She hadn't had that back then, she was probably just a scared kid herself.

"Before you over think everything I married Frank because your Granddaddy had just died the year before and I had just graduated high school. I took a job down at the Lamp Lighter tavern and I met Frank. He was older, about 25 and I was 18. He reeled me in with promises and for a time he made good on them until we got married."

Danny could see it in his mind, his Mama young and hopeful and so utterly enamored with this smooth talking older man that promised her the moon and stars.

"He was furious when I went back to work at the Lamp Lighter, he was enraged when I enrolled myself into Pendleton College and he was madder'n the Devil himself the day I moved onto the campus so much so that he tried to strangle me right there in the parking lot. If it hadn't been for your Aunts and that one security guard I wouldn't be here."

She didn't dare mention the fact that every time she heard the song Venus by Shocking Blue she was taken right back to that stupid parking lot. Frank had come screeching up behind her in his Thunderbird and grabbed her by the neck. He'd left the engine running and the radio was blasting to cover her screams in the dark dusky summer evening.

"What happened to him?"

Colleen bit her tongue for a moment and looked over to the right towards the living room. There was no way in hell she could ever tell her son that she'd taken a life. Helene and Dan called it 'self defense' but she didn't dare admit that it was a primal drive to see Frank dead that made her do it. She had been judge, jury and executioner all in one fell swoop.

"After that he sent me a letter post marked from somewhere in New York City saying that he'd found work as a longshoreman working the piers. That's why I never go in the city when we're up north."

Exhaling a plume of rich smoke Colleen sighed when Danny was out of sight for a moment. Never would her son know that her ex husband was in the very deepest part of the Copperline River. Weighted down with cast off anchors and a few bags of cement for good measure. He would also never know that Frank was reason she went on to become a nurse and part of the reason she ended up working in a field hospital in a DM Zone in the boonies of Vietnam.

"Grammy still doesn't know you were married before Daddy does she?"

"Nope. I wore white too."

Danny's eye's bugged for a moment and the realization hit him like a ton of bricks.

"Were you?"

"Yes, I was three months along with you when your father and I got married. Grammy didn't know that either."

"Does she know you smoke weed?"

"Who do you think got her stoned her first time when I came home?"

"Jesus Christ, Mama!"

"Language."

"Sorry, Mama."

"Any other questions?"

"How'd you know Pettimore and Baker?"

"Well, I helped deliver Baker and Pettimore and I ran in the same circles growing up. He was Gator Lerner's best friend back in the day."

"Who's Gator?"

"Remember Florence that comes over for Christmas and New Years?"

Ofcourse he remembered Florence. She was the only other person besides his, Grammy, his Aunties and his Mama allowed to ever call him by his infant nickname of Booper.

"She was Gator's...or Joseph's mother. He died over in Vietnam."

"So that's why she comes to celebrate with us and Aunt Helene and Aunt Liz."

"Yep. Here, you finish this one. I'll take the pipe."

Handing the pipe back he watched his mother look at it for a moment.

"It was my Dad's. Maybe it's time for you to use it...he gave it to me when he found me with a burnt bang hanging out my old bedroom window when I was sixteen. He didn't lector me but he told me to be the safest I could I was better off growing my own."

"Wasn't he the town sheriff?"

"Yes, but he never cracked down on that. Anything else pissed him off but this never did. Just be safe, respect it and take a break every now and then."

Setting the slightly warm freshly packed bowl back into his hands Danny felt a tug at his heart. Wrapping his mother into a bear hug she chuckled as he asked her the question that worked his way into his brain.

"What're you gonna smoke with?"

"I've got a nifty jade and bamboo pipe I brought home from Yen Bai."

She answered with a wink and returned his hug just as fiercely and stood on her very tip toes to kiss his downturned head.

"Love you, Mama."

"Love you too, Danny."

"Mama...you never answered about the music?"

"Good music is good music. Take your cassette back but don't listen to the mix on tape 2 in the car."

"Why?"

"Then you'll find out what your Dad and I get up to with our friends when we're all stoned."

"You're kidding."

"You forget I can play the mandolin and your aunts are really good with tambourines."

"Who...no...."

"Your uncle Charlie's still on tour and your Dad can sing. The rest was your Uncle Clay."

"Oh my God..."

"And you thought we were old."

"I never said that!"

"You thought it!"

"I'll be home later."

"8PM and no later. We've got cake and a your dinner's planned for tomorrow. I love you and drive safe."

"Love you too and Roger That."

Taking a leisurely sip of her tea and another toke from the joint she'd lit and forgotten in the haze Colleen smiled.

"He's all grown up."