#farm box

[alex51324]

So...is it normal for muscadine grapes to make your lips tingle, or is this a classic "itchy bananas" situation?

Muscadines are (apparently) a completely different species--some taxonomists say they should even be a different genus--from other grapes, being native to North America, so it's fairly plausible that I could be allergic to them, and not to regular grapes. (They came in my farm box; I've never had them before.)

Or maybe it's just because of how astringent the skins are? (The skins are very astringent.)

Maybe next time I will try peeling them? (The skins are also very thick, and more, IDK, rigid, than regular grapes? I think I could just cut them in half and pop out the insides.)

[copperbadge]

Polk loves Farm Share day. 

[ID: A photo of Polk the tabby, who is sitting in the white waxed-cardboard box that my farm produce is delivered in. The box’s side reads “Quality Produce: Vegetables” with a little illustration of a farm scene on it.]

[1000-directions]

good stuff 3-18-23

it’s the weekend!!!! i had my very good coffee and also a very very good everything bagel with chive cream cheese 😋

i finished playing strange horticulture and really enjoyed it overall! it took me a little over seven hours to play it through once, and i guess you can play it through multiple times to get different endings but i probably won’t do that. but i enjoyed the experience of playing it once.

i picked up my farm box and it is like so many leafy green veggies, one could say TOO MANY leafy green veggies, but i think i have an okay plan for how i will use some of them. plus i also got sweet potatoes and apples and huge brussels sprouts and green onions, and those are all ingredients i really like :)

i also made an apple crisp!! it is cooling right now!! can’t wait to eat it while watching my shows!!!

[gardening-guy]

garden update!!!! 🌿🎉✨🌱🌷

look what my friend built for me!!!! it's a greenhouse box that i'm going to use for growing herbs and other food plants over the colder months!!! i'm planning on growing more basil & other herbs in here, and hopefully have this house my tomatillos, bell peppers, and tomatoes over the cold months!

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 236

The ritual is complete, blood staining stone and fires cut short, snuffed to ash. For all intents and purposes, it shouldn’t have gone wrong. It should technically be over and done and successful. The cultists look from their bleeding hands to each other in panic and slight hysteria, clothing torn apart. 

They would not speak of this, and fix it right away! R-right away… fix it? They can… oh they can’t fix it um. No one will notice, right? 

….

What do you mean it’s affected everyone in the world?!

[loganslowdown4]

Logan: Did you get the eggs like I asked?

Patton: Even better!

Logan: Wha-?

Patton: *reveals a live chicken* Her name is Fluffy!

Logan: No not- nO NOT AGAIN PATTON THE DOGS WILL EAT HER-

[blakeexists07]

requested by @shallowoak

they asked for AppleJack (any gender)! I'm so sorry that I couldn't get a finished illustration. At the moment I am creating fanart for one of my friends (and school is also a pain) and I want to prioritize it a little. So here's a little sketch of AppleJack!

This how I imagined AppleJack would look like as a human, and since MLP is full of magic and fantasy, I wanted to draw AJ as an earth elf :). I headcanon that AppleJack takes up boxing when she isn't picking apples or helping around the farm.

[rhysnolastname]

cloudy, and sleepy, day in the garden.

[alex51324]

Forgot to post my farmbox again!

This is week 20; only six more to go!

Greens are back on the menu, with romaine lettuce, arugula, chard, and parsley! I also have a buttercup squash (my first winter squash!), a big round eggplant, cherry tomatoes, and little round carrots.

My plan is eggplant moussaka, a salad, and baked squash & sauteed chard as side dishes with a protein to be named later. Oh, and those Palestinian cheese pies that the recipe was going around earlier, with the parsley and the feta cheese that I got last week.

For fruit I have more muscadines, a few pears, and a special guest star, kiwiberries! These are kind of neat:

Like an eensy little kiwi fruit! The skin is very thin (and not fuzzy) so you just eat it like a berry. You can pretend that you are perhaps a giant ground sloth, or whatever sort of animal eats kiwis like that.

[copperbadge]

I see a medication-management psychiatrist monthly for my Adderall prescription; we have a half-hour zoom meeting where he makes sure I’m not dying or hallucinating, and I can ask him any questions I have about the meds or whatever. He always seems faintly amused when I have a question for him about ADHD because they’re clearly kind of off-the-wall compared to his other patients. 

In any case, it will always be hilarious to me that, being a specialist in ADHD, he starts sending reminders that we have an appointment three days beforehand, and slowly escalates from a single email to a series of emails and text messages designed to make sure I absolutely do imprint that there is a meeting I have to attend at 1:30 on Monday. 

*checks calendar*

3:30 on Monday. I will receive multiple daily reminders about the meeting at 3:30 on Monday. 

Which is hilarious. 

And also clearly very necessary. 

[1000-directions]

good stuff 4-15-23

had very delicious coffee and cinnamon bun this morning

picked up my last farm box, and it’s a pretty good one!! lettuces, kale, soooo many green onions, apples, broccoli, parsnips, and one red and one golden beet! i’ve never cooked parsnips or beets before, and i’m really excited about that!

finally sat down at my keyboard to work out the chord progression to the song i’ve been working on for months now, and i’m really excited about it. feels good to make some really solid progress on it and start bringing it out of my mind and into existence

went to my friend’s and we had delicious salads and started watching ‘beef’ and i got good snuggles from her dog :)

[everybodyshusband]

HEY FELIXXXXX WHAT HEADCANONS, SHIPS, OR WHATEVER HAVE BEEN ON YOUR MIND RECENTLY? 🩷🎤

P111111NKKKYYYYYYY I HAVE SOME THOTS FOR YOU THIS FINE EVENING (technically it's afternoon but it's almost dark ??? northern hemisphere what the FUCK !??!)

sooooo.... i've been thinking almost non-stop about my silly little farm au (post one, post two) but specifically about the uhhh spicier aspects 👀 even more specifically, mountain and dew's morning trists in the barn after dew's milked the cows and mountain's finished his milk rounds

their favourite way is when dew rides mountain. when he gets him on his back, when pain from the stray bits of hay from the bales lining the walls and floor poking at mountain's back melts away because all he can focus on is dew

dew straddles mount and is usually able to sink down immediately (he's never admitted it out loud, but they both know that dew sometimes brings his suction-cup dildo to stick onto his milking stool while he works so mountain doesn't have to wait for him to prep himself when he comes back). he'll grab at mountain's chest and flick his nipples while he smirks down at him and makes mountain watch as he rises and lowers himself on his dick painfully slowly. of course, it never stays slow, because as soon as dew gets going, his body (and mountain) starts begging for more

they always laugh way more than they should, giggling as steam puffs out from their mouths in the brisk morning freshness and readjusting their positions every few minutes when the hay digging into mountain's back starts to properly hurt. they finish with mountain sitting up, usually. the two of them holding each close and reaching their climaxes while moaning softly and gently crying out each others names against their lips, panting heavily during the comedown

when they're done, they'll head back to breakfast covered in hay and sweat with matching grins on their faces, bumping into each others shoulders as they toe off their work-boots and head into the kitchen. every morning, rain raises an eyebrow at the pair of them and every morning, he gestures towards the old, sturdy, wooden table where a feast of bread, butter, spreads, cereal, milk, fruit and juice is laid out, reminding them that if they want hot drinks or cooked food then they'd better make it themselves

not long after, the rest of the pack slowly filter down to breakfast, brushing the sleep from their eyes as they all mill about re-heating leftover rice, pouring glasses of juice and reaching entirely too far over the table to expect that you wouldn't get jam all over your pyjama shirt, swiss

aaaaand yeah i won't bore you with my sily ramblings any longer, but that's essentially what's been on my mind recently !!!!

[gardening-guy]

garden update & plan || 09/05/2024

okay prepare thyselves for a reaaaally long post with my plans for the fall/winter garden! please feel free to reblog with ideas, suggestions, and constructive criticism!! <333

so i still have at least 2 more raised garden bed frames to put together and prepare, but in total, that means i'll have 6 raised garden beds, my greenhouse box, a bunch of pots, and my two in-ground garden beds (one in frontyard, one in backyard) to utilize for the cold season!

i've already decided to grow for sure: walking Egyptian onion (already planted), early shortneck garlic (to be planted in the next two weeks), copenhagen market cabbage, blue-curled scotch kale, chinese pink celery, and cilantro out in the raised garden beds!

i also now discovered thanks to @tomorrowsgardennc that the dill i've had is not a summer crop (ty to the store that lied to me augh) and is actually a cold weather crop, so i'm thinking i can just plant the little bit that remains into one of the raised beds, but i have to decide on where and which crops it'll go well with.

i'm planting the onions with the celery, and the garlic will grow with the cabbage and kale (or maybe i should plant the garlic by itself?? idk). orrrrr i can also plant the kale with the cilantro? and the cabbage will stay with the garlic!

i'm planning on not doing a uniform planting method of rows, instead my goal is to utilize a bunch of companion planting guides and plant my crops fairly close together.

i also have a nasturtium plant that i could plant in one of the raised garden beds OR i can separate it into different pots and place strategically around the raised beds to deter bugs!

so ultimately: raised bed 1) is for onion and celery, raised bed 2) is for garlic and cabbage, raised bed 3) is for kale and cilantro and maybe dill, raised bed 4) is already for my flowers, raised bed 5) is either more flowers or something else (suggestions are welcome), and raised bed 6) is actually going to be used by a friend of mine

i also still need to get a ton more soil and collect more cardboard

does anyone know cold weather perennial flowers that i can grow from seed during the fall?? i want to sow it directly into the ground ideally...

i also hope to grow some hot peppers in the greenhouse box, and i've already put a few things in there (bell pepper plant & tomato plant) and i want to move my basil into the greenhouse eventually as well

i have absolutely no idea if there's anything i should do with the garden beds in the backyard. ideally, i'd love to try to redo them in the spring, cover them with cardboard & start partially anew (keeping room for my perennial plants that are already established there), but idk what i can do during the fall and winter, if anything...

once again, any advice, suggestions, ideas, and/or constructive criticism is appreciated!! and tagging @tomorrowsgardennc bc i promised this post like yesterday lol!

[goatpawsdraws]

My Monster Rancher collection!

[xannerz]

ranting under cut

i love it when people who dont stfu about how they refuse to vote/think voting is bad keep using 'You nEeD to TAke A hisTOry/Poli ScI cLaSs' as if it's not the dumbest possible gotcha considering those same classes would also tell you about this country's dumb fucking history of voter/civil rights suppression, and that it's still a thing going on today like what's not clicking lmao.

republicans dont want you to vote. the same conservative politicians getting away with gerrymandering and not allowing mail-in ballots and limiting your time to vote, the same politicians who fear monger their way into office and ban abortion access and try to add work requirements to medicaid and slash away at the most basic civil rights, esp for the LGBT+ community -- like.

they dont want you to vote! a keyboard warrior bitching 24/7 about how morally bankrupt you must be to want to vote for democrats thinks 'oh, boy! i'm really showing the government! take that you dirty liberal!'-- it's not the revolutionary move you think it is. it's such a toothless dig. i also think dems are incompetent and a destructive part of the machine, but damage/risk mitigation - esp in relation to what we have looming over us - exists. shirking the very basic rights republicans don't want you to exercise is not the gotcha you think it is. you're like. doing their work for them.

the fact this has to be said-- omg.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

(CNN) — Jack Latham was on a mission to photograph farms in Vietnam — not the country’s sprawling plantations or rice terraces but its “click farms.”

Last year, the British photographer spent a month in the capital Hanoi documenting some of the shadowy enterprises that help clients artificially boost online traffic and social media engagement in the hope of manipulating algorithms and user perceptions.

The resulting images, which feature in his new book “Beggar’s Honey,” provide rare insight into the workshops that hire low-paid workers to cultivate likes, comments and shares for businesses and individuals globally.

“When most people are on social media, they want nothing but attention — they’re begging for it,” Latham said in a phone interview, explaining his book’s title.

“With social media, our attention is a product for advertisers and marketers.”

In the 2000s, the growing popularity of social media sites — including Facebook and Twitter, now called X — created a new market for well-curated digital profiles, with companies and brands vying to maximize visibility and influence.

Though it is unclear when click farms began proliferating, tech experts warned about “virtual gang masters” operating them from low-income countries as early as 2007.

In the following decades, click farms exploded in number — particularly in Asia, where they can be found across India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, and beyond.

Regulations have often failed to keep pace: While some countries, like China, have attempted to crack down on operations (the China Advertising Association banned the use of click farms for commercial gain in 2020), they continue to flourish around the continent, especially in places where low labor and electricity costs make it affordable to power hundreds of devices simultaneously.

‘Like Silicon Valley startups’

Latham’s project took him to five click farms in Vietnam.

(The click farmers he hoped to photograph in Hong Kong “got cold feet,” he said, and pandemic-related travel restrictions dashed his plans to document the practice in mainland China).

On the outskirts of Hanoi, Latham visited workshops operating from residential properties and hotels.

Some had a traditional setup with hundreds of manually operated phones, while others used a newer, compact method called “box farming” — a phrase used by the click farmers Latham visited — where several phones, without screens and batteries, are wired together and linked to a computer interface.

Latham said one of the click farms he visited was a family-run business, though the others appeared more like a tech companies.

Most workers were in their 20s and 30s, he added.

“They all looked like Silicon Valley startups,” he said. “There was a tremendous amount of hardware … whole walls of phones.”

Some of Latham’s photos depict — albeit anonymously — workers tasked with harvesting clicks.

In one image, a man is seen stationed amid a sea of gadgets in what appears to be a lonely and monotonous task.

“It only takes one person to control large amounts of phones,” Latham said. “One person can very quickly (do the work of) 10,000. It’s both solitary and crowded.”

At the farms Lathan visited, individuals were usually in charge of a particular social media platforms.

For instance, one “farmer” would be responsible for mass posting and commenting on Facebook accounts, or setting up YouTube platforms where they post and watch videos on loop.

The photographer added that TikTok is now the most popular platform at the click farms he visited.

The click farmers Latham spoke to mostly advertised their services online for less than one cent per click, view or interaction.

And despite the fraudulent nature of their tasks, they seemed to treat it like just another job, the photographer said.

‘There was an understanding they were just providing a service,” he added. “There wasn’t a shadiness. What they’re offering is shortcuts.”

Deceptive perception

Across its 134 pages, “Beggar’s Honey” includes a collection of abstract photographs — some seductive, others contemplative — depicting videos that appeared on Latham’s TikTok feed.

He included them in the book to represent the kind of content he saw being boosted by click farms.

But many of his photos focus on the hardware used to manipulate social media —webs of wires, phones and computers.

“A lot of my work is about conspiracies,” Latham said. ” Trying to ‘document the machines used to spread disinformation’ is the tagline of the project. The bigger picture is often the thing we don’t see.”

Click farms around the world are also used to amplify political messages and spread disinformation during elections.

In 2016, Cambodia’s then-prime minister Hun Sen was accused of buying Facebook friends and likes, which according to the BBC he denied, while shadowy operations in North Macedonia were found to have spread pro-Donald Trump posts and articles during that year’s US presidential election.

While researching, Latham said he found that algorithms — a topic of his previous book, “Latent Bloom” — often recommended videos that he said got increasingly “extreme” with each click.

“If you only digest a diet of that, it’s a matter of time you become diabetically conspiratorial,” he said.

“The spreading of disinformation is the worst thing. It happens in your pocket, not newspapers, and it’s terrifying that it’s tailored to your kind of neurosis.”

Hoping to raise awareness of the phenomenon and its dangers, Latham is planning to exhibit his own home version of a click farm — a small box with several phones attached to a computer interface — at the 2024 Images Vevey Festival in Switzerland.

He bought the gadget in Vietnam for the equivalent of about $1,000 and has occasionally experimented with it on his social media accounts.

On Instagram, Latham’s photos usually attract anywhere from a few dozen to couple hundred likes.

But when he deployed his personal click farm to announce his latest book, the post generated more than 6,600 likes.

The photographer wants people to realize that there’s more to what they see on social media — and that metrics aren’t a measurement of authenticity.

“When people are better equipped with knowledge of how things work, they can make more informed decisions,” he said.

“Beggar’s Honey,” co-published by Here Press and Images Vevey, is available now.