Palm Sunday

With Jessica Vaugn:

 

BSS News, Gachis busy collecting date palm sap as winter approaches

With the arrival of winter, the activity of collecting date palm sap has started in Atrai of Naogaon. To collect this delicious sap, gachis (sap collectors) are now moving from one date palm tree to another. Starting from noon, they begin hanging earthen pots (hari) on the date palm trees and remain busy with this task until evening. Although this is winter sap, this time gachis have become active in collecting sap early.

There are thousands of date palm trees on roadsides, in courtyards, and on field embankments in various villages of the 8 unions of the upazila. Although gachis collect sap from these date palm trees, what has caught attention are the date palm trees along the railway line beside the Naogaon-Natore regional highway.

Gachis have started collecting sap from about 300 date palm trees on both sides of the railway line from the Atrai Railway (old) Station northward to Mahadighi. At one time, local gachis used to collect sap from these date palm trees, but now local gachis are no longer seen.

Therefore, every year gachis come from Bagha and Arani areas of Rajshahi and Lalpur area of Natore to collect sap from these trees. And this sap is used to make delicious lali (liquid molasses) and gur (jaggery).

Gur sounds pretty good. Can you buy it on Amazon? Of course!

Edible Windmills?

TNP, Now They Want You to EAT Wind Turbines Artificially Turned into Gummy Bears.

Amidst this renewable energy push, researchers at Michigan State University constructed a new form of composite resin for wind turbine blades.

It is comprised of a mixture of glass fibers with plant-derived and synthetic polymers. Once blades formed from this resin can no longer be used, the new material can be recycled into a variety of products – including gummy bears.

When dissolved in an alkaline solution, the newly formulated resin produces potassium lactate. The compound, researchers allege, can be purified and converted into sweets or sports drinks.

“We recovered food-grade potassium lactate and used it to make gummy bear candies, which I ate,” explained John Dorgan, one of the authors of the paper.

 

“A carbon atom derived from a plant, like corn or grass, is no different from a carbon atom that came from a fossil fuel. It’s all part of the global carbon cycle, and we’ve shown that we can go from biomass in the field to durable plastic materials and back to foodstuffs,” continued the researcher.

“The beauty of our resin system is that at the end of its use cycle, we can dissolve it, and that releases it from whatever matrix it’s in so that it can be used over and over again in an infinite loop. That’s the goal of the circular economy.”

Another byproduct of combining the resin with an alkaline solution is poly(methyl methacrylate), or PMMA, which is an acrylic material regularly used in windows and car taillights.

Just because something is possible doesn't make it necessarily a good idea. Do you know how big those things are? Do we really need that many gummy bears?  Oregon wind farm sees blades, bolts fly off as failures mount: "11-story tall blades flew the full length of a football field and plowed a 4-feet deep furrow in a wheat field. The heavy-duty bolts that kept the blade attached to the tower scattered like shrapnel."

PGE’s flagship wind facility, which opened 15 years ago to expand green energy technology in Oregon and nationally had other warning signs as well according to the outlet but it wasn’t until the blade breakdown that the company took action at Biglow Canyon, one of Oregon’s largest wind farms, and shut down all 217 turbines for testing, keeping some out of service for four months.

Though industry groups insist that wind farms are very safe and major malfunctions are rare, wind farms are growing older and components are aging.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: IJN Musashi out on time and under budget.

I Blame Brandon!

 At NYPo, Via Weasel Zippers, who I found at the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 12.20.21,  Candy cane shortage fueled by COVID, weak peppermint harvest

It’s the great Candy Cane Crisis of 2021.

Weakness in peppermint crops and COVID-caused logistical issues have created a problem for Big Candy.

“We only received half of our candy cane order for the holiday season and sold out almost immediately. We currently have zero in stock,” Mitchell Cohen, the owner of Economy Candy on the Lower East Side, told The Post. “Raw material and ingredient shortages globally have had quite an impact.”

It was a first for the store, which has been in business since 1937. Cohen said they sold more than 12,000 candy canes before running dry.

“Since candy canes were invented, we’ve had candy canes,” he said.

Peppermint production in the United States has declined nearly 25 percent over the past decade, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

The ripple effect is creating havoc in the gingerbread house construction sector.

“We can’t really do a gingerbread house without a candy cane tree, a candy cane door, or candy cane anything,” Cohen said.

A survey of local retailers found a mixed stocking of responses: some stuffed with plenty of candy canes, with others struggling to keep the delicious confections and sometime tree ornaments in stock.

“I can’t find candy canes anywhere,” lamented a blogger at New Jersey radio station WOBM. “And, it’s not like boxes are empty. There are no boxes.”

Economy Candy says fans of peppermint-flavored candy canes are not the only people suffering. The sweet boutique sold out early of both its kale and ham flavored candy canes.

Is it fair to blame Slow Joe for the candy cane shortage? Probably not, but, after all, he did fail to kill the virus and not the economy as he promised to.

Speaking of the production of peppermint, I remember driving by fields of recently cut mint in Oregon, (I have no idea which mint, it could be peppermint, both are grown there). It could make your eyes water.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: The Feast Of St. Stephen up on time and under budget.

Skittles!

Whoever thought of this was a genius.