"No Thanks"?

[piperdbh]

Yes, Mikilt, I have stopped wearing the kilt, and that was after a few years. I have also let go of tartan; that one was painful.

That's too bad, Ted. I often think of you in the hot sunshine harvesting whatever's in season, wearing a kilt, Argyll jacket and wool tie, quietly muttering to yourself about which side of the ponderosa needs more compost.

[Bugbear]

That's too bad, Ted. I often think of you in the hot sunshine harvesting whatever's in season, wearing a kilt, Argyll jacket and wool tie, quietly muttering to yourself about which side of the ponderosa needs more compost.

I suppose there is a positive side... I didn't spend hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars more on highland attire, only to end up feeling icky and wrong about wearing it.

But you are correct, piperdbh, I belong in overalls and an old straw hat, not a kilt, and not worrying about black tie attire.

[MacMillans son]

I suppose there is a positive side... I didn't spend hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars more on highland attire, only to end up feeling icky and wrong about wearing it.

But you are correct, piperdbh, I belong in overalls and an old straw hat, not a kilt, and not worrying about black tie attire.

Of course you are always welcome Bugbear, but I am curious as to why you would continue to participate on a kilt board?

[Bugbear]

Of course you are always welcome Bugbear, but I am curious as to why you would continue to participate on a kilt board?

I made a few friends here during my kilted days, and I manage one of the forum's social groups.

[MacBean]

I for one am delighted that Bugbear hangs out here, and hope some day to botanize with him out there. Kilts and all are very nice, but I look for something subtler in the Highland legacy, and I think it lies in the land itself and its people rather than its fashions. A recent visit to the Gaeltact of Ireland (my first), was as life-changing as visits to the Highlands in the past, though I lament the loss of the old forests, just as I did as a child in England.

But back to the original question. I wonder what made you ask it in the first place?

[BoldHighlander]

I made a few friends here during my kilted days...

I for one am delighted that Bugbear hangs out here, and hope some day to botanize with him out there.

Hear! Hear!

I count Ted as one of my friends (kilted or not), and always look forward to his reports/discussions on his gardening pursuits,
....besides we both have an affinity for bats

[BoldHighlander]

I suppose there is a positive side... I didn't spend hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars more on highland attire, only to end up feeling icky and wrong about wearing it.

But you are correct, piperdbh, I belong in overalls and an old straw hat, not a kilt, and not worrying about black tie attire.

We all go through different seasons in our lives Ted. Who knows, one day you may find yourself donning a kilt again. As the saying goes "never say never"

[Bugbear]

We all go through different seasons in our lives Ted. Who knows, one day you may find yourself donning a kilt again. As the saying goes "never say never"

That's true. But for now I am an unkilted scarecrow.

I also don't watch TV, I don't have one, or listen to the radio, and this is the only forum I belong to. I spend a lot of time either reading or writing things on my computer, so it's nice to have a place to take a break.

And for the garden report, there is one last stalk of blue corn out there with four ears on it; ears B4.1 through B4.4 I'm waiting for their kernels to harden up a bit more before I harvest them; it's ancient flour corn, and the ears are very short and small (3 to 6 inches).

[piperdbh]

That's true. But for now I am an unkilted scarecrow.

I also don't watch TV, I don't have one, or listen to the radio, and this is the only forum I belong to. I spend a lot of time either reading or writing things on my computer, so it's nice to have a place to take a break.

And for the garden report, there is one last stalk of blue corn out there with four ears on it; ears B4.1 through B4.4 I'm waiting for their kernels to harden up a bit more before I harvest them; it's ancient flour corn, and the ears are very short and small (3 to 6 inches).

What will you do with the blue corn once it's all hairsted?

[Bugbear]

What will you do with the blue corn once it's all hairsted?

I am multiplying my seed stock for now; I started with a "bottle neck" genom of fourty seeds or kernels. Each ear goes in a labeled envelope until the next season (late January or February), then the best looking kernels will be selected and replanted. Over time I will select out different plants with interesting or useful phenotypic expressions to develop different varieties, but generally attempt to keep the gene pool diverse and healthy, just as has been done for hundreds and hundreds of years. Hopefully, I will be able to grow enough plants to do all of that and also be able to nixtamalize and mill some of the corn into food. The ears can also be eaten, before drying down, just as sweet corn is eaten, though with a starchy rather than sweet flavor and not quite as many available nutrients.

I guess you could think of it this way. If the Scots had bred a certain sheep long, long ago that produced a certain type of wool and made yarn then kilts from it, one might want to raise those sheep, rather than a new and improved spider sheep that spins it's own yarn out the back, if one were into making yarn and raising sheep as a connection to the past. They recorded information about themselves in that selective breeding process; it would have taken generations of sheep breeders to arrive at that type of sheep and wool, so it is a tradition recorded in the phenotypic expression of the genes of that particular breed of sheep that had a useful and appealing quality to those people. Fast forward to the yarn maker in the here and now. He or she is now sharing in that tradition hundreds of years later in being influenced by those phenotypic expressions developed by the people of the past. The people who made and developed the type of sheep and wool, as well as the exact way they used it, may be completely unknown to us now, except by that phenotypic expression that has reached across generations and hundreds of years. You would also research as much of the known history of that time period as you can get your hands on. I'm not a sheep, yarn, kilt, and wool expert.

That is what I am doing with my project; though I am not an expert in that either.