World Record Cookie Swap

 Christmas takes a lot more everything than anyone actually plans for. It's annoying. Even more annoying is that my oven decided to die literally mid-cookie-bake. I had a pan of Hawaiian Butter Mochi in it, along with a tray of gluten-free almond sugar cookies, and the oven lost heat enough that neither actually finished baking. I had to get everything baked up in my tiny toaster oven, which I actually have the oven version of that because it's so much more useful than a pop-up toaster. It was annoying, but that was my option. 

Since that's been on my mind a lot recently, I've got two things for amusement here. Well, one recent story and what I think of it. 

The story first, is that there was a thing done in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, recently with 83,000 cookies put together in a cookie swap, to try to break a world record. I'm not entirely certain what record was attempted to be broken, or who with, but...well, it's a pretty big event. 83,427 cookies to be more exact, baked by 583 bakers in 67 teams from 14 states and New Zealand. They provided evidence for the Guinness book of world records in hopes that they could get the record for the largest cookies swap. 

This is...an interesting story. It involves a lot of people and moving parts and could be very impressive sounding. 

Except...well, I'm me. 

I'm not particularly religious, but I do have affiliations with a church that I've been going to at least twice a year for my entire life. It used to be a lot more, but lately, I can only guarantee two days that I'd be there, and now I'm not even sure about that. The first day was the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Feed that my family put together because my brother makes the best pancakes. The other was the Cookie Faire in December, but apparently the Health Department says that a bake-sale type thing is no longer allowed because there's too much risk that someone could get sick and blame the church or a baker. To keep this even vaguely child-friendly, I'm going to skip entirely over my opinion of that and those people. 

The Cookie Faire was something that my Church put together every December, for the community. We'd bake up all sorts of cookies and homemade candies and donate them, then people would come in and pick out their favorites from the selection to put in their personal boxes. We sold them by the pound, cookies 6 dollars a pound and candy 8, then we'd donate all the money to the local food bank. 

This is the part where I'm really not impressed by that 80,000 cookie count. 

The last time we were able to put that on before the Health Department got too upset about it, I baked about 15,000 cookies for it, of 60 different types. I also made about two dozen different kinds of candy. In my home kitchen, over the course of a month, a few hours a day most days. They'd get made, then put into a freezer until the day of. The list of planned bakes for me was three pages long, single space, over 100 planned cookie types. Most of them I made about 200 of. 

So, if I want to challenge that, I just need about 6-7 people as enthused about it as me, and a lot of people to come eat them. The number of people they had there, they could have just baked 100 apiece and gotten there pretty easily. I can do that in less than two hours, if you don't count frosting them. 67 teams, yeah, one days work for each of them and all's good. 

This boils down to: Very impressive act. 

Hold My Beer.

Sources:

Go look it up yourself. Pittsburgh, 80,000 cookies, world record. 

P.S. Might not actually try to break their record, just giving it some serious consideration to try. 

HAPPY NATIONAL CAT HERDER'S DAY!!!!

 As above, Happy National Cat Herder's Day. 

You might know that the phrase 'it's like herding cats' means that it's a chaotic and impossible task. I've also heard a similar phrase of 'nailing jello to a tree', which I find hilarious in so many ways. Today is the day that we celebrate those that have to do impossible tasks, or somehow succeed at controlling the chaos. Cats are not required, but they're always welcome. 

In case you're curious, I have tried herding cats and it's actually kinda workable as long as you're inside a house and using a squirt bottle to do the herding. Kinda. Maybe. I mean, I got them out of the area I didn't want them in, and I count that as enough of a win. 

Today is the day to celebrate the people that do the impossible. People like project managers that have to get everyone to work together on a project with deadlines and possible interpersonal conflicts. People like office managers (or assistants, receptionists, whoever the miracle worker is in the office) that make sure paperwork is done on time and correctly, and things run smoothly. People like caretakers that help their clients make sense of what can be a pretty big mess in their lives. People like parents and teachers who have to somehow manage to herd actual kids for years on end. People who manage to tame the chaos and keep lives on track. Those people are not just worthy of appreciating, but worth having their own day to thank them and make sure they know that you appreciate the herculean tasks they manage to perform every day. 

It's been suggested that you might celebrate this day by using your favorite cat meme or video to draw attention to it and spread word so that, in the future, more people will know the holiday, along with trying to make your own cat herders feel appreciated. 

Naturally, I like this day just for the job of herding cats because, as you know, I have a few of them. For a random fun thing though, here's a video of my silly kittens. The bigger one, Emu, doesn't like sharing her can of wet food, but little Pan would like some too. I just find Emu's reaction hilarious. 

Sources:

National Day Calendar-- Cat Herders Day

National Today-- Cat Herders Day

Days of the Year-- National Cat Herders Day

A Curious Nature-- National Cat Herders day

Silbo Gomero

 This is a really weird language, but also very interesting. Buusuu apparently has a course in it if you really need to try to learn it. 

So, here's how it's weird. 

Silbo Gomero is a whistle-language, where the speakers 'whistle in Spanish' so that they can be heard across canyons and stuff on the Canary Island that this language originates from. 

If you know Spanish, you can kinda figure it out, but it is still very weird. The one time I heard it, admittedly on an episode of QI, it sounded a bit like a cringy high voice was speaking through a napkin, for lack of a better comparison. 

Considering that it's all done in whistles, they did have to break down the language to only a few sounds so that it can survive distortion from the surroundings better, turning the entire language into two sounds for vowels and five for consonants, give or take. The interesting thing is that the language used to have a basis in another language, but it got adopted into Spanish when the conquistadors came around 

Even with phones and whatnot, there are a lot of people working to keep around the only whistled language in the world, which I totally support. If I were better at whistling, I might try to learn it myself. 

I don't know how to put the sounds here, so I'm adding a few Youtube sources that you can listen to and learn more. I just got reminded of this and thought it was something really cool to share. I hope you enjoyed learning and I hope that I'll be back soon, despite my recent issues with things. 

Sources;

Language Museum-- Silbo Gomero

BBC- Silbo Gomero

Buusuu-- Learn Silbo Gomero

Unesco-- Intangible Heritage-- Silbo Gomero

Youtube--Euromaxx-- The Ancient Whistle Language of Silbo Gomero

Youtube-- Unesco-- Whistled Language of the Canary Islands

Youtube--ENTR-- How the Whistle Language worlds

Green Birdflower

 Oops? I could have sworn I posted something just yesterday, but I guess I just thought about it. 

Ok, so, this is going to be another short one, but it's going to revisit an old...topic that I stay aware of for purely scientific reasons. Australia. 

Picture from Florida Seeds, link below.

That's a Green Birdflower plant that grows Hummingbirds. It's gorgeous and awesome and I totally want one and am simultaneously terrified of what way it'll kill me if I actually get the seeds to try to grow it inside. It's Australian, it obviously wants to kill me somehow. 

But it's still so cool. Tell me this isn't awesome:

Picture is from Audubon, linked below. 

There is a lot of debate around why this plant grew in this particular way, including a suggestion that it's just humans seeing things,  so it's still up for debate, but what isn't is that that is a bunch of hummingbirds on a stick. The general consensus is that it's just coincidence because the flower is in the right proportions for it's pollinators, and that just happens to look like a hummingbird. 

Unfortunately, this is another one of those times where I have to say...there's not a lot of research about it. It's been getting a lot of attention over the last few years, so it will soon, but it's sap has been used by Aboriginals to treat eye infections, so there's probably some kind of medicinal value that will be figured out later, when it's become more common and more studied. 

This picture is from Florida Seeds, seen below. 

The Latin name for this lovely bird-flower is Crotalaria cunninghamii, named after the Australian Botanist Alan Cunningham who first described this flower somewhere between 1816 and 1839.  It's a legume, like a bean, but still very different from the green beans you get in the store. 

This pic is from Hobby Farms, link below. 

As someone who has an enduring love of the zippy birds from times when I've been buzzed by them for walking outside, who has planted countless flowers in an attempt to get their attention, and who has actually held a hummingbird nest and egg shell, I tend to get really excited about things like this even if it's in Australia, so I kinda want to try growing some (I probably could, theoretically), but Australia...

Well, we'll see. And hopefully I'll be back soon. 

Sources:

Audubon- Did this plant evolve to look like Birds?

iNaturalist-- Birdflower

Hobby Farms- A different Kind of Hummingbird Plant

Florida Seeds- Green Birdflower-- Mostly this for the pictures, it's got some fun ones. 

Australian Natural Plant Society-- Green Birdflower

Mangelwurzel

 Sorry. Life is kinda chaos right now, and I'm trying to figure out Christmas presents for my family, who all have no idea what they want for Christmas so I'm having to come up with ideas they don't have, and trying to share the ideas so we don't end up just exchanging gift cards for the holiday, and trying to find a few other ideas just in case. Plus cleaning up my house from the mess of several kittens and to prepare for the holidays, and volunteering with CASS, which is my local community art studio, more because of holiday events, and juggling everything that comes with normal life still. 

Back to the fun facts though:

Mangelwurzel

Picture here from the Independent link below. I'm not sure how much I  want to eat this, but maybe it's more appealing when cooked? 

Frankly, the only thing really cool about this is the name that sounds like something made up but isn't. it's a type of beet, also called a fodder beet because it was often grown to feed to cattle. It was often seen as peasant food and only really eaten when there wasn't anything else to eat, so it never really got the attention it deserved, but the name makes it worth growing now. 

The only other really interesting thing about them is that they're one of the beets/turnips that was an original Jack o' Lantern, before pumpkins. 

I know they aren't as interesting as a lot of what I bring in, but...you're definitely going to have fun talking about it with people. It's a really fun word to say. And if it gets you to eat more veggies to have you try it, this time is well spent. Have fun, I'll see you again soon I hope. 

 

Sources:

Slow Food Foundation-- Mangelwurzel

Medium-- Roots Refined; Mangelwurzel

She Grows Veg-- Mangelwurzels

The Independent; What is a Mangelwurzel

Permies; Mangelwurzels

George Washington's Garden; Mangelwurzel