Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta

[CanuckBock]

Thanks Tara.
Does Almonds Prunus dulcis grow there?

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Oh my...we could have FUN with names about now (in English, NUT can mean unstable person too)!

This is what the Society of Nut Growers of Ontario (Canada) has to say...

http://www.songonline.ca/nuts/almond.htm

Almonds originating from Southern Europe and California are only borderline hardy in the fruit growing districts of Ontario, and they seldom ripen early enough for our season. A selection called Hall's Hardy almond is a hybrid that is hardy and early ripening, but the nut is bitter and unsatisfactory. Almonds from central Europe have been found to be the most suitable for Ontario. They have proven to be the most hardy and early enough ripening.

Ontario is humid and can be quite hot. They have a different growing climate than we do right here. We are like on the edge of the Mountains...so we get cold, refreshing weather...along with wet and cold evenings all year round. Regular water but enough cold weather to nip things that think they are going to GROW too fast! Grass grows well, oats, evergreens like pines & spruce (green forests?), and trees like poplars and berries like wild raspberries, strawberries, the saskatoons. Rhubarb thrives as do those wild types of mushrooms you like. We have lots of fruit trees but the fruit is usually able to withstand hard frosts and smaller versions that large plump pears...we get wimpy versions but still fun to try. On the West Coast we had much more undergrowth...like a humid tropical jungle on the Coast...here if you try, you can walk easier in the forests and meadows--grazing land, rangeland...On the West Coast, the deer bound about best. We use to go bush diving in the dense undergrowth (Salal or Gaultheria shallon) as kids (the berries had appetite suppressants in them--handful and we'd not go home for dinner...not yet!)...Running, playing & diving in the brush, lucky we did not end up with a stick in the groin. Bwa ha ha.

​

Now Rick and I made a brief stop on the way to live the rest of our lives in Alberta...in Central British Columbia, often just called the Interior.

Family friends bought land and had an old apricot tree on the place. Careful pruning and proper weather, they would get apricots SO since the apricot seems to be like the almond...I see no reason why Almonds would not be growable in their climate.

We in Alberta, here at least, too severe a winter...and frosts every month (and snow...2 inches of it in August 2001--ground was white...never stayed but it SNOWED!) would make an almond tree very unhappy!

I can buy almonds...apricots (Rick loves them) and things like prune plums when in season. My parents planted an Italian prune plum and the fruit just falls to the ground unused. As a child at my Aunt's in Vancouver, we bad kids would have food fights with plums like these. Now, I'd be mad they were wasting food. LOL

http://www.specialtyproduce.com/produce/Italian_Prune_Plums_7483.php

So we are not sad because we are not torturing some poor tree that is not meant to be here. Or disappointing ourselves we do not have HOT or high humidity climate plants. I don't mind trying some delicate things but as I get older, I find it hard on the heart to see things DIE...or not thrive! I don't want things that are not meant to be here get beaten up because "I" had to have something that was not going to do well right form the start.

​

I like to admire other place's gardens...the weather conditions that would make an almond or apricot tree happy, would make me as a human very unhappy and completely sad.

We do have to be careful what we wish for!

 

[Akrnaf2]

Yes, I think that the Canadian winter is a huge "Shrinkage factor " for plants!

The Italian Prune Plums, which in Israel is called "sagive " שגיב
The "supreme" is wonderful for jam!

 

[CanuckBock]

Yes, I think that the Canadian winter is a huge "Shrinkage factor " for plants!

The Italian Prune Plums, which in Israel is called "sagive " שגיב
The "supreme" is wonderful for jam!

Rick would love prune plum jam...he likes grape jelly, so I figure the flavour would be similar if not just the deep purple colour.


Ah, the Show about nothing, minutiae of daily life in New York city.

My location and service provider makes it so I cannot watch videos, so I typed in "Seinfeld" and "shrinkage" and got the following quotes page. So ah yes, not cold pool but more extreme...in winter, in Canada where plants suffer significant shrinkage in only producing small fruits & sometimes near death or certain death experiences! And yes, young "proper" women are not normally as part of their upbringing (unless one has a brother? I had a younger sister), are told about shrinkage...it's what women tell other women about or you watch Seinfeld and learn, a whole lot about nothing!


"I was in the pool! I was in the pool!"
- George, after Rachel saw him naked, in "The Hamptons"


"Ordinarily I wouldn't mind, but..."
"But what?"
"Well, I just got back from swimming in the pool. And the water was cold..."
"Oh, you mean... Shrinkage."
"Yes. Significant shrinkage."
"So you feel you were shortchanged."
"Yes. I mean, if she thinks that's me, she's under a complete misapprehension. That was not me, Jerry. That was not me."
- George and Jerry, in "The Hamptons"


"Do women know about shrinkage?"
"What do you mean, like laundry?"
"No..."
"Like when a man goes swimming... Afterwards..."
"It shrinks?"
"Like a frightened turtle."
"Why does it shrink?"
"It just does."
"I don't know how you guys walk around with those things."
- George, Elaine and Jerry, in "The Hamptons"

 

[Akrnaf2]

Tara this is for you

Some fruit from my garden, cactus fruits, mango, and the first red dwarves Guava!

 

[getaclue]

Benny, seeing your pomegranate pics had me drooling. When I was young, we used to get good ones in the local market. The ones in the stores today are not so good. I will have to check to see if they will grow here in Florida.

 

[Akrnaf2]

Benny, seeing your pomegranate pics had me drooling. When I was young, we used to get good ones in the local market. The ones in the stores today are not so good. I will have to check to see if they will grow here in Florida.

I think that the Florida claimet suit them very well!

 

[getaclue]

The Wonderful variety does very well here.

 

[Akrnaf2]

The Wonderful variety does very well here.

So you have one of the best breeds!
It is a very versatile fruit!
Eat it, squize juice from it, put it some fresh salad, sprinkle it over plan rice, put it in couscous, coock with it meat.......
Not my pictures!

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Hmmm...whirlwind as always, keep it short and sweet.

Going in a week er so to get another Sub...newer one and will be MY suburban for the dogs and I when I go back to swimming...winter swim truck transportation. Yeh...too good a deal not to buy and well, yeh. I'll post clicks of it but she's a some time in 1990 version, not an 80's and it is just a girls' truck...in Rick speak that means not a 4x4. Be the first truck we've owned that is not four wheel drive but hey...that's why we own the car hauler and trucks to pull the trailer and the rescued vehicle. Time to use that safety net device I guess...Girl's truck...wife's truck...yeh.

Working at getting a Dorper ram lamb brought over from Québec as a weaning (weiner? winner?) buddy for Èder. See how that goes...took me three e-mails (breeder don't speak English so good and I don't speak French that well myself!) to get it across that I needed a young ram...not one born in 2016. It will be slow but hoping worth it. Nice healthy sheeps.

Now we are the point where I am about to explain the difference between air CARGO and human air travel...should be interesting!

I will post a long one I just did on another forum here... gender crapola....

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

I always heard the hen gives off more genes to the cockerels and the rooster gives more genes to the pullets,

Is this true? Also how does the percentages work, is it random as well some fowl can get more blood then say their brother or sister of one side then the other?

I will TRY (without much success) to keep this super simple because I can be a boob for details that overwhelm...

In mammals, the MALE decides gender (x, y).

In birds (plus some fish and reptiles, crustaceans, etc.), the FEMALE decides gender (z, w).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZW_sex-determination_system

In contrast to the XY sex-determination system and the X0 sex-determination system, where the sperm determines the sex, in the ZW system, the ovum determines the sex of the offspring. Males are the homogametic sex (ZZ), while females are the heterogametic sex (ZW). The Z chromosome is larger and has more genes, like the X chromosome in the XY system.

Maybe to help absorb this...the OVUM or egg cell in birds determines boy or girl.

50% chance for boy or girl babes in Birds​

So...what happens is some items (traits, characteristics) are gender linked and held on the male's longer z chromosome.

Things like gold and Silver (s"+" for gold and S for Silver), chocolate, there's dun in ducks (no, not any more dunG in ducks that chooks!), barring/cuckoo, skin yellow or white, dermal inhibitor, some forms of dwarfism, late feathering, and there are even three known lethals (Bernier, prenatal, & lady killer).

​

Stop and ponder...people have used these gender linked traits for quite some time to determine gender of baby birds at hatch! Colour, pattern, feather growth...etc.

I have impishly (bwa ha ha) compared mammals and birds by saying, the bird family is where the males have the BIGGER wallet than the females' purse. Male birds need to carry around way more stuff in their wallets than the girl birds do. What a nice switch, eh. Course that also means boy birds are more dangerous because they can do more damage swinging that BIG wallet yer way. Duck...duck...duck, GOOSED in the tete?

Yeh...welcome to MY world ​

Thereby then having to do a demo set of clicks...showing a comparison of hand squishy porcupine balls representing the gender linked traits--pink and boo...different colours for some of the gender linked traits that stick to the boo. Some persons learn by hands on--some think it is just an excuse to play with toys. Older we get, the bigger the toy boxes...

WARNING - There will be NO sand throwing in this toy sand box.
Hear moi? ​

I can just as easily take up all the toys and go back home, eh.

Pink Girl bird with her smaller purse
Blue Boy bird with his larger wallet
NOTE empty pink egg represents w chromosome
blue spike ball represents y chromosome​

The spike ball nubs into other spike balls...it could get messy here...big and pointy...grabby and stuck! Bracer yerselves...serious playground interactions unfolding.

See the stack cards under Z card and
the equal number of spike balls inside the boy chicken?
See the one alone W card and empty girl bird with no spike balls?​

Girl bird has no info (and yes, I can't spell chromosome without spell check!)
​

OH NO...I missed an "O"!!! How I managed to spelt this word correctly for the z card & not for the w card...ah well, I am only infallibly human, eh!

Blue spike for boy z
Empty pink egg with nothing in it for girl w
See the piles of gender linked spike balls of many colours
attached to the blue z chromosome?​

Because the female (w) gender gene (KISS principle in play, eh), is short (smaller) and has NO ROOM (that we silly humans know of yet!) for any extra genetic information past "it's a GIRL!"...that means only the male bird may pass on gender linked traits or stuff to his daughters located on his longer z chromosome.

w = girl (in mammals x)
z = boy (in mammals y)

Girl birds are z/w
Boy birds are z/z

Punnet square time...the gaming goes on! Another game of sorts to help you GET IT!

Punnet Square showing gender inheritance in birds​

Mom bird (to make girls) MUST pass on her short no other info w chromosome.
Dad bird (to make girls or boys) MUST pass on one of his two z chromosomes. HE only has z to pass on...no choice, so he does not determine son or daughter...that is MOM's job in the bird world.

To assist you in understanding...Mom bird can fully make boys...but to do so, she gives her only male z chromosome (the longer one that contains other info on) to make her offspring sons/boys.

BOY is one z from Mom, one z from Dad = z/z
GIRL is one z from Dad (Dad's are only z, he has nothing else to give but one of the two z's), one w from Mom (makes her a HER) = z/w


Now here is where the concept you stated comes from...first to review what you said...

hen gives off more genes to the cockerels and the rooster gives more genes to the pullets

One part is TRUE...the mom (hen) gives more genes (traits) to the cockerels (her sons)...she cannot give her daughters (pullets) ANY gender linked traits off her w chromosome (female) and that is what makes her daughters female. In the gender inheritance aspect...MOM cannot contribute anything, nada to her daughters in the GENDER linked area. Do not fault Mom for Barring, chocolate, skin, certain dwarfism, etc., in her DAUGHTERS! Momma don't give her girls any gender linked bits--she does not contribute her z chromosome to her daughters--only Dada does!

The Mom (hen) gives her sons her only z chromosome (male) which would hold any gender linked information from HER. Now waggle your finger like a half eaten worm...because Momma can be held accountable for her sons' gender linked bits--good bad or neutral! Mom is only able to give gender linked stuff to her sons.

The Dad (cock) gives his daughters (pullets) AND his sons (cockerels) either of his TWO z chromosomes so...as the sire or father, he can equally give to his sons OR daughters...the same gender linked information that either of his z chromosomes contain. Equal chance for the cock to give either progeny gender his gender linked information; again good bad or neutral. Did DAD do it? Well in the daughters regarding gender linked inherited traits...YOU BETCHA! But in his sons...both parents are equally guilty because the boys get one z from Dadda and one z from Momma...both parents are just as guilty (or innocent) as to how the gender linked bits turn out in the sons.


Now it could be deemed to be FALSE to say "rooster gives more genes to the pullets" in the simple fact as the father, he may give either of his TWO z chromosomes to his daughters OR sons. He has a 50/50 chance of contributing either of his male chromosomes (z/z) to his male or female offspring. He is no more likely to give anything more to the pullets or cockerels. Dad gives the SAME to his kids.

Plus we also now should know that the hen has given equal chance to her sons in getting the same genes from her own z chromosome. She gives no gender linked info to the girls, that comes from sire.

For the sons, gender linked info on their two z's comes from Mom and Dad = z (mom's contribution) / z (dad's contribution)

NOW...given the simple fact you would SEE in a father's daughters the traits that are gender linked...perhaps explains why some would say the father has a bigger influence seen in the daughters, that wrongly he gave "more genes to the daughters." That is not quite right.

So long winded and on and on...is the flogged horse quite dead yet...no...then here we go...not done yet, not fork time...no dinner...not yet for a break...

An example...

To have a male bird gold, he is s"+"/s"+".

To have a male bird Silver, he is S/S.

A male bird may also be half Silver and half gold, he is S/s"+" (kinda messed up, but you can usually guess what he is but sunbleaching, autosomal red and other things like feeding yellow pigments such as corn and grass can put you off knowing for certain<--trying to keep this simple...ha ha HA!).


To have a female bird look gold, she is s"+"/- (the "-" means nothing or in some instances, unknown) or some write s"+"/w (the w shows no info past she's female.)

To have a female bird look Silver, she is S/- or S/w.

A female bird is NEVER half and half on gender linked traits...she has room for one set of info on her z chromosome with no room on her w chromosome (her purse is small)...so she may have ONE single of the set (he has two sets and his wallet is big) which means she has gender linked traits that ACT like they are pure (does not matter if gold is recessive to Silver and Silver is dominant to gold).

This fact that girls are ONE gender trait option & PURE for expression...is helpful to remember because as a breeder, if you wanted a Silver line or a gold line of birds; remember your females are the pure ones for gender linked traits...if the colours (or other gender linked traits) can be expressed (blacks or whites can be anything and everything under the pigment or no pigments) SHE shows you what she has & what she has is all she has...she hides nothing from you unlike the males can. A girl is silver or she is gold, not half/half like males.

Sometimes a Silver and gold male can hide what he is say under a self-BLACK or self-WHITE feather/plumage expression. As you get better at recognizing the s-series gold or Silver expressions...sometimes feather shine (green, bronze, purple hues) can assist you guessing. I've had gold or Silver progeny come from self-whites...

gold BOY - he is s"+"/s"+"

gold GIRL - she is s"+"/-


Silver BOY - he is S/S

Silver GIRL - she is S/-


ONLY BOYS can be half Silver and half gold - he is S/s"+" and not Silver or gold but both and impure.


Girls cannot be impure at the s-series (S or s"+")...she has one spot only for gender linked traits on her z chromosome. She has no room for two SETS of gender linked traits; one z has room and one w has NO room (at the inn?).

Boys can be impure at the s-series!! He has two spots for gender linked traits on either of his two z chromosomes.

So I hope you can sorta see where this concept about more genes to either gender is based.

And as far as percentiles...I think one of the best demos for me to GET this was...each throw of the dice or toss of the coin is a set of unrelated happenings. I hated probability theory...seeing as I would be the one struck by lightning ten times but never once win the lotto...agh!

Luck of the draw and all bad luck?

This said...I still need to sorta grasp this concept ...there is a 50% to 50% chance for a girl or a boy bird hatched...but each time you throw the dice/toss the coin, allow the eggs to be set upon...it is not hinged on the throw/toss/setting you made prior or after the fact. The probability of outcomes does not rely on what just happened. One outcome does not affect other outcomes. Singular event I think is the term, but my mind starts to go major mushy the closer it gets to bell shaped graphs, distributions, and other mumbles from decades past where they tried to force round to square up or vice versa.

This helped me understand why you can have 9 girls and one boy when you were counting on an equal spread of 5 girls and 5 boys.

​

Perhaps someone else here can tackle probabilities of outcomes. The likelihood I need another cuppa java about now... is 100%!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada