Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Turnip by any Other Name

Posted on by
2

Jack’s Wednesday guest post gets over the line again –

There’s a bit of a debate going on in the UK just now about the shortage of tomatoes and peppers in the supermarkets. The government and their media supporters are blaming it on weather in Europe, despite all the European supermarkets having plenty for sale. They can’t admit that Brexit has anything to do with it – –

But one of the crazier members of the UK government has a suggestion – eat turnips instead!

This brought back lots of memories.

When I were but a lad (cf Monty Python), My Grandad would carve out turnip lanterns for Halloween – long before we had any notion of pumpkins, which don’t grow in Scotland. The smell of a candle burning inside a turnip lantern – – –

But the words again –

Here in the US it would be a large rutabaga, while in England it would be a turnip. In Scotland there are various words – most commonly either a neep or a tumshie.

Back in the 1990s when I was Head of Department in a Scottish community college I managed an overlapping series of environmental education projects that were funded by the European Union. They all fell under the label of ‘Adapt’ and required collaboration with other organizations. One of these was headed by a Danish non=profit that grew hemp to make furnishing materials. There always needed to be an acronym for the overarching group and they suggested various including NEEPS. Of course I signed up immediately!

But there’s another, subtler, meaning to tumshie – a stupid person. That fits the member of the UK Government who suggested eating turnips perfectly.

U.K. Environment Secretary Therese Coffey

Therese Coffey is the lady who suggests eating neeps instead of tomatoes and she is definitely a tumshie!

Read more about Therese Coffey’s response to the tomato shortage:
https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/turnips-and-working-more-hours-food-bank-workers-say-therese-coffey-is-living-on-a-different-planet/

Doogie the Bold Jumper

Posted on by
1

We have a new member in the Beck/Welch household.

Truer words were never spoken than when a friend advised us that, once we had our wood stove in, our house would never be clean in winter again. Ash, wood pieces, papers collected for fire starting… we regret nothing because we love gathering around that stove.

But among the things we’ve brought in was a little visitor. I first noticed “Doogie” when I thought there was dirt on the wall. As I rose to fetch a sponge to wipe it down, the spot moved. Straight up the wall and katty-corner across the ceiling to crawl along the crown trim of our 1890s home.

Live and let live. Gnats living in the logs had also invaded; let the spider build a corner web up there, and feast on the annoying invaders.

But a couple of days later, Jack said, “I’m worried about Doogie.” (We don’t know why that’s his name; it just is.) “How can he be eating without a web?”

At that moment, Doogie jumped. I don’t mean freefall, I mean “envy of athletes” jump. A leap equal to a lion in the veldt. A “send Wendy screaming into the kitchen” jump.

Doogie is a bold jumper. Literally, that’s the kind of spider he is. Little, fuzzy, big mandibles, powerful legs. They don’t spin webs; they hang out in corners and when they see what they want to eat, they go for it.

After reading up on them via Google and using a picture from my phone to compare Doogie to some images, I was really pleased at my decision not to investigate up close. While bold jumpers can actually kill and eat things almost their own size, when confronted with a very large enemy, they tend to either shrink into their corner, or come out biting. Classic fight or flight behavior. I cannot shake the image of Doogie clinging to my nose, neutralizing the perceived threat had I leaned in to get a better shot. Bold jumpers aren’t venomous, but their bites tend to irritate human skin.

So Doogie occupies the unused upper portion of our sitting room, the gnats are fewer, he looks happy from this distance, and all is well. As Jack said, “It’s nice to have a new lodger.”