Burra Maluca

Slime moulds are utterly fascinating. They're like a community of hermits who all come together once a year to their thing, decide who does what, do it, then go back home to their caves.

I can relate...

In goats, the polled gene is linked with intersex.

Here's a useful article - Polled Intersex Gene in Goats

In short, it seems that in goats that carry one polled gene, the animal will be polled. But if they carry two, then the animal will be sterile intersex.

When breeding polled to polled over time you can expect 50% fertile polled offspring, 25% fertile horned offspring, and 25% non-breeding animals. When breeding polled to horned, you get 50% polled, 50% horned, and 100% healthy fertile offspring.

And for those who want a few more details...

The Polled Intersex (PIS) locus has been the subject of considerable scientific study. Both the wild type and mutated sequences have been determined, and it is known that the polled trait is due to a large deletion in an area of goat chromosome 1q43. The mutation is homologous to one in a similar region in humans responsible for a condition called blepharophimosis-ptosis-epicanthus inversus syndrome. It is also now known that the mutations disrupt the transcription of at least 3 genes, including the FOXL2 gene, which encodes a transcription factor required for correct ovarian differentiation.

The polled trait in goats is an autosomal dominant trait in both sexes; in other words, one copy of the gene results in the polled phenotype. However, if a goat is homozygous for (having 2 copies of) the polled allele, the result is either a pseudohermaphrodite (in XX, or what would normally be female, goats) and generally a reduction in fertility in XY, or male goats. Homozygous males usually suffer from a condition called sperm granulomas at a young age, which will generally render them infertile. The absence of correct production of the protein encoded by FOXL2 makes it impossible for a female goat to properly develop a functional reproductive system, and results in various degrees of masculinization of the fetus during development. A goat that is homozygous for the PIS allele cannot produce transcripts from the FOXL2 gene, and cannot develop as a normal female.

And here's another article, less technical but with some rather graphic photos - Hermaphroditism and Polled Goats

Here's one of the less graphic photos, just for fun...


And a quote from the article...

The gene for a goat to be hornless, or polled, is actually dominant to the gene for having horns. Therefore, if a goat gets a gene for being polled from one parent, but a gene for horns from the other, the goat will be polled. However, that goat can pass on either gene, and if it and its mate both pass on the recessive horned gene, they can have horned kids. While hornless goats would seem ideal, they, unfortunately, come with a downside. Apparently, either directly connected to or very close to the same chromosome is a recessive gene that causes hermaphroditism. It is very interesting that this gene is (fortunately) recessive while the polled gene is dominant. However, if you breed two polled goats together, and they both pass on that polled gene with its tag-along intersex gene, that recessive gene will affect the kid₂. If the kid is male, they will appear unaffected physically. Often, the fertility of that male is affected, but there have been cases of homozygously polled male goats siring many kids. However, if the kid is genetically female, there is a high probability of that female being a hermaphrodite with masculine characteristics and sterile.

I just pulled out all the radishes that went to seed instead of forming roots in the GAMCOD bed and found this fella growing between them. I think it's a white mulberry grown from the mulberry tree that's been threatening to take over and shade out half the bed, the one that's kept us in fresh greens for months and that I've just taken a pair of loppers to as its lower branches have been attempting to literally shade out an entire section of bed. I've been trying to take cuttings from it but so far they've all failed. I'm going to go outside and dig this fella up and put it in a pot, do a taste-test on the leaves when it's a bit bigger in case it's hybridised with the black mulberry growing next to it that gives not-such-good greens, and offer it to a friend of mine who can grow it for easy greens for himself and give surplus branches to his goats.

Everything I've read about white mulberry says it's invasive and weedy, but it's been one of the most productive things I've ever grown and requires very little care apart from snipping off the young leaves that grow on the tip of the stems to eat, then snipping off the ten that grow further back along the stem to replace them. I think it's related to the mythical hydra - the more I cut off, the more grow...

Apparently owls like old buildings that are being renovated and a missing a door.

This girl showed up at around 10 pm the other night at my son's house. She seemed very surprised to see him in there!

Another video, released yesterday, that covers a lot of stuff about wealth and what it actually means...

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone - Walden, by Henry D. Thoreau.

Wealth there isn't what gets accumulated, it's what isn't needed. Wealth is the size of the free inner space. The fewer the ties, the fewer the automatic commitments. The fewer the possessions ruling the schedule the more that person has of herself, for herself.

The different attitudes to meal planning remind of of Paul's podcast about - Eat what you Grow, not grow what you eat

Here's part of the summary

Paul talks about a video he watched of a family harvesting their food, but a comment about only growing what they eat annoyed him as he felt they don't grow all the stuff they eat.  He offers the example of a PBJ sandwich - you can't grow bread and jelly.  You can grow wheat but getting from wheat to bread is hard work.  It has to be threshed, winnowed and ground and even then you don't get bread like store bought flour; plus all the wheat has to be harvested when it's ripe, with a fairly narrow window.  

When you grow what you eat, you start from what you get at the grocery store which can be a challenge.

Paul much prefers "eat what you grow" as a philosophy. For example learning how to eat the stuff the grows already with no effort.  However he's frustrated by the huge majority of gardeners who are convinced it's all bullshit.  As an example, today they spent 5 minutes getting sunchokes and onions to make soup.

Much of what's in the grocery store is selected for its shelf life, or for ease of machine processing, or for high profit so there's a limited choice.  

Ooooh look what I found - a totally must-have accessory so that if you use the quick pressure release you can direct the jet of steam to the side instead of straight up into your cupboards.



And I found a 3D printable version for the instant pot duo which I might have to try. I might have to call her Cawldeira...

I hate grocery shopping - it involves being out in public with the risk of having to interact with people. So my other half does it.

I keep a supply of rice, lentils and dry beans in stock at all times. Himself has a mental list which generally involves oats, milk, bread, flour, cheese, whatever pasta is on special offer, cocoa (I consider this to be an essential of life), coffee (His essential in life), onions, whatever the best value meat is that he can find, free meat scraps for me to render down and use as best I can, and random treats according to what is being cleared out of whatever shop he finds himself in.

I grow whatever I can in the garden, I keep a supply of spices, then I make up a batch of rice pudding or yogurt to have with fruit for breakfast, and a big pan of rice and lentils cooked in bone broth, then we just wing it and put together whatever seems appropriate with what's available.

Sometimes our goat-keeping friend shows up on the doorstep with a litre or two of fresh goat milk because he's run out of beer money and I gladly accept it. He spends the proceeds in the café on his way home. Sometimes he gives us a fresh cheese in return for a lift to town when the boys go grocery shopping. Sometimes we scrump fruit off the neighbours or from abandoned fruit trees that we walk past - there's an awesome fig tree growing wild next to the old village water tank, I have a freezer full of fruit, ready cooked meat scraps, bits of chicken, a few pork tongues, a supply of chicken liver to make paté, and cooked beans to throw into a quick meal. Very little is planned in advance. In the winter I make soup in the slow cooker so it's ready for lunchtime. During the summer it's more likely to be thrown together last minute.

Meal planning for us is longer term - a good garden, a well stocked freezer and food cupboard, some items prepped in advance, and a willingness to experiment and make use of whatever happens to show up.

Tereza Okava wrote:I look forward to hearing how it works out for you (and if you don't mind, which model you bought).

This is the one I bought - Instant Pot Duo 3 litre. It's described as 3 litres but I suspect it's actually actually 3 quarts, so a bit bigger than described.

Many, many years ago when the UK was introducing metric measurements I memorised three little ditties from the back of a weetabix box, including - a litre of water's a pint and three quarters.

Just for interest, the other two were a metre measures three foot three, it's longer than a yard you see and two and a quarter pounds of jam weigh about a kilogram.




It seems that I will have to find an alternative, basic sort of lid if I want to slow-cook with it.



Seeing as my Instant Pot hasn't arrived yet, I tried to find out the size I would need by asking AI.

what size lid to use for the instant pot duo 3 quart?

and it helpfully told me...

The Instant Pot® 3QT Tempered Glass Lid fits the 3-quart Instant Pot Duo.

Which was singularly unhelpful.

A bit more googling around revealed that it might be 7.6 inches, which to me is a painful mixture of archaic and decimal style measurements. Anyway, that translated to around 19.3 cm so I went and had a rummage in my stash of old lids and found two vented glass lids that might or might not work. One missing a handle and one that for some reason which totally escapes my memory has a handle that looks like it's melted in a hot oven. I cleaned up the most likely candidate but won't fit a spare handle unless it turns out to actually fit. It has a lip which might or might not fit inside the inner pot, which also has a lip that might confuse the issue. I have a goodly supply of spare lids lurking around the place though so I'm sure I'll have something that can be pressed into service.

I've decided it's time I joined the ranks of the Instant Pot owners. I've sent off for one and am eagerly awaiting its arrival.

Many years ago I had a pressure cooker, the sort you set on the gas and have to race out and switch the gas off at the right time. I don't think I could operate like that any more... I love my slow cookers for making bone broth and chutney and soup and for rendering fat. I love the haybox for cooking rice, beans and pork tongue. But they haybox doesn't do everything, and I've had my slow cookers for so long that the crocks have begun to crack one by one and I'm reduced to one enormous one that I can hardly lift to make bone broth in, and one very small one that makes just enough soup for two and I have to run for almost two days straight to work through a batch of meat scraps to get everything rendered out and cooked.

When I started to look at replacement slow cookers, most of them these days seem to have non-stick insert, which I'm not really interested in. I did find one with a stainless insert but it was a super expensive model with lots of high-tech electronics which I found a bit of a turn off. But then I looked at the Instant Pots, which have rather nice stainless steel inserts. They are also rather pricey and high-tech, but also incredibly versatile as they can be set to sauté, slow cook, pressure cook or even make yogurt. I kept going to look at them and wondering if I should splash out before another crock breaks and then the one I'd been eyeing up came up on a time-restricted special offer and I couldn't resist any more.

Whilst waiting for it to arrive, I've been reading up about them and watching videos.

This one has been rather eye-opening 6 Things Nobody Tells You About Slow Cooking in an Instant Pot (sorry, it's been set so that it won't embed for some reason but I did manage to embed the shortened version below). It points out that it's best to use the sauté function to get the contents up to temperature before setting the pot to slow cook. Also it recommends that you use a glass lid with a vent hole rather than the pressure cooker lid.



I've almost run out of chutney and still have some of last years figs that need using up before the new crop is ready so I'm hoping to make a test-batch in the instant pot as one of my first experiments when it arrives.