Tereza Okava

i think the beet thing varies by person, because i can see a difference even if i only have a spoon's worth of grated beets on my salad!!
keep in mind that supplements (including sprinkling brewer's or nutritional yeast) on your food can sometimes give you bright colors in your urine, even if you're super hydrated.

besides color, murky or cloudy urine can indicate UTIs.

Andy!! I was just telling my mother about my own saga germinating these little stinkers. I live in zone 9b, and its supposed to be a hot summer, so I figured this would be a good year for them. In my experience they do well in 10+, but i'm an optimist.
I special ordered the seeds, tried once normally (soaked seeds, mix that worked for everything else). Nothing.
Tried again, nicked and soaked seeds, nothing. After 6 weeks of watering I started a new flat of something else and moved that flat to a hotter part of the yard and kept watering, and lo and behold 3 of the dozen i planted came up. It was HOT, like 35C+.
I transplanted the three seedlings. One fell victim to the feral cat that likes to poop/scratch in my garden, dirty rat. Another one was doing fine until this week, when it seemed to decide it didn't like living and decided to wilt away. Number 3 is looking okay, but I don't see myself getting the big old harvest I expected. We shall see.

Roselle has to be one of the hardest things I still stupidly insist on growing. But it wants hot hot hot.

i ran this through perplexity and this is what it spit out.

Yes, lambskin condoms are still manufactured and available as a niche product in 2026. They remain popular among those seeking a natural, latex-free option for a more skin-like sensation, despite not protecting against STIs due to their porous membrane.
​

Current Manufacturers
Major producers include:

Church & Dwight (known for Trojan Naturalamb line).

Ansell and Sir Richard's, offering premium natural varieties.
​

Specialized brands like Shandong Geamay Latex Technology and Sagami Rubber Industries contribute to global supply.
​

Market reports project steady growth, with the lambskin segment valued at around USD 60-80 million and expanding due to demand for hypoallergenic, biodegradable alternatives.


Ansell apparently markets "natural latex" condoms, you can search on Amazon. So does Sir Richard's https://www.instagram.com/sirrichards/?hl=en
I didn't go much farther than that but there must be people with latex allergies who want alternatives, it might be worth further research. Good luck!
​

ooh Burra you're a superstar!! thank you!

The golden flax explains it, i have always bought the darker one-- and then we get that "uber healthy" appearance. I will have to try the golden for, um, stealth use.

Burra, could you give us a very roundabout idea of how you make the biscuits? I love using flaxmeal, and love biscuits. Every time I try something with that much flax, though, it usually looks leathery and.... icky! I grind it myself, maybe i'm not grinding fine enough? anyway, yours look fabulous and I'd love to try! thanks!

Welcome James!
Check out this thread https://permies.com/t/57366/Cool-person-space-methods#484308 about "cooling the person and not the space" (not "cooking the person", which for some reason my fingers really REALLY want to type....).

also https://permies.com/t/14038/Electricity-free-cool-home#125306

and also a super interesting project in a place that gets even hotter than where I live:  https://permies.com/t/129015/Geothermal-cooling#1013321

Welcome to Permies, S, hope you find what you're looking for.

It is a good time to check in with people, I'm finding! Today on the first day of "back to normal" for many people I felt myself feeling pretty crummy (that old anxious depression again!!) and decided to reach out to a few people I haven't heard from in a while. They're all feeling a bit edgy too, which in turn makes me feel a bit better. We're all just getting through this big old mess of a tangled up world one day at a time.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:
BTW the question of this thread is 'are you okay?' I can tell you all I am feeling very okay at the moment. I decided not to stay in the house when I start having 'dark feelings'. When I'm outdoors everything feels lighter!

An excellent idea! Dog walkies and garden time are a big feature of this time of year.

John F Dean wrote:I caught a case of the stupids yesterday. ....
On the plus side, I got a hell of a lot accomplished.

my husband had a case of these yesterday. decided to undertake some crazy projects in insane heat yesterday. i had to keep interrupting my own work to get him to take basic heat protection measures (wet scarf on neck, drinking water, hat wearing, etc) and even so, by afternoon he had that heat exhaustion-melting-away thing happening. I was the one out mowing in the noonday sun, but also with no exposed skin and all the protection. He's not quite realized that as a 55+ he no longer has the capacity to do this stuff without consequences, unless he takes preventive measures. I can't imagine what would have happened if I hadn't been hounding him about what he should be doing.

it's been volcanic in terms of heat here, so we've been on japanese summer food- zaru soba with ice cubes in the noodle dipping sauce, principally, chuka soba (another cold dipping noodle), grilled meat wrapped in leaves, onigiri, etc. Lots of veggie salads. My husband is home this week, so I'm also cooking lunches as well as dinners (usually he takes a boxed lunch he preps on sundays and I eat whatever I can scrounge).

Today it rained and it's a bit cooler. I have some leftover cooked sausage and impulse purchased a bag of masa harina a few weeks ago (it is something I used to have to bring back from trips to the US, but the recent influx of venezuelans into Brazil means we can find it here now)-- going to make arepas stuffed with sausage and cheese for lunch. Dinner will be korean chicken wings in the air fryer (soy/garlic sauce) and DIY temakis or some sort of rice/nori situation. Negimiso and ume seem like good fillings, and I have sooooo many pickles in the fridge to use up.
On Wednesday we'll go away for a week to celebrate the new year with extended family, so I'm also trying to 1) prep the new years foods I'll bring with us and 2) draw down our perishables and pantry. So far I've caramelized a crockpot full of onions for mujadara, my contribution to the obligatory lentils-for-new-year tradition, and made a kilo of azuki beans to make anko bread for my sisters in law.  Those beans will get made into anko tonight, maybe.
I still have about 5 kg of tomatoes (and a pantry already full of passata....), so maybe I'll make some quickie salsa to eat with the arepas today. And there's a lot of ripe plums, so maybe a plum cake to bring with us Wednesday, or to drop off at the dog kennel when I leave the dog. It's like Iron Chef around here....