/tulpa/ - Tulpa

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 >>/5461/
Where's there a wall in that photo?
Does the grim reaper eat parrots?

 >>/5437/
> make apple pie with Yulya!
nigga i dont even have an oven

 >>/5468/
> eating parrots 
Probably

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This guy has been around all summer, always fluttering around the house, very territorial. It's a male of Brintesia circe, one of the largest butterflies here. Wingspan about 8cm. But now his age is showing. The hinds are all torn. He loves ripe fruit or juice and isn't shy at all. Sometimes even sits on me.

He has competition from the wasps which are extremely abundant this year but he just bats them away with his wings if they get in the way.

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 >>/5513/
Looks like a hummingbird moth

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 >>/5519/
Nah, it's a Nyphalid not a moth, much more closely related to your Monarch butterflies.

Nice woodpecker, haven't seen one in a while. But there are lots of swifts now, migrating south. I wish I could do the same.

 >>/5493/
> nigga i dont even have an oven
That's no excuse young man, you can make apple pie even in a pan. It's much harder though.

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You may know the rumor about Phantom Cats or Mystery Big Cats, strange sightings of large felines all over the world that look like panthers or lions in the most unlikely places. Often in Great Britain but also Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_cat

Well, early in the morning I was looking out of the window and saw a movement under the dense trees bordering the neighbor garden about 50m away. First thought it was a bird but it was bigger. I only saw small parts but it looked more like a fox but didn't move like one. After observing it for a while I went outside to chase it. You can guess whose idea that was though Alice was a bit conflicted. Don't wanna get bitten by a rabid fox either. Anyway, following the animal through the dense bush it turned out to be - a cat. Slightly European wild cat tier, not even exceptionally large. Clearly a normal house cat. It was highly focused and didn't notice me at all and jumped out of surprise when it saw me as I got about 2m close. Then ran away.

That was baffling. I had grossly misjudged the animal's size from the distance. Humans suck at estimating the size of far away objects, even with reference points. I imagined that animal would be at least 3 times bigger than it actually was. Guess that's how many Big Cat mysteries start. Well, it's not the first time, I know of such glitches from imposing tupper in some distance which often results in hilariously wrong sizes.

I did see another mysterious animal on the streets at night some years ago that likely was a Golden Jackal. Didn't look like a fox, more like a cross between a fox and a wolf. Alice chased it but it was too fast.

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This guy flew in through the window in the middle of the night and buzzed around in the room. Host narrowly caught it as it collapsed in a corner from exhaustion and confusion before the cats could eat it and threw it out of the window again, so sadly no photos.

It was Agrius convolvuli, the Morning Glory Hawk Moth. A huge moth with up to 13cm wingspan, extremely strong  and fast flyer. I had never seen one before, host did decades ago. It's actually a subtropical species that only migrates north in summer like your Monarch butterflies.
Very nice and unexpected!

The weather abruptly changed within a few days - from bone-dry hot summer with more than 30°C to mid autumn with 8°C and heavy rain. It's gonna recover next week but the warm days are ogre.

 >>/5705/
My milkweed bush is big and beautiful but it's constantly being visited by monarch butterflies.

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 >>/5709/
> My milkweed bush is big and beautiful
Bear talking about his bush again

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 >>/5705/
never seen this one. have you ever seen a death heads hawkmoth? also from africa they go into beehives to steal honey seen a dead one at my grandpa once who was a beekeeper. bees got him and stung him to death. no immigrant nigger leechers lol

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 >>/5586/
Caught you!

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 >>/5740/
Nice!
I've only ever seen them on the Canary Islands, they arrived there being blown across the atlantic in a storm.

 >>/5736/
Nope, never seen the death head myself. Host saw a few as a kid. You'd think they'd become more common as it gets warmer but insect diversity has crashed in the last 25 years. So many critterst that were once common which are now gone. Same with birds.

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 >>/5705/
 >>/5736/
 >>/5740/
Oh cool!
I didn't know you had such nice butterflies!
We have the Common Tiger here, looks almost the same as the Monarch and is closely related. You often see them on flowers in parks but no idea what the larvae eat, never seen them.

My smartphone camera lens is fogged, can't really take photos. I'll get a new one at the end of the year then I'll share some pics of what's living here.

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Check this out!

After the enormous rainfall, ants started swarming. We've never seen anything like this. It looked like the meadows are emitting smoke, huge undulating columns the size of a large tree emerged from the ground.

The flying ant queens are about 1 cm and harmless. We were inside the clouds of millions of ants, you can hear them flying or rather colliding with each other.

Poor animals, 99% die within hours. Only a few survive to form new colonies. They live in the soil and are not only harmless but actually useful. No pests.

Oh cool!
They're not damaging anything?
The ants in my apartment haven't shown up again so far, at least not in masses. Only individual ones. But they're still there. I think they were also swarming last time I saw a lot.

 >>/5831/
disgusting

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 >>/5845/
You're disgusting!
The ants are super cool!

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Flowers and nearly mature apples from spring in nearly October?

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 >>/5896/
ive seen this before didnt Alice post her flowering apple tree in autumn or something?

found a shitload of mushrooms yesterday. lots of huge boletus and a few birch boletes. and the white parasols. i dried half and the rest will be eaten fresh. cant remember i found this much before ever. there were many more but thats all i can use. even gave some to my parents.

 >>/5901/
That's a lot, how do you cook them, Kashtan?

 >>/5896/
It's not unusual for trees to have fruit an flowers all year round here. No seasons. Bear has a subtropical climate but I guess it's different in Northern Europe. Is it rare?

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 >>/5906/
I may have told you about it but I didn't post any photos. Not sure if I have any?

But yeah, it mostly happens after an extreme summer drought. The trees lose most of their leaves and then produce new growth when autumn rainfall sets in. I think it was 2 years ago when we had flowering apples and quince in September. It's not a good sign meaning the trees suffer from extreme stress. The same happens with horse chestnuts which all suffer from leaf-mining moths here so the leaves are damaged and turn brown in late summer. Severely affected trees lose all their leaves and produce new growth and lots of flowers in fall, which ofc weakens them further.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameraria_ohridella

 >>/5910/
Well that wasn't the case here.

 >>/5910/
> leaf-mining moths
didnt know that. so thats why the chestnuts turn brown in summer!
never seen an apple flower in autumn maybe im too far north. makes sense in california the leaves of your apple look like its summer too. here apples are already losing leaves. many trees already have autumn colors

 >>/5906/
> how do you cook them, Kashtan?
just bread them. you know dip in flour egg and breadcrumbs and fry. you can freeze them after breading

Fucking sliced my finger with a sharp shovel all the way to the bone, just missed a tendon. It didn't cut through the glove, it pinched so hard the skin split open. I didn't think anything of it but the glove turned red and then I reluctantly wash it out. It's okay, put a bandage on, back to work.

Fucking Bermuda grass bitch weed.

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Be careful damned!
Who's supposed to write our D&D adventure if you cut your hands off?

Host was loosening soil with a broad pickaxe, barefoot ofc because why not? Grazed his toes twice, wounds all full of soil. What an idiot, I had to yell a lot. No more barefoot soil work with heavy tools or without gloves. You's think he'll learn from mistakes but noo, next time same shit. But not on my watch.

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 >>/6046/
Don't worry, if I cut my hands off I'll just sit and let the blood gently water the soil until I run out. I'll finally get to rest.

[Ashley] see meme (no longer allowed in another world)

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 >>/6050/
No dying allowed, only hard DM work!

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 >>/5914/

One 2cm bulb = several 10cm clusters

 >>/6079/
Happy farting!

 >>/6084/

When the apocalypse comes, I'll die a bloated corpse.

Also I ate some and nothing happened.

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autumn really has come now trees are turning colorful
lots of mushrooms but found not a single edible one i know. most were already rotten.
saw an unbelievable amount of fly agarics the forest was full of them. you could eat them in theory when cooked but meh

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 >>/6095/

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 >>/6103/
That's thee spirit!
Have you tried drying and eating a bit, Kashtan?
Amanita muscaria isn't overly poisonous but the concentration of ibotenic acid / muscimol varies greatly and effects can be unpredictable and pretty unpleasant. As the most common effect is nausea host only once ate a tiny bit with zero effect other than bad taste.

Btw in the news today, an entire family ended up in intensive care in Germany after eating Death Caps (A. phalloides). RIP liver. Happens basically every year. No idea how you can eat that mushroom, it looks and smells extremely unpleasant.

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 >>/6103/
lol yeah that too but some people here really eat the fly agaric as food you water them and cook them to destroy the poison. sometimes they pickle them. i imagine they still taste shit never tried there are so many better.

 >>/6111/
> Have you tried drying and eating a bit, Kashtan?
nope as you said you have no idea about the effect but i might try drying a few for the lulz

https://youtube.com/watch?v=MkCS9ePWuLU

> Germans eating Death Caps
figures

This is the warmest October in as long as I can remember. Still have mosquitos and they're still biting wtf?

Coldest night so far 16C last night 20C the mosquitos won't stop until it goes below 13C

 >>/6142/
We have mosquitos all year round now. It's barely freezing. But 20°C at night is tropical.
Right now min night temps are about 5-10°C. No frost in sight until I return in Nov. House plants are still all outside in the garden.

 >>/6158/
Yes they're around but they don't bite here if temperatures are below 60Freedom units. Yesterday it was finally into the 50's and this morning 53 Great American Freedom degrees. Somthing like what 11.6666666667 Communist degrees. Eww.

The mosquitos know that they are pussies for temperatures below 60 World Domination Degrees. Poor babies get "sluggish" and stop laying eggs, therefore don't need da blood of the innocent to fuel them.

73 Future degrees today, gotta love that beautiful sea air. This is the issue though, that water is still 63 Fine beautiful degrees, so when there's an on-shore breeze, like 90% of the time, the night time temperature will be similar, especially on cloudy nights which is also very frequent.

All this to say I finally got to take a morning walk without being bitten by blood sucking bastards.

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 >>/6198/
It's awful here mosquito-wise. Host is dowsed in a mixture of 3 different insect repellents with DEET, icaridin and Ethyl-butylacetylaminopropionate and the fuckers simply don't care at all. Really nasty mosquitoes that are fast and hide immediately when you turn on the light. This and the ubiquitous trash makes me see Germany in a slightly more positive light right now.

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> Aedes aegypti
Oh yeah we got them too.
Government undertakes huge efforts here to fight them, especially eradicating any brooding sites in the city. Tiny places where water stands like flowerpots or choked drains or where puddles form. And they release millions of bacteria-infected mosquitoes that only produce male offspring and can't transmit diseases anymore, especially Dengue fever. The males don't sting but feed on nectar. It's a huge and high-tech topic here. We want a green city with lots of vegetation but no mosquitoes

 >>/6241/
> wolbachia
thats pretty nuts how the fuck does this work? eggsplain Dr. Alice!

no more pesky insects here we will get the first frost next week. already a lot later than usual

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 >>/6244/
> how the fuck does this work? eggsplain Dr. Alice!
Good topic!
Wolbachia interferes with the reproduction of host organisms in very complex ways. 
Basically the bacterium fucks up cell division in sperm which causes the embryo to die if infected sperm fertilizes an uninfected egg. However if both sperm and egg are infected, the bacteria in the eggs alter them in a way that synchronized their cell division to be compatible with infected sperm again and the embryo develops normally. How exactly this works is still unknown. Yes, it's pretty nuts.

You can read about cytoplasmatic incompatibility here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytoplasmic_incompatibility

The fancy thing is that Wolbachia does a number of things:
It inhibits virus replication inside the mosquito so they carry less viruses
Also an infection often reduces the lifespan of mosquitoes which gives them less time to spread diseases.
It can also lead to producing male offspring only, killing the blood-sucking females.

But that's very very complicated stuff and not so straightforward as the fancy posters suggest. Wolbachia-infection can very well also boost pathogen transmission depending on strain. Host is also very skeptical this has long-term benefits. Mosquitoes and their pathogens will adapt quickly.

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 >>/6244/
 >>/6264/

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 >>/6264/
 >>/6265/
> Cytoplasmatic incompatibility
Wow I didn't know this! I thought it just kills the females before they hatch.
At least for now it appears to work here, we monitor all disease cases by neighborhood and dengue cases have dropped where the infected mosquitoes were released. But it is still a trial.

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I saw a large owl at dusk!
Probably a tawny owl (Strix aluco) but we're not sure.
It circled over the garden twice, flew past host slightly above him only a few meters away. Though it was flapping its wings it made absolutely zero sound. Even small birds like sparrows produce audible noise, Owls don't.

I already said it in the VPT but in case you still believe in owls, I'll say it again: Owls aren't real! They're just a prop monted on strings or whatever but you can't fool me, that's not a live animal!

 >>/6264/
dont understand much of it but its creepy af. how does something like this develop?

 >>/6275/
> owl conspiracy
lmao

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Listen to this crazy.

I have a raised bed, about 3x9 and I throw compost in there like olf fruit and so on. This is the planter the huge sunflower grew.

Occasionally tomatoes sprout from store tomatoes and they groe tomatoes and I eat them.

This time, I'm not shitting you, there's a strawberry plant from the tops of strawberries I threw in there.

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Oh cool!
I've never heard about growing strawberries from seeds! Will it survive the winter?

I have planted guava seeds in a pot now. I wonder if they will germinate. It was a weird fruit from the botanical garden not from the market. The pulp and seeds were yellow but the seeds turned pitch black when I washed and dried them before potting. Like charcoal.

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 >>/6427/
> strawberry plant
Rare!
Make a photo for us!
It would be interesting what kind of fruit it bears. Commercial strawberries are highly hybridized so the offspring often splits and has traits which are significantly different from the parent plants.

 >>/6430/
Guavas are cool, I like their bark! The fruit are also good. We bought some pink ones on our recent holiday. They had lots of seeds but you could eat them. Keep in mind that some guava species are extremely invasive so you better not plant them out in nature. Well you live in a huge city anyway.

Harvested Medlars this weekend, they are the last fruit to ripen. They need cold to turn into a brown pulp that tastes like Apfelstrudel. The yellow fruit in the pic are not ripe and inedible. The brown are ready to be consumed or processed. I cook the ripe fruit  and squeeze them through a food mill with a sieve to remove the seeds and skin and get a brown mass. It can be frozen and will be used as cake and Christmas Cookie filling.

 >>/6430/
 >>/6437/
> some guava species are extremely invasive
inb4 Tamamo gets death penalty for spreading invasive plants

> medlars
don't think ive ever seen this fruit