- A pocillovist is someone who collects egg cups.
2. Intarsia is a technique of inlaying wood to create designs or pictures.
3. Cows’ milk can be divided into A1 and A2 based on the type of proteins it contains. (I had never heard this before, so correct me if I misunderstand!)
4. A chuckleberry is a cross between a redcurrant, a gooseberry, and a jostaberry (a cross between a gooseberry and a blackcurrant). The things I’ve learned from my in-laws while they are in Scotland!
5. Cork is the bark of the cork oak… what I didn’t know is that it is harvested while the tree is still alive and the tree then regenerates its outer bark.
6. The Ogdensburg pool will be closed next summer for renovations, but a splash pad is expected to be built first. (We’ll be sad to miss out on swimming lessons there.)
7. “Two emperor coins” are Anglo-Saxon coins depicting both Alfred the Great of Wessex and Ceolwulf II of Mercia, suggesting a new understanding of early English history. (I learned this from the Fool’s Gold podcast, which I forgot to mention in my last post.)
8. The two youngest 46ers (summitting all 46 High Peaks of the Adirondacks) were both four-year-old girls: Maebh and Thea.
9. The Saranac Lake Winter Carnival has been going on since 1897.
10. Tangentially, I was excited to hear that a group is working to plant a PCA in Saranac Lake since there are no other Reformed Churches in the area.
11. Remote telescopes are one way to beat light pollution!
We also saw tayberry vines at Castle Culzean, and the friend who took us there correctly guessed their origin. None of the local folks had ever seen them or heard of them. Google to the rescue:
The tayberry is a cultivated shrub in the genus Rubus of the family Rosaceae patented in 1979 as a cross between a blackberry and a red raspberry, and named after the River Tay in Scotland. The fruit is sweeter, much larger, and more aromatic than that of the loganberry, itself a blackberry and red raspberry cross.
Another thing we’ve learned here: where curling stones come from. We can see Ailsa Crag from the town center, or from either side of Loch Ryan. Sometimes on a clear day we can Arran, too.
Ailsa Craig (/ˈeɪlsə/; Scottish Gaelic: Creag Ealasaid) is an island of 99 ha (240 acres) in the outer Firth of Clyde, 16 km (8+1⁄2 nmi) west of mainland Scotland, upon which microgranite has long been quarried to make curling stones. The now-uninhabited island comprises the remains of a magmatic pluton formed during the same period of igneous activity as magmatic rocks on the nearby Isle of Arran.[6]
Saw an article on how to repurpose egg cups. Apparently every UK household has them but they’re rarely used for eggs now.