# When Did the Sun Get so Hot?



## bodumene (Jun 26, 2016)

All of a sudden the weather here turned from cold and rainy to hot and dry.  The temperature suddenly became almost 100 degrees!

When I was a kid, I used to play in the sun all day long.  We didn't know of sunscreen and skin cancer, or sunglasses and cataracts.

Now I avoid the sun like the plague.  I just can't take the heat anymore.  But it's fun to watch kids doing what I used to do when the sun wasn't so hot....

The first shot is called, "Yer_Out!", and the second, "Anticipation".


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## jujube (Jun 26, 2016)

I guess the question should be: "When did we get so old?"

The heat never bothered me as much as it has the last few years.


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## Shalimar (Jun 26, 2016)

I can't take the heat either. My mom, however, loved it. Even indoors, she cranked up the gas fireplace to ninety in later years. Lolol. She was very dark, so never had issues with skin cancer. I don't tan, just freckle. Great camoflage if I want to go feral and skulk in the forest as Blackberry Girl, and relive my childhood.


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## Phoenix (Jun 26, 2016)

I've never liked the heat, but it became intolerable once I started having hot flashes.  Okay, Shali, I'll look for you in the blackberry bushes.  There are a lot of them around here.  That way we can get to meet.


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## Shalimar (Jun 26, 2016)

Ok, Phoenix! To show my appreciation, I will make you a pie--if I may borrow your oven?


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## Ina (Jun 26, 2016)

Shali, you'd probably look like spotted nymph. :bowknot::lofl:


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## Shalimar (Jun 26, 2016)

Ina! Rrrrrrasssssspppppberrryyyyyy! Lolololol.


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## bodumene (Jun 26, 2016)

Maybe the title of my first picture should have been,  "Did Babe Ruth paint his fingernails?"


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## Phoenix (Jun 26, 2016)

Shali, they aren't ripe yet. I can let you know.  Yes, you can use my oven, as long as it's not a hot day.  They are Himalayan Black berries and get squishy when they cook.  Grin.  

I like Baby Ruth bars, is that the same thing?


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## Guitarist (Jun 26, 2016)

The candy bar was named for either Babe Ruth, or for Grover Cleveland's daughter Ruth. Maybe. 

I prefer cold weather to hot, but actually tolerate heat better than cold.


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## Shalimar (Jun 26, 2016)

Squishy is good Phoenix. Lol.


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## Phoenix (Jun 26, 2016)

Shali, what I've found is, if you cook up the sugary thickener first, let it cool a little and just pour it over the berries, they don't get as squishy, but that only works if you pour it into a pre-cooked bottom crust, with no top crust.

And what is good if it's squishy?  grin


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## Shalimar (Jun 26, 2016)

I like squishy because I can pack more filling into the pie. As an inveterate maximalist, greed is king! Oink. Oink.


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## Phoenix (Jun 26, 2016)

Shalimar said:


> I like squishy because I can pack more filling into the pie. As an inveterate maximalist, greed is king! Oink. Oink.



These berries lose all their cohesion.  The seeds, the pulp and the skins separate entirely from each other.  So it's more like pudding with seeds. There are little wild blackberries in the area.  They are superb, but they are sprinkled here and there, and rarely is there enough for one pie.


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## Shalimar (Jun 26, 2016)

Oh, I see Phoenix. I did not realise these were not indigenous berries. Here on Vancouver Island we have two varieties, both wild. The scarce,  small, low bush variety, and the prolific high bush, large, succulent blackberry. Pick them by the bucket full. Commune with the wasps while doing so. We have an understanding. Lol.


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## Phoenix (Jun 26, 2016)

Unfortunately someone years back imported them to grow in their gardens.  They are now an invasive species.  They do taste good if you eat them directly off the vine.  My parents owned 18 acres, 13 of it pastureland.  When I was a kid Mom was continually spraying the berries to get rid of them.  It took her years to do it.  In the meantime, to make extra money, we picked berries and sold them to Carling Black Label, the beer folks.  They made wine with them, I think.  Pretty good for a lady who believed drinking was a sin. She convinced herself the company used them for juice.


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## Shalimar (Jun 26, 2016)

I see. Oh the things we tell ourselves. Lol.


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## jujube (Jun 27, 2016)

Shalimar said:


> I see. Oh the things we tell ourselves. Lol.



Sort of like the Victorian ladies who would have never allowed "demon alcohol" to cross their lips but who were addicted to their "tonics", which were 90% alcohol and 10% laudanum.


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## Shalimar (Jun 27, 2016)

Jujube, lolol.


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## Phoenix (Jun 27, 2016)

Some of my family talked to the ills of drink and some made moonshine.


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## Shalimar (Jun 27, 2016)

Now that is what I call balanced Phoenix!


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## Phoenix (Jun 27, 2016)

Shalimar said:


> Now that is what I call balanced Phoenix!



Some of the moonshiners lived into their mid nineties, and these were my dad's uncles.


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