sevastion reblogged
Unmute !
sevastion reblogged
Anonymous asked:
whats the deal with proven winners?
okay. so. this is actually how i got into botany in the first place; i got an unpaid internship at a greenhouse in high school and realized, very quickly, that we live in a jurassic park hellscape where big companies breed plants solely for their looks and performance, and i found that so fucking weird that i couldnt get enough of it and fell down the rabbit hole. i don’t find them bad per say; i find them weird and how they manage their product in terms of policing their retailers is very sketchy to me, but they’re not like, monstanto-level off the shits (yet). with mother’s day next weekend we’re coming up on one of the biggest greenhouse/ornamental plant industry sales days of the year, next to valentines’ day (which favors the rose industry especially), so this is an exceptionally convenient time to talk about this.
proven winners is one of the biggest ornamental plant companies in the united states, possibly the world. you might know them from their patented white flower pots. they’re centered in california (as, actually, a lot of these large flower producers are) and they manage a HUUUUUUGEEE network of giant industrial flower greenhouses.
like, you have to understand, all garden retailers have to buy their shit from somewhere, and although the centers and local greenhouses selling proven winners stuff are often small and independent (unless ur talking like…flowerama or something), a large portion of the plants themselves, like many things in capitalism, form an industry of their own dominated by a handful of oligarch corporations, of which proven winners is one. small retailers order bulk products from these companies, should it be through full-color paper catalogs (which exist, btw, and are wild in and of themselves to look at; i actually have a few back home that i keep around solely bc they’re incredibly fascinating in a slightly offputting jurassic park kind of way), online, or through a sales representative for their region.
it depends on what they’re ordering, but they can buy seeds, plugs (the black trays of like….tiny plants you buy at garden centers to put in planters? the ones that come in, like, six packs? those are called ‘plugs’), and in the case of perennials, woody plants of various ages, among other things. these plants are bred, marketed, and sold on a goddamn industrial scale. it’s wild.
now….this is where it gets absolutely fascinating to me. this isn’t just proven winners, but proven winners is one of the top contenders of this. some highlights of how plants are actually marketed on an industrial scale:
-plants come out in collections. like, you have horticulturalist designer people who put their names on some stuff and they all go out as like, The New Hot Thing™.
-they always promote their top selling stuff, and the plants that won awards, and like, the most popular flower arrangements and stuff. this in and of itself, again, isn’t like…..bad, it just feels weird how plants are marketed as objects rather than living things, you know?
-these plants are 100% bred and optimized for their commercial value and how they look. see the above point about how it feels like they’re treating them as objects.
-every year, there are new plants, which are put at the front of the catalogue and like, show them off as the Hit New Products. these are all part of the year’s collective collection, so like, proven winners has their 2019 collection all ready on their site in a special little tab:
FUN INDUSTRY SIDE STORY: looks like they have some new orange petunias this year, which reminds me fondly of the 2017 purge ordered by the USDA of a ton of illegally GMO orange petunias….
you see, orange petunias don’t exist naturally, so what companies do is either 1. systematically breed orange into them, which can take years, or 2. take red petunias and just put in some coding for yellow from the maize genome, which makes them orange. usually, you have to submit all this paperwork and go through a ton of government red tape to sell GMOs, including required trials conducted by the federal government, but what some of these large ornamental seed companies were doing was just….not telling the government and just kind of…pretending that they bred them. so in 2017, a netherlands team noticed that these were like….kind of Suspicious™, and started doing some tests….and accidentally uncovered like, this huge international orange petunia scandal across all these companies, over 30 varieties of illegal petunia being sold internationally. they had to alert the actual EU, which then alerted the USDA, who then gave an actual government order for these large companies to literally burn, bury, or otherwise destroy all their industrial stock of the proven illegal GMO orange petunias.
small retailers who had bought them assuming that they were legal were allowed to keep and continue selling what they bought, but the actual producers were ordered to just fucking. violently destroy everything. the USDA informed these companies that they could sell them again, but only if they were put through the proper government channels and received proper certification. i checked the old recall list and didn’t see these, so i’m assuming they’re like…Legit, but. im 👀 somebody test these lol
AAANNNNYYway that aside, if you would like to see the Proven Winners 2019 Flower Collection Showcase™, they have a bunch of……weird kind of ads on their youtube channel showing artsy pics of their new shit. to this day i can’t pin down exactly what about them makes me feel slightly uncomfortable, but you really do get a sense that they’re selling an object to preform, which i guess is the point, but…idk, it’s just a very different view of plants, i think, then i personally have. very sci-fi-y, if you will. all their ads are like this; these video are essentially very similar to what you get from their print sales booklets, but in video form.
see, last but not least, my biggest beef with proven winners is the weird way they handle their company.
you get inspected by the plant police.
im not kidding. for those not very familiar with plant reproduction, you can grow vegetative clones of plants through a process called taking cuttings, where you cut off a part of the plant and put it in a new pot under the right conditions, and it develops a root system and becomes a genetic clone to the parent. obviously, anyone can do this with a lot of the proven winners plants, especially because PW plants, as i’ve noticed, tend to be bred to be more vigorous.
proven winners wants to ensure that there’s no Illegal Plant Downloads taking place, so they literally like….send people out to these small retailers and ask to see their stock to make sure that all the plants are going in the Patented Proven Winners White Pots™ with the Patented Proven Winners Information Tags™. you MUST plant proven winners stuff in the pots they send you, with the instructions they send you, and they will check you for this. the first time my internship mentor ordered from them, they accidentally planted the plugs in generic brown pots instead of the white ones, and the weird proven winners police rolled in unannounced for an inspection and told them that the next time it happened they wouldn’t sell to them anymore. what they’re worried about happening is that the growers will order a small amount and then just make a bunch of cuttings without paying them, and it’s just……weird. like i get why they do it but that’s always struck me as really, really shady lmao
OH BOY STORYTIME
ok so a couple years back I worked at a local greenhouse and we sold Proven Winners and they were HANDS DOWN managment’s least favorite company to deal with because:
- The aforementioned Plant Police, who are the worst possible version of ‘police washout mall cop’ and ‘geriatric bitchy HOA snitch’. Our local Plant Cop was this woman named “Elise” and her picture was stapled up in the breakroom with instructions to Radio 3 if we saw her.
- I’ll get to Radio 3 in a minute.
- their product was uhhh… kind of crap? everything we ever got from them was real leggy, prone to carrying Sudden Death Mold, and frankly just didn’t do as well as some other brands in CO.
- They attracted the WORST customers. You know the kind- the infamous haircut, knows more about plants than the people with actual horticultural degrees and sixteen cupons but only two of them are for this store, and either on their phone or screaming at their children at the register instead of checking out.
- The only reason managment dealth with them at all was 1. People would request PW by name, so managment maked it up a ridiculous percentage and made bank on brand loyalty 2. PW’s delivery trucks would actually show up when scheduled with what was actually ordered so they could be relied upon to deliver, unlike pretty much every other grower :/
So it’s fucking MOTHER’S DAY, aka Hell On Earth for greenhouse retailers, and we’re understaffed in Greenhouse because some popular band was playing at the local indie bar Saturday night and everyone but me and Kate called in “sick”, so it’s two of us and sometimes assistant manger craig dealing with literally 3K customers an hour.
Fucking Elise decides it’s a good day to do a surprise inspection.
I’m breaking up a fight over at tomatoes when this woman grabs my arm, physically pulls me away from the woman whose order I’m writng down and hisses like a rattler at me “I need to see your greenhouses.”
I winch my arm out and get gouged by her nails. “Sorry, our greenhouses aren’t open to the public, and I’m working with her now.” I’m seven hours into a twelve-hour shift so far after coming in at 5 to unload the trucks, I can’t hear myself think over the echo in the greenhouse, and my panic over crowds has reached such a frenzy that I think my heatbeat could rival a hummingbird’s. I’m dehydrated despite my best efforts, hallucinating smells and my forearms are bleeding profusely from moving roses earlier. I no longer expirience pain or fear from exhaustion, but this woman makes me uneasy.
“I’m with Proven Winners and I’m here for an inspection.”
“Proven Winners are over there by the fairy garden supplies.” I say, still not sure what she’s on about. I don’t do faces at the best of times and in the current retail-induced feuge I barely register her as a human being. I go back to trying to write ‘amish paste’ for what feels like the fortieth time, and Elise grabs my arm again and DIGS HER NAILS IN, before physically pulling me out the back door and towards the greenhouses.
The first of the Quanzat huts/greenhouses is filled with columbines, one of the few non-crop plants that’s grown on-site because they’re in such demand and grow well here. Elise points at the rows and shakes my arm.
“WHERE ARE THESE FROM?” she demands.
“Here? Ma’am this place is off-limits for customers, if you have questions I can get the greenhouse manager-” I fumble for my radio (we all got walkie-talkie type radios because yelling over a 13-acre property is impractical) , and try to call the manager. “Radio Adam? There’s a lady who needs some questions answered in Greenhouse 1?”
“NO I NEED TO SPEAK TO JEFF.” she shrieks, name-dropping the owner. “TELL HIM ELISE [REDACTED] IS HERE FROM PROVEN WINNERS AND IF HE DOESN’T GET HERE FOR AN INSPECTION I’LL HAVE THE POLICE SHUT DOWN THIS ENTIRE FACILITY!” she howls at me.
This Woman, I decide, Is Out Of Her Goddamn Gourd. The mangers are all up to their armpits today and even if they could hear me wouldn’t be able to physically wade through the crowds for a good 10 minutes. I click my radio over to Channel 3. Channel 1 is for directing delivery trucks. Channel 2 is for staff. Channel 3 doesn’t work- it doesn’t connect but it DOES make your radio make a very loud higher-than-most-people-can-hear EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE noise.
This summons The Dogs.
Jeff’s family is from West Texas where the land is vast, the coyotes are many and nobody fixes thier animals, which is how he found and adopted two of the strangest dogs I’ve ever worked with. Teddy and Bob are Anatolian Shepherd/Rhodesian Ridgeback hybrids, which is to say they clock in at 125lbs each, with body-bulder like reddish gray bodies, black masks and mane of fur that tapers into a full-body mowhawk of long hair along thier backs. Jeff had to dock thier ears and tails for health reasons which really only adds to the illusion that Jeff has a pair of hyenas.
I can hear the crowd outside shouting as they race out from thier hole under the potting shed and they barrel into the Quanzat hut and stand on either side of me, snarling and bristling like they were trained to, which makes Elise finally let go of my arm and back up. In an impressive feat of teleportation, Jeff turns up three seconds later.
“YOU!” Elise and Jeff mutually bellow at each other. The Dogs snap at the air.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU STILL HAVE THOSE THINGS.” Elise shrieks, picking up a potted columbine to throw.
“I’M SURE THAT YOU STILL HAVE A RESTRAINING ORDER. GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE AND LEAVE MY STAFF ALONE.” counters jeff.
“oh shit i’m bleeding.” I say, belatedly realizing she’s gouged holes in my arm that have been freely bleeding for at least three minutes now. Everyone takes a moment to stare at my arm which is looking like a prop from a Tarintino film.
“Actually, go have a seat in my office.” Says Jeff, suddenly, coldly calm. He takes out his cell phone and dials 911.
Elise screams, throws the potted columbine, and is promptly tackled by assitant manager Craig, who had gone around the back. Jeff ducks and the pot clips me in the face becuase that’s just how this day was going.
Anyway, I got a zillion pictures taken of my arm, had to give a statment and then went back to work because it was literally me and Kate covering the entire greenhouse on our busiest day of the year and as shit as that was I couldn’t abandon her to the Hordes. Got double overtime and hazard pay for the full day so I wouldn’t narc to the labor board over it, and The Dogs refused to leave my side which really improved customer’s attitude towards me.
Elise got charged with assault, trespass and violating her parole, Jeff got a warning from the sherrif about “you can’t sic large dogs on people in city limits even if they really, really deserve it”, so the dogs had a vacation out in the county for a fortnight until the cops stopped driving by, and that’s the story of how we stopped carrying Proven Winners.
THIS IS LONG BUT AMAZING. SCROLL BACK UP.
sevastion reblogged
#that is the most venomous native lizard in north america
so i was compelled to look that up and
A) the most venomous lizard in north america is called the Gila Monster
B) I’m no expert obviously but that boy there sure looks like a Gila Monster
C) from the Gila Monster wikipedia article, here is the funniest doctor that ever lived:
"I have never been called to attend a case of Gila monster bite, and I don't want to be. I think a man who is fool enough to get bitten by a Gila monster ought to die. The creature is so sluggish and slow of movement that the victim of its bite is compelled to help largely in order to get bitten."
–Dr. Ward, Arizona Graphic, September 23, 1899
sevastion reblogged
“Y’see, I feel sorrier for you than I do for him. Because you’ll never know the things that love can drive a man to. The ecstasies, the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious failures, the glorious victories… All of these things you’ll never know. Simply because the word ‘love’ isn’t written into your book.” 3x19 - Requiem for Methuselah
sevastion reblogged
*makes this noise at you*
it’s a ptenopus garrulus, aka Common Barking Gecko, which lives in Africa! The video doesn’t show it well, but they have goofy froglike faces!
by sheer coincidence, there’s a completely different kind of gecko endemic to Australia (underwoodisaurus/nephrurus milii ) which is also called the Common Barking Gecko:
(cute art courtesy @prguitarman )
sevastion reblogged
sevastion reblogged
i’m losing my mind at this post i saw on facebook this morning
sevastion reblogged
It’s so funny to me when straight people are like “there is no way Kirk and Spock could have been in love/married, they would have no reason to hide it!” And I’m like... yeah in-universe sure but did it ever occur to you that these episodes/movies were um... not made in the 23rd century? In the 60s, homosexuality was a mental illness, something that could completely destroy your life. It was illegal to be gay in the 70s and 80s in many places in the US. This is the environment in which this show was made.
Did you expect them to tearfully confess their love and start making out? Bro if we can’t even get a main gay character in a family friendly mainstream franchise now what makes you think that would have happened then? And especially since they are cultural icons and the entire franchise revolved around their story. I can’t even imagine a popular, commercialized franchise having their leading gents fall in love today. The near ubiquitous disgust towards gay people during that era is something that is sort of lost on us kiddos sometimes.
Kirk and Spock are so culturally significant because they represent the first characters that a generation of queer people saw themselves in. Media rep is important, and this was absolutely an important first step in the shifting of a culture. Intentional or not. Heck, my uncle even admitted to me that those two singlehandedly made him reevaluate his homophobia. He confessed that when he saw the sickbay scene for the first time, he was struck by the deep love they had for each other. And he saw the beauty in that. Why should it matter if they’re two dudes?
The fact that they even came up with the concept of “t’hy’la” or included lines like “Jim, this simple feeling is beyond V’Ger’s comprehension,” “I’ve spent a lifetime learning to hide my feelings,” “I have always been and forever shall be yours,” and the whole “his soul is my soul” thing (and the entire plot of TSFS tbh, which is legit just “dude rescues the love of his life by sacrificing everything”) was incredibly bold. If they hadn’t thrown in the words “friend” or “brother” it would be extremely difficult to interpret these moments in a way that wasn’t romantic. Not even Americans are that dumb. And thus, their affection was confined to meaningful looks and layers of subtext.
They seriously went as hard as they could have given era. Depicting them as being explicitly in love would have been impossible. Star Trek takes place in the future, but it is limited by the social conventions of the era in which it is made.
sevastion reblogged
bellybuttonblue-deactivated2021
sevastion reblogged
This clip is so good
Canada lynx up north is so impressive with how far they can jump with no momentum and we have Lynx rufus down here that can apparently climb cliffs( never have seen it but would like to)
sevastion reblogged
sevastion reblogged
heres Roswell fighting a skeleton. before this i had NEVER seen him do a tail wave. for some reason this skeleton really fucking pissed him off.
he is gonna throw those hands
sevastion reblogged
Pet Store Ettiquite
I figured I’d write this as a little guide, because I see people every day who don’t know or understand these things that make my job really tough or frustrating. Maybe you already knew them, maybe you didn’t, either way I hope at least a few people will learn!
Fish: If someone is getting you fish, please stand off to the side (not behind them) and not in front of the tank your fish is in. I know you want to watch them catch the fish but employees need to stand right in front of the tank they’re getting into and probably need some big elbow room too. Stand back!
If you want a specific fish, absolutely say so . But! Remember that for some fish this will be impossible to do. Or, the fish are for all intents and purposes identical so don’t try to pick a specific one please. Or at least, don’t get mad or think the employee is incompetent because they tell you they can’t.
Do not ask for help with a fish problem, receive an answer, then tell the employee there is no problem and you did nothing wrong. Please, 99% of the time, you did something wrong. Just fix it.
Do NOT open lids or stick your hand into the tanks!! For any reason!
Birds: Do not put your hands near or into the cage. Just don’t! 90% of the time you are scaring the bird and giving them lifelong behavioral problems. Remember, they have had around a dozen people try to poke them, scare them, maybe even yell at them or hit their cage. The public is stupid, don’t be a part of that. Politely admire the birds from a distance unless the bird is asking for physical touch.
DO NOT TRY TO OPEN THE BIRD CAGES. I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE TO SAY THIS.
This includes going into any employees only areas related to cleaning cages.
Do NOT feed the birds ANYTHING!! PLEASE YOU COULD KILL THEM.
Mammals: Do NOT open the cages.
Understand that you might not be able to handle the animal. This is, honestly, for the animals protection more than anything. Many people, including those who genuinely think they can competently hold the animal, cannot, and will drop or injure them. I’ve been doing this for 8 years. Chances are, you will drop that hamster so no, you can’t hold it.
If there is an open top type of enclosure, ASK if you may touch the animals inside.
Reptiles: Same as with mammals, you probably won’t be allowed to hold the animal. It’s just a safety thing, nothing personal. Please respect it and the animal.
Do not crowd the employee as they get you an animal. Lots of reptiles are fast and flighty and having you breathing down their neck will do one of a few things; distract them, make them uncomfortable, or get in their way.
Do not scream or jump if a reptile jumps or runs. I know this might be difficult, but try to expect it so it doesn’t startle you. If you react this way you can startle the employee, which may make them make mistakes or become nervous, which leads to more dropping/failure to catch the animal. Especially if they are new.
General: Do not take things from the top shelf! It’s dangerous, let an employee help you.
Please give your kids ground rules BEFORE taking them into the store. So many kids, every single day, come in and wreck the place or hit things because they had no idea they weren’t supposed to. If your child is old enough, before going into the store give the following rules
1. Do not touch the cages or tanks. (Look but don’t touch)
2. Stay with me/don’t walk away.
3. No running.
4. Put things back.
Will they listen? Maybe not, but you can’t get mad at them for getting excited to see a hamster and hitting the cage to get it’s attention because hey, no one said anything about that and you’re a kid so why would you think twice before doing it?
This is more for you than anyone but if you are STARTING to run out of cat/dog food, write down the brand/type (Or take a picture) and get some before you’re totally out. Many, many people actually forget what brand of food they feed and get frustrated when they can’t remember or I can’t figure it out (It’s a YELLOW bag. It’s chicken? Maybe beef. Small breed.). Having that picture will help you a lot! And employees. Heck, to save you even more trouble, call first and ask if they carry it and if it’s in stock!
If your dog is aggressive with strangers, small animals, or other dogs… Please do not bring them into a pet store.
On that note please do not bring animals to the pet store that would be in danger because of it. Like a bird without a harness, a hamster or mouse without a carrying case, or a baby ball python you got 3 days ago (please… stop).
Bringing this back because it’s worth reading. You may not even realize you’re doing some of this!
sevastion reblogged
fascinatingly entitled outdoor cat owners
if only there were somewhere you could put this cat where he wouldn’t have access to food other than his prescription diet. some kind of physical structure that only you live in
The mental gymnastics you have to do to blame someone ELSE for your outdoor cat eating something it shouldn't have...
sevastion reblogged
sevastion reblogged
Anonymous asked:
What animals do you work with !
you’re supposed to call them “coworkers” i think
sevastion reblogged
Anonymous asked:
got any cursed facts about falcons?? 🥺👉👈
compared to hawks, falcons have shorter and weaker talons and shorter beaks! this, combined with a lighter overall build, means that falconkind is really badly unsuited to do the hawk/eagle/owl thing where they just plunge out of the sky and stab a rabbit to death with their feet.
so what they do instead is fly really high in the air, keeping an eye out for unwary birds they could get the drop on, and then they DROP. and as they drop, they curl their talon into a fist, which they use to strike their unwary prey at speeds well in excess of a hundred miles per hour. (this either stuns or outright kills the unlucky target)
and this method works so well that they can even take down birds much larger than themselves, like ducks!
so basically,
FALCON
PUNCH
If I may add, the fastest known speed of a peregrine falcon during a stoop dive (that’s what the “drops” are called) on record is 242 mph! This technically makes them the fastest animal on the planet (if you ignore the fact that they’re getting a bit of help from gravity). Keep in mind though that air rushing into you at 242 mph is no joke. In fact, all that pressure might obliterate any other animal’s respiratory tract, but falcons have bony tubercles (lil nubbins) inside their nostrils that are thought to direct the passage of air in such a way that they can still breathe during their dives and withstand the pressure.
This picture also points out another cool anatomic feature of falcons - the tomial tooth! This small but deadly notch evolved to quickly and efficiently severe the spine of, or cervically dislocate prey. Sounds gruesome, but works really well.
You’ll also notice that many falcon species also have dark feathers around their eyes - in peregrine falcons, they cover more of the face/head to form a “moustache”, but in many other species they form thinner stripes under and/or behind the eyes. These are called malar stripes, and just like the black stripes football and baseball players paint under their eyes, they “absorb” sunlight to prevent it from glaring in the falcons’ eyes when they’re out hunting during the day.
In conclusion, falcons are the coolest carnivorous dinosaurs that are still around to grace our planet today.