[naturelovingfarmer]

I had a problem last year with the invasive Japanese Beetle attacking my hazel trees. I decided to feed the moles on my land to increase their population. Moles eat beetle grubs and prefer them over worms which are their traditional food. So to let the mole population boom, I dumped soaked chicken feed into their holes, mulched a section of my yard to increase the worm population, and allowed some land to go unmowed to provide them with cover. Since doing this, the Japanese beetles have not come back in any great numbers. But I now see chubby little moles all the time.

Now, I don't want them eating my potatoes or my corn, so I sprout seeds before planting them, and grow tubers in buckets. And moles do me the favor of killing the beetle grubs. Moles are not a problem, they are a solution to a problem. Just a bit of common sense is all you need to prevent them eating your crops. If you sprout your grains and coat them in cinnamon, the moles won't bother it. They don't like cinnamon and a sprouted seed will pass the point at which moles would want to eat them before the cinnamon breaks down. Moles like their food plain and cinnamon is no joke if you get too much in your mouth at once.

I've watched enough Wallace and Gromit to know that rabbits and moles are an existential threat to British gardeners. But if we make some minor adjustments, maybe we can befriend the chubby little rodents instead of fearing them. Now if you'll excuse me, I am taking a course on how to talk to tea drinkers. Today we're discussing the weather and how hating rain brings them together as a social unit. 

[Fleecewife]

When we had some building work done on our house, the workies insisted their boss bought them the best coffee making machine and the best beans so they could enjoy their coffee at breaktime.  You're about 80 years out of date with the tea drinking myth     We do have afternoon tea, but it's a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint from the herb garden with boiling water type of tea, not leaves from India or China.


That's an interesting take on moles. I wasn't aware they ate beetle larvae detrimental to trees. Our vets (veterinarians) laughingly call our smallholding 'the mole sanctuary', as everyone else poisons moles on their land so they seem to come to us in preference.  In the veg patch, it's not moles eating the veg that's a problem, it's the heaved up soil covering and killing off seedlings that's a nuisance.  On the pastures, the problem caused by moles is that their hills leave bare earth on the surface so sheep get a mouthful of earth with their grass and this tends to give them listeriosis.

[macgro7]

As for the tea - everyone in the world thinks that the British (or English especially) drink it all the time, but... I'm Polish and I can tell you that we drink more tea. Indians, Pakistanis and especially Turks drink much more.
When people say "tea" in England they often mean dinner of afternoon snack.

One difference between Polish and English tea - the English drink it (usually) with a splash of milk. In Poland it is unheard of! When I told my grandmother about it she said tea with milk is only for pregnant women 

We (Polish) drink black tea, or with a slice of fresh lemon.

Indians (my inlaws) drink boiled tea made with mosty or only milk (I.e. no water).

[Womble]

Whoa!  All these years people have teased me about how I take my tea.... and now I discover that I'm actually just Indian!? This is amazing news!

[naturelovingfarmer]

And to think, your music industry would lie to me about something as serious as systemic tea addiction. But I notice nobody's trying to debunk the bit about mutual hatred of rainy weather providing group cohesion. We do actually like tea here. While the most popular way is to serve it chilled and sweet, my brother puts milk in his. If you prefer cane sugar over high fructose corn syrup, then when you eat out you basically have to order tea. The only unsweetened drinks you're likely to find at a restaurant are beer, coffee, and water.

As to moles, I find that the more I let nature do its thing, the less I have to worry. I have not had them dig up seedlings yet. They don't seem to particularly like being in my garden. But then I know they don't like cinnamon, so... Besides all that, The section I let go wild now has about 500 trees in it. It's a win-win situation.

[macgro7]

And to think, your music industry would lie to me about something as serious as systemic tea addiction. But I notice nobody's trying to debunk the bit about mutual hatred of rainy weather providing group cohesion. We do actually like tea here. While the most popular way is to serve it chilled and sweet, my brother puts milk in his. If you prefer cane sugar over high fructose corn syrup, then when you eat out you basically have to order tea. The only unsweetened drinks you're likely to find at a restaurant are beer, coffee, and water.

Heard of that chilled tea in some places in America 
Bizarre...

Also heard that some people drink black coffee with no sugar - why would you punish yourself like that???

Anyway, good morning everyone! I'm going to make myself a nice espresso with a splash of double cream and a tea spoon of brown sugar, and then a cup of Indian spiced milk tea 

[doganjo]

I read a lot. I love books set in the past - 100, 200 years ago.  Many of these mention sweet tea, or iced tea.  I've never drunk that in the UK, except perhaps a spoonful of sugar when I first started drinking tea as a late teenager.  So I'm thinking the  books I've read have maybe been written by Americans?

As for weather.......................  -  everyone in every country experiences weather - good, bad and indifferent, so it is probably spoken about across the world 

[Fleecewife]

You've hit the nail on the head, Doganjo!  Amazon keeps telling me I'm going to love this book, whatever it is, but I've learned to check who the author is.  All those 'cosy mysteries' set in idyllic English country villages, whose life centres around the pub and the vicar, and endless cups of tea, are nearly all written by American women writers, many of whom have never left the States and get their ideas from all those cosy mysteries set in idyllic English country villages, whose life....... You get the picture. So of course we drink endless tea and discuss nothing but the weather.


I don't live in an English village, or any village for that matter, I don't go near the pub or the minister, I drink one cup of tea with a splash of milk each morning and I don't touch coffee,  and what else would I talk about but the weather?  It's the most important and relevant influencer round here 

[naturelovingfarmer]

I got the idea that you like to talk about weather from a youtuber named Grian. He's a prolific producer of content, but he often mentions the weather. And one time, when he gave a tour of his studio, he explained it.

Talking about the weather in the US is a good way to get into a bad argument. Don't know how many times I used weather as an icebreaker only to discover that the person I was talking to believes in conspiracy theories, and doesn't believe in science. I have enough self control to change the subject, but not everyone does. What starts as an innocuous "hey, good weather for fishing, wish I was at the lake instead of in town" can turn into a heated argument about conspiracy theories in like 2.5 seconds. This even happens with my own relatives. I took about a year to get my brother to agree that the Earth is round, and not flat. My mom thinks the earth is only 6000 years old and that people and non-avian dinosaurs co-existed.