This species has been beneath my radar all these years, but I thought the pictures looked familiar.

Sure enough, it’s in the same genus as Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maximum).  That’s the species that grew in the bush down the hill from our house near Shell Lake when I was a kid.  Having a hollow stem, it made great pea-shooters.  Or chokecherry shooters.  I remember some chokecherry wars involving my brothers Marv and Dan together with our cousins Dennis, Dave and Ken.  They were brutal, but fun.  I also remember how angry Mom was the day I filled the pocket of my good shirt full of ripe chokecherries and stained it beyond the power of any detergent.

But getting back to the Giant Hogweed … it too has a hollow stem, but the sap is toxic.  I don’t know if its range has expanded to Shell Lake, but obviously using it for chokecherry wars would not be a good idea.

Another thing I discovered in the news article linked above is that the band Genesis had a 1971 song about the Giant Hogweed.

These have been a couple of days of botanical discoveries.

Charlotte's self-titled album

I’d call this quality music even if we weren’t related.

But I do prefer the Norwegian spelling of Oline.

It got me thinking about the blogs that I check the most often.  I do sometimes wander over to some of the political blogs, to see what’s being said about the news of the day.  However the blogs that I read the most are on my blogroll (along the right-hand side of my blog’s home page).  Those blogs are mostly maintained by people that I know personally.

For the most part they are my fellow-travellers on the journey of following Jesus Christ.

And they generally don’t fit that stereotype of the angry middle-aged curmudgeon blogger.

Take for example my cousin Sharon A. and my work-mate and church-mate Sharon K.  I don’t know a lot of people more positive than the two Sharons.

In fact, come to think of it, I’m probably closer to that stereotype than anyone on my blogroll.  Luckily most of my friends are non-judgemental.

Sweden battles EU food-safety rules to save a smelly Baltic-herring delicacy

Sweden is fighting European Union food-safety rules in a battle to save one of its traditional delicacies, a smelly dish made from fermented Baltic herrings. Eskil Erlandsson, the Swedish Agriculture Minister, has pleaded with John Dalli, the EU’s consumer and health protection commissioner, to save surstromming, a delicacy from northern Sweden so smelly it has to be eaten outside. Surstromming is produced under a special exemption for Sweden and Finland from EU rules on the sale of fatty fish from the Baltic Sea, which have dioxin pollution levels considered too high for consumer safety. Next year, the loophole will close and the EU will ban production or sale. Commission officials said Mr. Dalli had declined the gift of can of the herring after Swedish colleagues warned him its pungent odour was an acquired taste, even for Swedes. The smell is so intense, it is usually eaten outside.

(It currently has an average rating of 4.1 out of 10 at imdb.com – that may be because it’s really that bad, or it may be because trying to be balanced just succeeds in making everyone mad)

(original here)

This map from Agriculture Canada gives the story about the amount of precipitation our area has received this spring.

The dark blue colour represents areas that have received more than twice as much precipitation as normal since April 1.  Click on the image for legend and more graphs from Agriculture Canada (ironically in a section they call Drought Watch).

While on the topic of weather, apparently this spring (March though May according to Environment Canada) was the warmest spring on record across Canada, following after the warmest winter on record.

I find local weather a fascinating subject.  Perhaps equally as fascinating as global climate.

That issue of the Companion also included a thought-provoking column “Why so hostile?” by John E. Phelan Jr.,  including this paragraph:

… differences of opinion do not distress or alarm me. Quite the contrary. Were our differences quashed, ignored, or minimized, then I would be alarmed. What alarms and distresses me is the hostility surrounding our differences of opinion. Our political and religious discourse has devolved into a wasteland of hostility. Murderous scorn is poured over opponents as if they deserved no respect or consideration for, if nothing else, their common humanity. Persons who temporize or try to see the good in another or their position are considered weak and contemptible. Ideological purity is required. Woe to the person who says something good about President Bush or President Obama, about Pope Benedict or Pat Robertson, about the Methodists or the Pentecostals, about the fundamentalists or the liberals. As poet Thomas John Carlisle put it: “I hate God’s enemies / with perfect hatred. / Why can’t God / do as much?

I’ve been as guilty as most of lacking civility in my discussions about issues about which I feel strongly, but articles like the above are convicting me, and hopefully tempering my speech.