Pretty common my homey has a alligator farm. I have actually been to Jerry Seville's place where they filmed dirty jobs. Did you take my weed off or did I. It didnt really need to be on there any way. Sorry vesp I was high siding on my 20

Haha thats one way of putting it.

Congratulations, Vesp, you win the prize for understatement of the motherfucking decade.

Cute lil guys when they are tiny though, if only one could get dwarf alligators, that would be sweet, maybe no larger than a big dog.

It is still there, perhaps just not loading at the moment do to some issue on your end? I see it.

Well that is really interesting, I wonder if they make good pets? I'd personally love to have one, but I get the feeling it isn't the brightest idea in the world.

Its not in there DNA. It is genetically instilled from birth to fear you and fight or flight period. You cant hand feed one from birth and have it never be your friend they have no concept of friendship. They will eat each other for god sakes. The meat is a little fatty due to the fact that they don't eat as often as say a chicken or something with a higher metabolism. They may not eat for a month(not farm raised) but when they do it is a feast to sustain them to the next meal. Meat is good. In a another life I would send ya some legs they are bad ass.

But you can have one as a pet you just gotta know hoe to handle it which is no biggie. I will pick 4 or 5 yearings up in each hand. With their mouths taped of course. Good night gentleman.

I think the den should be for letting our hair down which is why I tend to post my "lookie what I did" beginner stuff here.  The alligator & weed felt fine to me.  B4 I became vegetarian I have eaten them at restaurants, they are pretty tasty.

They are dangerous critters and the lakes etc are full of em, some guy got eaten just down the street.  Gives me a healthy respect for lakes when I'm herb gathering.

salat

Mostly I'm still learning identification techniques.  When the weather is below 100 and relative humidity less than Sauna, I go foraging for local plants and weeds.   You'd be amazed what you find in your back yard.

There is some stuff on the invasive plant list here that I had been paying good money for from the herb store.  like tribulus terratis (haven't found it wild yet or done the extraction).  I found a lot of passionflower last year.  Drying and storing it is a lot of work.  

On a trip up to NC I dug some sassafras root - easy to identify by smell but nearly killed myself driving around looking at trees and it has wierd leaves.  Got a very small bottle in the fridge to distill, but considering I only had a small bag to start with its pretty nice - really great smell.  Makes is smell like we've been naughtier than we are.  

Closer to home, Camphor trees are all over the place and I'm still hoping to find Hoja Santa which is also an invasive plant.  In my own back yard I found snake root and crane bill germanium.  There's a relative of Bala called wireweed that is tough to get out of the ground.  Acacias are everywhere also.

Supposedly Bala (Sida Cordifolia) grows wild too, the stuff I grew from seeds does not look like the pictures I see on the internet, but does match what the seed catalog showed.  (Horizon herb has a very good reputation).  Side note on growing Sida - it's a butterfly magnet which is code for worms eat all the leaves.  Had to hand pick a bunch recently.  Will start a topic on it if you like.

I laughed at my friend who was dismayed that I am retiring early, she wanted to know what I was going to dow ith all my work energy!!! 36 days and counting!!

salat

Well my Sida grew through not so benign neglect.  I figured it would be better to let them tough it outside since sometimes alkaloids etc are made in response to disease or insects etc - haven't had time to research what ephedrine is produced in response to.  I brought them in though when I saw the worms were eating them up a bit too much.  I cleaned them up and took off the dead leaves (drying for testing) and put some diamateous earth in the pot to discourage further predation.  I hope I'll be able to do a better job growing things once I get retired. 

The wireweed does not contain ephedrine according to my research, there are one or two other sida that do however.  I wonder if the fact that they are prime time butterfly food has anything to do with the alkaloid.  I took some pictures when I brought them in but have to find the cable to that camera to upload them and haven't tested the pieces I cut off yet.



salat

I believe they can be rooted, but this is the first time I've attempted growing them and mine haven't flowered yet.   Yes it is kind of a bushy plant.   I didn't use that many seeds, the instructions did say they take a while to come up.  

  Sida (Sida cordifolia)
Native to tropical America, the stems of this plant are covered with dense hairs, and it grows to about 7-8 feet in height.  It spread by seeds and thousands are produced form each plant.  The flowers of this plant are small and yellow.  It is a member of the mallow family (Malvaceae) is a common invader of disturbed sites often found in pastures, old fields, abandoned home sites, and roadways.  At Archbold, it occurs in disturbed areas such as the Lousy 10 Tract, Red Hill Garden area, and the Reserve.

http://www.horizonherbs.com/product.asp?specific=565  This is the link to the sida seeds I bought, he gives good instructions for growing stuff. This guy has a very good reputation amongst herbal medicine growers.  I find that the shaman type shops way overcharge on some things that can be had from normal herbal medicine outlets much cheaper.   My plant looks like the one he's showing but not like the ones I see on the web that look more like a hollyhock relative.  

Sometimes plants produce unusual chemicals to perform special functions as a result of something in their environment - such as discourage predators, knock out the competition, fight disease etc.  I don't yet know what purpose ephedrine serves for plants.  Did you ever notice how many of the psychoactive plants are listed as anthelmintic ie. worm killers?  If it kills parasites in your tummy probably kills them on the plant or inhibits them.  I'm into organic and vegetarian stuff and one reason organic is supposed to be better is that the plants produce more of the good stuff in response to not being coddled. Camphor trees kill off stuff that tries to grow under them, wondering what role safrole plays in that - Sassafras trees are normally the leading edge of a forest - found around the edges - possible they do the same thing.

salat who asks why a lot....

I meant from the POV of using it for instance, to form  nitriles, or for carbon chain homologation, or for CnBr, etc.

Although I guess its true the other way also, then again, paid for Cn- isn't really good for sniffing at either.

What do ya mean?

I'm just creative (or some would say, devious and scheming)

IIRC there can be upto about 16% HCN available in some plants of that nature.

That adds up to quite a lot if one were to go and scrounge a shitload of material.

I bet a steam distillation setup and a bit of acid to crack those glycosides would yield goodies if you started with a big ass steel oildrum and a couple hundred kilograms of leaves, laurel would be a good starter, its common, evergreen and chock full of cyanide.

No, as in cherry laurel, Prunus laurocerasus, it has more cyanogenic glycosides than I can shake a pointy stick at, full of amygdalin, once touted as a cancer treatment, under the name laetrile, although it was quackery to to the Nth power.

Basically phenylacetonitrile bonded to a sugar molecule, which hydrolyses into HCN and benzaldehyde when acidified with H2SO4.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdalin