#soil test

[best-testing-lab-uae]

Soil Test | +971 554747210

[wandixx]

Count the freckles, connect them like the stars part 2, Pisces

Summary: Five time Danny found and drew constellations from M'gann's freckles and one time she did that for him

M’gann tried to not do it too often, but there was something really nice in going on a rant about something inconsequential. She was leading a stressful life, like all other heroes, teenage or not. It was impossible not to, when every other day could end in life-or-death situation, with innocent lives as additional stakes. Personally she thought she was quite good at handling it, too. She wasn’t the one to get frustrated easily, to explode at people over things that stressed her out in other parts of life, and lately she even got some useful coping mechanisms thanks to Black Canary. She certainly had bigger problems than characters in her sitcoms.

All it is to say, there was still something enjoyable in channeling pent-up stress into winded discussion about something she found absurd in old English poems or other elements of her homework.

“And it feels so dumb, like, man heard from some witches that he’d get promotion, which wasn’t that surprising, considering everything he’d done, and then become king, and then when he got said promotion by virtue of doing what he was doing, he decided he needs to force the fate”

“Exactly! Like, Macbeth, my man. Even if you assume these ladies are right, which, why would you do that, these were randoms by the road, this means you’re guaranteed to become king. Why kill your king, your friend who you’ve been wax poeting about few pages ago?!” Danny agreed passionately, waving his hands in righteous exasperation so much, that he almost tripped over his tea. In all honesty, he was M’gann’s favorite rant partner. Sometimes he’d ask «Do you need solution or someone to yell with?» and then he was always eager to match her energy and never tried to give her advice when she didn’t ask for it. On few occasions they stumbled upon resolution while egging each other on, but but that was never a point. The point was to complain about whatever until they both felt better about it.

“And maybe it makes sense and makes everything deeper or something, but who the hell is Hecate and why did she just show up? Like, can everyone stop acting like it’s obvious? Not everyone here is human” she whined, slightly redundant. After all, big part of why she was at school in the first place was because people assumed she was human too. Still it would be nice if things were explained a bit more.

“And it’s not even general human thing, just ‘Western’ culture thing. Hecate is goddess from Greek mythology, though I’m not sure why she was used here? Maybe because one of her things were crossroads. But still. She is not really well known. Like, bitch please, not everyone here knows mythology, give people breadcrumbs at least”

“Breadcrumbs?”

“Breadcrumbs. Tiny pieces of information that can lead you to the answer. It’s from some fairy tale, I think”

“Huh. Cool”

M’gann leaned back in her chair and looked at the high ceiling for a moment.

“I need to get around to making bread sometime soon. That could be fun”

Danny just hummed in agreement.

“But it’s hard to heat up the kitchen enough for dough to grow, since it’s connected to main area”

She saw out of the corner of her eye how Danny’s face scrunched up, deep in thought.

“I think Sam mentioned some recipe that let’s bread grow in fridge overnight. I can ask her about it, if you want”

Girl slumped back forward, to look at him surprised, to make sure he was serious.

“Would you?”

“Of course”

“Thanks”

She reached forward to get her own tea. Danny’s eyes followed her hands as if they were artifacts cursed so once you looked at them, you couldn’t look away. She mentally reached out, just a little, just slightly, to brush against his most surface level thoughts to see what got hims so intrigued. Not any deeper, just–

Ah. He found stars in her freckles again. He wasn’t sure if he should mention it.

M’gann wondered how she could ask about it without bringing up the fact that she read his thoughts. Sometimes it was hard to balance between what his comfort and hers. Without telepathy, people’s moods were downright indecipherable, but she knew humans didn’t really see it the same way, and couldn’t separate public thoughts from private ones.

She needed something with hands, something with–

“Unrelated human culture question, girl at my school offered to do some palm reading on me, do you know what does it mean?” she asked, bringing her hands forward a bit. She hoped he’d take them, but didn’t want to make it too obvious. He did, careful warm fingers grasping her left wrist and flipping it palm up.

She slowly moved pen over to where they sat with her telekinesis, doing her best to not call any attention to it.

“It’s a superstition. Some people believe they can read future based on the lines on people’s hands,” he explained, feather-light finger tracing it “It’s usually stuff like how long will you live, something about your love life, maybe some other things? I don’t know much, I always preferred other forms of pseudoscience.”

“Like what?”

“Astrology~” he said with pizzazz, flipping her hand again, “and you have Pisces, which means you’re caring, optimistic, kind and sweet”

M’gann couldn’t help but laugh. She tried to keep open mind to all different Earth concepts, to not treat them as stupid, even if she considered them absurd, but this one caught her off guard. It was fine though. Danny laughed too.

“Does it really?” she deadpanned, after they both calmed down.

“Yeah!” He mindlessly grabbed the pen and started drawing line just below her knuckles “Pisces is one of the Zodiac Constellations, which is this sort of belt of stars that Sun passes through over the year. Each constellation is supposed to take up 30° of the sky and has assigned time to it, based on when Sun is in opposition of it, so it’s best visible at night. People born during that time have specific Zodiac Sign. Like I said, some people believe it affects people’s personalities and life. I’m Gemini, so allegedly, I’m really curious, playful and adaptable–”

“It’s not wrong.”

“Eh,” he stopped drawing to look at her and wave his hand in so-so motion, “Unfortunately some people get really intense and rude about it, so they’d say I’m two-faced and inconsistent or some shit and then decide they should never talk to me again. Personally I see it as dumb fun though,” he finished, scratching against her skin to write visible lines. M’gann was sure this particular pen normally wrote smoothly, but it seemed like skin made it a bit harder to use. It was alright, she liked the slightly tingly feeling it left behind.

“And my zodiac sign is Pisces?”

"I mean, you're not from Earth and I don't know when you were born, so it's hard to say"

"Right, dumb question"

Danny stopped again and stared at her intensely, suddenly deep in thought. M'gann carefully didn't peek, even though she was curious.

"It isn't," he started slowly, "Mars is close enough that parallax doesn't really affect way stars are in relation to each other, at least from what I read, so you probably could see Zodiac Belt from the surface. We can try extrapolating Earth Zodiac to Martian year and based on that see what was most likely visible when you were born. That could be pretty neat exercise"

"Huh. Are our stars really the same?"

"Yeah, it's really cool, but I don't get it enough to really explain," Danny answered, sounding genuinely bothered by the fact. This just wouldn't do, it was supposed to be time for them to unwind.

"It's fine. Maybe next time."

"Maybe next time"

"What's the story behind Pisces? Like the one you told me about Virgo and three Goddesses?"

Danny relaxed, though he quickly turned a bit sheepish.

"Funny story… There is no story" M'gann forcefully tramped down her disappointment.

"So, was Virgo only constellation with the story?" she asked, trying not to grumble. She enjoyed listening to Danny, when he was so excited, with shining eyes and almost glowing. Sometimes, it was hard to get that out of him, even if he genuinely felt it. M’gann was careful to not look to deep into his mind, so she didn’t actually know why at times he kept repressing every bit of excitement he seemed to feel. She was determined to let it surface far more often.

And these were nice stories too.

“No, don’t worry,” Danny said, not quite laughing, but with this type of projection about him, “It's just Pisces really. I think it was because Greeks adopted Babylonian Zodiac and had to scramble to find anything that could be set as origin story for each constellation. For everything else they found something, more or less matching, but Pisces proved to be difficult. Virgo is supposed to look like Maiden and other Zodiac also has assigned something they look like and based on that myths were assigned. Pisces is said to be two fishes that are tied together by their tails but nobody knows why they'd be that. One idea I heard was that they were fish that lead Aphrodite’s chariot after she came to be from sea foam. Aphrodite was Greek Goddess of Beauty and Romantic Love and was born from Uranus' blood that fallen down on see when his son injured him. I'm not sure if said fishes even appeared in any other Aphrodite myths, or even most versions of her origin story, so I don't think this counts. But I like the way it looks. It's pretty."

M'gann looked down on her palm, where Danny successfully kept upon drawing. She didn't really see what could be so pretty about this particular shape, she thought it was no different to other ones she saw, when Danny drew or when she later went to check it out, but who was she to disregard his sense of aesthetics. Maybe it was something specific to how human or ghost brains were wired.

"It's fine," After a moment she added "So, Pisces have no story and some humans can be weirdly intense about stars on night of others birth”

“Exactly”

“And I’m Zodiacless”

“For now… Ha! I’m done!”

When M’gann looked at it again, she still had trouble seeing fishes in it, but at this point she came to understand that humans were really good at finding things in most random places.

Danny was staring at her, when she looked up from wobbly drawing. He grinned, like he was barely stopping himself from laughter.

“Don’t worry, I don’t know how anyone saw fish there either”

[scourgiez]

Being subtle about telling your partner you want a baby by buying an entire nursery with a crib

[peaches-an-tea]

So if mycelium is like the Wi-Fi and plants talk to each other, does that mean my house plants are lonely

[fennopunk]

Mom: Oh yeah, I think we found your crochet hook!

Me: Really?! Where?

Mom: It was under the couch.

Me: Hmm... What colour it was?

Dad: Like, metal.

Me: Metal as in silver, gold or colourful metal? Because I got the colourful hook set and it was one of them.

Mom: Oh, it was silvery :(

I'm not sure what it tells of me and mom, that a crochet hook is found under a couch and it's not the one that was actually missing 😂

[pelahnar]

If working at a soil analysis lab has taught me anything, it's that you do not have nearly enough ability to do soil analysis in Stardew Valley

Like, I don't know what the real life farmers are doing with the numbers that I provide for them, but getting said numbers seem to be really important to them. They ask for numbers about the amount of organic matter in their soil, the pH of the soil, the amount of bicarbonates in the soil, the electroconductivity of liquid that's been extracted from the soil. They send samples of water and ask for numbers about that too. And that's just the tests that I personally do - there are a lot more

In stardew valley you can fill your watering can with sea water, sprinkle some sap on your seeds, and get excellent quality produce

[best-testing-lab-uae]

Soil Test | +971 554747210

[tamilnadutest]

Soil testing methods unlocks the secret behind maximizing crop yield while maintaining a safe and healthy growing environment. Fertilizer analysis labs like ours help you measure the alkalinity of the soil and to take your production at its peak without affecting the environment. 

[nerdie-faerie]

If the Doctor isn't a timelord then that means they potentially have different reactions to substances than they previously thought, ergo I just know that Thirteen, in all of her feral glory, runs around testing their reactions to things upon learning about their Timeless Child origins without her companions finding out

[lunasilvis]

Turning certain things around tomorrow. Like a needed spring cleaning sesh for the head 🌷

[soilthesimpletruth]

This is not a hobby.

This is my life.

[wildrungarden]

5/4/24 ~ Some new stuff I’m using this year. I’ve never used Coco Coir before today & I loooove it! So much product in a compact lil brick! And it’s repurposed natural material, so win win. I still used a little bit of my seed starting mix to mix in with it just because that’s all I know 😅😆

But I’m learning about the different medias/compost for planting!

I also got a bag of worm castings. Mixed some of it in there as well. We shall see how it does!

What do you use to mix in your media?

[reginaguerriera]

its so fucked up that weed makes you stupid

[bumblebeeappletree]

Growing food is a key reason for many people to garden, but a key question is how safe is my soil - and how do I find out?

Millie meets EPA chief environmental scientist Profession Mark Patrick Taylor, who runs the EPA’s GardenSafe program with colleague Hannah Elliott.

The program offers free soil tests to help people understand what’s in their soil – which can include chemicals associated with industrial pollution. If these get into soil they can then get into food and inside people’s homes – but knowing they’re there means steps can be taken to reduce health risks.

The main chemical the EPA tests for is lead, which is often found around older homes close to city centres. The contamination may come from lead paint originally used on timber buildings (but now banned) or from lead in the air from petrol fumes, before unleaded petrol was introduced.

Lead is a neurotoxin, which interferes with a person’s neurological development; children are particularly at risk. Soil is also tested for arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, manganese, nickel and zinc.

Hannah shows Millie how to take a soil sample, pulling back the mulch from the soil to reveal a 15cm x 15cm square of clear soil, and digging up the top 2cm of soil. The sample should be about half a cup in volume or 150grams – about the size of a tennis ball.

Hannah recommends taking three samples: from your front yard, back yard (especially in areas where children play), and vegie patch.

Samples are dried and tested for nutrient levels and structure as well as for contaminants; this information helps gardeners know what sort of soil they are growing in – sandy, loam or clay – and what fertilizers or compost it may need to grow a wider range of vegetables.

The results of the tests are de-identified and added to the MapMyEnvironment website, which shows the hotspots where contamination is most likely to be found: usually in inner-city areas and near industrial sites. This information helps the EPA manage risks to the environment.

Learning that your soil is contaminated doesn’t mean the end to growing vegetables or playing outside – the EPA advice is to:

- Grow in raised beds,

- Mulch beds and paths to reduce dust,

- Wash veggies before eating,

- Wash hands after gardening and

- Remove your shoes before going indoors.

- Avoid planting in the dripline of older houses.

If you keep chickens, make sure they’re digging a scratching in a deep bed of clean litter.

Create a safe play area for children, such as a sandpit.

What you grow also affects risk levels, because different plants absorb different chemicals at different rates.

Leafy greens absorb the most lead, for example, while fruit trees won’t be affected the same way. So silverbeet and lettuce should be grown in raised beds, while your lemon tree may grow directly in the soil.

The GardenSafe program is free for all Victorian residents. Gardeners in other states can pay a small donation to access the VegeSafe program run by Macquarie University.

For both GardenSafe and VegeSafe programs, or to test your household dust, visit https://www.360dustana...

Filmed on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country in Macleod, Vic