This is a Wikipediauser page. This is definitely not an encyclopedia article. The texts have been harvested from across enWP, but their selection owes more to serendipity than scholarship, and their arrangement aims at quirkiness rather than completeness. The ramblings and connections made below may illustrate some of the thought processes and interests of this editor, and they could even help you find your own inner sans-culottes.
The French Republican calendar (1793–1805) was a highly structured, if short-lived, calendar intended to make its users more aware of the natural world around them, and the agricultural processes and products of each season.
The year was divided into 12 months of 30 days, with an extra block of 5 or 6 days to keep it aligned with the solar year. The days numbered 10, 20 and 30 in each month were associated with an agricultural tool, and the days 5, 15, and 25 were associated with an animal. The remainder of the days were associated with the plants in season at that time.
Sieve. [from frWP] In iconography, the sieve was used as a symbol of chastity, in reference to the Latin legend recounting how the vestal virgin Tuccia carried water from the Tiber in a sieve without losing a drop, thus proving her virginity. At least two portraits of Queen Elizabeth I of England show her holding a sieve in her hand, like the vestals Aemilia and Tuccia. The portrait by George Gower, known as Plimpton's, dates from 1579[1], another portrait by Quentin Metsys the Younger dating from 1583 is in the Pinacoteca in Siena[2].
Sifting through a sieve became a metaphor for a strict test that "separates the wheat from the chaff". Socrates' apologue of the three sieves[2] recounts how the philosopher asked someone who wished to speak to him whether he had passed his speech through the three sieves of truth, of goodness and of necessity. Only words that pass the test of the three sieves should be spoken[3].
Some Sphagnum mosses can absorb up to 20 times their own weight in water.[4] In World War I, Sphagnum mosses were used as first-aid dressings on soldiers' wounds, as these mosses said to absorb liquids three times faster than cotton, retain liquids better, better distribute liquids uniformly throughout themselves, and are cooler, softer, and be less irritating.[4] It is also claimed to have antibacterial properties.[5]Native Americans were one of the peoples to use Sphagnum for diapers and menstrual pads, which is still done in Canada.[6]
The common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis. Galanthus is derived from the Greek γάλα (gala), meaning "milk" and ἄνθος (anthos) meaning "flower", alluding to the colour of the flowers. The epithetnivalis is derived from the Latin, meaning "of the snow".[7][8] The word "Snowdrop" may be derived from the GermanSchneetropfen (snow-drop), the tear drop shaped pearl earrings popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
[The French term, perce-neige, literally means 'that which pierces the snow'.]
In France, the oldest yew trees are almost all located in church yards of Normandy and a chapel was very often laid out in the hollow trunk. Some examples can be found in La Haye-de-Routot or La Lande-Patry. It is said that up to 40 people could stand inside one of the La-Haye-de-Routot yew trees and the Le Ménil-Ciboult yew is probably the largest one (13 m diameter[11]). Some of these trees ... may be over 2,000 years old.
Yew is the wood of choice for
heartwood of yew is on the inside of the bow while the sapwood is on the outside. This takes advantage of the natural properties of yew wood since the heartwood resists compression while the sapwood resists stretching. The trade of yew wood to England for longbows was so robust that it depleted the stocks of good-quality, mature yew over a vast area [of Europe].[13]
Pluviôse
26
14 Feb
Woad
)
woad
(blue)
Woad was one of the three staples of the European dyeing industry, along with weld (yellow) and madder (red).[14]
The three colors can be seen together in tapestries such as
The Hunt of the Unicorn
(1495–1505), though typically it is the dark blue of the woad that has lasted best.
In medieval times, the triangle created by Toulouse, Albi, and Carcassonne, was for a long time the most productive of woad, or "pastel" as it was known there, one writer commenting that "woad... hath made that country the happiest and richest in Europe."[14] The prosperous woad merchants of Toulouse displayed their affluence in splendid mansions, many of which are still standing.
With the development of a chemical process to synthesize indigo, both the woad and natural indigo industries collapsed in the first years of the 20th century. The last commercial harvest of woad occurred in 1932, in Lincolnshire, Britain. Small amounts of woad are now grown in the UK and France to supply craft dyers.[15]
In folk medicine, [Hedge mustard] was used to soothe sore throats - indeed one French name for it is the herbe aux chantres (the singers' plant) ... "it having been considered up to the time of Louis XIV an infallible remedy for loss of voice."[16]. Craignant l'extinction de voix, les acteurs, orateurs et chanteurs la gardaient sous la main, d'où son ancien nom d'Erysimum (du grec eryô, « sauver », et oïmê, « récit, poème »)[17]. [enWP & en.wiktionary do not recognise this etymology]
The Angora breed of goats produces long, curling, lustrous locks of mohair. The entire body of the goat is covered with mohair and there are no guard hairs. The locks constantly grow to four inches or more in length. The wool is shorn twice a year, with an average yield of about 4.5 kg (10 lb).
Most goats have softer insulating hairs nearer the skin, and longer
guard hairs on the surface. The desirable fiber for the textile industry is the former, and it goes by several names (down, cashmere and pashmina). The cashmere goat produces a commercial quantity of cashmere wool
, which is one of the most expensive natural fibers commercially produced; cashmere is very fine and soft. The cashmere goat fiber is harvested once a year, yielding around 260 g (9 oz) of down.
pashmina, "fine wool").
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, Kashmir (then called Cashmere by the British), had a thriving industry producing shawls from goat-hair imported from Tibet and Tartary through Ladakh. The shawls were introduced into Western Europe when the General in Chief of the French campaign in Egypt (1799–1802) [ie Bonaparte] sent one to Paris. Since these shawls were produced in the upper Kashmir and Ladakh region, the wool came to be known as "cashmere".
Goats have been used by humans to clear unwanted vegetation for centuries. There has been a resurgence of this in North America since 1990, when herds were used to clear dry brush from California hillsides thought to be endangered by potential wildfires. This form of using goats to clear land is sometimes known as conservation grazing. Since then, numerous public and private agencies have hired private herds from companies such as Rent A Goat to perform similar tasks.[18][19]
Spinach first appeared in England and France in the 14th century, probably via Spain, and it gained quick popularity because it appeared in early spring, when other vegetables were scarce and when Lenten dietary restrictions discouraged consumption of other foods. Spinach is mentioned in the first known English cookbook, The Forme of Cury (1390), where it is referred to as spinnedge and/or spynoches.[20]
In 1533, Catherine de' Medici became queen of France; she so loved spinach, she insisted it be served at every meal. To this day, dishes made with spinach are known as "Florentine", reflecting Catherine's birth in Florence.[21]
Chervil (/ˈtʃɜːrˌvɪl/; Anthriscus cerefolium), sometimes called French parsley or garden chervil (to distinguish it from similar plants also called chervil), is a delicate annualherb related to parsley. The name chervil is from Anglo-Norman, from Latinchaerephylla or choerephyllum, meaning "leaves of joy";[22] the Latin is formed, as from an Ancient Greek word χαιρέφυλλον (chairephyllon).[23][24]
Chervil is one of the four traditional French fines herbes, along with tarragon [not in the calendar], chives [27 Floréal], and parsley [22 Ventôse], which are essential to French cooking.[25] Unlike the more pungent, robust herbs such as thyme and rosemary, which can take prolonged cooking, the fines herbes are added at the last minute, to salads, omelettes, and soups.[26]
The name "daisy" is considered a corruption of "day's eye",[27] because the whole head closes at night and opens in the morning. Chaucer called it "eye of the day".
Daisy is used as a girl's name and as a nickname for girls named Margaret, after the French name for the oxeye daisy, marguerite.
Dandelions secrete latex when the tissues are cut or broken, yet in the wild type the latex content is low and varies greatly. Using modern cultivation methods and optimization techniques, scientists in the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME) in Germany developed a cultivar that is suitable for commercial production of natural rubber. The latex produced exhibits the same quality as the natural rubber from rubber trees.[28] In collaboration with Continental Tires, IME is building a pilot facility. As of May 2014, the first prototype test tires made with blends from dandelion-rubber are scheduled to be tested on public roads over the next few years.[29]
In Germany, horse-chestnuts are often found in beer gardens, particularly in Bavaria. Prior to the advent of mechanical refrigeration, brewers would dig cellars for lagering. To further protect the cellars from the summer heat, they would plant chestnut trees, which have spreading, dense canopies but shallow roots which would not intrude on the caverns. The practice of serving beer at these sites evolved into the modern beer garden.[32]
Germinal
27
16 Apr
Anemone
)
(The wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa)) spreads very slowly in UK forests, by as little as six feet per century, so it is often used as an indicator for ancient woodland[33]
Several otter species live in cold waters and have high
European otters must eat 15% of their body weight each day, and sea otters
20 to 25%, depending on the temperature. In water as warm as 10 °C (50 °F), an otter needs to catch 100 g (3.5 oz) of fish per hour to survive. Most species hunt for three to five hours each day and nursing mothers up to eight hours each day.
^Jacques Rolland and Carol Sherman, "Spinach". The Food Encyclopedia: Over 8,000 Ingredients, Tools, Techniques and People . Toronto: Robert Rose. 2006. (WWW: Canadian Living. Accessed 03/07/2010). [1]
Vendémiaire
Brumaire
Frimaire
Nivôse
Pluviôse
Ventôse
Germinal
Floréal
Prairial
Messidor
Thermidor
Fructidor
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