sparrows and loquats

[asakiyume]

It's cold today; the heater is chugging along, making my living space warm, and I feel so grateful. Outside, in the nearby city, the sparrows by the bus station are fluffed up like little feathered pokéballs. They're very tame; people feed them crumbs and things, either by accident or on purpose.

Around here people say "on accident," to go with "on purpose." How about the other way? By accident or by purpose.

Safe from the cold are these loquat trees I grew from seeds that 88greenthumb sent me. I've never eaten the fruit of the loquat--have any of you?





Their leaves are generously large and a rich green color, and apparently you can make a tea out of them, but I won't, because my trees are up against enough difficulties, growing in pots and kept indoors for half the year, without having their leaves plucked.

In China, and then by extension in Japan, the tree is called pipa (biwa in Japanese), like the instrument--maybe because the fruit look like it?

a pipa (source)

Comments

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I've tried them, but I'm not really a fan. It makes me wonder if people ever grow tame loquat trees by (on) accident as well. For some reason "by purpose" sounds more logical to me than "on accident".

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Is it that they don't have much flavor? As a kid, I used to gobble up mulberries. I found them very pleasant, but as I got older I realized that compared with other berries and fruits, they seemed a bit bland. Pleasant for a treat you got for free--certainly nothing *wrong* with them--but just not super exciting.

Then again, sometimes it's a fruit's texture that make people dislike it.

I agree with you about "by purpose." When you think about it, "on purpose" is an idiosyncratic phrase, which makes it all the more bewildering--or then again, maybe explains why??--people would follow its model in converting "by accident" to "on accident."

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I remember them being pretty bland, but, having done some googling, it looks like that might vary a bit between varieties. I tend to be bit indifferent to a lot of different fruits - there's a fairly narrow range that I really love (which, now that I think about it, do tend towards strong flavours).