Dragon Fruit and Promises

Perry's Pomegranate and Dragon Fruit Sorbet

This was a wonderful afternoon for a walk.  I headed toward Athens, which is right next door in the confusing (at least to me) arrangement of towns, cities, boroughs and such here.  The only real difference that I can tell is that about four or five blocks away the street signs are blue instead of white.  The downtown section of Athens suffered tremendous damage during flooding of the Susquehanna River last year.  There is still a lot of reconstruction and repair going on and several new buildings.

One of these new building is a  "Dandy" Mart.  A gas station/convenience store chain around here.   After walking around about an hour I decided to stop in for a treat.  I plopped for Perry's,  a regional ice cream favorite ("Life is just a bowl of Perry's").  

Lilies

For all you Arkansans, this is sort of like Yarnell's is for Arkansas.  I could choose from ice cream, gelato and other treats from other companies but the Perry's, price , pomegranate and dragon fruit caught my eye.  The sorbet is two swirled pinks and was fruity, sweet and definitely tasty.  Sort of peachy, mango, orange, tropicalish, nothing well defined.

I looked up dragon fruit.  It is described as a sweet, bland fruit from a cactus like plant, resembling the fruit from a prickly pear.  I didn't see anything on the ingredients list that said dragon fruit, so it must just be one,  of the flavoring ingredients, not entitled to it's own listing. Oh well, at least there was enough of the pomegranate to show up pretty high on the ingredient list, and it is undoubtedly the healthiest part of the sorbet.

I looked up Perry's on-line.  It has a pretty interesting history.  It began when Mr. Perry bought a dairy near Akron, Ohio.  In 1932 he and his son began making ice cream.  Fourth generation Perry's are involved in the company.  They buy most of their milk locally (within a 50 mile radius of Akron).They have a green initiative as well, see it at http://www.perrysicecream.com/news/green-efforts/ 

More lilies

Pretty impressive, at least to me.  I looked at Yarnell's site and there was nada.  Maybe I just couldn't find it but that is a problem too.  If I want info on a company then I want to be able to find it.

The sorbet was not as colorful as the two lilies pictured.  It is an intense pink but not glowing like these flowers.  These are two of
the end of the growing year Lowe's clearance things I planted when I was visiting last November.  I wasn't sure anything would survive but the mild winter seemed to help everything out.  I have two tall lilies that haven't bloomed yet, they are different types and grow much taller.

The container herbs, lemon balm, peppermint, and rosemary are doing great.  Grandk #1 has gotten the knack of pinching off leaves and tasting them.  She seems to like them.  I guess this is part of my "green initiative", to raise a grandchild who appreciates plants, nature, DIY and sustainability.

Container herb garden

I really can't say how well Perry's is doing as a company in their green initiative.  I would have to do a lot more research to hold them accountable.  But it is certainly a start.  As I age, I appreciate more and more the corporation and individuals who are willing to go public with their commitments.  If people aren't willing to take a stand on something, it is very difficult to take their intentions seriously.  Now if we could just understand that we have to be responsible for the commitments we make, the public and private ones.  And if we will learn to make reasonable, responsible ones, not provocative, inflammatory, uninformed ones.  Think of the progress we could make if people promised to do reasonable, doable things, and then did them.  Not outlandish promises, or inflammatory statements, just good, reasonable, doable promises...and then DID WHAT THEY PROMISED!  Think how it would revolutionize politics, customer service, contracting, sales,  relationships, advertising...the list could go on.

When I think of a New Heaven and a New Earth, it would look something like a place where people keep their promises and commitments.