Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

‘Troll’ is an internet slang which basically means a trouble maker.

Trolls are someone(s) who intentionally posts controversial or contrary messages in an on-line community such as a discussion forum or group with the intention of baiting users into an argumentative response. Note that trolling is a trend in posting, not one individual post. DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS. That will only get you into more troll-trouble. They’ll explode and morph into a hideous garden gnome that will stand in front of your lawn. (the previous sentence was an example of trolling …)

The main things trolls do are …
… Get rid of a certain user(s). They will target them with their army and report their questions ans answers. They may also give thumbs down for no reason.
… Be funny. They ask non-sense questions, (sometimes repetitively ask them), that can be funny but annoy others. They violate the Q&A format.
… Cheat. They use multiple accounts to vote for themselves, choose as best answer etc. These type of trolls may answer and ask correctly though, but under those goody-two shows are some very dirty socks.
… Give useless answers non-related to the question. For example, they will post anything silly for every single question they answer.
… Harass others.

To prevent trolling, I suggest you hide your Q&A ( http://answers.yahoo.com/my-activity/edit/settings ).

GardenersCardiff answers:

Common Scavenger Hunt Objects

You can find the following common objects in dorms or the local community:
Pink plastic shower cap
Giant underwear
Garden weasel
Plastic Easter egg
Menu from a local restaurant
Hubcap
Blood donor card
Business card from a funeral home or unusual business
Pink flamingo
Coonskin cap
Program from a professional sports event
Happy Meal toy
Lime green shoelace
Receipt from a local Wal-Mart or Target
Size 14 man’s shoe
Bent 2006 penny
Picture of Billy Mays
A cubic zirconium
Garden gnome
Sponge Bob Pez
Christmas card and envelope with postmark sent to a team member
Dr. Scholl’s gel insole
Shopping bag from a sexy lingerie store
Stapler suspended in lemon jello
Out of state driver’s license
Program from a Sunday church service
Newspaper written in Chinese
Donkey pinata
Burger King crown
Hair of the dog
Red pantyhose
Inflatable Santa

Campus Treasures
Find a picture of the college mascot on campus.
Teams will find these objects on their college campus:
Picture of the school mascot
Copy of the freshman orientation catalog
Scantron testing form
College essay with an F grade
Unsharpened pencil with the school logo
Jersey worn in the school’s last game
University police parking citation
Business card from the president’s office
Recruitment letter from the athletic department
Blue book from an exam
Cheerleader’s autographed picture
Minutes from a science club’s meeting
School yearbook that is at least 10 years old
Rice Krispie treat shaped like the school mascot
Ticket from a swim team meet
Brochure from the alumni center
Chinese exchange student’s signature

Some scavenger hunts require that the teams take a picture at a location or while performing a task. Here are some photo ideas:
Picture of a team member in a laundromat dryer
Old person yelling at a team member
Picture of the team with a llama
The team with a giant statue from a local restaurant
A team member in a dentist’s office
A team member at the police station with an officer
Kissing a statue of the college founder

Videotaping
The following scavenger hunt ideas for performing a task need to be videotaped or presented in person:
Professor singing the college fight song
Team members singing in a karaoke club
Child reciting the Pledge of Allegiance
Team member washing dishes in the cafeteria
Team members playing musical chairs outdoors
Spraying a team member with cans of whipped cream
A mini-gymnastics routine

GardenersCardiff answers:

Garden statuary has been common in Europe at least since the Renaissance. Among the figures depicted were Gobbi (dwarf of hunchback in Italian). In particular, Jacques Callot produced 21 designs for Gobbi, engraved and printed in 1616. By the late 18th Century, porcelain “House Dwarfs” had begun to be produced and remained popular ornaments throughout the 19th Century. As well as this, wooden statues of gnomes had been made in Switzerland, around the town of Brienz. Notwithstanding this, the claim to the title of manufacturer of the first garden gnome is hotly contested, but it’s possible that Baehr and Maresch of Dresden produced the first ceramic gnomes, having them in their stock as early as 1841. Subsequently, many statues were made in Gräfenroda, a town known for its ceramics in Thuringia, Germany, from around 1860 onwards. Philip Griebel made terracotta animals as decorations, and produced gnomes based on local myths as a way for people to enjoy the stories of the gnomes’ willingness to help in the garden at night. The garden gnome quickly spread across Germany and into France and England, and wherever gardening was a serious hobby.

The manufacturing of gnomes spread across Germany with numerous other large and small manufacturers coming in and out of the business, each one having its own particular style of design. World War II was hard on the industry and most producers gave up then. Griebel’s descendants still make them and are the last of the German producers, all others having moved production to Poland or China. Currently, there are an estimated 25 million garden gnomes in Germany.

Garden gnomes were first introduced to the United Kingdom in 1847 by Sir Charles Isham, 10th Baronet, when he brought 21 terracotta figures back from a trip to Germany and placed them as ornaments in the gardens of his home, Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire. Only one of the original batch of gnomes survives: Lampy, as he is known, is on display at Lamport Hall, and is insured for one million pounds. A more recent notable manufacturer of Garden Gnomes was Tom Major-Ball, father of former United Kingdom Prime Minister John Major.

Garden gnomes have become a popular accessory in many gardens. They are often the target of pranks, known collectively as gnoming: people have been known to return garden gnomes “to the wild”, most notably France’s “Front de Liberation des Nains de Jardins” and Italy’s “MALAG” (Garden Gnome Liberation Front). Some kidnapped garden gnomes have been sent on trips around the world (the travelling gnome prank; this later became the basis for Travelocity’s “Roaming Gnome”). In 2008, a 53-year-old French man in Brittany was arrested on suspicion of stealing upwards of 170 garden gnomes.

It has been suggested by some scholars that the garden gnome is a descendant of the Greco-Roman fertility god Priapus, whose statue was often found in ancient gardens.

Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_gnomes#History