iPigeon.institute Local Botanical Item Spotlights - Mitica brand honeycomb, from Gelson's.

Update, and quick note: yipes! This product could potentially cause severe eye irritation! Be very wary about using the product described in this blog article, as far as cosmetic use goes. 

 One of my more recent fragrance fascinations was with the raw material, the honeycomb. I'd once had a great sample of Beeswax Absolute, which I highly enjoyed, and, which I'd mixed in to some fragrance compositions, with some slight attainment about them. I found the material very overpoweringly dominant, in what I felt, at the time, were small portions (I was just beginning to investigate and experiment with perfumery materials, having come from a background in making fragrance compositions with essential oils and absolutes that are more commonly found in local retail stores. 

In any case, I was fascinated by the physiological, or psychoactive (bioactive, perhaps, at least), effects of Beeswax Absolute, and, once I had run out of my sample product, I'd sometimes obsess over the ingredient, and I'd spend a lot of time, here and there, trying to find out new things to know about the product, itself, and I also developed a fascination with producing the absolute, myself, as well. 

Recently, I came across a great retail product beeswax honeycomb, by Mitica brand, which I found at Gelson's grocery store. I made sure to pick one up, since I had lots of money on my Food Stamps account, still. The item comes in its own frame and plastic box (which, for aroma chemical extraction, might not be the best material, but this is just my first try at producing my own agricultural fragrance ingredient from this material).

A top view of Mitica brand's honeycomb box, which includes a frame that the beeswax and honey, contained within the honeycomb, is built upon.

A diagonal view of Mitica's honeycomb box and frame. I felt that the product was ideal, over other choices in retail honeycomb availability, particularly on account of that a box and frame are included with the product.

I had not much knowledge base to work from, as far as discovering literature in regards to the chemical and molecular composition and form of honeycomb and beeswax material, so I had to do some looking up, of things. I had some notion that I could try to produce an alternative product to an absolute, using regular cooking vinegar. I tried it out, by soaking the honeycomb frame, in the box, and I felt that it could take weeks, or months, or more, perhaps, for a full extraction, as limited as with vinegar, solely, as the extraction fluid, although evaporation would be fairly reliable, I figured, and there could be useful compounds produced, with acetic acid thrown in to the equation, given that I be patient. 

At this point, it's been a few weeks, or so, and I noticed some slight changes - almost of that the beeswax seemed almost alive, in and of itself, even under vinegar, since I felt that some of the beeswax seemed to have creeped along, further out, on to the frame's top edges, where I don't remember seeing beeswax establishments, previously. The vinegar solution, itself, slowly became yellowish, but there wasn't a whole lot of action, in this instance of experimentation. 

Upon investigating the solvency considerations of the material, it was learned that the extraction would be best done with a polar solvent. I don't have any of the standard solvents, on hand, but, at one point, I became reminded that I have dimethyl octenone on hand, of which, I'd had previously employed a similar (somewhat) product, in doing an extraction and production method, as an experiment, with 3-octanone, as part of the extraction. Dimethyl octenone has a fairly relative olfactory scent profile to 3-octanone, and I figured that it is a polar solvent, in and of itself, perhaps as a scarce fraction of some other, more gross product of some other agricultural crop, in being separated, for qualitative purposes.

With a 15 mL bottle of dimethyl octenone, I was capable of pouring around a third, or less,  of the bottle out, in to the vinegar solution, and still cover the entire top surface area. Immediately, I noticed that the two layers didn't immediately mix; it was like oil and water, so I felt that my decision to employ dimethyl octenone was justified. This was yesterday. The liquid in the box became very vaporous, so I felt that perhaps a timeline of an extraction, in this experiment phase, would work along a much quicker timeline. If you'd notice, in the first photo, some of the honeycomb cells are destroyed, over on the top left. There are also some "breathing holes" that had developed, as a result of introducing the dimethyl octenone to the solvent solution (I shook the box, so the liquids became a more thorough solution). I figured, dimethyl octenone, pungent and musky solvent-smelling that it is, it'll eventually evaporate off; I should seek to establish more generalized visible similarities between what I produce, regardless of what it is, specifically, and if the viscosity, or consistency, in terms of the product's thickness, or solidity, becomes a familiar and standard sort of outcome, it would be easier to sit and wait for this type of portion of patience being necessary, being that dimethyl octenone might only dissipate over several weeks, or so, perhaps. 

Part of the challenge would be discovering what becomes of the wax, itself. I would typically take a "hands-off" approach to playing with my extraction experiments, and just stick to observation, and just the slightest of mixing, or disturbance of the solution, but, in this case, I touched the corner of the beeswax, and it melted like cake frosting, so I knew, then, that the extraction would be successful, from here. Only time will tell, as to what the outcome of this experiment will produce.

Update:

This honeycomb / beeswax project continues to reveal delicate mysteries about its form, within the acidic, polar solvent liquid At this stage, 4 days later, following the original post, the Mitica honeycomb's plastic box proves to have taken on acid damage, bearing leaks, and penetration, through the outer layers of plastic, whereas the now emulsified lipophilic liquid, which has incorporated the beeswax, as liquid beads, as an outer phase of emulsifier, wherein the solvent layer acts as the inner phase, with the dimethyl octenone / acetic acid, perhaps mixed with the plastic, somehow acting as a surfactant, to make the emulsification fairly molecularly small. Have a look! 

This (not so delicate) bulge is pretty resilient, in fact - almost like a rubbery latex, in texture, but definitely bendable and flexible, with the plastic walls having disintegrated, due to the particular nature of the acidic polar solvency of the solution. I'd suppose it would be a perfumer's hand at pulling off this trick; some of it is just gestural artistry, since I didn't know that this would happen - although if you did the same extraction, it very well could happen for you, also. 

iPigeon.institute Local Botanical Item Spotlights - Pasadena Pink Peppercorns

 One of Southern California's most well-adapted agricultural crop trees (aside from citrus) is the peppercorn. I come across various peppercorn trees, in my travels about town, but I felt that my most recent encounter, in Pasadena, is situated in a central-enough location, with (somewhat) untended trees, along a highway road, over a bridge, or something like that. My phone, which I'm typing this on, runs location history slowly, so I'm having some trouble recreating the Maps location, for the time being. 

Regardless, the pursuit of fresh peppercorns, whether they be for culinary or fragrance extraction purposes, are a notably invigoratingly-scented botanical product, with a stimulating, warming effect that is well known by herbs and spices enthusiasts. Peppercorns, in my fragrance compositions, for example, are an essential spice note that I commonly employ - I like the effect of pepper oil, in combination with adding vanilla - depending on the mixture, it could act as a base note, or it could be part of a larger floral and spice bouquet, and it blends a seamless texture in to citrus woods, if spices are desired, in a case such as that. 

We all know peppercorns, from the store bought ground or whole peppers, and if you'd ever tried peppercorns in grinders, you'd know the difference, in both culinary and fragrance contexts. 

"Pink" peppercorns, (I'd estimate), procured from a lonely side road pepper tree in Pasadena, CA.

I hadn't studied much on peppercorns, as far as their constituent aroma chemical components, but, I believe that some of the components are a primary building block in TiHKaL molecular compounds, with some of the effects of my volatile and fast-decomposing fragrance compositions tending towards dimethyltryptamine sorts of psychedelia resonance experiences, an effect that was coupled with the compositions broader context in being an anti-inflammatory topically-applied fragrance compound, made with isopropyl alcohol, rather than ethanol, with the skin-permeable effect as my goal for the fragrance compounds. There had also been some light to moderate feelings of drunken euphoria, although this portion required stimulants, in and of their own right, and the fragrance compounds acted as a prodrug, I would suppose, with so much anti-inflammatory effect, from the fragrance spray, that further extents of physical exertion and traveling, around town (which had also been done in Pasadena, by the way), during which times I'd become more particular, in discovering agricultural specialty plants that the city hosts.

A peppercorn-specialty fragrance-affected "Tripping Pigeon," as rendered by Google Labs' ImageFX.

Having fresh peppercorns, as a culinary or fragrance specialty product, is an easy premise to work from, with a maceration of the product, if it is entirely fresh, (the outer shell, as well), it will easily mash in to a pasty peppery oil mixture, which can be employed directly on dishes that call for peppercorns, or, the product can be sieved off, and drained directly in to a hydrosol or a natural fragrance composition, in the works. Having a fresh product is typically a bit more special than using dried product, especially in cases in which some of the volatile compounds are preserved in the raw natural material, until dissolved in solvent, for extraction, or, disturbed, and activated, by maceration, for example.

Update - important!

I taste-tested this particular peppercorn specimen, on a hard boiled egg, yesterday, and I found it to have some strong elements to it, which resembled eucalyptus-type oil, which I'm not really in to, comparatively. Eucalyptus trees have gotten a reputation, around my general aesthetic periphery of annotations spoken upon my travels and activities, of being a urine-processing tree; meaning, essentially, that the plant specimen had adjusted its metabolism to a more primitive purpose, rather than a better agricultural purpose. I suppose that I ought to find some other fresh pepper trees, somewhere, or, perhaps, spend some of the time I have, when I go out to Pasadena, to see if this problematic issue could be resolved, with some care to the tree(s), over time. I just felt that this note was important to make known. 

Pigeon-watching hotspots to see around town #2: The Pico Metro Station Parking Lot Refugee Flock

I don't get on (or off) on this Metro train station all that often, but recently, I spotted a refugee flock of pigeons hanging out, here, at the parking lot across the street. Since I was stocked up on bread (some of it was bread with butter), I knew that I couldn't let this flock of birds down; they hadn't always been here, and they may have been on their way in or out of town, to have gathered here. 

The DTLA Pico Metro Station parking lot, featuring a large flock of pigeons. 

Now, I know Downtown Los Angeles' various flocks of pigeons fairly well, to say the least.  I've been coming here to feed the birds, going on 7 years, now. I've spotted some pigeons here, in other recent trips, but nowhere near this many birds have I seen, in this location. It was a notable gathering. I wondered, "are they new? A transplant? (port)? They must be hungry, to be in an unfamiliar spot, gathered like this." I take it upon myself to make sure, (typically), that every bird I come across gets fed, but this was a notable challenge. Most flocks of birds aren't quite this large, in Downtown LA. 

In any case, these birds, some of them a localized flock, whom had been spotted perching atop the luxury highrise buildings across the street, potentially had an advantageous view of the terrain, while they perched, and they could have seen other nearby flocks that had been gathering in other micro-locales of DTLA. Pigeons are made for socialization - the more, the merrier, so to speak. When the flock flies off, sometimes it's a "high-flying" motive about them, where they swoop and swing around, in spirals and in circles, or in figure 8-style, for the sake of quickly drawing attention to themselves, high-flying, as it were, so that nearby and known perching flocks, of a different micro-locale, can catch them high-flying, as a signal of that something exciting is going on, around this commotion, such as meal time. The other nearby flocks would be the ones by the Olympic at Olive Shell Gas Station, the 26th Street / Orthopedic Institute "USC Dumpster Pigeons," and, also, perhaps, some birds from around 7th at Metro Station. There's a chance that these flocks had become neglected, and the newcomers wanted to try out this location, on account of so much foot traffic at the Pico Metro Station. I made sure to look out for this flock again, the next time I rode by, but they weren't there, so I'll have to figure out their schedule, and try to fit them in, sometimes, during the course of a week.

This flock would be an ideal one for sports fans to visit, being that L.A. Live, the Crypto.com Sports Arena, and the Convention Center are all very nearby attractions for pedestrians, which have frequent and regular events happening. 

The birds are a fairly standard flock of Downtown LA: they're not completely shy, and they know that some people will toss them food, if they're visible to passersby. 

The Pico Metro Station Refugee Pigeon Flock, enjoying a meal, on April 19th, 2024, at 3:43 p.m.

This flock would be a good one for people to patronize during the springtime (now) season, throughout summer and in to fall, I suppose, being that it's light out, and pigeons in this area will, most commonly, stay out until 6:30 p.m., while the sun is still out. I just recently found out that pigeons love peanuts 🥜, by the way, so that's a nice and convenient snack food to have on hand for them (or, if you hadn't prepared, beforehand, there's a CVS right across the street. 

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Reducing Climate and Carbon Impact, Individually: Some Observations.

Here, in the Greater Los Angeles region,

people are generally commonly concerned with the quality and sustainable "health" of our environmental ecology. That being said, I've not gotten enough time in, in researching official documents and developments that had been put out (ostensibly): in essence, we hear, and see, in our news feeds, televised news reports, etc., that climate changes are coming, or are happening. I feel that, perhaps contextually, in the sense of a "spring cleaning," we can take an assessment of where we are, for the year's outset, and outlook, for that matter, being that spring would somewhat be the time for the emergence of conservational efforts that had been put forth, during the winter; things to consider, such as: had winter landscapes, with forward-looking "signs of spring" to look forward to - had these landscapes been planted? Are civic landscapes being maintained with care? "Does the population care, at all?" would come to mind, perhaps, in some cases, being that concerns and aesthetics such as this sort of civic upkeep markers of things to consider, had largely been disregarded, this year, with many landscaping jobs that could have been done, instead: seem to be simply "leftovers" of last year's trimming of the bushes, here and there, at times, I observed, out in the Civic Center of Downtown Los Angeles, for example, where many of the maintenance jobs, in town, also end up being disregarded, it would seem. 

Heading out to the Century City area, to check on the pigeon flock, out here, which I'd given much care for, I have the opportunity to hang out, and peruse a more upscale aesthetic, especially with the landscaping aspect in mind: planters had been planted, the planters are not "ruined" by the public, in general. I had some planting aspirations in mind, for better sustainability and management of my ongoing role, as a homeless person, out at all hours, as it were, as I move about, and around, in town, within the nitrogen cycle. 

I hadn't read "the book" on the nitrogen cycle, which happens to be available at the local Los Angeles Public Library Central Branch - although I did take a quick look at it (I know that it's there, at least, 😏 perhaps as a reference book [only for in-library reading, not for check out]). What I come to observe about nitrogen, at this point in time, is largely colloquial and common knowledge sorts of stuff. In my generation, we recollect the blockbuster movie hit, The Terminator, which featured one of our (both) beloved or reviled: [depending on individual tastes, I suppose] California governors - Arnold Schwarzenegger: a futuristic worldscape of a war-torn technological establishment, sworn to duty, thus bent on exterminating humanity (was it one of the sequels? I forget). 

In any case, many of us would recall, and reference - the hijacked tanker of liquid nitrogen that overturns, during a battle, and spills out its contents: a hopeless flood of sub-zero material that freezes the formidable shape-shifting, self-healing robot opponent - yet, only temporarily. 

With this in mind, the correlation I draw, as one of the few DTLA civic center homeless people, on  an ongoing basis, I feel... hmm <_<... I guess that I'm regularly feeling like I'm also being inundated with this liquid nitrogen substance, with how the slight nuances of windy drafts feel like they seem to have an "unnatural" slant, now, these recent years, in consideration. On one hand, I remember how cold I used to be, and it's definitely not like the cold of these recent years. These days, even the cold water is colder. It's not that I'd changed, all that much - I feel that some people, who indulge in bullying me, at moments like these nights, in which I stay outside, unwillingly, as it were, might be holding something with regards to "accepting change," (as folks familiar with the 12 Steps self help program could draw up, as the popular culture point of reference), against me, and, as I sleep at night, battles are waged against me, with this "futuristic" liquid nitrogen substance being one of the token tools of war. 

On one hand, it feels compelling, I suppose, (for some), to dominate someone, aside from themselves - wielding forces of nature (atmospherics, physics, materials, etc.), with liquid nitrogen at hand. 

The economics of playing around with liquid nitrogen are potentially easy fare, for the festively: for cold war games to play out - on others, "feelin' like" people. For whatever reason, at some point, during these recent years that I'd been through, where I'd have had to "consider" (experience) that some sort of locally-applied environmental coolant agent is the effect au jour, as it were, that I have to go through, for whatever reason. 

Maybe it's literally for my own better protection, as I do my best, customarily, when I'm out and about, doing the homeless person thing, once again, (in life), to prepare myself for outlier occurence weather events, as well as the more generalized regional weather, but, gosh - it's become so obvious - I'm going through micro-localized weather outcomes being laid out on me: the clouds - some of them, between the sun and myself, for example, hang low, and they're grey, meaning that they're dense, and doubled over, up top, by additional atmospheric clouds, which are white, memorably - as we'd recall, to a large degree, truly grey and cloudy days, here, in Southern California, and, more specifically, perhaps, in Los Angeles, ... 🤔 yet, here, in this context, I'd had become aware of the fact of that practically any and much of the outlying areas, surrounding Downtown LA, for example, are, (at these times), concurrently blue skies; without any cloud cover - in essence, suggestive of that some form of civil engineering be at hand. Who knows, perhaps some folks need to be chased, or hurried, at a minimum, out of town? The essence, of this micro-locales issue, in the consideration of vast and unnatural (man-made) disparities of temperatures, is a brutal thing to weather, so to speak. Some people end up ragged and disheveled; kicked to the curb, so to speak. Take, for example, that radiation damage to an individual's belongings takes place in a different segment of temperature spectrum - not roasting hot, as in, hot to the touch, but rather, the cold, the dryness, consequentially, being that water "disappears;" evaporates, or something like that (remember The Terminator movie thing), and "standard" violable metrics of discerning insult, or injury, or even of establishing measurements, in accessible means, by and large, becomes an unobtainable scenario to achieve. It's just people playing games, as a person in power, to some limited extent. 

Just how accessible, on the other hand, is it, to obtain liquid nitrogen - for f*cktard'd reasons, like "cooling down," smoking illicit drugs, terrorizing people? Apparently, it's conceivably within reach: 

Google Shopping options and availability, in this instance of my search query, for "liquid nitrogen price," (without quotes, as entered in the search form).

Apparently, this sort of strange habit becomes a type of service industry to fulfill. In a more traditional sense, nitrogen is much more familiar as an agricultural primary nutrient, yet, easily - it's commonly known that an over-application of a fertilizer product containing nitrogen will quickly wilt the leaves of a plant, and, consequentially, have the potential to kill the plant. In an untouched (by humans) natural environment, nitrogen exists as both atmospheric gas, with atomic number 7, as well as in soil, where nitrogen undergoes variable nitrogen cycle processes, along with available soil nutrients and resources such as oxygen.

A Google "card" widget snippet, discussing the variable desirability (thermodynamically-speaking) of the various forms of nitrogen cycle which are undergone, once nitrogen enters the soil.

Anyways, I had some aspirations to plant some peas, locally, around town, and I encounter constant opposition to that notion, in my internalized mind (or whatever kind of "mind" I happen to be experiencing, at the time). Sometimes it's some person standing in the way of me doing this simple work; for example, the management at the place where I stay, now, forbids me to bring my stuff in to the home - food, even, ... even though I'm not retarded. There's a bunch of problems there, in that regard.

A sprightlysparrowseedlings.shop iPigeon.institute subdomain blog post I composed, on my birthday, last month, concerning my pea-growing aspirations.

So, what to do about nitrogen in the environment, in it's various forms? On one hand, it's used to manufacture explosives (I guess), with the traditional common knowledge tidbit, that we're taught, as children, in school.

Some follow-up topics to consider:

- bottling up urine and flushing it, when caught in an accidental need situation to pee, outside. In instances where I am capable of it, I take on this challenge, for others who had fallen short of reaching the restroom, who had made sure to take me up on my suggestion to bottle up their urine, which I'd put forth in more private disclosures, previously.

- fragrances (natural fragrances) as carbon capture and wind energy resources, to dispel poisoning incidents, where unfavorable (anaerobic, or "lesser oxygenized") forms of nitrogen-cycle compounds have proliferated. The fragrance molecules are best put to use as aerolyzed, hydrolyzed sprays, in diffusion (be careful, in combustible materials situations [I suppose]).

Remember, that here, in Los Angeles, and, in California, consider ourselves a largely agriculturally-based state, and, innovatve, for that matter, and, foreseeably, we could stand a chance of avoiding more costly, or improbable, measures seen through, or not, of engineering efforts put towards avoiding our land ending up sinking below sea level, to the detriment of established work that had already been done, well enough.

iPigeon.institute turns 7, officially.

 Yesterday marked the 7th anniversary of this website's founding. I nearly had it aligned with my readers' 200,000th visit to iPigeon.institute. Thanks for all of the support, throughout the years, and still, on such an ongoing basis. I feel that this year will see some exciting developments in the website's offerings, as I'm learning to manage product developments at scale, and my primary support systems are well in place.  

Thanks again! 🤯🤧🎂

I landed as the 199,177th hit on my blog, here, in anticipation of reaching 200,000 hits, soon.