Cucumber is a cultivated plant in the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. It is a creeping vine. There are three main varieties of cucumber: slicing and seedless. Within these varieties, several cultivars have been created. In North America, the term "wild cucumber" refers to plants in the genera Echinocystis and Marah, but these are not related; the cucumber is from South Asia, but now grows on most continents. Many different types of cucumber are traded on the global market; the cucumber is a creeping vine that roots in the ground and grows up trellises or other supporting frames, wrapping around supports with thin, spiraling tendrils. The plant may root in a soilless medium and will sprawl along the ground if it does not have supports; the vine has large leaves. The fruit of typical cultivars of cucumber is cylindrical, but elongated with tapered ends, may be as large as 62 centimeters long and 10 centimeters in diameter. Botanically speaking, the cucumber is classified as a pepo, a type of botanical berry with a hard outer rind and no internal divisions.

However, much like tomatoes and squashes, it is perceived and eaten as a vegetable. Cucumber fruits consist of 95% water. A few cultivars of cucumber are parthenocarpic, the blossoms creating seedless fruit without pollination. Pollination for these cultivars degrades the quality. In the United States, these are grown in greenhouses, where bees are excluded. In Europe, they are grown outdoors in some regions, bees are excluded from these areas. Most cucumber cultivars, are seeded and require pollination. Thousands of hives of honey bees are annually carried to cucumber fields just before bloom for this purpose. Cucumbers may be pollinated by bumblebees and several other bee species. Most cucumbers that require pollination are self-incompatible, so pollen from a different plant is required to form seeds and fruit; some self-compatible cultivars exist. Symptoms of inadequate pollination include misshapen fruit. Pollinated flowers may develop fruit that are green and develop near the stem end, but are pale yellow and withered at the blossom end.

Traditional cultivars produce male blossoms first female, in about equivalent numbers. Newer gynoecious hybrid cultivars produce all female blossoms, they may have a pollenizer cultivar interplanted, the number of beehives per unit area is increased, but temperature changes induce male flowers on these plants, which may be sufficient for pollination to occur. In a 100-gram serving, raw cucumber is 95% water, provides 67 kilojoules and supplies low content of essential nutrients, as it is notable only for vitamin K at 16% of the Daily Value. In 2009, an international team of researchers announced. In general cultivation, cucumbers are classified into three main cultivar groups: "slicing", "pickling", "burpless". Cucumbers grown to eat fresh are called slicing cucumbers; the main varieties of slicers mature on vines with large leaves. They are eaten in the unripe green form, since the ripe yellow form becomes bitter and sour. Slicers grown commercially for the North American market are longer, more uniform in color, have a much tougher skin.

Slicers in other countries are smaller and have a thinner, more delicate skin having fewer seeds and being sold in a plastic skin for protection. Sometimes these are known as English cucumbers; this variety may be called a "telegraph cucumber" in Australasia. Smaller slicing cucumbers can be pickled. Pickling with brine, sugar and spices creates various, flavored products from cucumbers and other foods. Although any cucumber can be pickled, commercial pickles are made from cucumbers specially bred for uniformity of length-to-diameter ratio and lack of voids in the flesh; those cucumbers intended for pickling, called picklers, grow to about 7 to 10 cm long and 2.5 cm wide. Compared to slicers, picklers tend to be shorter, less shaped, have bumpy skin with tiny white or black-dotted spines. Color can vary from creamy yellow to dark green. Gherkins called cornichons, baby dills, or baby pickles, are small, unsliced cucumbers those 1 inch to 5 inches in length with bumpy skin, pickled in variable combinations of brine, vinegar and sugar.

In the United Kingdom, gherkins may be prepared predominantly in vinegar, imparting an acidic flavor "punch" as a side-dish for meals. Although gherkins may be grown in greenhouses, they are grown as a field crop, processed locally, packaged in jars in Canada, the United States, India. India, Turkey and Mexico compete as producers for the global gherkin market, with the European Union, United States and Israel as major importers; the word gherkin derived in the mid-17th century from early modern Dutch, gurken or augurken for "small pickled cucumber". The term, West Indian gherkin, has been applied to Cucumis anguria L. a related species of Cucumis sativus, the most common cucumber plant. Burpless cucumbers have a thinner skin than other varieties of cucumber, they are reputed to be easy to have a pleasant taste. They can grow as long as 2 feet, are nearly seedless, have a delicate skin. Most grown in greenhouses, these parthenocarpic cucumbers are found in grocery markets, shrink-wrapped in plastic.

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Alta Community School District was a school district headquartered in Alta, Iowa. It was in Buena Vista County, with a section in Cherokee County and a small section in Sac County, it operated Alta Junior-Senior High School. In 1989 it began a whole grade-sharing arrangement, in which one district sends certain grade levels to another district's schools, with the Aurelia Community School District; however this agreement ended in 1996, the Iowa Association of School Boards stated that the previous arrangement and its outcome resulted in "some community members offended". In 2010 Alta and Aurelia resumed sharing athletic teams. A new grade-sharing arrangement with Aurelia began in 2011. Both districts had their elementary schools, with Aurelia hosting the middle school and Alta hosting the high school; the shared Alta-Aurelia superintendent, Lynn Evans, stated that only secondary classes were grade-shared as they were more expensive to teach than primary classes. In September 2017 an election on whether the districts should be merged was held.

The merger was approved 178-55 in Aurelia. On July 1, 2018 the Alta district merged with the Aurelia district into the Alta-Aurelia Community School District. Alta Community School District at the Wayback Machine Aurelia Community School District and Alta Community School District Whole Grade Sharing Contract

In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy is a 1997 album by Pat Boone in which Boone covers hard rock and heavy metal songs in a jazz/big band style. Boone promoted the album by appearing in leather clothing, he succeeded in propelling Metal Mood onto the Billboard record charts, but it did not please some of his older, longtime fans who considered the heavy metal genre in bad taste, or worse. The album has since become somewhat popular as a joke gift to metal fans although some serious sites have given it good reviews on its own merits; the album featured guest appearances from well-known rock musicians such as Ronnie James Dio and Ritchie Blackmore. In October of the same year, in a similar vein, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé covered Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" in a lounge-jazz style on the 1997 compilation album release, Lounge-A-Palooza; this idea of giving rock hits a "standards" treatment was imitated by Boone's contemporary Paul Anka in the 2005 album Rock Swings, which featured Anka doing a cover of "Black Hole Sun".

"You've Got Another Thing Comin'" – 4:19 "Smoke on the Water" – 3:53 "It's a Long Way to the Top" – 4:37 "Panama" – 5:15 "No More Mr. Nice Guy" – 3:06 "Love Hurts" – 4:57 "Enter Sandman" – 3:52 "Holy Diver" – 4:44 "Paradise City" – 4:41 "The Wind Cries Mary" – 4:12 "Crazy Train" – 4:32 "Stairway to Heaven" – 4:59 Pat Boone, Ronnie James Dio, Clydene Jackson Edwards, Merry Clayton, Carmen Twillie - vocals Ritchie Blackmore, Mitch Holder, Dawayne Bailey, Dweezil Zappa, Dan Ferguson, Michael Thompson - electric guitar Doug Cameron, Bruce Dukov, Michelle Richards - violin Evan Wilson - viola Larry Corbett - cello Tom Scott, Gary Herbig, Don Menza, Pete Christlieb, Terry Harrington, Plas Johnson, Jeol Peskin - woodwinds Frank Szabo, Chuck Findley, Wayne Bergeron, Rick Baptist, Chris Tedesco - trumpet Dick "Slide" Hyde, Lew McCreary, Alan Kaplan, Bruce Otto, Dana Hughes - trombone Dave Siebels - organ, keyboards Andy Simpkins - acoustic bass Marco Mendoza - electric bass Gregg Bissonette - drums Lenny Castro - percussion Sheila E. - timbales Richard Cheese Frank Bennett The Mike Flowers Pops