Morel
Thanks to my nephew Jake for finding it and this is his photograph as well. I ate the mushroom though… my first and boy was it good! Now I understand why they are so sought after and I know I’ll be looking for them too. I sauteed this one and then scrambled it with three of our chicken eggs. Very tasty!!
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Food, Foraging, Living Simply, Morel, Mushrooms
Pesto with Hickory Nuts!
A couple weeks ago I wrote about using dandelion greens with basil for making pesto and today I have another variation on that. I’ve got gobs of kale coming up in the garden so I wanted to try mixing those in with the basil and dandelion but realized that I had no pine nuts. But I did have about 1/3 cup of hickory nuts that I de-shelled a couple weeks ago so I tried that and it tastes fine to me. So, no more need to buy pine nuts for pesto!
Can I just say how cool it is that I have a Shagbark Hickory tree growing ten feet from my cabin? I get plenty cool summer shade and buckets of hickory nuts in the fall. For those that may not know, hickory nuts look and taste very similar to walnuts. My only complaint is the amount of work to get the nut meat out of the shell. Yeah. That takes a good bit of time. Which reminds me that it seems a few permaculture folk have a notion that nuts can be a more important, more substantial part of the human diet, possibly even replacing cereal grains. While I certainly like the idea I’m not sure it is practical given the work involved in getting the nut from the shell. Perhaps there is a technique or some inexpensive equipment but from a quick search on the Google I don’t think so. In fact, I’d like to plant a few more nuts in our food forest and need to investigate the nutritional content and ease of processing of those that will grow well here.
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Dandelion, Food, Food Forest, Food Production, Foraging, Forest Gardening, Herbs, Living Simply, Hickory Nuts, Pesto
Busy Birds and Bees
As I sit waiting for my evening coffee to brew I’m reading through a variety of news feeds and listening to the frogs and birds outside. A Carolina Wren just landed on the corner of the front porch and is carrying on about something important. It has been a rainy couple of days so not much done other than letting chickens in and out of their coop to the newly fenced in chicken range. I’ve also set up the bee hive with cardboard and mulch and removed a few small cedar trees that were growing in the area.
It’s been a whole week since my last post?? Wowza time flies. Lots of little happenings around the permaculture homestead last week and weekend. I got the second hardy kiwi arbor set-up in the food forest, complete with a nicely mulched seating area. Kerry and I got the nasturtiums, dill and chives planted around the base of half of the fruit trees. We also transplanted a few plants from her woodland garden to our gardens down here: columbine, wood poppy, purple coneflower, hosta and a few others. I planted zinnias and cosmos along the outside of the garden fence. I also planted New Zealand spinach and a few other greens in the keyhole beds near the cabin. I moved gobs of rock that had previously been out in front of my cabin up to the greenhouse to provide better drainage and a bit of a heat sink. Of course before I could put the rock in I had to dig a good bit of soil which was used to form growing beds inside and just outside the greenhouse. About half a day of work and 75% finished. Greg got the first four rain barrels which all had food/drink ingredient residues, nothing too bad. I’ve cleaned them and moved them to the back of the cabin.
This week or weekend, when it stops raining and dries a bit I’ll start getting seeds in the ground: squash, melons, cukes, herbs will be in the first round. Then corn, beans and another round of salad greens. Last will be tomato, pepper and comfrey transplants which are all looking fantastically healthy after a bit of a rough start. I’ll also need to get the holes dug for posts of the rain barrel stand. Oh, and I picked up a Heritage Raspberry which will need to go into the ground probably up along the fence of the chicken range so they can share in the fruit. Three elderberries ordered from Edible Landscaping so those will get planted in the food forest sometime next week. Lots to do.
Last but not least, a bit of community news. Friday night is the first of many weekends of Pickin on the Square: free bluegrass music every Friday night on the town square of Fredericktown. I can’t wait. I’ve got the new website for the Fredericktown Revitalization Initiative up, have a look. We still need to tidy up the pages and add more content but it’s a good start I think.
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Bee Keeping, Bees, Community, Food, Food Forest, Food Production, Foraging, Forest Gardening, Gardening, Herbs, Homesteading, Honey Bees, Living Simply, Permaculture, Self Reliance, Small Town Life
Zebra Swallowtail
I’ve been seeing these around but usually while I’m working, hands dirty and no camera around. Went out this morning to work on the path to the kiwi arbor in the food forest and saw one nectaring from the Autumn Olive so I grabbed the camera and got a few shots.
Food Forest and Garden Update
I’ve got seedlings everywhere: 70 tomatoes of 5 varieties, 40 peppers of 5 varieties, 70 eggplant of 5 varieties and 22 comfrey. The remaining cabbage, broccoli and kohlrabi, about 40 plants total, will be getting transplanted into the garden tomorrow. The peas and fava beans are all up as are lettuce, radish, spinach, kale and a few others. The garden expansion is all fenced in and about 80% mulched with cardboard and straw. I’ll finish it off as soon as I get more cardboard. Thanks to Karen and David we have something like 25 straw bales for the rest of the mulching and for use in the chicken coop.
The four Hardy Kiwi vines are planted though two will be getting moved this week as I put them too close together. Two will remain at the arbor at the entrance of the kitchen garden and the other two will go into the food forest, planted on a trellis between the established sycamore trees. I also picked up 6 blueberries but they are not all that healthy as they were not watered in the store. I’ve put them in pots and if they do survive they’ll be going into the food forest.
I also put up a small, 2 foot high fence around the keyhole beds near my cabin to keep the rabbits from snacking every night. I’d rather not have fences everywhere but the rabbits are many and they are apparently very hungry. Last, the lake front area has been cleaned up a good bit. We’d cut the tornado trees all up last fall and I’ve cleared out all the small branches and twigs and have created a bit of lakeside lawn. If it is up to me that is the only lawn we’ll have in any of the common areas!
So, a good bit of progress even with all the rain and cold. A week of warmth and I imagine everything will start to pop into action.
Dandelion and Basil
I grew some Basil in a pot this winter. Not alot but almost enough to make decent batches of pesto. I had the thought this morning that I just needed a bit more to stretch it so why not substitute in a bowl of dandelion greens? I made the decision last year that I would eat more wild greens like dandelion and violets since they are so numerous and high in vitamins. Kinda silly not to! Dandelions are an excellent source of Folate, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Copper, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Vitamin K, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Calcium, Iron, Potassium and Manganese. Source. 
Seeing the nutrition content listed on that page has me wondering why in the hell we have not all been eating dandelions on a regular basis? 112% of the daily recommended Vitamin A???? 32% of daily Vitamin C, 535% Vitamin K. What’s really great is that they come up so early in spring, long before most planted annuals. I’ll certainly be adding them in to all my salads, pesto, and any other meal that calls for greens.
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Dandelion, Food, Foraging, Gardening, Herbs, Homesteading, Living Simply, Plants
Chicken Coop Greenhouse
We’ve nearly finished the chicken coop greenhouse! The Coop is pretty much finished and the 23 chicks will be coming down this weekend. We still have to put the light in and finish up the chicken run on the east side. At some point we’ll be installing my 2 small solar panels on the roof which will run the light and ventilation fan from the greenhouse. In the picture below you can see all the nest boxes on the left and a feeder waiting for chicks.
The greenhouse still needs the door added on the west side but that’s pretty much it. Oh, we’ll be adding a gutter to direct rainwater to 2 rain barrels which will be added to the interior of the greenhouse. I’ve already moved in a table, pots, soil and other goodies. The tomato plants are very happy. I’m looking forward to getting all the little seedlings off my kitchen table and in a warmer brighter environment! I’m also looking forward to eating lettuce, spinach and other greens next winter!!
We spent around $400 for the greenhouse which is not too bad. All of the glass was salvaged (thanks to Greg’s friend Jamie for a couple of those!) which really cut the costs down. I think 8x8 greenhouse kits often sell for $2,000 or more so I’m super happy to have this.
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Energy, Energy Conservation, Food, Food Production, Homesteading, Living Simply, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Permaculture, Self Reliance
Deepening Crisis
Oh yes, I know that the stock market had an orgie of a day yesterday on the news of the schemes being cooked up by the Obama administration to deal with the toxic assets currently in the financial system. More of the same and it won’t work because it is a refusal to deal with reality. The whole reaction to this massive mess of fraud is more fraud. The spectacle is truly disgusting.
Harvey Ussery of The Modern Homestead has written a fantastic article regarding the deepening crisis. I encourage you to read it. Here’s an excerpt:
The only thing surprising about the crisis—I should say the crises—now deepening around us, is that it has taken so many of us by surprise. For several years before the subprime mess started the current hemorrhage in global finance, I read detailed predictions for how the subprime mortgage bubble would burst, with the shattering and cascading effects in the wider system that we have now seen—analyses, mind you, not of Ivy League economic think-tankers, but of reflective folks of ordinary common sense like you and me. If such people were able to read the writing on the wall, where were the deciders in government and Wall Street, the head of the Federal Reserve? What were they thinking?
But this crisis has been long in the making, and the biggest mistake would be to assume that an anonymous “they” out there—Wall Street moguls, hypesters for junk-level, credit-for-everybody mortgages, OPEC gougers—are the ones who have brought us to grief, through no fault of our own. We are supposedly adults in a functioning democracy, not children, and as such we cannot escape responsibility for our willful complicity in an economy that defies compatibility with natural systems, meaning natural limits, and which opts consistently for short-term gain in preference to long-term soundness and sustainability.
I remember reading on the first page of the first economics textbook I ever encountered (Economics, by Paul Samuelson, when I was in graduate school) that the foundation of our economy is: perpetual growth. Not the natural resource base. Not equitable distribution of wealth. Not sustainability. The author was emphatic and unambiguous: Without constant, vigorous expansion, our economy would stagnate and fall apart. And on that first page, even a bonehead neophyte ignoramus like me was saying in confused surprise, “But that’s impossible—nothing can grow without limits!” (Except cancer, whose perpetual growth is precisely what in the end kills its host.)
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Capitalism, Consumerism, Consumption, Ecology, Economic Collapse, Economic Depression, Economy, Energy, Environment, Global Depression, Great Depression, Natural Resources, Obama, Peak Oil, Recession
The Sunset Party
Fantastic color last night. We’ve had more and more ducks showing up day-to-day. For a week there were maybe 5 and then 10 and suddenly there were 200 or more out there. They’re not close enough to get a good look but no matter, I’m just glad they are out there. Now that spring has come the nights are filled with frog song. I’m surrounded by this amazing life force… all of these beautiful creatures with their many voices. Yup, it’s a party.
Spring Garden Updates
Lots of progress this past week. The tomatoes have all come up and will be transplanted into a variety of re-used plastic containers tonight. The broccoli and cabbage have all been planted out to the garden. A row of sugar snap peas is planted along the garden fence with another row going in this week. More cardboard and straw has been put down into the new garden expansion.
The chicken coop is 95% finished. We’ve got the walls and roof finished and the laying boxes built in. Left to do is to put in the east facing door and a chicken wire wall on the inside to separate the chickens from a small area for feed storage. Last is to paint it and move the chickens in! Hopefully we’ll get the greenhouse started the next time Greg comes down.
Upcoming tasks: Move the compost fifteen feet just outside the garden area; finish cardboard/straw mulching in the new garden area; plant potatoes; start peppers, basil, comfrey and a few other things in seed flats; mulch in a few new paths around the garden and food forest.
Reclaimed Wood Chicken Coop Greenhouse and Other News
We made a good bit of progress on the chicken coop greenhouse this past weekend. As it stands today the only money spent was for nails and electricity for the tools. The base is an old porch and all of the lumber was taken from an old cabin on our property. The strutcture was abandoned many years ago and there’s a good bit of damage but much of the interior lumber is very useable. We spend the morning gathering wood and by evening we had most of the shell built. The door is also reclaimed and the window is one of four that were being given away due to flood damage. Actually, they were new windows that had never been used and the damage is very minimal… mostly they are just dirty!
The next step is to put on siding and roofing which will cost some money but not too much. Then we’ll use the other two windows as well as 2 sliding glass doors (just the glass, no door) also saved from a landfill to build the attached greenhouse. We’ll be buying some treated lumber for that as well as some roofing but it also is mostly free from recycled materials. My guess is that we can have both structures pretty much done with about three days work. 
Last will come a few finishing touches like installing the 30 watts of solar panel to the roof and wiring in a light and fan for circulating air from the greenhouse which will, in theory help warm the chickens in the winter. We’ll also be harvesting the rainwater from these roofs into 4-5 rain barrels which will be used for plants and chickens. The barrels be painted black and placed on the back wall of the greenhouse where they should heat up a good bit for passive solar heat during the winter.
I’ll post more when it is finished but I’m very happy to be taking the next big step in the permaculture design.
In other news, I’ve now got at least six loads of wood mulch, each load the size of a small car… that’s alot of organic matter!!! All of it local, the product of utility tree trimming. Thanks to all that mulch and a huge load of cardboard I’ll be putting in new paths through our food forest as well as new layers to last years mulch. I planted fava beans around the fruit trees Saturday and came across many earthworms in the greatly improved soil. It is absolutely amazing what 6 months to a year of cardboard and straw mulching can do to for the soil. Lastly, I planted gobs of onions and transplanted the kohlrabi seedlings to the garden. I’ve got 60 seeds of 5 varieties of tomatoes planted in flats.
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Conservation, Energy, Energy Conservation, Energy Crisis, Energy Shortage, Food, Food Production, Forest Gardening, Gardening, Homesteading, Living Simply, Permaculture, Self Reliance, Recycling, Reusing
A Nice Surprise
I was out on a walk this morning and discovered this beautiful patch of green along the ground. From a distance I thought it was moss but as I got closer I could see that it was too tall. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen this before. A really beautiful plant!
Edit: The mystery is solved, it is Fan Clubmoss (Lycopodium digitatum)!
Abyss Indeed
Exactly. In his latest post, The Abyss Stares Back James Kunstler writes:
In the broad blogging margins of the web that orbit the mainstream media like the rings of Saturn, an awful lot of reasonable people have begun to ask whether President Obama is a stooge of whatever remains of Wall Street, with Citigroup and Goldman Sachs’s puppeteer, Robert Rubin, pulling strings behind an arras in the Oval Office. Personally, I doubt it, but it is still a little hard to understand what the President is up to. For one thing, the stimulus package, so-called, looks more and more like national sub-prime mortgage itself, a bad bargain made under less-than-realistic terms, with future obligations fobbed onto whoever inhabits this corner of the world for the next seven hundred years – and all to pay for a bunch of granite counter-tops and flat-screen TVs.
We’ve heard it over and over and over and over from those in power in reference to this coming depression: “We have to do something.” My thought? No, no actually you don’t HAVE to do something especially when doing something is the wrong thing to do. Action for the sake of action is stupidity. But they are not just doing something. They are doing the same thing that got us into this situation. Taking on more debt to fix debt for the sake of growth that is not even real growth. Well, the consumption was real and the growth for China was real, but the debt taken on in the U.S. was just that, debt. We got in the habit of telling ourselves, as a nation, that credit and debt were wealth but they are not even close to wealth. They may create the illusion of wealth but when it comes time to pay back what you don’t have the reality comes home.
There will be no getting out of this mess, no way to navigate around it. The hard truth is that we will have to slog through it day by day. This collapse was a very long time in coming and the going will be an equally long time. Unlike the first Great Depression though, when we begin to come out of this we will not find a ready, seemingly limitless supply of oil to tap into. We’ll discover that the production peaked sometime between 2005-2007. The good news though is that by that time we will have gotten used to a scaled back, lower income, lower energy way of life.
Again, to quote Kunstler:
Among the questions that disturb the sleep of many casual observers is how come Mr. O doesn’t get that the conventional process of economic growth – based, as it was, on industrial expansion via revolving credit in a cheap-energy-resource era – is over, and why does he keep invoking it at the podium? Dear Mr. President, you are presiding over an epochal contraction, not a pause in the growth epic. Your assignment is to manage that contraction in a way that does not lead to world war, civil disorder or both. Among other things, contraction means that all the activities of everyday life need to be downscaled including standards of living, ranges of commerce, and levels of governance. “Consumerism” is dead. Revolving credit is dead – at least at the scale that became normal the last thirty years. The wealth of several future generations has already been spent and there is no equity left there to re-finance.
It really is that bad and wishful thinking will not help.
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Banks, Barack Obama, Capitalism, Economic Collapse, Economic Depression, Economy, Energy, Energy Conservation, Global Depression, Great Depression, Natural Resources, Oil, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Politics, Recession
Getting through this
I thought I’d direct folks to this fantastic post at The Automatic Earth regarding the costs of homes in relation to personal income and the role of banks in removing wealth from our communities. Some interesting points there about the end of a functioning capitalist system as well as a sensible, community-based approach to dealing with foreclosures. The only thing I’ll add is that we have been far too focused on wishful thinking in this country and that has to end. The longer we try to hold back reality, the more energy we spend trying to go around this mess rather than through it, the more intense and longer lasting it will be.
Why is 3 times income a reasonable price for a home? Shouldn’t the prices perhaps be
exclusively set by the cost of building a home? If 3 times income were
“normal”, consider that prices have become easily 3 times the cost of building
the home. So most homes cost 1 time annual income to build. And that’s just
the start. A mortgage of the elevated value will cost 3-4 times its notional value
to be paid off in full. Thus instead of living in a home paid off at 1 time annual
income, buyers will need 10-12 times annual income to own a home free and
clear. All this is money that disappears from communities, and into the vaults of
big faceless banks. It’s little wonder that communities and individuals have an
ever harder time establishing a decent level of services and decent living
standards, health care, education, water treatment etc.
Why do we accept so easily that speculation is a good thing when it comes to
our basic needs? It will come back to haunt us in a very aggressive way. Now
that the speculators, banks and developers can no longer rely on housing for
their gambling incomes, they will turn to other basic necessities, none of which
are shielded from the so-called free market. Thus, as incomes drop and
deflation expands its rule over the earth, prices for food, water and energy will
be set by “free” markets.
–
If we would stop handing money to the banks, which are insolvent anyway,
take the troubled mortgages they hold or have sold to Fannie and Freddie, who
would also receive not one additional penny, and give them to the communities,
who can negotiate with the occupants about a reasonable rent that would allow
them to remain on the premises (perhaps the Obama 31%-38% of income?!),
providing the communities with income, we do away with the need for all these
bail-outs. In one fell swoop.
–
A situation such as the one I’m painting here will eventually and inevitably
come to fruition. But our political and societal structures will not let it, not
voluntarily. And that will unnecessarily raise the suffering to levels we do not
even dare to fear. Free market capitalism is dead, and I don’t say that because
I have communist sympathies. I just look around me and see that no society
can exist that allows too many of its citizens to fall into utter misery. What
killed our capitalist system is the inclusion of basic human needs in an economic
system based on speculative games. If you set up an economy that propagates
gambling with basic human necessities, you will of necessity end up gambling
away the lives of the people who depend for their survival on those necessities.
Our societies have played these games beyond our borders, in Africa and Asia,
for hundreds of years. And now, because the system dies of it cannot grow, it’s
our turn.
I cannot resist to also share this excellent quote about Obama’s $275 billion plans to halt foreclosures, also from a recent post at The Automatic Earth :
The fact of the matter, of course, is that the $275 billion will not, and are not
meant to, benefit the homeowners. They are provided for the benefit of the
lenders, the banks. They are meant to guarantee an ongoing flow of funds
towards the vaults replete with toxic debts based on the very homes the
government now showers with cash. They are meant to artificially continue to
prop up US real estate values, which, if they were allowed to simply follow the
course of the markets, would bankrupt not only the owners, for which
Washington cares preciously little, but also the banks, for which Washington will
bend over backwards any time of day. The main problem is that it’s way too
late. The banks will drown, and everybody knows it. So the only real purpose
served by these measures is to transfer ever more of the public’s funds to the
banking sector. It’ll go on until the nation itself is completely broke and broken.
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Banks, Capitalism, Community, Economic Collapse, Economic Depression, Economy, Global Depression, Great Depression, Recession
Beeeeees and other updates
Yes indeedy. The hive and various bits of equipment arrived yesterday. I’ll get that set-up and painted in the next week or two. The bees will arrive sometime mid April. Sweet!!
I’ve started flats of broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, lettuce, and kale. I’ve ordered four hardy kiwi vines which will arrive sometime in mid March to be planted at the base of the arbor which will be built on the west side of the food forest. Thanks to Roger who works for the local utility I’ll also be getting several loads of mulch delivered in the next few weeks, probably 3-5 loads which will be more than we can use.
My first experiment with fermentation went well! I successfully fermented a head of cabbage into sauerkraut which I’ve already eaten! I started eating it after about nine days. I’ll start another batch next week and will be using two heads instead of one. I was not sure how it would turn out or what I would even eat with it. What I discovered was that since it was pretty salty it was a great addition to vegetable soup. I just put a big spoonful on top of each bowl and stirred it in a bit but did not cook it as that would destroy some or all the good live bacteria culture. I could probably let it go longer since my cabin stays cooler the fermentation is slower. I imagine if I’d left it go another week before starting to eat the end of it would have been a bit more sour.
Oh. I almost forgot the chicken update. In addition to the five chicks Jake hatched two weeks ago they (Jake and Greg) bought another 10 chicks of different varieties. But it doesn’t stop there. Oh no. Another ten were ordered. Yes, they have lost their minds. So, we’ll have a larger flock of chickens than I expected but Greg and Jake are confident we can handle it. WE being the keyword there. If need be we could always sell a few as there always folks looking to buy a few hens. We’ll see how it goes.
Lots of little steps all adding up to a good bit of progress I think!
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Bees, Bee Keeping, Fermentation, Food, Food Production, Forest Gardening, Gardening, Homesteading, Honey Bees, Living Simply, Permaculture, Self Reliance
Buddy and the Girls
A little video of the five chicks being born, nothing fancy. Jake asked me to name the new rooster so I’ve called him Buddy. Such adorable little critters.
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Food, Food Production, Global Depression, Great Depression, Homesteading, Living Simply, Natural Resources, Self Reliance
A Life in Transition
My niece Emma wanted to contribute a story and I told her I’d happily post it.
I come down to the Lake about every other weekend. It is a great place to be. Sometimes I here my mom talk about the memories that she had at the Lake. In the summer my family and I go swimming in the Lake. My dog even went swimming (she didn’t like it). My great grandpa makes pigs in a blanket. They are tasty.
I live in Barnhart, with lots of chickens. We are thinking about moving to the Lake. I say It’s a rough life. Sometimes I even cry in my Bathroom. Any how, I have only been to Cowboy Coffee once and, when I took a sip of there coco I felt that I belonged in the Small Town. I’ve always wanted to go to the museum. I wonder what is in the museum. All the people that I saw were all very nice. Sometimes I think if we are going to get a sheep for the Lake. If we did, I would shave it and sell some of the wool at the Farmer’s Market. The first time I went to the Farmer’s Market I saw bunnies! I wanted to cuddle with one of them so bad.
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Living Simply, Small Town Life
Good old days...
My good buddy Brandon recently sent me an mp3 of his work in progress audio documentary of Free Radio Memphis. Loved listening to it and thoroughly enjoyed the rush of memories. That was a fun time…. well, the getting arrested was not so fun but everything that came before that. Take the wayback machine to the website of the Constructive Interference Collective.
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Activism, Anarchism, Community, Community Media, Free Radio, Free Radio Memphis, Memphis
A Boy and his Chickens
My 13 year old nephew is home from school today. He’s not sick, he’s observing his first batch of chicks as the hatch from their eggs. Actually the first one hatched late last night. The remaining four will probably hatch today. I adore my nephew. I mean, how do you not love a kid that not only has the most amazing and crazy blond hair, but one who defies the norm so naturally and with no effort. He just is. He is a gentle soul that not only loves animals but is truly curious about them and investigates to understand what’s going on. The animals that he takes under his care really do get cared for and get close attention many times a day.
The story about the chickens began 11 months ago and I’m happy to say it was actually my idea. While visiting a local farm supply store for bird food and clover seed I was, as expected, drawn to the cheerful chirpings of the spring chicks being sold. I called my sister up and asked her why the hell they did not have chickens. A week or so later they had chicks. It was so obvious that I think sooner or later they would have done it anyway. The entire family cared for the chicks as they matured into beautiful and entertaining hen laying chickens. One of the hens, ironically named Chip, turned out to be a rooster. The fun and adventure of raising chickens got even better in the late fall when, as expected, they started laying eggs.
As winter rolled on I began talking of getting my own coop and chickens set up here on at the permaculture homestead and before long Jake started talking about getting an incubator so that he could grow any new chicks we needed. To be honest I wasn’t sure it would happen but then they found an incubator on Craig’s List and within a week or so he’d done his research and had the eggs on the incubator. Twenty one days later and last night the first chick broke free.
Chickens are one of the easiest and most productive additions to any garden in any setting. Country, suburban, urban, having hens is usually legal. Only a small space is needed though of course a larger space is nicer and the greater diversity of forage food probably results in optimal health. But really, practically anyone with any kind of backyard can have chickens. For gardeners they will add manure while they till the ground looking for insects to eat which lessens the amount of store bought food needed. Not only will they eat your kitchen scraps but you can grow much of their food right in your garden. They’ll eat any damaged or rotting fruit or veggies in your garden as well. If you’re in a setting where your garden is very small you could supplement their food by asking neighbors for their kitchen wastes in exchange for a few eggs now and then.
Given the arrival of peak oil and economic depression I have little doubt that keeping chickens will become much more common place. Ask Jake and he’ll happily talk your ear off about just how much fun they are and just how well they integrate into any family.
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Antarctic ice shelf set to collapse
Ugh. Antarctic ice shelf set to collapse due to warming:
A huge Antarctic ice shelf is on the brink of collapse with just a sliver of ice holding it in place, the latest victim of global warming that is altering maps of the frozen continent.
‘We’ve come to the Wilkins Ice Shelf to see its final death throes,’ David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), told Reuters after the first – and probably last – plane landed near the narrowest part of the ice.
The flat-topped shelf has an area of thousands of square kilometers, jutting 20 meters (65 ft) out of the sea off the Antarctic Peninsula.
But it is held together only by an ever-thinning 40-km (25-mile) strip of ice that has eroded to an hour-glass shape just 500 meters wide at its narrowest.
In 1950, the strip was almost 100 km wide.
‘It really could go at any minute,’ Vaughan said on slushy snow in bright sunshine beside a red Twin Otter plane that landed on skis. He added that the ice bridge could linger weeks or months.
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Antarctica, Climate Change, Environment, Environmentalism, Global Warming, Ice, Ice Shelf