Thursday Open Thread 6-22-2017
Historical methods vs new technology which is better. Old methods are not necessarily better or worse than modern technology, only different. I tend to explore older methods when working on resilience projects and evaluate them with modern methods. In times of disruptions due to climate, economy or wars the supply lines we use today may not be available.
Some of the criteria I have developed for resilience projects are:
- Low input for on going maintenance
- Reduce or eliminate the need for electricity
- Reduce or eliminate the need for petroleum products
- Should be able to do the task with less physical strength that accompanies normal aging.
- If something essential breaks it can be fixed without an expert and shipped in parts. Especially if related to food, heating and water
- Need to have printed resource material, medical books and manuals in case of an internet interruption due to blocking or electricity interruptions.
What are some of your criteria?
Farm Report
Daily the inventory of animals and birds is examined for health and condition. This last week was one of those – well what can happen next.
Started with a ewe looking unwell. Sheep are low on the food chain so do their best not to look sickly and hard to diagnosis. Situation changes rapidly, unexpected butchering.
Had to call Animal control to pick-up two loose dogs in the sheep pasture. Distracted the german shepherd and australian cattle dog as the sheep ran back into their night pen. If a dog is harassing livestock they can be shot. The County has set up a dog board to evaluate if a dog can be returned to the owner, be relocated or put down. Since no livestock was actively chased or hurt the owners of the two dogs will get a warning.
Night pen has reduced the predator problem over the years. Close enough to the house the coyotes and cougars avoid the area.
Broken egg shells in the chicken house. Observed a small hole under the fence by the nesting box. Suspect a skunk. Install a barrier and hopeful he moves on and finds food elsewhere.
Rain last week, wet wool and older ewe followed by hot weather resulted in a case of fly strike. Gross, but she is doing well. She was wandering around grazing today.
Homemade Insecticide and repellent
instead of buying peppermint insecticide I mix my own. Fewer trips to the store.
1 tsp. (5ml) 100% peppermint oil to 2 cups (480 ml) water or vegetable oil (or mixture)
Use 30% oil and 70% water emulsion for flying yellow jackets their nests.
Use 100% oil for lice or mites.
Use water as a maggot insecticide as a spray for the ewe I had trouble with fly strike. Worked better than the commercial spray or pine tar topical.
Had not seen me yet
The sky was solid gray in all other directions
Comments
Good morning, SOE, thanks. Thanks. Higher than usual
temps here, except that this time of yer always has higher than usual temps. Refines one's definition of "usual".
Being suburban, most of our resilience involves home cooking and food growing and storage. Nothing really clever, either, nor anything very strenuous.
Have a good one yourself and good luck with all those happenstances and happenings.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Thanks SOE some good tips
one needs to watch out fro themselves as tptb aren't
doin jack to watch out for us.
From 5:50 on, I ask everyone to please watch.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FPxhNZLesw]
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Hey there, soe. And thanks, ggersh, for that Jimmy Dore clip.
Can't fool the People anymore.
Love those tweets from folks on Twitter accurately calling out May for using the firefighters as public relations props (reminiscent of Bush in New Orleans) and having to make a quick getaway from the mobs who now show up to let her know they're onto her and the failed system she props up. What a juxtaposition next to Corbyn and the local MP framing it in terms of the failures of private enterprise, deregulation and greed, which everyone on the street unequivocally know to be the only truth.
After this tragic event at Grenfell, they're completely onto how unbridled Neoliberal Capitalism is directly responsible for it. And now the conversation within the 99% widens to include an understanding of Pay To Play politics, and how that results in austerity and the shredding of the safety net (i.e. Grenfell, in all of its manifestations). Most importantly, folks have woken up to the unavoidable fact that the MSM has been lying, omitting and obfuscating the truth about the important things that effect their lives personally, and that all the manufactured controversy and celebrity gossip is intended to distract and misinform.
Great clip. By the way, the fellow on the Independent video shown in the middle is one of the more dynamic local folks who shredded a "reporter" from Rupert Murdoch's Sky News. He was featured in my Open Thread on Tuesday.
Check out his no-punches-pulled, fierce, clear-eyed rant:
Thanks for OT.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Morning SOE
Farming seems so spiritually rewarding. Guess that's why many keep the rural life even though it is really hard in today's America.
I need to get out of the city (Cuenca) here and get on a bus.
The ride south from here to Loja is all 'Mountains'. Talk about vistas. Up switchback roads that clime a few thousand feet. All the time looking across 20 miles of valley to just as high mountains on the other side.
View from the road...
(right click and 'View image' for larger)
I want a Pony!
Impressive view - clears the head fo thoughts
Farming can be done in a spiritually rewarding practice and keep one in touch with the cycle of life. Less noise seems to be the key for me. I do not run very much machinery and have plenty of trees to block the road and neighbor noise.
Right now all I can hear is the birds singing outside and the CPU fan on one of the computers.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Can't see the picture, but I spent some time in
the northern Andes and highlands. Don't think we made it south of Puyo. Did see Condors, though. Lotsa great birds there. Are you hooked on Yerba Mate yet?
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Mountain Quail what a poser
Thanks studentofearth.
Is it a Mountain Quail? LOVE the fence post pose with mountain backdrop. That sprinkler makes me want to go running on your green pasture. Thanks. Great tales of resilience, I really appreciate. My motto now is Reduce, Reuse, Reuse. heh. There's another idiom I can't remember the beginning, ends with "... use what you have". I have a crazy cardboard keyboard tray right now, 'cause it's what I had. Wrists bones, finger bones, etc. don't care what it looks like. cheers
North Bay Heat Advisory ends tonight at 9pm, yay. Hope it's accurate. One good thing about bad air, it does make gorgeous sunsets and rises, particulates for the win.
peace
Californail quail like living on the edge between
the dry land and and irrigated pastures around the property.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Back from a Dr visit in PA for my broken face
Good news: don't faceplant again, the Dr is all the way into PA, a 1 hour drive. Better news: saw my serial cuts of the CT and the fracture is complex, but aligned to re-heal. The only "off" is my bite, several mm lower on my R than L. It hurts, thus pablum diet for another week or two. But no surgery! The misbite I either get used to or find a dentist to adjust that while doing something with my broken lower teeth. Do nothing for a few weeks (like 8). Bone healing will have begun.
An enjoyable drive thru small town America. The ENT clinic in Sayre, PA even had a barber shop with the rotating cylinder out front. My driver, who got her nursing degree from Robert Packer Hospital showed me next-town Athens, PA with some grand old homes. Railroad money. Lovely hanging flower baskets on porches. Beautiful old Rhodies and pollarded trees. Being alone, it is a treat to be able to look out both sides of the vehicle once in a while. Road construction is up to speed, and Dollar Stores become a depressing sight.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Good News , only eight weeks of down time
Looks like this outside planting season is going to be a bust for you. Maybe you could spend some time sharing the challenges that occur when there is an abrupt change of living in a household that suddenly turns into one person.
I think it is one of the ultimate acts of resilience. It is the "what if" nearly 50% of us will experience. When we are in a multi-person household many tasks are delegated. As an individual we may not understand the scope of what needs to be known and done to run our household.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
One reason the current German ruling coalition is — distasteful:
What kind of policies do the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in this coalition represent? Without going into detail, the following should illustrate quite nicely what’s repellent about these people.
http://www.americanacademy.de/videoaudio/2017-henry-kissinger-prize/
Henry Kissinger? Larry Summers? Aw man, gimme a break! If only more German voters would wake up to the 99% versus 1%, globalist-elites thing and, in the September elections, just once say “up yours” to these people . . .
Hard to listen to Kissenger talk
Self congratulating the impact he wrought on the world.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
This is an important list to consider . . .
Some points are universal, and some will vary depending on where you live.
IMO, each of your points are important. And I think that disruption of shipping is a very real possibility. I can't get that Jim Hansen video from last year out of my head. The one where he talks about the gulf stream slowing down and even stopping . . . producing super storms in the oceans that will last a thousand years.
Living in Texas, I must add several.
Going to post a few pictures of ongoing gardening projects here. We are finally harvesting tomatoes. I would say that the home grown tomato is the one vegetable that has the most stark contrast in flavor with those you purchase.
I contacted one of my previous suppliers and he had more bales for me. I got 8. One will be used in the new chicken yard and the compost pit.
The yellow squash died out, so I pulled up the dead plants, put welded wire fence around the bottom and shrink wrap around the fence. Then I pushed the bale down into it and reapplied nitrogen for additional conditioning. Now I will replant it.
A photo of some beautiful tomatoes getting ready to ripen.
The former onion patch that is now pumpkins/okra. Something is munching on my okra. Time to make pepper spray!
Resilience by refurbishing. The table and chairs were purchsed in the 60s. $15 black spray paint makes them look like new.
Gotta love those cattle panels. Our greenhouse was built with cattle panels, now this chicken run extension to our chicken house is made with cattle panels.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Evening - Important to have input from around the
country. I did not prioritize cooling. Heat is not as big of issue as cold of winter. A hot summer has been maybe 2 to 5 days of temperature above 100 with low humidity.
I am impressed with the bale gardens. I use my welded panels like Lego pieces. Build, tear down, build something new and the cycle continues.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Still trapping rodents
On my 12th squirrel now. Don't know if I've got the "chewer" or not. But no more damage to the garden. Don't smell anymore gas around the vehicles, or at least the gas ones.
Bracing for the heat coming here this weekend, pushing 100 degrees.
My motto is still repair, reuse, repurpose, or recycle.
Got any home remedies for worms on my broccoli? Thanks for the open thread SOE.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.