Member Hippocrates_Garden
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First, while there is a lot of overlap, we have to remember, the U.S. is not “the world”, we are one large country, both physically and financially. (ok, we are one large, obese, myopic, self-absorbed country).
It has been my view for at least a couple of decades, that societies rise and fall, and often in a predictable manner, just on different timelines simply due to how “small” the world is, meaning how fast change can be conveyed across and between continents. 2000+ years ago, people, products and ideas moved much slower for obvious reasons, however, the trajectory of societies still had a rise and fall.
The U.S. and “Western world”, change at a vastly increased pace, which would mean, the rise and fall of Greece, or Rome or the Byzantine Empire in our time is simply speeded up, and rather than realizing this and perhaps at least letting up on the gas pedal, possibly even hitting the brakes and letting all these new ideas and social experiments prove themselves over time, we say “F-it” and hit the Nitrous button.
For all the verbal pontificating about posterity, our actions clearly show we are more than willing to pillage the land, our fellow citizens, and the future for current short-term pleasure. Personal needs are not determined by hunger in the belly, being sufficiently clothed, or covered, but instead in comparison to what someone else has, and if they have more, I need more at whatever cost.
Call it a reset, a collapse or whatever, I do believe change is coming, and looking back only 5 years or even less, a significant number of us obviously do not learn lessons well. Our attention span is microscopic. The moment the shelves became full after covid, any potential lessons were abandoned and it was back to our pre-covid overconsumptive orgy of commercial pleasure and convenience.
True change that will possibly last for at least a generation, will require the kind of lasting hardship endured by our predecessors during the Great Depression, or world wars or the like. Situations others on earth still endure in what we condescendingly call “third-world countries”.
Because I come from this tradition, I’ll repeat what I have said often to many “Evangelical Christians”..
Be careful when you pray in earnist for “God to return this country to you”, if the Bible is truely history and true, it tells us he did this multiple times with Israel, and the lessons almost always required a generation or more of famine, pestilance and/or slavery.
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I think they are “A” source of information, but far from the only source. There is a lot of money, science, intellect, etc behind them, but the same can be said of many “Health Care” corporations, entities and personnel (I’m an RN), and I have to say, the more I know, the less I trust, any of them.
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Tilling, is one of the worst things you can do if there is a compaction situation already.
As others have said, organic material, organic material, and more organic material. A good fix, is not a quick fix. Soil life (promoted by having living roots in the ground, and carbon to help feed them). Depending on the exact situation a sub-soiler / Yoeman’s type plow can help get some drainage going, break up some hardpan and help roots get deeper without mixing the soil. In many situations, it’s not a matter of ripping deep the first time, but just to and below the hardpan, or say if you get a hole or trench dug, just a bit below where the current root mass stops, then a year or so later, do it again a bit deeper.
Also, simply ripping may not be the right way, if water needs to be moved, doing it on or slightly off the contour helps use those rips, to move the water. Research Keyline design, Darren Doherty, Gabe Brown, Ray Archuleta and others.
Essentially, your goal is to create soil, and that really doesn’t happen from the surface up, but from the surface down, as life, supported by organic material (carbon) converts whatever is there (clay, sand …) to “soil”
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I’ve looked at them, both homemade and a commercial one. One commercial outfit has a version that integrates a toilet into the system. The possible advantage there for me, in Arkansas, is, Arkansas officially requires any “composting” toilet to have a certain certification, and there’s only one brand I know with it, and of course, it’s the highest priced one. However, a “biogas” toilet wouldn’t technically be a “composting” toilet so that restriction could be argued as not applying.
My main hesitancy is the storage of the gas. I may not use a lot of gas for cooking, heating and the like, and wouldn’t want it to just be wasted, while I have seen some videos of people compressing it into a container, I’ve got just enough common sense to know, compressing a flammable gas, with a non-intrinsically safe pump designed for such, is a couple of steps past “hold my beer” territory.
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Teaching myself Arduino programming. This is a simple temperature sensor, the foundation of possible future projects.
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I don’t like “new” cast iron as they all have that texture on them (for holding the anti-rusting pre-seasoning) spray. I want mine smooth. I really only use 1 or 2 pans, and have more than that, not sure I’ll ever need a new one.
That said, if I have to strip and re-season, I may use the same thing I usually cook with, lard. Now I am pretty picky about running the hot pan under water, chain mail to clean, heat to dry, thin layer of lard, pan upside down til I see the first hint of smoke, then turn off the burner and let it cool.
If only, I can get my father to get it through his head, this is cast iron, not teflon and please don’t use plastic spatula’s.
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This reminds me of a story, many may have heard a version of:
Once a man was sitting under a tree, fishing with a pole.
Up walks one known for being “successful” in the community. He asks the man why he is fishing with only one pole, rather than 2 or more.
The fisherman responds “why would I want to do that?”
“Well, to catch more fish of course”
“And why would I do that”
“with more fish, you could sell some and buy a net”
“and why would I do that”
“to catch even more fish, sell them, and buy a net”“and why would I do that”
“Och! to catch even more fish, sell them, and buy boats”
and so it went until he had would have a fleet of boats and fishermen working for him.Finally, the successful man said, “all this, so that you can relax and do what you wish!”
To which the fisherman said.. “but I’m doing that now”
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Wow. how much disk space does this site have?
—————————————————In no particular order
Finding the Mother Tree – Gaining at least an insight into the importance of not clear-cutting, that trees actually talk to each other, alert each other and actually feed each other via the fungal partners. To the degree they appear to help other species of trees and can not only recognize others of the same species, but appear to be able to “recognize” their own progeny, and are able to divert more to those than others.
The Black Swan – gaining an insight into the fact that many, if not most of the really revolutionary changes in society, could not have been truly predicted, and remembering, there are no “known” things in science, one data point can blow what is “known” out of the water. for instance, it was once “known” that all swans are white…. until someone found a black swan.
Food: A cultural Culinary History
Dirt (by David R. Montgomery”
Gaining Ground (Forrest Pritchard)
Locally Laid (Lucie B Amundsen)
The Hidden Half of Nature (David R. Montgomery)
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral ( Barbara Kingsolver)
Farmacology (Daphne Miller MD)
The Unsettling of America ( Wendell Berry)
The Social History of Agriculture (Christopher Isett)
Defending Beef ( Nicolette Hahn Niman)
Weapons of Mass Instruction & Dumbing us Down (John Taylor Gatto)
The Dirty Life ( Kristin Kimball)
Water for any Farm (Mark Shepard)
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And that’s just a portion from my phone’s Audible library. I’ve got well over a hundred books on there
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This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by Hippocrates_Garden.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by
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Up near the top, would have to be a total classic (in many ways), Robinson Crusoe.
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agreed, honest conversation and “argument” (in the proper definition of the word) is one of the things sorely lacking today. As a teen, I was known as the one at church that would ask questions and challenge, no so much for a specific answer, but to gauge how quickly the person would get angry and begin interjecting emotion into the “argument”, as it was a sure sign of how deep or wide of a foundation their house was built upon. One firmly and completely rooted, fears no wind, and yet remains flexible enough to make adjustments as needed.
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It used to be said “to be truly educated, one must travel” (of course that likely referred to those wealthy enough to do so. )
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I think the terminology is a bit of a distraction, it’s not a matter of “More” vs “less”, but of an appropriate amount that fully encompasses the cost of production and distribution vs an artificial price, be that artificially low or high. Believing the price of non-essential consumer goods at Wallyworld or Amazon is first of all appropriate (not even going into essential or not) and where the comparisons should begin reminds me of all the myriad ways to skew perception from a simple statistical chart. It is likely that the higher cost of the locally produced good should be the starting point, and anything less, especially that has traveled half a globe to get here should be suspect, both in quality and means of production. Not only that but the old adage that a dollar spent locally, at least used to, circulate multiple times before leaving the local economy doing much more good than a dollar that goes straight to Bentonville, AR to the Walton’s private fortune. And that’s just the actual fiscal effects.
Of course, that is an ideal, and few of us, especially myself live that way. Partially because some things just are not produced “locally”, depending on how you define that (community, county, country, continent?) I’m awaiting quotes for components for a fairly substantial solar system. Not a screw, wire or battery is produced even in my state (at least I’m going European Victron rather than Asian manufacture despite whose plastic label is on the front).
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Just depends on how large the area is, and how much work you want to do. I have two, startted with a Bully and then went to a Meadow Creature as the bully bent too easy. many people don’t want to do that much work.
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I do find it a bit odd (not really), that when it comes to home food preservation, the powers that be are so concerned about mitigating any and all possible danger, the criterion being, if it’s even mildly possible it could be dangerous, ban it, while at the same time re: all the chemicals and “-cides”, its assumed safe until there is enough overwhelming evidence to the contrary, which of course never appears until enough profits have been made and after the patent protections expire.
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More than one EpiPen needs to be at hand, and the correct one for the person (child or adult depending on body weight), sometimes one injection will help but may need to be repeated. It also likely needs to be accompanied by diphenhydramine (Benedryl) as they do two different things.
anytime an EpiPen is used, call 911 anyway, and be able to tell the medic when the sting (or ingestion of allergen) occurred to the best of your ability, when and how many Epi’s were used (keep them so they can check it activated and not expired), and if Benedryl was administered, how much, by what route and when.
Anyone at risk of Anaphylactic shock should discuss this in detail with their primary care provider for their suggestions, for their specific allergy(ies).
As a sometime beekeeper, I kept Epi’s and Benedryl at hand even though I’m not allergic. 1) it could creep up without warning or 2) someone else that is allergic, but unprepared could be stung, as the beekeeper I felt it my duty to be prepared, in case.