Monkeyfister

Timely...



These Young Knives are pretty OK.



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Because we all wanted to know...

The launch and effect...


Flyaway Pig!!!


Waters: "That's my pig!"



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Pine Belt Progressive.

My blog neighbor to the south, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

We promote an end to the occupation of Iraq on the first Wednesday of every month, 12-1 p.m.

We Drink Liberally

We seek to cover local and state news which does not receive adequate coverage in the big media, and we encourage readers to send us tips for stories.

We encourage real-world networking and local activism among Southern liberals and progressives.

We encourage and support the development of a lefty blogging community in Mississippi, Alabama, and the Southern U.S.

Gene really lives up to his promise, and works hard to organize and keep the region turning Blue. Count me in.


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Labels: Say Hello, Southern News, The Blogohood

Rob Hopkins has posted Richard Heinberg's new presentation on creating Resilient Communities in these hard Post-Peak times...

via Transition Culture

A while ago I wrote about Richard Heinberg’s main presentation at the Findhorn Positive Energy course, which introduced his idea of Resilient Communities Action Plans. His talk has just been posted ontoYouTube and you can see it below;

Part 1...



Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

There is more at the link.


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Labels: Peak Everything, Richard Heinberg

This is a great idea from Sharon Astyk.


via Casaubon's Book

We the people, in order to form a more perfect union of human and nature, establish justice and ensure food sovreignty, provide for the common nutrition, promote the general welfare and ensure the blessings of liberty, for ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this constitution for the United Food Sovereign People of the World.

;-).

I’ve never really run a challenge before on this blog, but I thought I’d start one - the Independence Days challenge! We’re already sort of doing this over at the food storage group (if you want to subscribe send an email to sharonfoodstorage-subscribe@yahoogroups.com), but I thought I’d bring it here, because I think it is a thing worth struggling for.

I challenge myself and all of you to work on creating food Independence Days this year - that all of us try to do one thing every day to create Food Independence. That means in each day or week, we would try to:

1. Plant something. Obviously, those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere and having spring are doing this anyway. But the idea that you should plant all week and all year is a good reminder to those of us who sometimes don’t get our fall gardens or our succession plantings done regularly. Remember, that beet you harvested left a space - maybe for the next one to get bigger, but maybe for a bit of arugula or a fall crop of peas, or a cover crop to enrich the soil. Independence is the bounty of a single seed that creates an abundance of zucchini, and enough seeds to plant your own garden and your neighbor’s.

2. Harvest something. From the very first nettles and dandelions to the last leeks and parsnips I drag out of the frozen ground, harvest something from the garden or the wild every day you can. I can’t think of a better way to be aware of the bounty around you to realize that there’s something - even if it is dandelions for tea or wild garlic for a salad - to be had every single day. Independence is really appreciating and using the bounty that we have.

3. Preserve something. Sometimes this will be a big project, but it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t take long to slice a couple of tomatoes and set them on a screen in the sun, or to hang up a bunch of sage for winter. And it adds up fast. The time you spend now is time you don’t have to spend hauling to the store and cooking later. Independence is eating our own, and cutting the ties we have to agribusiness.

4. Prep something. Hit a yard sale and pick up an extra blanket. Purchase some extra legumes and oatmeal. Sort out and inventory your pantry. Make a list of tools you need. Find a way to give what you don’t need to someone who does. Fix your bike. Fill that old soda bottle with water with a couple of drops of bleach in it. Plan for next year’s edible landscaping. Make back-road directions to your place and send it to family in case they ever need to come to you - or make ‘em for yourself for where you might have to go. Clean, mend, declutter, learn a new skill. Independence is being ready for whatever comes.

5. Cook something. Try and new recipe, or an old one with a new ingredient. Sometimes it is hard to know what to do with all that stuff you are growing or making. So experiment now. Can you make a whole meal in your solar oven? How are stir-fried pea shoots? Stuffed squash blossoms? Wild morels in pasta? Independence is being able to eat and enjoy what is given to us.

6. Manage your reserves. Check those apples and take out the ones starting to go bad and make sauce with it. Label those cans. Clean out the freezer. Ration the pickles, so you’ll have enough to last to next season. Use up those lentils before you take the next ones out of the bag. Find some use for that can of whatever it is that’s been in the pantry forever. Sort out what you can donate, and give it to the food pantry. Make sure the squash are holding out. Independence means not wasting the bounty we have.

7. Work on local food systems. This could be as simple as buying something you don’t grow or make from a local grower, or finding a new local source. It could be as complex as starting a coop or a farmer’s market, creating a CSA or a bulk store. You might give seeds or plants or divisions to a neighbor, or solicit donations for your food pantry. Maybe you’ll start a guerilla garden or help a homeschool coop incubate some chicks. Maybe you’ll invite people over to your garden, or your neighbors in for a homegrown meal, or sing the praises of your local CSA. Maybe you can get your town to plant fruit or nut producing street trees or get a manual water pump or a garden put in at your local school. Whatever it is, our Independence days come when our neighbors and the people we love are food secure too.

More of of this essay, and much more, at the link.

Cool. Now, I have something to keep me on schedule and fully motivated, and a bit of a better format for the Garden Updates!


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Labels: Food Independence Challenge 2008, Food Security

Well said.

via Hoffmania!

I want my president to be the brightest, the smartest, the most imaginative, the classiest, the best person we can muster. I'll take them as big and as brainy as they can get.

I'm sick of stupid presidents.
I'm sicker of presidents who pretend to be stupider than they really are.
I'm sick of presidents who try too hard not to be presidential.

I want a president I can be proud of.

I like the idea of a president who has worked directly with the streets.
I like the idea of that person having been there.
I can live with them enjoying arugula today.

I want a goddamn president.
Not a bowling buddy.
Not a drinking buddy.
Not a hunting buddy.
Not a poker buddy.
Not someone who will put on figurative pair of overalls to show how folksy they are.
I want a president.

It's a white collar job.
They will travel in limos.
They will travel the world.
They will meet with foreign heads of state.
They better not embarrass us by acting stupid.

More at the link...


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Labels: 2008 Election

Oh, WOW!!! This is pure brilliance. One guy, a bunch of different instruments, a suite of sample and sequence software, and a whole lotta sampling mics...

This was recorded live in one take, every sample recorded real-time.




It really IS incredible. Messed-up title, but, for craftsmanship, and musicianship, I'd send it to the top-ten with a rocket.

But, whadda I know?


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Mr. Popularity.
















Bonus Cheney Edition of Vanity Fair!!!





















My eyes! BLEACH-- Stat!

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Labels: George W Bush

Hm. Seems like it wouldn't take up too much space. It would fit nicely in the back corner of a satellite student parking lot.

via Baltimore Sun

Posted May 1, 2008 2:00 PM

by Mark Silva

Hope springs eternal among opponents of the proposed George W. Bush Presidential Libary at Southern Methodist University, with the general conference of the Methodist Church this week voting overwhelmingly to refer a petition for the library's rejection to the South Central jurisdiction of the church which owns the university property.

"I hereby petition the UMC General Conference to prevent leasing, selling, or otherwise participating in or supporting the presidential library for George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University,'' a petitioner from South Carolina wrote. "We should support separation of church and state, and if the Bush library goes on the SMU campus or property it will appear to the country and the world as an endorsement of that president by the United Methodist Church.

"Texas is a big state,'' petitioner Diane Smock of Greenville, S.C., wrote. "Surely there are other venues.''

The conference's committee on Ministry and Higher Education voted 51-5 to refer it to the full conference, and the conference voted yesterday by 844-20 to refer it to the jurisdiction that controls the Dallas-based university. That jurisdiction plans a meeting in July.

"They're going to be forced to allow a vote here,'' says the Rev. Andrew Weaver, a Methodist, research psychologist and anti-war activist who is among the opponents of the library. "There will be a real vote here.''

It's not so much the library, as the research institute attached to it, that opponents are protesting. They warn that the think tank, to be dedicated to the study of the policies of the 43rd president, will besmirch the reputation of an independent university.

The university's leaders are welcoming the library, and the Bush library foundation has formally selected SMU for the facility and already hired an architect.

Hat Tip to cgreen.


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Labels: Bush Legacy, George W Bush Presidential Library

Dmitry Orlov lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union, and has been analyzing the differences between America's infrastructure, with the Soviet's system. He has a book coming out soon, called Reinventing Collapse.

In the essay excerpted below, he discusses how the Soviet people dealt with food, and compares it with how we Americans treat food. He has a wicked wry sense of humor.

via Club Orlov

Up to the middle of the 19th century, the Russian empire operated something vaguely analogous to the plantation system in the old South, with an ever more distant, French-speaking nobility presiding over a multitude of illiterate, Russian-speaking serfs. Based on a more humane serfdom rather than outright slavery, it bound peasants to the land, giving the landowner control over its use and nominal responsibility for their welfare. As the 19th century wore on, the imperial throne found the perpetuation of serfdom increasingly embarrassing to its international prestige as a leading European power, and so, in 1861, less than a month before the outbreak of the American Civil War, serfdom was abolished by imperial decree, without any bloodshed and without any serious detriment to agricultural production. Some peasants were gradually able to acquire their own land, and by the early 20th century the more fertile parts of Russia and the Ukraine had many prosperous farming families. Pre-Revolutionary Russia was, by all accounts, a well-fed place.

Then came the man-made disaster, known as collectivization, the results of which can be plainly visible to this day to anyone who travels through rural Russia and the surrounding lands. The epicenter of this disaster is central Russia, and the further out one travels — to the Baltic states or to Western Ukraine — the less one sees of its enduring devastation. It is as if a series of plagues had swept through the land, leaving poverty and desolation in its wake. Under the revolutionary slogan “All land to the people!” the prosperous farming families were labelled as the class enemy and persecuted. Grain, including seed grain, was confiscated to feed the starving cities. The result was starvation in the countryside and a collapsing rural population. In place of the prosperous family farms, collective farms were organized, once again binding peasants to the land, but without the benefit of the old church-bound feudal traditions. The introduction of mechanized farm machinery, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and “scientific” farming methods did little to forestall the disaster: the best farmers were either dead or had escaped to the cities. Despite much government effort and some wildly creative solutions, such as attempts at broadcasting seeds using rockets, agricultural production never fully recovered, because fixing the problem involved undoing collectivization and this was not politically advisable.

Another thing not politically advisable was neglecting to feed the people. In particular, all areas at all times had to be supplied with bread, which, more than any other staple, was symbolic of the covenant between the Communist government and the subservient masses. Bread riots, which could not be repressed and could only be quelled by a serendipitous delivery of bread, struck fear into the heart of every local Communist functionary. To make such a scenario unlikely, there were local food stockpiles in every city, stocked according to a government allocation scheme, and staples such as bread were almost always available. And while the quality of other government-supplied food was sometimes questionable, the bread was always excellent — a reflection of its symbolic importance. But the right to be fed did not necessarily extend beyond the basic carbohydrates, especially in the outlying areas. Moscow was always the best-supplied city, with Leningrad a distant second, while in many provincial towns the store shelves were mostly bare except for bread, vodka and a few varieties of canned foods, and whenever some scarce item, such as sausage, suddenly appeared, lines would instantly form until it was sold out. Shopping was rather labor intensive, and involved carrying heavy loads. Sometimes it resembled hunting — stalking that elusive piece of meat lurking behind some store counter.

Shortly before the Soviet Union’s collapse, it became known informally that the ten percent of farmland allocated to kitchen gardens (in meager tenth of a hectare plots) accounted for some 90 percent of domestic food production. During and after the economic collapse, with the government stores quite uncontaminated by food, and often closed altogether, these plots became lifesavers for many families. The summer of 1990 particularly stands out in my mind: it was the summer when we ate nothing but rice (imported), zucchini (grown by us) and fish (from a local lake, caught by some neighbors).

The dismal state of Soviet agriculture turned out to be paradoxically beneficial in fostering a kitchen garden economy, which helped Russians to survive the collapse. Russians always grew some of their own food, and scarcity of high-quality produce in the government stores kept the kitchen garden tradition going during even the more prosperous times of the 60s and the 70s. After the collapse, these kitchen gardens turned out to be lifesavers. What many Russians practiced, either through tradition or by trial and error, or sheer laziness, was in some ways akin to the new organic farming and permaculture techniques. Many productive plots in Russia look like a riot of herbs, vegetables, and flowers growing in wild profusion. In the waning years of the Soviet era, the kitchen garden economy continued to gain in importance. Beyond underscoring the gross inadequacies of Soviet-style command and control industrial agriculture, the success of the private kitchen gardens is indicative of a general fact: agriculture is far more efficient when it is carried out on a small scale, using manual labor.

More at the link.


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Labels: Collapse, Food, Food Security

It doesn't really matter WHERE you garden. Perhaps your elderly neighbor, or a nearby friend will let you garden their yard(s). Perhaps there's a buy-in Community Garden plot-- DO IT-- and help pay for the water if need-be. If you garden smartly, what you grow will easily pay for itself versus rising store prices.

Square Foot Gardening.com

You don't really need the box frames. Your grid can be lines drawn in the dirt. Raised-beds. Square-foot. Vertical vining things. Plant at "thin-to" spacings. Keep pole beans away from everything but corn. Plant radishes with cukes, squashes, and melons, and let them go to seed. Soaker hose or drip irrigation if you can score it.

Lots of composts and manures.

That's all you need to know. Try to plant something every growing day. Make a new place. Experiment. Eat.



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Labels: Gardening

A rat's big adventure...






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You'll notice that they regularly do this song "Old School Projection" style. Totally acoustic.

I remember when I was a youngster doing Summer Stock Theatre, back when there WAS NO Stage Sound Reinforcement. No body mics. The Assistant Stage Manager would sit in the back row of the balcony, and shout, "LOUDER!!!" to boost our line delivery... from the DIAPHRAGM!!!

This is a really nice recording, all things considered, of a very lovely song.




DAMN, those are two of the oddest, and sweetest voices together. Harmonies like that should mandatory.

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Live... and all purty like.




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I'm close to rolling over 100,000 unique visits!

Damn. I'd better start writing some posts that are worth a shit...

That's somewhere between two and three weeks from now, by regular standards.

Whatta ya want to know about?

Does manually pinging Technorati help any more than automatic PING? Anyone?


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Labels: My Life As It Is, The Blogohood, This Here Site

I smoked a joint with him once-- just him and I, out on a boat dock, at Interlochen Arts Academy (where Jewel, and John Tesh came from).

We talked about fishing. I was sitting there, fixing to light up, and he surprised me.

Surprise Willie: "What fish do you catch out here on Green Lake?"

Me: "!!!"

Once I caught my breath, I told him, “Some Bass, Yellow Perch, Crappie, Bluegill (Brim, in SouthernSpeak), Walleye, Trout and Muskellunge,” while he sat down next to me. We introduced. “Let’s smoke” was fully implied. He didn’t know what Walleye, Yellow Perch, or Muskellunge were. He was honestly and earnestly interested in the fish in Green Lake. He bummed an American Spirit cigarette from me. We talked like old neighbors– he was just “Willie from up the street,” as far as that moment was concerned– just talkin’ fishing and smokin’ like ol’ times. It was quite an odd and fine experience. I’m sure that John Amato, and Mike Finnigan, and Don Waller have stories to tell that are just as good.

Willie Nelson is one of the finest, freest Americans I've ever met.

God Bless You, Willie Nelson.


Here's Willie singing Rainbow Connection. (embedding disabled by request, dammit.) It's so amazingly excellent to just go ahead and click that link right there... Thank me later. OMG it is something that good. With Mommies, and kids, and a wide open park, and oh-- just click and love on some Willie tonight!


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Labels: American Values, Happy Birthday, Willie Nelson

Two weeks ago, we had our workplace PCs replaced with G5 Macs. I sort of like the Mac interface, and it's a bit more intuitive for doing graphics work. For that, I actually like the system. HOWEVER-- there was something terribly wrong with the box that I received, wherein, it would not retain certain very important ADMIN permissions commands, and as a result, I've not been able to connect to our servers to access work files for the past ten work days. The couple of people who should have been helping to work this through were busy dealing with the mechanics of the new servers, and didn't have time to devote to brainstorming the situation. Meanwhile, my workload and deadlines were piling up. But, this isn't about a bad Mac experience.

I have Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE), and pressure and frustrations of this sort usually are not good for me-- typically resulting in my TLE clicking in, a slew of nasty language coming out of my mouth, and ending in a full-bore grand-mal seizure. But, this isn't about epilepsy, either-- it's about avoiding it, in fact.

So, yesterday, I handed all of my work tickets in to my manager, and a Leave Slip for yesterday afternoon and all of today to my Division Head, saying that I can't complete them with a messed up machine, and I walked out, asking for my old PC back, fully mapped to usable servers when I returned on Thursday. Now, we're getting down to what this is about...

I got home at 12:30 in the afternoon, found my Income Tax return in the mailbox, and ordered up $150 worth of 2" x 8" lumber, and started building raised bed frames with a vengeance. Today, I put the weed-block fabric on the bottom of each frame, and moved them into place. I built another 4' x 16' full bed, two 4' x 8' beds, and two 2' x 8' beds, with lumber to spare.

Now, I have the vision that I've had in my head for a year now, actually physical and in place. I have the beginning of what is going to be a nice little path of garden beds leading down to the larger garden, and beginning to branch off to what's about to be the start of the orchard project between my neighbor's house and my own. Each of the boxes is placed to stop, harvest, and/or deflect rain water runoff from the downspouts. I can already see the boxes filled with dirt, and sporting beautiful vining plants, fragrant flowers and herbs, and a host of fruits and vegetables lining my way down to the five 4' x 16' full-production beds. I need to find a good deal on rain barrels badly.

I can't wait to start throwing dirt into the boxes, and getting stuff planted, starting Friday.

End o' the story: My Division Head called me today, and told me that when I come in tomorrow, my trusty ol' Alienware PC will be waiting for me, fully mapped, and all the software updated. I really like my new Division Head-- he understands the nature of my two types of Epilepsy, and is also an avid hunter, and damned decent human being.

The moral of my little story is: Sometimes, when you're right about a situation, it pays to play a bit of hardball. I got what I needed at work, and put my gardenquest into high gear... My time was well-spent, and I got paid. It was a bit of a gamble, but, everyone involved knew that being away would be best for my health. Looking back on my epileptic history, especially last January, a bigger seizure usually follows spells of stress like this. Hopefully, I've re-directed that energy into all that physical work. Let's all knock on wood right now, eh? Now is just not a good time to get fishy. I've got way too much to get done.

BTW: That pic is a map of the slope contours that I made the week I moved in, last June with a piece of 2" x 2', a yardstick, and my ol' trusty laser sight, that I refused to sell in my "Stagehand's Goodies Sale" that I had before I moved down here, five-plus years ago. Each line is one-foot of slope. Now, the boxes stretch along those contours, and up to the deck.

Next steps: dirt; planting; irrigation hook-up; mulching the paths and beds to drive away the Bermuda Grass and other weeds; stepping pavers and ground-cover plantings on the paths.


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Labels: My Life As It Is

The creator of LSD-25 died in his home from a heart attack.

via UPI

BASEL, Switzerland, April 30 (UPI) -- Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, considered the the father of LSD, died Tuesday at his home in Basel, Switzerland, at the age of 102.

Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, said Hoffman died of a heart attack.

Hofmann first synthesized the compound lysergic acid diethylamide in 1938 and discovered the drug's psychopharmacological effects five years later when he accidentally took the substance, The New York Times reported. He went on to take LSD hundreds of times the newspaper said.

He said that LSD is a valuable psychiatry tool but was disturbed by the use of LSD for entertainment, the newspaper said. Hofman told psychiatrist Stanislav Grof in 1984 that LSD experience made him "aware of the wonder of creation, the magnificence of nature and of the animal and plant kingdom."

As Avedon says: "I think the funeral procession should have lots of bicycles." I couldn't agree more...

Dr. Hoffmann's Bike Ride:


Pink Floyd-- "Bike"...


Queen-- "Bicycle Race"...



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Labels: LSD-25

Someone has been good enough to pay for continued hosting of Steve's great writing.

I posted every one of these for weeks a while back. This is essential reading, folks. Heavy, but essential. There is much in the Late Steve Kangas's writings that might be surprising, and some of his words might be provocative. But, what he has to say is none the less more important now, than when he wrote it. I read Steve's writings now, and then I look at where we are right now, and I just want to weep.

Read: Liberalism Resurgent

There's plenty.

I urge you to read:

Causes of the Great Depression:
--A Review of Keynesian Theory
--Events of the 1920s

The Great Depression:
--Timelines of the Great Depression
--Summary

Kangas was killed under very odd circumstances worthy of a Google search.

UPDATE: Fixed the links.



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Labels: Liberalism, Liberals, Steve Kangas

Never underestimate Devo. This song/video is 27 years old, childrens...

New music, and an '08 tour: via Club Devo



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When people laugh at me and my Peak Oil/post empire preparations, implying that we're just going through a little downturn, the BushConomy is awesome, and everything will bounce back, and MF-- you'll look a fool with all your gardens, and stores pantries, I am given to sum up my position thusly:

If you are right, and I am wrong, then the worst that can happen to me is that I've got no debts, save for STULOANs and my mortgage, an enormous and beautiful garden, and enough food and stuff to live off and share-- paid in advance at a cheaper price-- for a good while; but if I am right, and things go horribly awry, then the worst thing that can happen to you is the worst thing that can happen to you, with no recourse or ability to help yourself out of the situation.

Plant a BIG garden-- if you've got to rent land, or a community garden plot. For your and our future, plant a garden. Make friends with your neighbor, and encourage them to also garden.

Appreciate the knowledge of your elders. Learn old skills, and pass them on.



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Labels: Be Prepared, Collapse, Gardening, Old Skills, Your Grandparents

So, expect them to continue to ignore the disaster, and keep throwing more paper over the holes opening up everywhere in the economy, until it is too late. I find it interesting that the article says that "No one is sure whether the model works any more," and that "Wall Street executives and regulators study what went wrong," when the entire frame of the article, and the Corporate Executives they interviewed comes pretty close to positively identifying every point and perp so far. Everything up to the ultimate culprit: the intersection of a rising oil demand line, with a plateaued and/or declining oil supply line.

via Bloomberg

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street's money-making machine is broken, and efforts to repair it after the biggest losses in history are likely to undermine profits for years to come.

Citigroup Inc., UBS AG and Merrill Lynch & Co. are among the banks and securities firms that have posted $310 billion of writedowns and credit losses from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. They've cut 48,000 jobs and ousted four chief executive officers. The top five U.S. securities firms saw $110 billion of market value evaporate in the past 12 months.

No one is sure the model works anymore. While Wall Street executives and regulators study what went wrong, there is no consensus solution for restoring confidence. Under review are some of the motors that powered record earnings this decade -- leverage, off-balance-sheet investments, the business of repackaging assets into bonds through securitization, and over- the-counter trading of credit derivatives. Without them, it will be difficult to generate growth.

``Brokerages will have a tough time for a while,'' said Todd McCallister, a managing director at St. Petersburg, Florida-based Eagle Asset Management Inc., which oversees $14 billion. ``The main engine of its recent growth, securitization, will be curtailed. Regulation will be cranked up. Everything is stacked against them.''

Money shot:

The financial services sector, whose share of U.S. corporate profits almost doubled to 38 percent last year from 21 percent in 1994, may take a long time to recover, said Jeffrey Knight, deputy head of investments at Boston-based Putnam Investments, which oversees about $190 billion of assets.

``The financial sector is shrinking to a new equilibrium,'' Knight said. ``It's potentially decades before financial assets can garner so much of the nation's economy.''

Related:

via NYT: Loan Industry Fighting Rules on Mortgages

“As the Federal Reserve completes work on rules to root out abuses” by mortgage lenders, the mortgage industry “has begun an intensive campaign to fight back.” “[T]he industry’s criticism has already prompted the Fed to consider narrowing the scope of the plan so it applies to fewer loans.”(Quote via Think Progress

Am I over-reading the first article article (considering that I read the NYT article first, this morning), or is there a sense that to these people, collapse is more profitable, and potentially beneficial to them, instead of say, coming clean, paying fines, taking necessary losses, and submitting to regulation?

They obviously know the score, they understand what they have done to our country. They obviously understand what needs to be done, what they need to do, but it really seems to me that they will fight the fix to the bloody end. They are already starting.

Running through my head: The thought of some CEO thinking, "Maybe my company will be bought out by one of the biggies while we're on the way down!"

Also running through my head:
**I must not think bad thoughts... I must not think bad thoughts...**




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Labels: Collapse, Wall Street Casino, Wall Street Failure, Wall Street Motherfucking Criminals

Another busy period.

Finally! The hops boxes are all in, and filled, and the rhizomes-- which I've had in bags of dirt in the fridge-- are now planted. With my tax refund, I can now buy the 4"x4" posts, quickcrete, pipe and hardware that I'll need to make the trellis frames for the garden beds, and knowing that the hops are going to start growing fast, is quite a motivation.

Last weekend, I planted in all of the peppers and tomatoes, a couple of eggplant, with the first planting of bush beans around the eggplant, as just like potatoes, the beans keep the potato beetle off of them. I also planted in a bunch of basil, between the peppers and the tomatoes, and carrots between the tomatoes. The basil and carrots are just starting to sprout.

Tomatoes

Yellow Pear (2)
Beefsteak (6)
Roma (8)

Peppers

Green/Red Bells- (8)
Jalepeno- (4)
Salsa- (4)
Hungarian Hot Yellow Wax-(6)
Sweet Banana- (6)
Cayenne- (4)

In the Strawberry/Asparagus bed, I just harvested a bit of the first planting of radishes! Red Giants are SO tasty, and I like how they pop up out of the ground to tell you that they are ready! They are laying out in the rain, getting rinsed off. Next week, the first planting of the Icicle Radishes will be ready... Can't wait!
The spinach is finally coming into its own, and I've harvested enough to make up a nice salad, along with some of last year's stalwart Swiss Chard. I think I'll try a late fall planting of spinach while this bed is covered and greenhoused, to see if I can't get a faster spring harvest.
I haven't seen a lot of pollinators around, but the strawberries are in blossom, and a few of them have tiny berries starting-- good sign! ALL of the asparagus crowns are now sending up shoots and ferns with a vengeance. This time next year is going to be the height 'spargus eatin' time. I interplanted some beets into the asparagus, to provide a living mulch to keep out weeds, and the two are complimentary in other ways. This fills up the last six remaining squares around the asparagus-- the other 12 are planted in endive, red leaf lettuce, and Bright Lights Swiss Chard.

The snap peas are blossoming, and growing quickly up the twine trellises that I set up last weekend. As they are getting on well, I popped in a couple of cucumber seeds in each of the first three peas squares (planting #1, six plants). More intercropping. Just as the peas are getting spent out, the cucumbers will be just beginning to vine up the same strings. I'll just snip the peas and compost the vines, and leave the roots to nourish the cucumbers with their stored nitrogen. At the other end of the bed, I did the same thing with acorn squash amongst the spinach. Spinach doesn't last long at all down here, and will bolt in about a month, making room for the squash and cucumber vines. I also sprinkled in a few dill seeds, as they take little space, and grow will with everything in this surprisingly busy bed.

I just harvested my first batch of Spring Broccoli! I never planted spring broccoli before, and so I wasn't really prepared to be eating it so soon! I snipped a few heads off Thursday night, and today, there are two new heads popping up on those plants. So, I harvested up a bunch more today.

Next up on the list-- SWEET CORN! Also, pole beans, more squashes, kohlrabi, and more beans, carrots, beets, and potatoes-- which are just sprouting now!

Oh jeeze.. I really HAVE been busy. I forgot about the water irrigation system. Using a shovel, over the past four days, I've trenched out, and buried 150' of 3/4" pipe to fit up a mains water supply for the drip and soaker hose irrigation. It runs out to the middle of the four beds, where I dug up a 2'x2'x8" square hole. This morning I bought all the parts and bits to finish the job. It's not completely done, but the hole is now my well-house. I put down a layer of pea gravel and sand on the bottom, and then set in some bricks along the sides, leaving gaps at the corners for the bed hoses. So, the pipe comes in through a tight hole in a brick, and ends in a 4-way brass spigot, with an end cap for future expansion. The whole thing is capped by a 2'x2' paver square, so it's about even with the ground-- a little tall to accommodate the eventual mulching, the paths will get. Eventually, I'll switch over to rain barrels. I've got to find a CHEAP source for rain barrels first.

The strawberry/asparagus bed was my experimental bed, working out how various set-ups distribute the water, just using a hose, and some cheap adapter fittings. This would have been quicker and easier, had I just rented a little motorized trenching tool, but, I really need the exercise. By Friday, weather-permitting, I'll have all four beds set-up with irrigation, and bed #1 will be ready for seeding and transplanting!

Tonight, I'll be having a Cornish Game Hen, with spring broccoli; lemon rice garden-herbed with parsley, oregano and a tiny pinch of fresh rosemary; and a salad of swiss chard and spring spinach with fresh radishes, and fresh sweet green onions.

Hmmm... I think I'll break out a nice white wine.


Grow your own-- life's better that way!


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Labels: Food Security, Gardening

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I have to say that the almanac is fairly accurate. Particularly, when it says days of rot-- they mean it. I copy the almanac info into my gardening calendar/journal, and definitely take note of how seeds germinate based on when they were planted. Seeds I have sown during rot days usually show a less than 50% germination rate.

via The Farmers' Almanac

May 2008

1-2 Favorable time for planting late root crops. Also good for vine crops that can be planted now. Set strawberry plants.

3-4 Poor planting. Fine for cultivating or spraying.

5-6 Favorable for planting beans, corn, cotton, tomatoes, peppers and other above ground crops.

7-9 Any seed planted now will tend to rot.

10-11 Most favorable for corn, cotton, okra, beans, peppers, eggplant and other above ground crops. Plant seedbeds and flower gardens.

12-16 A barren period. Good for killing plant pests, cultivating or taking a short vacation.

17-18 Excellent time for planting corn, beans, peppers and other above ground crops. Good time for sowing hay, fodder crops and grains. Plant flowers.

19-21 Plant carrots, beets, onions, turnips and other root crops at this time. Cabbage, lettuce and other leafy vegetables will do well. Plant seed beds.

22-23 Do no planting.

24-25 Plant late beets, potatoes, onions, carrots and other root crops.

26-27 Kill plant pests on these barren days.

28-29 Favorable time for planting late root crops. Also good for vine crops that can be planted now. Set strawberry plants.

30-31 Poor planting, fine for cultivating or spraying.

Enjoy!


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Labels: Gardening