Life of Riley

My other projects...

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:20:10 -0500

It's getting harder to find excuses to post here as I've been much downtrodden by the Summer solstice bout of ill health.

I reckon I need to simply sign off on most of January, February and March each year and go some where and sit out the health issues that every year bear down upon me.

I tend as a compensation to get caught up in the sedentary prospects offered by web activities as they are within my gambit when little else is for a good part of this period.

To some degree you lose it and it isn't a time to make decisions.

Now, touch keyboard, I'm through the worst of it. The coincidence of Summer and the end of the drought here has not been kind to me.

So elsewhere there is motion fro me on the web, but LOR here has fallen behind as it is more intimate than these other places.

But if you want to catch up with the remake check out my TiddlyWiki.

The irony is that despite how desperately handicapped I've been I've clocked up more "steps" during March than anytime before.
This logs the sort of determination I've been working on and the amount of exercise I've been investing to try to hold my physical deterioration at bay.

To do that a lot of effort is involved. so in effect I've had to approach athletic training mode. Thats' the level of my present desperation. Peking or bust!

But check out the TiddlyWiki and my other web projects -- I may be sedentary but they're moving.

NOTE TO SELF: Don't plan anything --I mean anything! -- between January and April each and every year.

Million Milestones Progress

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:57:20 -0600

I've just notched up 3 million steps in my 10,000 steps program.

Start Date:	24th May 2007
Progress steps:	3,000,523 (over 243 days, 243 with steps entries)
Your next milestone:	4 million steps
Remaining steps:	999,477 steps
Your average steps per day:	12,348
Your next milestone projected date:	12th April 2008

It keeps you truckin....

Pond, garden, woomery, chooks...bringing it all together

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

The great advantage with working on several projects at once is that you can draw them together as you fiddle.

Here at mainson d'dave we're at a stage where we can begin to join the dots.

All this is simply an exercise in sustainability relative to urban living and I'm not advocating it as a social standard. However, I have these elements I've constructed over the last few months:

A pond
A vegetable garden
A wormery
A chook pen - with chooks of course

Once you start following the logic of one element it suggests the ecological relevance of the other.

Here are a few samples:

I harvest from the pond algae and pond plants and deploy them as mulch on the garden
Since I also use the pond as a reservoir for rain water I bucket the water from the pond to water the vegetable garden.
The wormery also grows maggots ( dealt with by frequent dustings of lime) but I serve up the maggots bon appetit to the chooks.(How to harvest a maggot: soak sliced bread in milk. Next day remove bread and its occupants).
I harvest the vegetables -- of course --and the off cuts go to the wormery or the chooks.

I've yet to harvest much of the organic matter in the wormery but after experimenting with standard compost bin I think I prefer wormeries to composting -- although I may process the mash from the wormery through the compost bin as a finishing off . While you wait for that to kick in worms give you buckets of worm tea as a fertilizer.

So if you want to go organic -- think worms. They make great pets too! (If you are hard up for friends).

Chooks --bantams in our case -- are pet types too. But you could circumvent the chook route if you had the worms. That's' primarily because of space issues and the fact you have to purchase chook feed -- which isn't cheap. The eggs are nice of course (but they will be dearer in the end than the supermarket's).

But I think the axis of the system I'm coming at is three core elements:

Water: pond to capture rainwater; grow water plants; keep fish...and maybe swim in.
Garden: to grow stuff. Herbs first then salad greens and tomatoes plus your other culinary preferences.
Worms: Takes a bit of learning to get right and this is my second attempt. But once you get it just so -- its factory production thereafter and an easy routine.

My major interest now is to explore the potential of the water I have. What can I harvest from this body of water? How can I use it?

It's becoming the axis of everything -- the life source in fact. So you learn to respect the H20.

My general point would be -- here in Australia at least -- that if we could integrate dams and ponds and lagoons into our local urban environment as a form of water/rain harvesting the dynamic unleashed would be significant. Such water catchments need to be manged, of course. There are problems like pollution, mosquitoes, safety & access , etc that need to be considered and dealt with. But rather than treat them as something au natural and picturesque -- as your modern day water front housing estate does --you deploy them as motors driving the local ecology and, inasmuch as it takes off, local agricultural production. Bodies of water are also great micro climate moderators.

Similarly if each locality had its own worm farm -- bye bye garbage.All you'd need would be a committee and maybe a full time caretaker who supervised water and worm issues: the local neighbourhood ecologist attending to environmental health and practices. And across the urban landscape -- a network of these.

Hey! That sounds just right. I should turn it into a political demand!

You could also monitor local carbon emissions that way so that you could build up a statistical grid or map plotting the whole urban area.

Chook Life

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

It's time for my monthly vegetable update. And in the accompanying slideshow we here celebrate the inclusion of a freshly laid chook tractor.

And with the importation of two bantams -- laying age. Both Wyandotte

WYANDOTTE - Developed in North America from may other breeds, its name is derived from the American Indian tribe, Wy-an-dot.

So the 'system' --such as it is -- is coming together in an integrated way as chook poo is all the rage when one goes Permacultural like.

The best thing about the garden so far are the tomatoes and the salad greens. (I'll review the plantings at a later time....)

Also of interest is the fact that my worm farm is also a maggot farm. Thats' not my plan of course but I am growing maggots in my wormery. These can be captured by hand or by soaking bread in milk and leaving it inside the wormery on a saucer. When one has a surfeit of maggots one feeds the wrigglers to the chooks with as much sadistic glee as one can muster...

Liming the worm farm will also reduce maggots but I haven't got rid of them yet (and besides I get so much pleasure out of watching the chooks slaughter maggots that I'd miss the feeding ritual if I without the fly larvae)

Pond life

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

I've been off in cyberspace doing stuff hither and yon these last epoch of measurable time and have thus been distracted by matters out of my control -- a federal election being oner of them.

Now as the year edges to its precipice to fall over into another maybe recap is in order here at maison d'ave.

Home projects:Pondage

The domestic pond has been a great interest for me and mine.I'll share more recent photographs at another occasion. But the cusp of my pasion has ben the relationship between Azolla and algae.

Here are two images of Azolla from the great blog,Gaia and Ecology.
Azolla (mosquito fern, duckweed fern, fairy moss, water fern) is a genus of seven species of aquatic ferns, the only genus in the family Azollaceae. They are extremely reduced in form and specialized, looking nothing like conventional ferns but more resembling duckweed or some mosses.

You could lose yourself in the properties and potentials of Azolla and duckweeds in way of agricultural utility, water purification and carbon sequestration. Wow! Exciting stuff!

Azolla has trouble surviving in my pond so I'm trying to solve the problem. The fish eat it by nibbling at the "roots" but I wonder if I have a Phosphorus issue.

The related topic is the relationship between Azolla and the pond's algae --especially as Azolla is symbiotic and blue-green alga Anabaena azollae, which fixes atmospheric nitrogen, giving the plant access to the essential nutrient. So is this a plus or minus given that there is some suggestion that Azolla will often take up its Nitrogen from the air rather than the waters on which it floats?

You tell me and we'll both know...

Another exciting feature of the pond now is that I ran a hose off one of the roof downpipes so everytime it rains the pond is topped up. I'm planning to orchestrate this exercise as one would a farm dam and use it collect and store water for general , at least, garden use. The logic is good as any body of water should have its volume displaced occasionally and in fish aquaculture that recommended figure is a massive 10% per day. Since I am not creating anywhere that level of ammonia or nitrates I think I have some leeway.

When you embark on a pondage habits there are many eddies on your way and it's easy to see that I will be addicted the topic and hobby of collecting and understanding native water plants. The range is fascinating and the first thing to learn is what's indigenous and what's not -- and among the latter especially, what's a weed!

Is Azolla? In the life aquatic there are many conundrums....

Azolla covering the Canning River

Nudgee Waterholes

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

The main game is to head off as many mornings as I can in a north eastery direction. Down my suburban street, across the Cannery Creek foot bridge; past the Golden Circle ("pineapple")Cannery; climb the Banyo Hill; pass the high school and Catholic University; along the cemetery to the Nudgee Waterholes.

Voila!

There I dismount; cast a weathered eye across the water to note the water lilly blooms and water birds; check to see if the turtles are rushing up to me --as they inevitably do -- do a circuit of the lake by circumventing the bora ring*

Read more....

Fish complications

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

Two stripped skinks (like as pictured left)got into one of my small ponds and ate my two Rainbows today. One of the fish I retrieved half eaten and I had to capture the two reptiles in my net to expel them from the environs.

What to do?

Maybe if I employed the Baby Blue Eye form -- only, I'd give these fish a fighting chance up against this reptiles.

Making a natural swimming pool and aquacultural waterhole

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

Today I finally attacked the natural swimming pool project with considered success within my reach.

I had been dealing with a major water quality problem but after I not only got plants but also Creek Guppies to live in my adjusted water I am now ready to proceed.

The main task is to generate enough plant life to cover one half of the pond surface area. This is the quotient that will purportedly ecologically cleanse the water of nitrates and algae. Because of our situation in the sub tropics I will also need to add fish -- probably a variety of Australian Rainbows -- to combat mosquito breeding. Rainbows are voracious mossie hunters and are better in that service than imported species --such as Guppies.

Along with aquaculture in way of growing fish the added advantage to this setup is the production of edible plant life. Water chestnut, Kangol and watercress are handy larder supplements grown in this arrangement and all of the beautiful Sacred Lotus water lilly is edible (flowers, leaves, and tubers ).

I'm not certain as yet, but I may consider introducing table fish into the pond. The problems is that these would require active feeding and may displace other species. For instance I could grow barramundi if that was my want!

On top of all this you get to plunge into the water on hot days as fancy dictates and this pond generates its own micro climate in a way that the very chlorinated version of it did not. I hope to grow bananas and pawpaw around the pond. I grow a great crop of papaw there already.

I guess I need to christen it. So what's a good name for this waterhole? Near where I live - Nundah -- the name refers to 'chain of waterholes' and mine is the new one on the block/chain.

Some resolution may be pending in downtown Havanna

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:28:54 -0600

I've had a bugger of a life these last two years. I've never been so consistently and so consistently ill as I have been throughout this year and 2006 and maybe just before that.

But I've been trying ever so hard to overcome these somatic failings.It ain't as easy as it may seem. I can be as true gritting as you'd want, but still it ain't a walk in the park when you walk the way I have had to.

But now -- touch wood -- there may be some movement -- some resolution may be pending so -- that my physical and very mortal existence has turned a tad around the proverbial corner.

And that's good, right? It is something to note in way of credits if one were to allocate "number of stars" in one's diary.

I is on the mend. [At least I hope I am].

As my dear old mater so often informs me: "Every day is a blessing, David..."

And so it friggin is! So long as today isn't as handicapped and as painful as the day before.

You know: let's bring up the violins and the harp and go la la la la...

But today I was blessed with organic success such that I think it warrants attention.

Pool to pond

This is indeed why I write this today. For a few years now I have spent a good part of each year dragging myself around and around a 3 metre wide swimming pool. Call it aqua-robics -- but my style was to sort of jog in chest deep water most days most of the year. I even had a wet suit so I could keep on doing these circuits when the weather was Winterish.

I don't recommend water activity like this primarily because it wasn't sufficient to keep my physical deterioration at bay.Forget all the malarkey about water buoyed exercising -- its' not as useful as they say.

After years of doing it I can say that to you, because I am informed by experience.

I now do more strenuous stuff which makes me sweat big time and offers me lots of exertion pain --- and I'm much better for it. I do boxing exercising. Them boxers, or rather boxing trainers, know a thing or two about pain and gain.

So I'm turning my back on the pool as my "gym" and am more land based than of yore. But the pool is a place for the effervescent cooling off during the hot summer months. And since we are in drought mode here within the shadow of the Golden Circle Cannery -- I'm converting the "swimming pool" into a "swimming pond" -- with water plants and fish, frogs and the like. Au natural. Later it will hold our roof run off.

And today I managed to get the water pH just right so I can begin to add the flora and fauna. It's a challenge of getting the ecology right so you can have a swimming pond and an aqua cultural environment that grows water plants you can eat -- while offering an interface that takes up the nitrates in the water and competes against any nasty algae (usually greenish is stark hue).

Since a standard chlorine pool is a massive and very sterile chemistry set -- this other natural way is very organic indeed. It's very biological.

So I've got some plants and I have a plan, an ecological strategy -- But not until today did I get the pH to round about 7 -- neutral -- Potential of the Hydrogen ion. My chemistry knowledge is rusty , but I had to pour in almost two kilograms of bicarbonate of soda to get to that lucky number.

All that bicarbonate could have baked a lot of muffins!

Way below that magical seven -- in acidic mode -- the water plants were quickly bleaching..and dying ..

I look upon this 'pool' as a metaphor, you see -- a metaphor of my own recovery. The natural pond and the "Little Cuba" Permaculture garden project is in sync with me getting some control back over my health.

So I garden and I box and -- hopefully this week -- to mark my physical assertion, I'll get my upgraded kickbike.

And I'll be less of the victim.

To celebrate I served us all here at Maison Riley a crisp garden salad grown in the soil we claim as home turf. To celebrate the new worms arrived to make whoopie in the new woomery and I planted some more stuff for the f domestic cuisine.

Ah yes, to say "cuisine" may sound so suave -- but the motivation has a lot to do with supermarket prices. We're going back to farming because its getting very expensive to shop for the vegetable and fruits you may prefer or have come to rely on.

Welcome to Australia in 2007 -- drought and food shortages.

So we're growing herbs, sweet potato, tomatoes, salad greens, daikon radishes passion fruit, paw paw, chokoes, cucumbers, bananas, zucchini, mulberry...and what else takes our fancy and we can fit in within the space on hand.

This week we are also working on the chook pen...

Expect new images in these pages logging the culinary sights.Soon enough we'll be looking like downtown Havana!

Note to self: wakeup call

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

Two days ago my doctor pulled off my big toe nail as I have had a run of ingrown toenails for over 3 months now and the festering issue had s crippled me. These toes have been a issue now for over two years. I presumed it was residual gout.

It has also signalled that I have Type II diabetes or at least a case of Pre-diabetes(inasmuch as you want a softer sentence). My father had diabetes from the age of 40 and basically died of its complications thirty years later after neglect and the like caused him to be insulin dependent with daily injections.

So here at my end I gotta do some changes and the dietary thing is a big part of it while I up my exercising and the like.

The tragic irony is that I've been ill enough for over 20 years and I don't need this pathological visitor at all. Similarly despite all the consideration I've put into diet and exercise over all that time it has not been enough to improve my general health or starve off the onset of diabetes.

There is a lifestyle conundrum that I was prone to wear and I guess if I had my options I'd redo some of the approaches I've employed in the past.

But it's no use crying over spilt ...insulin.

My exercise and get real real healthy regime is logged elsewhere at my KickBike blog

More progress in Little Cuba --Permaculture in the shadow of the Golden Circle Cannery

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:28:54 -0600

I finally fixed up the camera so I won be taking so many washed out shots!

The front had been covered with a creeper which I chopped up with a spade on the soil surface, covered with wet newspaper and mulched with whatever I had around the place in way of litter.

I planted chili, cucumbers, zuchini and sweet potato on/in this (by cutting a hole though the newspaper)and will follow up with passionate to climb over the trees. I'll plant the passionfruits (esp banana passionfruit)when the weather is a little warmer --along with some horned melon(which I like to eat).

Note to self: Get some Pepino seeds.

My overall plan is forming as I proceed but my general concept is being frustrated by failure to advance the swimming pond project which is becoming in my mind very aquacultur-ish. But for the moment because of residue Chloramine, nothing worthy is living in the pond and any plant I put in, bleaches and dies.

The whole relationship of chloramine to bonding ammonia is a chemistry dullard's nightmare.

Next week I hope to build the chook tractor from old irrigation tubing, bamboo stakes and ties. And as soon as I obtain a few more old car tyres, I'll create the wormery using this New Zealand design (pictured-right)

After reviewing as many worm 'farm' designs I could find I think this is a brilliant conceptual put together.

The Glycemic Index, Permaculture and sustainability

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

Before we can proceed with this discourse you need to understand what the Glycemic Index means:

Glycemic index (also glycaemic index, GI) is a ranking system for carbohydrates based on their effect on blood glucose levels. It compares available carbohydrates gram for gram in individual foods, providing a numerical, evidence-based index of postprandial (post-meal) glycemia.

In effect the GI celebrates the core dietary habits of homo sapiens (that's us) for the massive bulk of our evolutionary history.If humans gained so much culturally and in way of productive capacity with the switch to grains based diets the later processing of those grains was part of a dynamic that engineered our eating habits out of sync with our evolutionary capacity to make the most of the nutritional options. We are physiologically still hunter gatherers .

The carbon emitted planet

The analogous tragedy is that our present nutritional habits especially in regard to broad acre farming and food processing and transport -- is a significant factor generating the carbon conundrum we are faced with at the present time.

We need to foster sustainability but we also need to encourage a diet that is not only sustainable in an ecological sense but better for us especially in regard to key questions such as obesity, heart disease and Type II Diabetes. So it has to cut both ways -- be good for the environment and good for us.

Our current diet is neither.

Theres' an easy penchant among some who suggest that vegetarianism is the way to go but thats' not true at all as vegetables per see won't offer a complete agricultural ecology. We need to run cattle , sheep and whatever to make a sustainable system -=- such as Permaculture -- work -- and if we don't eat these critters they get driven in effect from the landscape.

It's a question often of where we gonna get the poo from --and for the moment we don't eat earth worms. So any environmental shift has to be in sync with a dietary one. There has to be a logic and a dynamic involved rather than a crude sentencing proscribing how we'll need to eat and what we can put in our mouths.

So I'm staying the nutritional science offered by the Glycemic Index has a lot to offer the capacity of Permaculture to deliver such a mixed larder of food.

I don't know if anyone has actually written the Permaculture Cookbook -- but I can see the relevance of the two systems in way of menu planning.Permaculture rather than being a sort of farming system is a gathering system. While that distinction is labeling, if you study the way the approach you'll pick up on the marker.

Grain based agriculture historically has been based on core carbohydrate production -- civilisations have been built on one food item alone: wheat (Mesopotania), rice (Ancinet China), corn (Inca) rather than mixed agriculture. Even so called mixed farming practices historically have relied on a limited number of plant and animal sources.

Permaculture is very mixed and pragmatic as it draws from the total of what's on offer in way of plant stock and animal species, and employs its selection on the criteria of whether it fits in ecologically. This approach transcends what may be the limited local indigenous evolution of plants and animals in their applicability to human nutrition or the constraints imposed by the habits of broad acre farming practices.

I guess my point is this:

If you know what you want to -- or need -- to eat.
If you know what sort of practices you want to -- or need -- to put in place to achieve sustainability

Then you are much better off in way of being able to plan what you need to do. So I'm saying you gotta think it through both ways as you do it.

From Permaculture to the Glycemic Index

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

I'm gonna hav ta take the "politics" sub head off this blog because it's getting rather lifestylist. My politics is now housed over at LeftClick

And here is becoming a bit more of "the life -- style -- life of riley".

So here's' an update:

With the sweet rains things are moving along nicely at Little Cuba and maison'd'ave is harvesting some salad greens already while we wait on more stuff to root deep and kick in.

The projects are forcing me back to the books to research the wherewithall and in the hands on DIY process I'm enriching my environmentalistic skills and understanding.

David Murphy's book , Organic Growing With Worms has occupied me this week and the iconic figure of Peter Cundall writes in regard to it:

"This is an amazing, inspiring book..it should be on the bookshelf of every farmer, gardener, conservationist, scientist or anyone who comprehends the environmental dangers now threatening all life forms on earth."

Allowing for Cundall-speak -- and we all know how effusive Peter can be! -- the octogenarian is right! This is a very important book because it gives you a dirt and biota view of the planet and in so doing, offers a few key pointers as to solving not only soil degradation but the task of carbon sequestration and roll back. It challenges a lot of the rationale for --and presumptions that underpin -- broad acre farming.

And the star of the show is the humble earth worm.

So this project -- this Permaculture enrichment -- is very instructive for what may be the perspectives for the big picture here on Planet Earth.

So I thought I'd offer a narrative....

How green am I?

I come from a family of green thumbs and gardens have been a major preoccupation especially on my father's side of the family.(My grandfather had no lawn whatsover in suburban Glen Iris -- just terraces of vegetable and fruit gardens tiered on the side of a hill)

My mother's family, being constrained by the rather annoying fact that my grandmother owned five children and was widowed twice in quick succession (the first time by WWI-- never owned, in effect, a pot to piss in and the family was pauperized after moving to suburban Sunshine on Melbourne's west to work for H.V.McKay.

My parents used to grow vegetables in the post war years and later as retirement set in were enamoured with Cottage gardens especially as they lived in cooee of Heronswood -- home of Diggers Seeds in Rosebud on Melbourne's Mornington Peninsula.(My relatives on my mother's side where mostly dairy farmers...)

But this hobby became almost an obsession for my mother -- until recently. What mattered was that you had a garden and that the house was almost secondary. You laboured , ate and recreated there...and you always talked about what was happening in the garden, what was growing or blooming or was harvestable.

Since I spent most of my adult life moving from rented premises to rented premises the garden thing was an occasional steal. I did what I could but I guess my major indulgence was in Alphington (on Melbourne's northside)when I lived above a newsagency. I bred rabbits downstairs and grew herbs and vegetables on the veranda above the downstairs shops.

When the rabbits got out and moved underneath the local fish and chip shop I had to rein in my organic carefreeness. I was raising rabbits for meat by the way.(Darn tasty they were too!)

Later when we got our own place here on Brisbane's northside -- I did the full bit and Permacultured the place with a simply fantastic cottage garden out front. I did the kosher DIY: mandala vegie garden, paw paw and banana circle..I skilled myself up on the cultivation and use of bamboo. And since I always had fish ponds when I was growing up -- I had them too.

But this time around residents in the units next door threatened me with legal action for creating a irritating noise throughout the night. This noisemaker was Limnodynastes tasmaniensis -- the Spotted Marsh Frog . So I had to fill in the pond!

Later me moved ...here

So I'm back getting dirt under my finger nails after basically being distracted for a 8 years by matters politica and domestica -- with my ill health being the major handicap to green thumbing.

Two green thumbs on the go

So now there are two greenoid projects: "Little Cuba" -- driven by a Permaculture template and the Natural Swimming Pool project which is looking more and more like an aquaculture exercise: ergo -- vegetables.

So these are my domestic projects engendered as exercises in sustainability--and already we're planning the worm farm and the chook pen and learning more and more en route.

(Yep! Done both before. I'm a bantam boy and the worm thing takes a bit of research to do correctly. But when you get onto it you begin to comprehend a few key potentials in way of waste management and carbon control. You also begin to comprehend and embrace a core ecological logic that we have to find ways to generate everywhere as a social and economic rationale. That's the clincher.

Forget about this "act local' melarky -- we just gotta make it standard operating procedure everywhere and we gotta do that ASAP.

But how?

Which brings me to the question of diet and nutrition

There's been so much written about food as a political act that it is almost de riguer. I've written some my self as a way to combat the dogmatic fetish that seems to have grown up over the issue of vegetarianism. (see here too.)

I've been very opposed to such sham solutions both to questions of the environment or aggression...But in one aspect my views have shifted.

While broad acre farming ravages the earth (see this my review Coming to grips with the rural crisis)it is a conundrum not easily challenged as it seems that there are key issues of basic nutrition at stake--and how else can we grow enough wheat, rice, corn or potatoes to fill our stomachs?

These grains are absolutely essential aren't they?

That's where its worthwhile to consider the challenge posed to us homo sapiens by the physiological underpinnings of the Glycemic Index.

You say:????? What the...! What am I going on about?

I'll have to return to this theme at a later moment but please accept my suggestion that Permaculture and the science and logic of the GI Index are very much related to one another.

Bill Mollison FYI -- Permaculture

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

ILL MOLLISON is a practical visionary. For nearly two decades he has traveled the globe spreading the word about permaculture, the method ... all » of sustainable agriculture that he devised. Permaculture weaves together microclimate, annual and perennial plants, animals, soils, water management and human needs into intricately connected productive communities. Mollison has proved that even in the most difficult conditions permaculture empowers people to turn wastelands into food forests.

IN THE TROPICS - Mollison introduces the basic principles, and shows results in Australia, India, and Zimbabwe.

PERMACULTURE & PEAK OIL: Beyond 'Sustainability'

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

David Holmgren is co-originator (with Bill Mollison) of the permaculture concept and author of the recent book, PERMACULTURE: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. He talks about the need to move beyond the lulling hope that 'green tech' breakthroughs will allow world-wide 'sustainable consumption' to the recognition that dwindling oil supplies inevitably mean a mandatory 'energy descent' for human civilization across the planet. He argues that permaculture principles provide the best guide to a peaceful societal 'powering down."

Holmgren Permaculture Resources

Going organic in Little Cuba: Rain falls on vegetable garden

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:28:54 -0600

It's raining!

In a wonderful meteorological coincidence, after investing all this effort into creating a new vegetable garden it kindly starts to rain on Brisbane town.

This happenstance has enabled me to offer an update.

Yesterday we toured local 'garbage throw outs' -- kerbside collections of junk -- and found a great plastic compost bin which we snaffled to put to use. So now the front vegetable garden is looking very much the agricultural milieu.

En route we dropped in on the Northey Street City Farm for some supplies and came home with some exotic water plants to add to our Natural Swimming Pool project.

I'll fill you on on progress there later -- but I will mention that the reason we went junk touring was to find a plastic out door table -- which we did -- to support the water plants in the pool being planned.

But out front -- where vegetables are sprouting we hope -- the design is coming along with great promise.

I'm trying to work out what should be grown where -- outback on the deck may suit herbs and tomatoes and out front can go the rest of the vegetable kingdom.

In play, I've collected some Tamarillo seeds -- I love Tamarillo -- from an eaten fruit -- and I've set aside some choko and sweet potato for planting. I'm thinking of selectively engineering a tire supported garden like the one pictured in and around my various front garden attributes to grow tamarillo, passionfruit, choko and sweet potato.

First I need to get the tires....but I have this 'design' in my head that I think will work well. If I can handle the tires I may consider adapting some of this approach -- on Fabricating Rubber Lumber for raised bed gardening.

I like rubber...and raised beds.

The other consideration was how I was going to become compostable. We've had chooks before -- bantams -- and I'd love to get them again but we have a very small garden option and while previously we let them roam free -- today, we'd need to enclose them and that leads to problems with smell and attraction of nasty critters -- flies, rats, mice.... There's also the bird flu factor -- living in close proximity to chickens.

So I may go worm farm -- but for the moment, I'll see what use I can put to the newly acquired compost bin. (pictured to the left in the slide show's latest image). There's also a cost factor with worm farming.

"Little Cuba"

And just now when I went to publish this post I had an idea. In trying to create a heading for the post I've now got a name for my project: "Little Cuba" -- in deference to the permaculture applications being employed in that country.

That was the reason I returned to my interest in Permaculture -- it's politically kosher and the Latin thing to do!

Low energy lifestyle lessons from Cuba, an excellent documentary on living locally and sustainable living.

Large format view of video...

6 tips for shooting effective Web video

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

The John Butler Trio

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

JBT is an extraordinarily good musical trio the likes of which are rare indeed. Theres' a sound there which is almost a sort of signature Australian musical style which synthesizes so many elements..but which has an idiosyncratic mix that is as
personalised as much, say, as the Red Hot Chili Peppers from the first chord you hear.

That the group came out of the West with a political perspective in place is all the better.

When you look at Australian pop music history -- and all the super groups fostered here -- from the Oils, BeeJees, INXS, ACDC..etc None are really separate from the main international swill although some -- such as ACDC -- do it better than most others in their genre.

And the BeeJees are one of the best song writers of the 20th century.

Nick Cave strangely is an exception but he is so very cosmopolitan as though he belongs in Berlin rather than as a creature of the rural Victoria (which he is).

But this element -- this sound and almost a musical genre unto itself-- is a cultural and political package that reminds me of Reggae and reflects a sort of musical avaunt garde thats' been festering here primarily on the East Coast I would have thought -- but Butler is from WA.

It is very much performance & live music with excellent musicianship and an eclectic choice of instruments. Consider Xavier Rudd as part of the same dynamic.

Its a hippee sound in a way -- a sort of concerned and considerate fight back against pap and crude and raucous angst.

And it has "crossed over" so strongly in the form of the JBT with their rich mix of sounds -- sometimes jazzy sometimes with a lot of funk and using instruments that are thought to be old hat -- like the 5 string banjo and a bass fiddle(but with carbon strings!)

JBT are special, folks,really special. I've got the record collection to prove it!

Permaculture project: front garden -- first stage

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:28:54 -0600

Click for large format slideshow.

After the success of my experiments with potted plants watered from recycled house water I've now begun a larger project out front.

This is an in-the-ground vegetable patch facing due west.

The format

Basing layout on some of the principles of square foot gardening the plot is 8 feet by 4 feet.
Concentrated design rather than the indulgent space use offered by the permaculture mandala
For 'walls" I've begun to accumulate old pieces of cement, brick and such I found around the place. I want to rise up the need by at least 8 inches/20 cm.
Paths lead on two sides and to keep the other growth at bay I'll employ the Permauclture standby-- a hedge of Lemongrass a herb I've grown and used for almost 20 years.
I hope to fill the garden bed with several years accumulation of lawn clippings, animal manure and whatever compost I can gather seeded with a good sprinkling of Wettasoil.
I'll back up my walls and the garden shape with layers of wet newspaper applied to a papier mache to the four sides.
The optional ingredients in the Square foot system -- such as peat moss, and coarse vermiculite -- are far too expensive to employ and hard to come by in separate and large quantities.

Challenges

Getting enough water
Transporting the water to the garden 'out front'.
There is a garden tap a metre away from this garden, but the exercise is designed to employ recycled water from the house rather than some other resource
At present Brisbane is under Level 5 water restrictions and watering from garden taps must be in buckets fora few hours three days per week. The chlelnge is can the water supply be kept up to this garden?

Why this project?

I think willy nilly switching households to individual tank water is a mistaken course. Better to conserve the town water we have rather than rely on tanks or switch to sewerage recycled water in the mains. So this is an exercise in recycling water.
Long time the environment movement has encouraged the urban population to shift into self sufficiency mode. I think that is a misguided approach as it fails to consider the scale of acculturation involved. Not everyone wants to garden. However the Cuban experiments with Permaculture systems do beg the question that maybe some adaptation is very feasible. Can it be applied here? Is it too hard to master?
Because of the drought vegetable prices are skyrocketing. Growing your own can save your big time in the hip pocket.
I'm back actively gardening after years of not being so engaged and I love it. In effect I'm moving up from a kitchen herb garden to bigger stuff. I come from a family of dedicated gardeners and green thumbs.

Natural Swimming Pool project begins

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

Click for large format slide show

The project has begun.

To mark the occasion above is a photograph of the pool with chlorine at zero. To celebrate I threw in a coupe of hand fulls of duck weed.

After a bit of research -- still pending -- I've begun the ecological adventure of turning our dixie cup swimming pool into a "natural swimming pool' --complete with fish.

Can it be done by Mr Everyday amateur ecologist/marine biologist such as I? Is it worth the effort?

Let's see shall we.

The major challenge at the moment is collecting enough aquatic plants to service the pool. They don't come cheap so I'm looking around for the best oxygenators I can find and trying to propagate those.

The plant element has two aspects: the flora itself and the grit it is supposed to grows. The trick is to deny the plant nitrates from its rooting bed so that it seeks its nutrients from the water alone. Where possible, therefore, you don;t grow in zoil or mud but gravel.

Not all aquatics appreciate that regime --so it will be an exercise in experimentation.

In the meantime I am beginning to monitor the sort of currents I can engineer. The trick is to ensure that the water is always drawn over the plant beds so that biology can get to work on any nasties.

The plant beds will at least be at two depths -- shallow for marginal plants and another bed for deep water plants (such as lillies). Betwixt are the floaters.

The line across the pool is a floating board designed to separate the plant zone from the swimming zone. Note that this divides the pool into two halves serving two separate functions.

The water is also circulated by a pump which draws water from the bottom of the pool and cascades it through the air as an oxygenating way of returning it. My hope is that I can run the pump on occasion rather than much of the time.

The pumping regime required is, for the moment, an unknown.

14th August

I had experimented with wood floats to separate the two pool zones, but instead purchased some very cheap "swim noodles" to stretch across the diameter of the pool.

Concern about 'lack of nitrates' to fuel plant growth in the pool that must be now after years of chlorination very sterile.. Duckweed isn't very green after 5 days in situ. The irony is that the plants are supposed to function to reduce nitrates.

Ubuntu still rocks my world

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

I'm a touch over awed by a few ongoing web projects I'm committed to -- so I'm distracted.

Nonetheless I gotta touch base with y'all.

And todays' message is "UBUNTU"

I've logged my Ubuntu journey here before (check labels) but to bring you into sync:

Ubuntu is a Linux distro
It's totally free
And the latest release Feisty Fawn rocks.

My 16 y/o son bought himself a new pc arlier this year. Of course it came with Windows Vista. But this month he installed Ubuntu via the wonderful Wubi (see label) program option.

Now he cannot get enough of it. A gamer -- he got World of Warcraft operating using the apparently ever faithful WINE.

He walks around the house saying:"That Ubuntu is so great! I loooove it!"

Yep, that's his mantra.

So there's not much you can't do with Linux -- Ubuntu -- except run what I use: Sony's clunky Sonic Stage.

So I still have to access Windows somewhere along the way to do my audio editing from my mini disc player.

That aside...

That aside....

'Tis so amazing I reckon that you can get something so wonderful for free. Open source software is really the way to go for this planet and the fact that open sourcing doesn't play by the rules of capitalism is just stiff bickies.

Ratbag Radio -- words and pictures

ratbagradio@gmail.com (ratbagradio@gmail.com) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:15:15 -0600

by Dave Riley

As part of the process of tweaking the Socialist Alliance web presence I've been exploring a few platforms that can facilitate the ongoing challenge of sharing material...such as (egads!) propaganda

Slideshare is an excellent tool for sharing images as PowerPoint style presentations and this month Slideshare has added an audio facility with very straightforward syncing of audio and image.

This is an experiment in employing this platform -- here used as an introduction to the Ratbag Radio Network network.

I share it here so that other activists can consider its utility.

I mean -- if it works for Al Gore, it's a convenient truth, ain't it?

Click to watch Slidecast in large screen format