Homo Toxicus

Think the Gulf mess is all but over?



In thinking about a title for this post, I thought I had come up with a clever little idea...Homo Toxicus. Turns out its already been done.

The Story of Your Enslavement

I couldn`t have said it better myself.

Garden 2010

As promised, here is a quick look at our garden here in NW Alberta, Canada. We`re at about 55 degrees Latitude, for reference. Our soil is decent for the most part, though there is a lot of clay so we have had to add a lot of organic matter.

The pictures were taken in late June, I`m just really late posting them. I will put up some updates soon as there have certainly been changes.



This little patch has always been one of the productive parts of our garden. We could put a lot more into it, but my parents have developed a pattern of spacing wide enough between each row that the rototiller can pass through. I do make little exceptions here and there, like the patch of garlic in the top right corner. It is double rowed and each pair of rows is only spaced about 18" apart, just wide enough to move for weeding and hilling.

The productive qualities of this patch mean it usually gets seeded with things we want to start eating as early as possible and grow 2 or 3 crops. Down at the bottom you can see some weeds left in a row that had contained radishes. By the time this picture was taken we had already consumed two rows of spinach as well as some of the Romaine lettuce which can be seen.


Garlic is a new addition to our garden. I decided to try growing it this year after reading on the Sugar Mountain Farm blog that garlic is an effective de-worming agent for pigs. Plus I am fond of roasted garlic/bell pepper seasoning so I want to try to make my own over the next couple of years.


This view shows most of the rest of the garden, looking north. The picture is taken from the other side of a small cabin that my Granny used to live in. The cabin basically turns the garden into an upside down Y. It does extend further behind where this picture was taken but the ground was wet from the sprinkler so I didn`t go as far back as I could have. There is basically a large patch of tomato sets, some cabbage sets and a couple more rows of radish. Probably something else that I cannot remember as well.


Speaking of the sprinkler, here it is in action. Here you can see our one long row of beets. Up top and to the left are some broccoli and more cabbage. To the right are two long rows of bush beans.



Here are the beans again, then one row of peas (now producing finally!). You can see a couple of volunteer sunflowers as this is where mom had two rows of sun flowers last year. One the other side of the peas are two rows of potatoes, the first ones we planted. They have been hilled well and I wish I had the time to bring more dirt to them to have buried the plants one more time. The soil here is probably the healthiest in the garden right now so I think we could have got a LOT of potatoes out of those two rows. As it is they should still do pretty well. We ought to be eating from them soon actually.


Next are a couple of rows of mom`s begonia bulbs from last year, but they didn`t winter very well and so they are not coming along terribly well either. I think they don`t like such a clay based soil. The picture shows another couple of rows of cucumbers from seed, then a couple of rows of zucchini and pumpkin, both of which are exploding now.


This year`s sunflowers are doing fairly well too. As is the swiss chard next door to them. On the other side of the chard are three more double rows of peas. I still think we should have done a couple more double rows.

There is another patch of potatoes in there but they were quite small still so I didn`t take any pictures of it. Then comes my 2010 corn patch. Last year`s patch produced very well but mom felt that it didn`t freeze very well so we tried a different variety in the big patch this year. The center two rows contain runner beans as well as I had some seed remaining after seeding my Three Sisters mounds. They are out-growing the corn now!


This is the view from the north end of the garden, back towards the south. You can see the small cabin that I mentioned earlier, as well as the Three Sisters mounds down at the bottom of the picture. Down by my feet are about 3 more rows of leaf lettuce and yet a couple more rows of radish.

And that`s basically it. I`ll take some more pictures and update soon.

Peace and comfort.

A Positive Report

It has been pointed out to me recently, including a response to one of my recent rants, that (and these are my words) I must find pause to remember the importance of balance. Even as the world goes crazy, on both micro and macro levels, we must not dwell totally on the negative. In my case, I must remember that it is not being unrealistic to look for and acknowledge the positive that is always present.

Now I don't mean to be too hard on myself. This blog is one of my outlets for negativity so there are just going to be times when the tone here is negative, especially as the world grows more dark. And one thing I will never do is sugar coat reality, that is not true positivity.

Yet I must remember to work towards balance, including here. There have certainly been positive occurrences in the time I have been writing here. In terms of the blog itself, I have met many very interesting and relatively like-minded people. This has been so very important when I live in an area where this is so very rare normally. And I am making progress in the last year with a few things that I felt needed changing.

My intention upon returning from Cuba last April was to quit smoking and really make an effort to start getting myself back into better physical condition. I was at a point where I knew I was at least 25 pounds heavier than I should be...perhaps closer to 40 pounds actually. While not what I'd consider obese, I knew I was going to start facing some health issues as I get closer and closer to 4o years old. Plus, I have several pairs of pants that I am determined to wear once more. I will be a 34 waist again dammit! I think returning to a 32 waist is probably just a bit too unrealistic at this point, though.

Luckily, the lifestyle change that was also coming has helped with this immensely.

I started being at the family farm on a full time basis, or more, and I just continued my already established habit of not smoking around my family. I had another aid or two, but this ended up being fairly easy. And I did come back from Cuba with a few cigars that got me through the reeeeally bad moments. Now it has been over a year and, barring just giving up on everything, I feel confidant that my time as a cigarette smoker has come and gone.

One of the reasons I knew I had to ditch the cigs was that I knew I had to get back into shape. As I said, I had gotten much too flabby for my own liking. But in the same time as quitting smoking, I have started to make good strides in reversing that trend as well. I have no idea what I weigh now but I know I am in much better shape. I think I am probably below 200 pounds now, but its hard to say as I have been building muscle as well as burning some fat. But this was the goal anyway. I am naturally a fairly stocky fellow and I suspect that even at 5'7", my ideal weight is around 200 lbs because I am able to carry a good deal of muscle. A body builder roommate I had in college for a year used to give me such a hard time because he had to work so hard to build muscle. I could work out for a couple of days (which did not happen very often!) and show muscle gain/definition.

Now, at 36 this certainly hasn't been as easy or as painless as it was at the time. My joints have not enjoyed the extra attention and for several months one upper body joint and then another would endure a bout of what felt like tendinitis, slowly migrating around my upper body. But this has lessened drastically over the last couple of months. Mind you, now that the manure clearing is mostly done (more on this in an upcoming post), I am not working my joints hard for 8 hours a day either. But be that as it may, I think it was just my body readjusting to the new expectations after several years of fairly sedentary living.

Next is the part I have NEVER liked...increasing my cardiovascular activity. I still have some fat that I need to burn off and I just want to increase my stamina overall. I stay on my feet a lot these days but I am trying to prepare myself to a point where, if I must, I can walk for 8-10 hours a day, at a good pace. And to where I can run for an hour. I'm not sure if I will ever achieve this last goal as I have suffered from extreme shin splints and bad lower legs ever since I was about 17. But the time may come when I must, and I want to be able to do so, if that time does come.

That`s all for now though, I think.

Saludos.

Three Sisters: 2010

I'm taking another shot at the Three Sisters gardening method this year. I took a stab at it last year with little knowledge and had limited success. This year I tried to do it a bit more properly. I laid out a few beds, raking them into raised beds as Three Sisters should be planted in mounds. I seeded runner beans this year, instead of bush beans like last year, and I seeded them after the corn had started out of the ground. And instead of seeding squash, my folks picked up two kinds of sets, although I should have seeded as well, as some mounds got no cover plants at all. This isn't a big loss as two of these mounds didn't germinate anything very well.

But, despite some setback due to late frost again this year, I am quite happy with the progress on 4 or 5 of the mounds. 3 of them are looking quite lush and I'm hopeful of a decent harvest. I think the worm composting is helping as the mounds have gotten a few good dowsings of compost tea and 3 mounds got the remnants of compost that went into making the tea.



I took some pictures of the rest of the garden as well, so I'll try to get them up soon. We're quite happy with the way it is coming this year so I am looking forward to sharing the pictures.

Until then, peace and comfort to all.

An Important Article

This article is an important read, as I think most will agree.

Stacy Herbert is just brilliant.

Unsettled Continued take 2

*Thought of the Day: Why does it always seem surprising to people that I am so passionate about not just letting shit happen, especially control-oriented shit?*

...

I wanted to spend a little more time on this topic, since it's in my head so much lately. Something I didn't mention in the last post, and I think it probably factors heavily into my recent "unsettledness", is the fact that I feel rather unsure of my own immediate future. I cannot whine too much as my health is fine but I have to admit a certain amount of stress bears on me...as it bears on many I'm sure. I know it bears on my parents at a time in their lives when stress should be less and less of an issue.

In my case, it's that I find myself terribly unsure what direction to head in from here.

The options seem to be:

1) Go back to what I was doing 6 years ago. This would mean a move back to Edmonton and finding somewhere to crash for a few months while I either settled into freelancing or took whatever steady gig I could find. I suppose it could even mean trying to go back into cruise ship tech work or seeing if the Cirque opportunity was still available. The thing is, it would mean going back to looking out pretty much just for me, and having as much fun as I could before whatever end is coming gets here. If you are familiar with Aesop, I see this as my Grasshopper phase. As easy as it would be to return to that and as tempting as it is, I know it would be turning my back on wisdom and balance...again.

2) Accept as reality that we are fighting a losing battle here and make plans to find and relocate somewhere to make a fresh start. This is tempting as well, especially seeing how much ranch land can be purchased for good price in the Caribou region of BC. One could set up one's own operation or purchase a variety of different sorts of already established ones, albeit at higher price. The main drawback here is isolation. Admittedly this would be some benefit as well, I think, but it makes servicing a local food market pretty hard to achieve. It does present some interesting intentional community opportunities though...

3) Dig in here and build infrastructure towards a multi-generational commitment to sustainable food production in this area. I won't elaborate here now as I talk about it often.

...

Ugh, my writing of this post was interrupted by a call from the property manager for my condo, continuing the suite door re-keying fiasco. This Board of Directors/property manager bullshit is certainly not making matter easier. It seems that my pointing out of the fact that this action was reached without due process and is therefore of highly questionable legality is being ignored and the lock company will be changing my lock next week. Luckily I have learned that they are only changing the deadbolt so I will be able to re-key it myself afterward. I will be doing this but I am also pursuing the matter legally. I cannot see the logic in letting them get their legal foot in the door with this issue, even if it may seem a small issue.

By the way, don't expect to call and ask the police to come and arrest someone who says they have the legal right to break into your place and change the locks without legitimate proof that that is so. I think I just about got arrested calling ahead to ask and then wanting clarification for the reasoning. I wonder what would happen if I just stood between the locksmith and the lock though. I would think he'd pretty much have to assault me to change the lock.

...

There are probably more real choices but this interruption has been sufficiently distracting and frustrating to continue the line of thinking just now. But again, it certainly explains the feeling of "unsettledness".

And now my head hurts.

Saludos.

Unsettled

I'm not sure that I know how to write what I am thinking about and feeling anymore. Whenever I sit down to write about anything that is not sharing about the farm or some neat thing that I have seen, which is most of the time, I mostly end up doing a whole lot of backspacing and rarely end up saving any material at all. Like I said, this isn't because I am not thinking or wanting to say things...FAR from it. It's because I just don't know what to say.

Everywhere I turn I see fake order or outright chaos.

Our leaders talk about democracy while protecting the very oligarchical interests which rise up again and again to enslave us. We thought inventing a middle class would solve the problem, allowing the lower class to work their way into the middle class and maaaaybe all the way to the upper class. But all we did was solidify a class structure that must continue to fight itself because it is inherently out of balance.

I feel pity for many of my fellow Canadians who have let themselves buy into this system in order to try to avoid being part of the abhorrent lower class. It is hard to turn the fury I feel, into pity. Fury at how much acceptance there is for the truly Fascist actions of police in Toronto at the G20 conference over the weekend. Fury at the betrayal of our leaders and the weakness in my fellow citizens, who do not recognize the cages slowly but surely being erected around us. Fury that in so many ways, our selfishness and closed mindedness makes us deserve those cages. But does fury get us anywhere? Will pity or forgiveness really get us further?

I guess it should be no surprise that I think both fury and pity must be used, in balance. I see little point in just laying down and giving up what I believe is so valuable...my life and my soul.

So I guess I am able to maintain focus on one line of thinking for a short period of time, but then something else pops up, like the outright chaos that is the havoc caused by our addiction to oil. This is highlighted lately by the mess in the Gulf of Mexico but addiction to oil has wreaked havoc all over the world, all the while remaining fundamentally necessary to maintaining the explosion in numbers of humans over the past 200 years. While I feel for the plight of those around the Gulf of Mexico, it is maddening to see the rage over this disaster, while there remains a near total ignorance of 50 years worth of similar environmental destruction in Nigeria where broken pipelines have been allowed to run for months without repair at times. How many Americans are aware of the damage and suffering that has been caused in and to this region, in order to supply 25% of US oil imports?

And how many Canadians are more than willing to accept similar destruction now, in our own country? The tarsands exploitation is spreading rapidly into Saskatchewan, where the economic benefits are readily accepted just as they were and are here in Alberta. Yet we all know that this is basically open pit mining on a scale larger than anything seen before now and the result is mile after mile of ponds full of toxic tailings and at least near total water depletion or contamination. We hem and we haw and we say the government should deal with it all the while we continue most all of the practices which REQUIRE the continuation of that exploitation. And this is so for most any issue.

It would be funny if it wasn't all so fucking frustrating...and so very dangerous.

So I guess I do still have some things to say but you can see why I don't get a lot of posts out these days. This bit of rambling took over an hour to get out.

Uh Oh, Illinois

I can think of at least one person and her family, in Illinois, who will likely want to know about this article, if she doesn't already know:

It is likely to be of interest to most others as well, as it outlines how the Illinois Teacher's Retirement System has become involved in derivatives...even WRITING them. People don't believe me when I tell them not to be so sure about their pensions. Anyone who has money in a pension fund should be finding out how it is invested.

The Chicken Mafia Clamps Down on Traceability

Sometimes it amazes me that the desperately fragile human race has managed to accumulate such numbers globally. After all, there is danger around every corner and, potentially, in every egg. That's right, that miracle of nature, the egg, seems like it must be wreaking so much devastation upon humans, that Canada has decided that every egg, pullet (adolescent hen) and every egg laying chicken must be traceable.

Now I believe wholeheartedly in the importance of safe food systems but I wish to add my voice to those few who are screaming for people to recognize that the ways to efficiently ensure the safety of one's or one's family's food is to grow it oneself or develop relationships with small scale farmers and food processors who will grow and process it for you. I just don't see how adding more and more bureaucracy and complexity to the system will make it safer. That logic just doesn't add up as far as I can see.

I know this likely means higher costing food. Small scale farmers don't have "volume" sales that industrial producers can rely upon, nor do they have access to subsidies that industrial scale producers do. As such, industrial farming makes its money from subsidies derived from taxes, not from fair market pricing reached through a relationship between producer and consumer.

There are so many things in our western society that need fixing, desperately. But I agree with the notion that the most important might be fixing our food systems. To do so would likely relieve a lot of other problems as well.

Grass Fed Grande Prairie Beef

Any of my vegetarian friends and readers might want to skip this post. My apologies if it is offensive but I am more than willing to discuss my omnivorous tendencies and beliefs at a later time.


Well, we now have 4 freezers full of fresh grass and hay fed beef that we need to sell to make some room for the pork that is coming and the broilers that need doing soon. This beef is from a 3 year old bull and is extra lean and absolutely delicious. We have had some of the steak and ground beef and I`m not exaggerating at all when I say it is delicious. It is some of the best tasting beef that I have had. I am sure others will agree.

At the moment we have ground beef, sirloin, t-bone and minute steaks, and a few varieties of roast...all priced below local market prices. It was processed at the local H&M Meats butcher so it is inspected. The ground beef comes in approximately 2lb portions and the steaks are, as I recall, 2 sirloin or minute or 4 t-bone per package.

If anyone in the Grande Prairie area is interested, shoot me an email for more information and pricing:

litetechca (at) gmail (dot) com

As I mentioned above, there will be pork available soon. Two gilts went to the butcher shop on Monday and we are excited to see how they turn out. Apparently our girls were the leanest and healthiest looking pigs of the week`s lot. It`s been years since my family raised pork but most of what is available locally is industrially raised in total confinement. This means pale and fat and chalk full of hormones. Our pigs are penned but have fresh air and sunlight all day every day. They are hand fed grain and grass or hay. We give them treats like coal and various roots as well. These pigs are healthy, lean and have had the best life we could give them, outside of fully pasturing them (which as I have mentioned before, is the plan for the future if I keep at this).

We will also have some free run broilers available very soon. I have been meaning to post about them as well as we are quite happy with their growth. The broiler type is so genetically shallow now and they can be prone to heart problem and limb breakage. But ours get lots of chance to run about and they are brought fresh grass every day, along with their regular diet. This means stronger limbs and healthier birds. I will post some pictures and give them a full post soon.

That`s all for now I think.

Saludos.

Local Governance?!?

I think it is clear that good government must begin locally and spread from there, but one of the biggest reasons that I worry that this may not be possible is how often I have seen local scale government work very poorly.

My first real experience with local government was during college when I was increasingly involved in student government over a 3 year period. By the third year I was student President and that year was focused almost entirely on the job and being involved with college governance as well as a good deal of provincial involvement. I was able to be involved with academic and financial planning within the college and also had the opportunity to be quite active within our provincial student body. I even managed to be a part of meetings with the Provincial Government department that dealt with colleges and universities, Advanced Education, but I was generally steered away from dealings with Advanced Ed, thanks to my outspoken nature (illustrated by my tendency to drop the F bomb when I hear someone spewing total BS and I know they should know better).

But I digress.

What I was getting as is that even at the very local level of college governance, I still saw absolutely ridiculous decisions made which would only hurt students at some point, all to satisfy greed or ego...or both. And now, a good few years later, I see the same thing going on, albeit at a smaller scale, in the condo that I live in (my brother owns our unit). People do not want the slight responsibilities of Board activity so it seems to be usually the case that those who show interest in Board activity are those who have come up with some way to use it to benefit themselves. Back in January through April the Board contracted a property manager to handle day to day management including condo fee collection and scheduling of maintenance like snow removal and repairs. It seemed to me at the time that this was being set up under some slightly suspicious circumstances but not being a Board member there was little I could do.

So now, as of a couple months ago, I receive a notice that the Board has approved a re-keying of all suites to a Master key. I should mention again, at this point, that this is a privately owned condominium unit, not an apartment. I wrote a letter to the Board stating that I was opposed to this action and did not feel that the Board had the power to take such action. The bylaw that is referenced by the Board (and the property manager who obviously asked for the Board action) states:

"An owner shall permit the Corporation and its agents, at all reasonable times, on notice (except in the case of emergency when no notice is required) to enter his Unit for the purpose of inspecting the Unit and maintaining, repairing or renewing pipes, wires cables, ducts, conduits, plumbing, sewers and other facilities for the furnishing of utilities for the time being existing in the unit or common property, or for the purpose of maintaining, repairing or renewing the common property, or for the purpose of ensuring that the Bylaws are being observed."

So now I get to argue that my interpretation of that Bylaw doesn't include my having to accept a Master key for our suite. If that doesn't work, I then have to go through the hassle of stalling the rekeying while I initiate a clarifying Notice of Motion to change the Bylaw to add definitions of "reasonable times" and "on notice". This probably needs to be done anyway, since the Bylaws are a disaster...in my opinion. They are full of these kinds of ambiguous, overly general wordings.

Grrrr, I knew I hated the idea of owning a condominium!!!!

But this hopefully does something to illustrate my concern that people nowadays will be able to form fair and common sense local governments. As much as I have seen or somehow experienced an increase in people who are conscious and interested in more than just themselves and material gains...it remains a very small fraction of the people I see in general. So very many still seem hopelessly lost in a world of text messaging while driving and doing one's hair, or in a world of celebrity worship, or in a world of worshiping the blessed economy (insert appropriate bells and whistles).

I know this doesn't mean that no local communities will have success in creating their own sustainable local governance. I'm just not sure that enough of them will form along complimentary enough lines to make positive "nationalism" or "globalism" possible. Unfortunately, this is a mindset that lends credence to the elitist view that mankind must be controlled and manipulated.

I wonder if this knowledge would be enough to wake people from their self-involved slumber and turn them from sub-consciously directed consuming robots, back into conscious stewards of themselves and the natural world.

Salvation, For Now

We have finally received a bit of a reprieve from a severely dry spring. Two days of rain, followed by a good dump of snow over the third, and ending with more rain on the fourth day, has left us feeling a heck of a lot better about the rest of the coming year. We even narrowly avoided a frost and now everything is absolutely bursting from the ground.

This precipitation was desperately needed, as I have mentioned before. What we received over those 4 days might well assure that we have enough hay for our cattle this winter. The lake our farm sits beside was as low as I ever remember seeing it. Now the water comes to around where I remember it last spring. These are both a huge relief. I just hope that there was enough rain elsewhere to extinguish the fires that have been burning throughout the province.

Back in our garden, we had been watering from the well already but all this moisture followed by a nice, sunny day today has almost everything that we planted now breaking through the soil. The 7 mounds that I built for this year's Three Sister attempt were the first to dry and the corn is already growing there, even though it was planted a day later than the other corn patch. I should be able to seed climbing beans onto these mounds sometime next week, if the weather holds. Shortly thereafter I will be able to add the squash sets that my folks seeded in the greenhouse a couple weeks back.

Speaking of the greenhouse, I should take some pictures to post as I think the folks did a pretty good job of filling it full of sets this spring. If all goes well, there should be need to purchase very few sets this year. We need to start re-potting some things now, as they are not quite ready to move into the garden for a couple of weeks yet. And I need to get some peppers going, thought I worry that I might be too late already. Hopefully we will be able to upgrade to a significantly larger greenhouse soon. It would be so nice to be able to take advantage of all that sun that we seem to get in February and March now.

But back to the topic at hand. The reduced precipitation that we have received in recent years inspires me to look differently at these periods of intense precipitation that we used to receive regularly. Now I see how much rainfall could be saved for use during dry periods. If we stay in this area and shift to more of a market garden farming style, I feel that we must start planning for maintaining surface water in ponds, dugouts, and cisterns. Really though, this is no surprise to me as it is a basic aspect of adopting permacultural techniques.

Until later, brothers and sisters. Be well.

SoapBox Thoughts on Arizona

I find it interesting that so many folks who are against police state tactics that claim to be fighting terrorism, also seem to support police state tactics that claim to be cracking down on illegal immigration. This seems a little hypocritical to me, and it makes me wonder if the powers-that-be haven't found a chink in Libertarian armor. If a drug war didn't work, maybe re-igniting race conflict will make the people welcome overt control by the state.

Now, this doesn't mean that I am against regulated immigration. I am certainly not, at least not as our world is currently arranged. Illegal immigration such as the US sees, just supports the exploitation of the illegal immigrant, but cracking down on these immigrants is about as effective as throwing a drug abuser in prison. I say let in those people who really need and deserve the opportunity (if there is such a thing in the US anymore), and crack down on those employers or criminals who exploit illegals as labor or sex slaves.

It also doesn't mean that Arizona isn't in a difficult spot. The drug war has spilled over into that state, in a big way, and many illegals crossing the borders are not doing so by choice. If the DEA in Washington would back off, Arizona could make drugs legal and solve a lot of the problem immediately. Granted, the drug cartels would likely mount a wave of violence in order to try to provoke re-prohibition but at least all the cards would be on the table and Arizona AND the US could go back to seeming like the good guys.

Obviously this is an oversimplified argument but I think the overall logic works. And I do soooooo despise checkpoints and "do you haf your papers please?", which seems to be the only alternative.

One of Those Days

Today was one of those days that really shows how unpredictable it can be to work with animals, even though I spent most of the day clearing barns of manure and bedding that builds up over the winter. More on that "shitty" task another time though.

During one of my breaks, I decided to let our 4 yearling heifers out of their immediate corral so that they could graze some green grass in the temporary outer corral. I wanted to let them have a bit of a graze as well as to perhaps step into the shed in that corral. We are going to have to put them in that shed tomorrow and the 2 heifers that we purchased a few weeks back have never been in it. As such, I thought this would give them a chance to explore these new surroundings so as to be less frightened tomorrow.

Since this is just a temporary corral set up roughly, I stayed with the heifers while they grazed so that I could dissuade them from testing their boundaries too much. But all of a sudden there was a ruckus out of one of the heifers. She was kicking and jumping around, but not moving from the place she was in. Upon closer investigation, I could see that she had somehow gotten a hoof caught between two pieces of steel and in her fright, she was yanking back on her twisted ankle...in real danger of breaking a bone. Thankfully I have been spending plenty of time with these animals so they are used to my presence. I was able to calm her somewhat and when she finally tired and calmed down some, was able to push her forward and slip her hoof from the impromptu trap.

Talk about freaked out. I was quite scared that she would have a broken leg but she seems to have escaped with just a limp that will likely last a couple of days. A few minutes later I was back at forking manure. Whoo hoo!

So after supper I was going to fetch and put in the cow that we are milking due to a lost calf back in February, when I noticed that the whole herd seemed rather freaked and looking off in one direction. All of a sudden I noticed that the excitement was over a pig that was out and running along the lake bank towards me. Shit!!!!

Turns out all four of our gilts, which are just days away from slaughter, had escaped their pen once more. This is the second time they have busted loose in the last couple of weeks. Considering how much space was available to them to run off, including out onto the lake, we had a far easier time getting them back into their pen than might have been the case. About an hour later we had them back inside and their pen patched up.

This escape brings up a sore issue between my folks and I. After so many years of dealing with penned pigs, my folks (primarily my dad) have gotten into the habit of walling the pig pens with plywood. The reasoning is that they are less likely to try to escape their confinement if they cannot see out of their pen. It is more complex than that, however, since our pens are usually rather run down. This is exacerbated by the fact that we penned these gilts in a pen that I repaired last fall...a pen that had not been used in perhaps 10 years, and had not been cleaned out since it was used. As such, many of the lower planks have become rotted and I basically patched it up in order to scrape by until we sold the pigs.

This whole thing kind of annoys me because I know that if we just built the pens large enough that they could exercise their natural tendencies, these pigs would not be so drawn to trying to escape. I also know that if we designed our pens in such a way that they could be cleaned out between uses, we could retain a slat-walled pen that the pigs could see out of but not so easily work holes into the pen, by which they could escape (and which we could easily climb in and out of).

Anyway, the pigs are back in their now re-patched pen. They are still only days away from slaughter but here's hoping I can build something better by the time we get the next batch of young feeder piglets.

One funny aside though:

The second escaped pig that I saw is the one I would most like to keep as a breeder, one who lays down for me to run her back and neck, came running over to me as soon as she saw me. Her excitement was so great and her mannerisms such that I could almost imagine her excitedly grunting out a question of "Hey buddy! What are you doing out here too!"

The whole thing just reaffirms my desire to pasture our pigs, letting them wander within a fenced area and follow their natural habits. I think we'd still need to pen them in a more confined fashion over winter but I'd sure feel a lot better about keeping them that way. The pens we have now are much better than being in a crowded, hot, industrial hog facility but we could still do a lot better.

I think that's all for now.

Peace and comfort.

Chemical Submission

"Underkastelsen", or in English, "Submission" is a new or upcoming documentary out of Sweden. It seems to have a look at the 100,000 man-made chemicals in the world, and the effects these chemicals are having on we humans and the world we inhabit. Sounds bloody horrifying and I doubt that I will be surprised by much in it but I will be looking to watch it anyway.

In other news, I was reading an article in a local agricultural paper today. The subject of this article is one that arose almost a month ago, regarding a Canada-EU trade deal which would force Canada into joining much of the rest of the world in bowing to large agribusiness. This would include prohibition against the saving and trading/selling of seed, as well as strengthening intellectual property rights of large multinational agribusinesses like Monsanto. All of these actions have happened in most other parts of the world, with highly dubious results.

I have to look into this more but I am surprised to see the EU attempting to force these changes onto Canada, considering much of Europe seems opposed to GMO seeds and other multinational agribusiness activities like those mentioned above. Canadians have to stand up against these changes or what remains of our small farm industry is quite seriously finished.

Transgenic GMO's Causing Bee Crisis?

Most readers will already be aware of the Honeybee crisis in North America. For anyone who isn't aware, the really short version is that for the 4th year in a row, bee colonies in North America, and elsewhere, have experienced a mysterious loss of an approximate 1/3 of their numbers. This phenomena has been dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and is "very very bad". A great deal of food production, both for we humans and for the rest of the living world, is reliant upon the activities of these little buzzers.

So needless to say, the search has been on the find the cause.

Some reasonable suggestions have been (and any or all may well factor in):
-cell tower interference in bee navigation
-pesticides
-general toxification of the environment
-some new disease
-various other ideas

Well it seems like transgenic GMO's (organisms which have had genetic information from another organism directly added to or replacing its own) might be able to add another horrible side effect to their list of faults. This research article seems to provide evidence that transgenic GMO's could easily be the cause of or contributing significantly to CCD.

Have a look and spread the info!

How Does Your Garbage Mountain Grow?

Last year I did a post around this time of year, about the landfill next to our property and showing the amount of waste that blows off the trash heap and onto our farmland and the lake we both share. This is one of the pictures I took on April 22, 2009.

I thought I would go take some more pictures around the same time this year and try to get an idea of how fast the mountain is growing. So these pictures are from yesterday, about one week later than last year. They were taken from the same general area so you can see just how quickly willows and trash heaps grow.

Interestingly, the pictures look like they were taken on the same day but I promise, it was WAY colder last year. It actually snowed as I was walking back from taking the pictures. This year it was merely cool and trying to rain (luckily, we got some of that today).


At this rate, it is terrifying just how large this thing could get and I cannot believe that people don't seem to find it distressing. I guess it's just far enough out of sight of most to be out of mind as well.

This panorama shows the whole damn thing in all its glorious splendor.

Bicycle Day (Not Your Kid's Bike!!)

To some people, April 19th is known as Bicycle Day. It was on this day in 1943 that Dr. Albert Hoffman performed the first self experiment with LSD, having discovered it years earlier and accidentally discovering some of its effects the day before. Under the supervision of his lab assistant, Dr. Hoffman ingested an amount of LSD after which he and his assistant bicycled to Hoffman's residence. Upon this "trip" home, Hoffman began to come under the full effects of the psychotropic and so this day holds significant relevance to LSD enthusiasts and all manner of psychedelic thinkers and activists.

A couple of years back, I stumbled across Hoffman's "LSD:My Problem Child", a chapter of which included entries about the accidental discovery of some of the psychotropic effects which he discovered rather accidentally, his intention to perform an experiment in order to delve further into these effects and then of the experiment itself.

Interestingly enough, Dr. Hoffman's journal entry for this experiment shows its commencement at precisely 4:20 pm. Reading the journal, I found this fact interesting because 420 has been a marijuana reference for some time now.

I did not actually recall that the experiment had taken place on April 19 until just today when I came across this NY Times article about Hoffman's death in 2008. The article shares Hoffman's determination that LSD had opened his mind to the importance of truly connecting with nature and our place as humans within nature, that this connection had begun when he was a child and been reinforced and developed through psychotropic-assisted spiritual work.

I find this so fascinating because my own life experience has been so very similar. I had strong connections with nature and an inkling of the importance of balance as a child, but after my first year or so of college I was very much in a space of giving up on humanity, of feeling that all was shot and I might as well have the best time I possibly could before it was too late. But as I have written before, what began as recreational use of psychotropics very much evolved into spiritual reflection and a real sense of the importance of expanding my consciousness. The earliest manifestations from this evolution were to remember that connection to nature, that sense of being part of a very large and very complex system of relationships and a sense of the importance of exploring these relationships and my own consciousness.

I have not read much of Dr. Hoffman's words, other than that chapter, but the NY Times article is filled with quotations that are so similar to my own thoughts and interests. I shall have to find more of his words to read and I think that Bicycle Day will heretofore be of immense importance to me.

Peace and comfort, all.

One Of Those Moments

Wow, I just learned that Jack Herer, author of "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" and perhaps the Grandfather of the modern hemp and marijuana movement, passed away on Thursday, the same day as my granny. And my last post before yesterday was on that very topic, the first time I have written about it specifically.

Talk about coincidence.

RIP Hemperor