Re: What is Magic?

[Lloyd Charles]

Dear Allan - David -

Michelle wrote
> >   I hadn't even considered that I was depleting the soil
> >doing this.  I guess that I struggle with that concept.  (that grazing
green crops is detrimental - me too)

In my kind of rainfall environment it takes a season to grow a bulky green
manure crop, if we then plow it in we need to use a disk implement of some
sort to get the job done, so we get caught in the classic overcultivation
trap and by the time we plant crop our organic carbon reading has gone way
down - the disking overstimulates the system and we get excessive
mineralisation over summer - burning up accumulated carbon as well as the
green manure crop - but if we graze these paddocks down in spring we can
then use a tyned implement to cultivate (chisel plow is best for us) and we
get much less rapid breakdown over summer so although we put less vegetable
material into the system to start, we end up with better organic carbon at
seeding time and we have more available for release of organic nitrogen as
the crop grows. Its a more balanced result.
Michelle is working to a different time frame,  It takes a massive amount of
biological activity, warmth, lots of moisture and energy, to break down
mature crop residues quickly without throwing the soil system out of balance
(nitrogen deficit) . All of those things are going on in a ruminant animal
all the time, we use sheep but cows are better at bulky stuff. I think its
pointless trying to build up soil levels (carbon and minerals) if we then
have to burn it back down with cultivation to prepare for the next crop.
Balance is the key ! Maximum of anything is not always the way to go!
Cheers all
Lloyd Charles

Re: What is Magic?

[Allan Balliett]

  I hadn't even considered that I was depleting the soil
doing this.  I guess that I struggle with that concept.  Isn't this really
how nature's system works and nutrients get recycled?


Michelle - In nature's system the animal's carcass and all the 
nutrients stockpiled therein also eventually gets deposited in the 
field, but, here in real-life, I bet you ship yours off to Kansas 
City by the ton.

Although this is the major argument why grassfed is not truly 
sustainable, aren't a lot of nutrients also  coming from the 
atmosphere so that it is possible recycle manure while harvesting 
meat and still be break-even on the nutrient scale(s)?

-Allan

Re: What is Magic?

[Jack Wendell]

- Original Message -
From: "D & S Chamberlain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 5:17 PM
Subject: Re: What is Magic?
>
> Michelle: Green manure crops work best if turned back in with as much bulk
> as possible. Feeding off to livestock is just not the same unless you
> collect the manure and compost it and respread it. In fact by feeding it
off
> you are depleting your soil and unless you have high biological activity
the
> manure will just lay there for some time.
> A thought from Oz
> David C
>
Dear David
Thanks for you thought on green manuring.  Upon reflection,  maybe I should
have just called it grazing cover crops.  We are very sandy and are trying
to hold the ground, keep roots growing which keeps the microbes going, and
feel the "cover" crops also help us with weed control.  I would mention that
we are transitioning from conventional to more regenerational methods and
these green crops really do help.  Plus now that we are trying to do some
value added through running our feed through cattle these crops also feed
the animals.  The cover crops are then worked into the ground after grazing
and row crops are then planted.  We did some of this this spring and felt
the response was very positive in the corn planted after cover crop/grazing.
I agree though that this isn't a true green manure and I shouldn't have
called it that.  I hadn't even considered that I was depleting the soil
doing this.  I guess that I struggle with that concept.  Isn't this really
how nature's system works and nutrients get recycled?
Thanks for your thoughts, and I will consider what you've said.
Michelle Wendell

Re: Mars in its current cycle

[Jane Sherry]

Title: Re: Mars in its current cycle



Please do and what is an “astrosophist”?

Thanks,
Jane S.

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 19:14:24 EST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Mars in its current cycle


 Jane SHerry, 
Hi,  I asked Steve to post it because my computer was on the fritz at the time. 
This is from a colleague and friend of mine, Mary Stewart Adams.  An Astrosophist, and she lives in Michigan. 
Would you lik me to forward your email to her? 
Jane Parker 

David Kurtz on Waking Our Neighbors from the Illusion of Media

[Allan Balliett]

As Gil Scott-Heron said, in another time, another place, for a different
reason:

 The revolution will not be televised.
 The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
 In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
 The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
 blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
 Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
 hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
 The revolution will not be televised.



That is to say, nothing will happen if you sit on your butt and wait for it to
happen on the evening infotainment. Any sort of social or political change
happens when enough people get adequately pissed off to actually *do*
something. You're right; 20/20 will never challenge the DMCA. This means that
*you* have to do that, *I* have to do that, and anyone who actually cares
about
it has to pay attention and do something.

What is that something? Write. Write to your mayor, write to your
representative, write to your president. Most of all, write and talk to your
friends and family about it. Get *them* pissed off and angry about the status
quo. Then after you're done writing, organize. Organize or join a community
media awareness group; get other people talking and writing about it.

Mass media is a huge hurdle, but that's not the only way people communicate.
People still have voices and brains and hands that can do quite a bit to
convince and motivate. Don't be so quick to give up just because the playing
field is tilted.

I don't agree with your near-the-end-times view of things, but if that's the
way you see it, do you want to go down swinging, or sitting on the couch? Die
on your feet or live on your knees?

--
David A. Kurtz

Re: What is Magic?

[Allan Balliett]

Michelle: Green manure crops work best if turned back in with as much bulk
as possible. Feeding off to livestock is just not the same unless you
collect the manure and compost it and respread it. In fact by feeding it off
you are depleting your soil and unless you have high biological activity the
manure will just lay there for some time.


The trend here in the mid-atlantic that is put forward by the 
sustainable ag extension agents is that "root composting" is more 
valueable that 'green manuring.' With this in mind, green manure 
crops are cut down and raked off - usually to the compost pile where 
they will live another day, probably a day in the fall. Turning in 
the green mature is seen as slowing down the soil in the important 
growing period. For some reason, it's assumed that the decaying root 
mass will not deny nitrogen to a new crop, or, at least this is never 
mentioned as a factor to wait for before planting the next crop. 
Myself, I like to feed the greenmatter to rabbits and the rabbit 
manure to the worms and the resulting crumbly to the beds later in 
the season. -Allan

Re: Mars in its current cycle

[Prkrjake]

 Jane SHerry,
Hi,  I asked Steve to post it because my computer was on the fritz at the time.
This is from a colleague and friend of mine, Mary Stewart Adams.  An Astrosophist, and she lives in Michigan.
Would you lik me to forward your email to her?
Jane Parker

Re: Search for results of Elaine's testing of bd preps

[D & S Chamberlain]

In the vernacular of the local kids: You wish!!
David C

- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, 23 November 2002 1:35 AM
Subject: Re: Search for results of Elaine's testing of bd preps


> We should request that the agencies involved take a closer look at the use
of
> chemicals at the same time they are examing the tea issue.  Have them look
at
> residuals and food quality as well as the effects on groundwater...sstorch
> In a message dated 11/13/02 9:54:03 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> << David, I brought this up to our National Organic/Biodynamic Production
>
> Standards committee (Australia)and they have spoken with the CSIRO re
>
> research into this issue. David Matthews is an Ex Vet and knows all about
>
> this stuff, and has mates in the right places.  Now we have to look at
>
> research funding, especially trying to get the Organic levies outof the
>
> non-organic sphere. But fear not, it is being taken seriously and wheels
are
>
> in motion.
>
> I really appreciate the discussion happening on BDNow to help this issue
>
> along.
>
>
> Cheryl Kemp
>
> Education and Workshop Coordinator
>
> Biodynamic AgriCulture Australia
>
> Phone /Fax : 02 6657 5322
>
> Home: 02 6657 5306
>
> email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> web: www.biodynamics.net.au
>
>
> - Original Message -
>
> From: "D & S Chamberlain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 5:50 PM
>
> Subject: Re: Search for results of Elaine's testing of bd preps
>
>
>
> > Hugh: I think that Frank has a valid point. Obviously poorly made
compost
>
> > tea can contain E.coli, the question is how do we stop it happening?
>
> > Perceptions are everything, if it can be traced that someone got ill
from
>
> > compost tea then there are legions of highly paid people who will push
the
>
> > perception, right or wrong, that all compost tea is bad. No amount of
>
> > huffing and puffing will change the perception once instigated, rumour
and
>
> > innuendo is the way that chemical companies fight and there's plenty of
>
> > suckers out there willing to listen to them.
>
> > Ideas anyone? >>
>
>

Re: What is Magic?

[D & S Chamberlain]

Michelle wrote
> That has led us back to bringing cattle on the farm.  We intend to learn
to
> put as much standing feed through our animals as we can.  That includes
> planting oats as a green manure crop early in March and grazing before
corn
> planting in May, grazing on cover crops planted behind wheat harvest,
> grazing some standing corn etc, etc.  This system looks like it combines
> many good things.  It can utilize green manure crops for both weed control
> and soil improvement as well as providing feed for cattle while they in
turn
> are providing manure for the soils.  And we are tending to view this place
> as a feed farm instead of a cash grain operation.  Our conventional system

Michelle: Green manure crops work best if turned back in with as much bulk
as possible. Feeding off to livestock is just not the same unless you
collect the manure and compost it and respread it. In fact by feeding it off
you are depleting your soil and unless you have high biological activity the
manure will just lay there for some time.
A thought from Oz
David C

Re: chickens

[D & S Chamberlain]

Tony: Our rule here is no chooks in the veggie patch ever. They delight in
scratching out every plant they can and boy do they chuck the mulch around.
David C

- Original Message -
From: "Tony Nelson-Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, 24 November 2002 3:23 AM
Subject: Re: chickens


> I found that there is a serious drawback to over-friendly chickens in the
> garden:  digging a bed with a fork, thus revealing many juicy worms, I've
> several times almost slipped a disc by having to violently abort a thrust
as
> a head and neck appeared in the target area.  Of course, once the digging
is
> done, letting the hens in compensates for the loss of worms by the
> simultaneous loss of most weed seedlings, runners of couch and
convolvulus,
> etc.   Tony N-S.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _
> The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>
>

Re: chickens

[D & S Chamberlain]

Dorothy: My experience is that chooks don't like whole oats very much, I
feed whole corn in cool weather because of it's high energy content, not too
much or the egg laying drops back. About a hand full each a day.

David C

- Original Message -
From: "Dorothy O'Brien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, 24 November 2002 11:56 PM
Subject: Re: chickens


> Thanks for the chicken info.  I am ordering books and
> catalogs today.
>
> These chickens make me laugh every time I see them.
> Several are very serious and others coo and cluck.
> They are all important and dignified.
>
> Has anyone tried feeding flax seed?  I understand that
> this feed will yield eggs that are lower in saturated
> fat and higher in the Omega fatty acids.  Also, I read
> that "oats are the best cool season feed."  Does this
> mean the chickens are eating the oat grass or the
> grain?   Dorothy
>
> __
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
> http://mailplus.yahoo.com
>
>

Re: What is Willard Water?

[Gil Robertson]

Please tell us more about the use by humans of the Preps,

Gil

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> In a message dated 11/25/02 2:22:05 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> <<
> A gallon would go a long way since you add just a small amount to regular
> water to use. A number of on-line alternative herb/ag stores carry it.
>  >>
>
> save your money and drink 501...sstorch

Re: What is Willard Water?

[SBruno75]

In a message dated 11/25/02 2:22:05 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< 
A gallon would go a long way since you add just a small amount to regular 
water to use. A number of on-line alternative herb/ag stores carry it.
 >>

save your money and drink 501...sstorch

What is Willard Water?

[Dave Robison]

Good question. I've been following various discussions on
the subject on an "alternate health" e-group. It is a
proprietary catalyst type water, derived by a geologist originally. Seems
to have silicate in it, perhaps in a potenized form like 501. See
http://www.dr-willardswater.com/whatis.html

A gallon would go a long way since you add just a small amount to regular water to use. A number of on-line alternative herb/ag stores carry it.


David Robison
Stellar Processes
1033 SW Yamhill Suite 405
Portland, OR 97205
(503) 827-8336
www.ezsim.com

FW: [globalnews] Weekly Esoteric Astrology Report: Give to theStarving This Thanksgiving

[Jane Sherry]

Title: FW: [globalnews] Weekly Esoteric Astrology Report: Give to the Starving This Thanksgiving




NightLight News Esoteric Astrology for the week of November 21-27, 2002

Each year, as the Sun enters Sagittarius, food talk begins. That's because Sag is the hidden epicure, a fact not often discussed in astrological circles. Anyway, it's almost Thanksgiving and a note about potlucks to Lifestyles writer Sven Davis. I don't like them. Moving forward, it's a good thing Venus is direct. Now we're better able to give thanks for what we have (Venus retro helps us sort out values) and enjoy friends, family and feasting on Thanksgiving. Unless, of course we plan on doing its alternative -- fasting -- good for health, and purification. Things needed to find out what our goals are (Sag purpose). 

There is also another humanitarian choice we can make. Sending monetary donations for the hungry. Recently the news that's fit to print has reported that nearly eight million Ethiopians are starving due to low rainfall and poverty. Reaching catastrophic proportions, the situation is worse than it was in the early 1990s. Therefore, for this Thanksgiving, instead of creating a cranberry, flower, and pumpkin laden table that attempts to look like something from Bon Appetit, I am sending the moneys I would have spent on Thanksgiving to the United Nations Fund to aid the Ethiopian people. For those also in a humanitarian state, go to http://abcnews.go.com/onair/nightline/nl000508_ethiopia.html for news reports, video, and a list of relief agencies, such as the UN, Unicef, and Oxfam, where donations can be sent. About fasting. Two people I greatly admired were Helen and Scott Nearing, a peace activist and simple living couple who left the big city for the country and created the Good Life Center. See their book, "The Good Life." Or go to http://www.goodlife.org/ for information. On all major holidays, between building their home, gardens, stone walls and teaching self sufficiency, Scott and Helen fasted. 

The week: It's a good one. Thursday Venus is stationary direct. The moon's in Gemini what do we choose? A dilemma, always, with Gemini. Friday Sun enters Sag at 3:34 am. We rise out of the dark, watery caves of Scorpio, shed the hydra, the bog, and those nine tests and begin to look skyward for direction. "Where are the mountains, we ask." It's too soon to know. Moon enters Cancer at 8:48 am so we go home again. Things link indirectly like two quiet conversations in two different languages. Interesting day. Saturday is completely brilliant. The future pays a visit, revolution stirs, strange events transpire, we seek the unusual. By 3:52 pm (PST) something's amiss with communication. Careful with it as it could wound or fly by without notice and all's lost. Sunday is simply void-of-course (v/c) from 8:51 am till 5:00 pm (PST). Then the Moon enters Leo and our hearts begin to beat synchronistically with the Sun. That makes love/wisdom occur. Monday, with Leo Moon, is rather gentle and nourishing. Tuesday is also, till a v/c occurs from 5:51 pm till 10:42 pm (PST), There's an irritating buzz at 3:33 pm (PST). Wednesday is hopeful and something's promised. Perhaps it's that the time of giving has begun. 

..
“Inner speed, outer caution; inner caution, outer speed”
 --Words of Wisdom From the Great Caduceator

Re: Mars in its current cycle

[Jane Sherry]

Title: Re: Mars in its current cycle




Hello Steve & Jane,
Can someone direct me to a web or regular address for the “Correspondence”?

JS

OT: Nytimes: A Pig Returns to the Farm, Thumbing His Snout atOrwell

[Jane Sherry]

Title: OT: Nytimes: A Pig Returns to the Farm, Thumbing His Snout at Orwell



A Pig Returns to the Farm, Thumbing His Snout at Orwell
By DINITIA SMITH

What if Snowball had his chance? An American novelist has written a parody of "Animal Farm," George Orwell's 1945 allegory about the evils of communism, in which the exiled pig, Snowball, returns to the farm and sets up a capitalist state, leading to misery for all the animals. The book, "Snowball's Chance" by John Reed, is being published this month by Roof Books, a small independent press in New York. And the estate of George Orwell is not happy about it. 


William Hamilton, the British literary executor of the Orwell estate, objected to the parody in an e-mail message to the James T. Sherry, the publisher of Roof Books, saying, "The contemporary setting can only trivialize the tragedy of Orwell's mid-20th-century vision of totalitarianism." 

"The clear references to 9/11 in the apocalyptic ending can only bring Orwell's name into disrepute in the U.S.," Mr. Hamilton wrote. Reached by phone, he said he had nothing more to add to the message.

"Snowball's Chance" is being published at a time when Orwell's reputation has been under attack because of revelations that in the late 1940's he gave the British Foreign Office a list of people he suspected of being "crypto-Communists and fellow travelers," labeling some of them as Jews and homosexuals as well. One of those condemning Orwell has been the writer Alexander Cockburn, whose father, Claud, a British journalist and member of the Communist Party, was a bitter foe of Orwell's.

"How quickly one learns to loathe the affectations of plain bluntishness," Mr. Cockburn writes in an introduction to Mr. Reed's novella. "The man of conscience turns out to be a whiner, and of course a snitch." 

Coming to Orwell's defense in a book published in September, "Why Orwell Matters" (Basic Books), Christopher Hitchens calls Orwell "a great humanist" whose opinions still hold water. "It has lately proved possible to reprint every single letter, book review and essay composed by Orwell," he writes, "without exposing him to any embarrassment."

The debate is set to continue this evening, when Mr. Hitchens is scheduled to appear at Cooper Union with Simon Schama, James Miller and the New Yorker writer Bill Buford for "Orwell Now," a symposium presented by the PEN American Center.

Mr. Reed said he was watching the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on television in his East Village apartment on Sept. 11 when the idea came to him to rewrite the Orwell classic. "I thought, `Why would they do this to us?' " he remembered. "The twin towers attack showed us that something is wrong with our system, too." 

He decided, he said, that the world had a new form of evil to deal with, and it was not communism. It was the evil, he said, within American corporate capitalism itself, and American arrogance in protecting its interests in the Middle East oil fields. To Mr. Reed, "Animal Farm" was the ultimate expression of pro-capitalist ideology. "It has inoculated generations of schoolchildren against the evils of communism," Mr. Reed said. 

Mr. Reed says he is definitely one of those in the anti-Orwell camp. "I really wanted to explode that book," he said of "Animal Farm." "I wanted to completely undermine it."

In Orwell's allegory, the animals go hungry and are worked to death for the benefit of their communist pig masters. In the final scene the animals gaze into the window of the farmhouse watching the pigs cavorting with their human oppressors and can no longer tell the two apart. 

Mr. Reed decided to turn Orwell's classic back on itself. In his parody Napoleon, the Stalinist pig dictator of "Animal Farm," dies, and his old rival, Snowball, returns transformed into a corporate capitalist dressed in cuff links and a blazer. "Tonight, I present an animalage of such erudition that all the wisdom of the village is now ours," Snowball says, announcing a new, decidedly free-market credo for the farm: "All animals are born equal — what they become is their own affair." 

The farm initially expands under capitalism. The animals get hot water and air-conditioning, start wearing clothes and begin walking on their hind legs. The farm encroaches on the territory of the neighboring woodland animals. The pigs bomb the beaver dams and disrupt the free flow of water — make that oil — in the forest. Eventually the farm's ecology is destroyed by overdevelopment, and it is turned into one giant Disney theme park, complete with confessional sideshows.

The woodland creatures, led by the beavers — read Islamic fundamentalists — incensed at the destruction of their environment, attack the twin windmills, which power the farm and are a stand-in for the towers of the World Trade Center. The book ends with the farm animals crying out for revenge against the fundamentalists: "`Kill the beavers! Kill the beavers! Kill! Kill!"' 

Mr. Sherry said he believed th

Re: OT:FW: Watching democracy die (and be reborn?)

[Merla Barberie]

Take heart, three counties in Idaho went Democratic this past election,
not my own, I'm sorry to say.  The previous election was a clean sweep
for the Republicans.  Of course, that didn't win any representation, but
it surely did help my feelings.

We also have a Green Party, but it's green as in grassroots, with the
environment just one aspect of a varied platform.  The first really
important thing we did was get 100+ people to come to a hearing that we
got by inspiring a lot of people to ask for it.  A Golf Course developer
who also owned a resort on the lake nearby that rented jet skis and
advertised a boat trip to the golf course had applied to build a dock on
the Pack River near the delta.  There was real good testimony asking
such things as why the developer's name didn't appear on the public
notice in the paper instead of some unknown person.  We had a man who
had a Blade Runner (a jet ski) testifying that the *~@# thing sat a foot
deep in the water if it was going less than 30 mph. [The delta is very
shallow so the developer must have planned to have it dredged.]  A
canoeist testified about being swamped by a jet skier on the narrow
river.  My husband testified that he met someone who had taken his
father hunting near the delta where they saw an elk mother with twin
calves in the water and they decided not to shoot.  A woman actually
went out in a kayak and measured the depth of the water at the dock site
and pointed out that the planned dock was too large for the site.  But
really, it doesn't take a lot of people.  It just takes dedicated people
who are willing to stand up and be counted like Markess opposing the
shooting of the deer to cure wasting disease.

In a large urban area, this just wouldn't be possible.  It's just too
large, too sophisticated to get involved in party politics and the
Democrats are up to their eyebrows in corporate money too.  All you can
do it write letters and send emails to legislators on issues.  What are
the Greens like in an urban area?  Could you make a difference on any
local issues?

We need more Wellstones and Kuciniches!  It takes courage to challenge
the establishment.  Moderates and Liberals aren't power-oriented and
they don't shoot leaders they don't like.  A better world must be
possible somehow though. Maybe just the power of thought...like making
rain.

Best,

Merla





Merla







Allan Balliett wrote:

> This essay was written as though the polls themselves were not
> already contaminated. As though intelligent and charismatic liberal
> politicians in this country have not been culled through assasination
> or media-fueled scandals in this country since the Kennedy
> assasination. (I mean, folks, do we really think that Kennedy's death
> served no purpose?)
>
> The controlling technique of the New World Order IS democracy, or the
> illusion of the same. Generally, it's enough to just have the larger
> funds for media control. We've seen in this country that it can go
> further, even when the left offers mediocre candidates. Benign
> dictators normally meet death through junta, eh?
>
> I agree. For the most part the tools for true populist control of
> this country are still, for the most part, in place. If you chose to
> run, don't fly a plane, of course, or call yourself the leader of the
> World Peace Movement. Now IS the time to start working on real
> democracy as though there will be no tomorrow otherwise.
>
> In the current form of democracy, they take the power and we, the
> people, take the blame for everything. Votes never count for much as
> long as the ruling powers pick your choices.
>
> -Allan