Daniel - Thanks for that! It's hard to see how my often waterlogged, heavy
clay soil could contain excess nitrate, but there's no harm in trying...
Tony N-S.
Steve - Pulling horsetail shoots damages the plant? I should be so lucky!
I approve of this plant in the right place, but not overwhelming my veg
patch. I've dug down three feet into my subsoil (solid glacial clay)
without coming to the end of its stolons - I've read that they can extend
The BBC Radio 4 'Today' news programme is currently getting excited about
purple carrots. Anchorman John Humphreys discovered that it's only the
outer skin which is purple, but is still flabbergasted by this novelty. Has
he never seen the top of a turnip or swede (rutabaga)? Tony N-S.
I find a small shredder (bought, not home-made!) invaluable for making shrub
trimmings up to about 3/4 diam, and often several feet long, suitable for
inclusion in compost. I can't see how else these could be processed? Tony
N-S.
At an Emerson College course in 1996 I was given a table copied from Applied
Biodynamics no 7 (Spring 1994) with the following information:
Place prep in a glass container with one litre of rainwater, stir for 5
mins, immerse seeds for one hour and then sow out.
500 for chard, spinach
502 for
Merla - I have illustrations of various flowforms (as I'm sure many others
also do) which I'd be glad to scan to you, if you'd quote your e-mail
address (as Allan doesn't approve of attachments). Tony N-S.
Steve - I don't want to nit-pick, but I wonder how the vortices in my
flowform cascade are not peripheral ? The flowforms are thin plastic shells
and, inside each one, the liquid flows around the outer edge in twin
vortices before joining in chaotic discharge into the next flowform beneath.
That
Thanks, Christy, for the notes on Wes Jackson's
talk. On a minor point, I picked up on the '1 nuclear accident every 10
years' estimate. As a coastal marine ecologist, I figured out that (around
the NW European coastline) we have averaged one severe winter and one serious
oil-spill every
Instead of stirring, I run water plus prep (for spraying or compost heap,
not to make tea) through a cascade of flowforms for about 10 mins. Do I win
both ways or get the booby prize ? Tony N-S.
Yeah, it's a good story; but I remember the suggestions during the 'Green
Revolution' that new high-yielding rice varieties would enable peasant
farmers to produce more and thus become more prosperous. What reportedly
happened was that they planted less to get the same crop and became more
Wherever there's a problem, kill the obvious
suspect without considering the consequences ! Those overseas
from the UK might be interested to know that the 'experimental' badger cull
re-started yesterday. Badgers and cows both suffer from
tuberculosis. Farmers and the Agriculture Department
I'm not sure whether I'm one of the purveyors of
'leftist crap' or not, but it might be worth mentioning that, some years ago, I
would without hesitation have described everything covered by this forum as
crap. BDNow didn't convert me from this view, - I reached it with help
from my wife,
Here in south-west Wales, we thoughtlessly complain at our frequent days of
persistent drizzle or worse, not really appreciating how much of the rest of
the world would be delighted by it! My good intentions on reading advice
about putting a brick in the loo cistern, never brushing teeth under a
Interesting. Recently, I keep having the sense of catching a glimpse of
movement or some out-of-place object just out of my line of vision. Some
while ago, I related to this forum the story of my new neighbour seeing the
ghost of a former owner of our property, believing it to be my wife. I
I doubt that Allen will support this discussion for much longer, as it's so
off-message; but I think it's pushing things too far to regard 'Muslim
states' as being united by religion rather than ethnicity. These states may
be overwhelmingly Muslim, observing Sharia law, but they are still
Tony - is vit B12 really that thermally stable?
Tony N-S.
Michael - There's a whole lot of history here, and theology too. It's
pretty convenient to be able to say, God gave me this land ! The first
thing that Joshua did when entering that land was to smash Jericho (early
blueprint for Jenin?). I agree that it was stupid of the Balfour government
to
In Britain, there is a loud and potentially powerful backlash by a group
calling itself The Countryside Alliance. It campaigns against the closure
of rural post-offices and banks, poor public transport and other problems of
countryfolk but, unfortunately, it is a Trojan horse: it was set up by
It's encouraging to learn that some 'ordinary' US Americans are at least
criticising Sharon's Israel, if not offering much support to the
Palestinians. The Brits (and probably a majority in much of Europe
generally) are much more supportive of the Palestinians: we deplore the
bombing of
Hugh (in particular) - did you ever come across the
news that two Japanese astrophysicists had detected the 'music of the spheres'
? I read it in 'New Scientist' a couple of years ago and have now
lost that issue but, in essence, these two were analysing the vibrations of
planet Earth. They
Is Merla's knapweed the same as ours in Britain -
Centaurea scabiosa or C. nigra (also known as Hardheads ? I have it
occasionally in a rough lawn on an old cinder patch but don't find it at all
invasive (it can easily be mown out). It is,
indeed,attractiveand valuable as the major
Thanks, Nancy and Michael. Seems like we've not experienced them here yet,
then. We do have our own local mystery, tho' - for the last couple of
months, the cockle fishery in our estuary has been closed because of
Diarrheic Shellfish Poisoning. Poisoning of shellfish is usually due to a
bloom
As I commented in a huffy OFF message earlier, I live under the 'Green'
channel taken by transatlantic flights as they cross SW Britain -
consequently, I often see large numbers of contrails in the sky. How can I
distinguish such normal condensation trails from these chemtrails ?
Tony N-S.
Gil - Gandhi was once asked what he thought about Western civilisation; he
replied that, yes, it would be a good thing.
Tony N-S.
Merla - Of course, to us the preps are significantly processed/treated;
but, to your legalistic regulators, surely you're just using unprocessed
manure and vegetable wastes on one bit of ground and, later, digging them up
and using them on another bit of ground? If it would be acceptable first
Allan and Steve - why not avoid altogether the controversy between 'tedious'
hand stirring and contentious mechanical stirring by using a flowform
cascade? Tony N-S.
Thanks, Jane, for posting this interesting concept. As I've labelled this
an OFF posting, maybe you folks will permit me to let off a little personal
steam re aviation?
As a young man, I was keen on aircraft (Air Scouts and compulsory service in
the RAF). Now, I'm furious that I pay an enormous
If you're pouring a concrete floor, simple advice is to make sure which way
the gradient runs. It seems obvious, but whoever laid the floor of my
garage/workshop helpfully had it sloping to the back and sides so that, when
I garage my car on rainy days, all the runoff drains into the area where
Troy (via Allen?) - thanks for your inspiring note about Earth Day but, just
to nitpick, not 'England' please but Britain ! We in Wales, together with
our compatriots in Scotland and Ireland, share (indeed, were the originators
of) the culture of the largely newcomer invaders who inhabit
Gil - Apologies to any participating Kiwis; I took your recent reference to
the 'land of the long white cloud' to indicate that you live there. Yes, I
live quite near Llanrhidian. Milford Haven is quite similar to the Fal
estuary - of which, incidentally, I've also done an ecological survey.
Deborah - Sorry, I was just using the subject line of the original message:
not an expert on caesium, but surely Ce would be cerium ? Confusion or
mis-type - 137 could be an isotope of either ?Tony N-S.
Gil - nothing so grand as 'farming', I just have 2-3 acres of roughish land,
a little of which I use to grow veg for household use, a little more as
relatively tame garden, the rest as wet paddock or wettish spinney. It's on
the north side of the Gower peninsula in SW Wales, west of Swansea or
Herb - I took my degree (Botany, Zoology, Chemistry) in 1959/60 and enjoyed
the primitive wet methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis; I also
remember simple wet-chemistry methods for determining nutrient deficiencies
in a leaf (can't remember after whom these leaf tests were named -
Chris - Yes, I get your point about taking over a tree to act as a
broadcaster. My main thought, as a rather junior practictioner of T'ai
Chi - Chi Gung, was that the Chi has to come from somewhere and I'm not
really harming the natural environment as a whole in my practice by drawing
it in,
Stephen - I had it in mind that Bush is, himself, a
president who got elected only by disenfranchising the
opposition...It would be a bit rich if he now gets all
pious about it, even though Mugabe went about it a little more
vigorously.
Tony N-S.
Chris - surely the whole point about Chi is that you cannot retain it: you
may 'gather' it, but it's only passing through. Thus it can scarcely be
'parasitic' to obtain it from natural surroundings - it returns to them soon
enough ! Tony N-S.
It's probably not relevant to you but I have a stream fed by an old mining
adit which provides typical iron-waste water (deposits of soft, sticky
orange-coloured sediment). In the stream-bed, I grow the most luscious,
tangy watercress I've ever tasted. I occasionally water other crops with it
Dear Wayne Sharon - I don't want you to think I'm decrying your insights
into plants and their needs, which I find both instructive and humbling
(since I don't receive such insights) but I'm a bit confused by your
proposal that this rose-bed must have something wrong with it because
leaf-cutter
As Hugh commented, it used to be very fashionable to 'remember' a past life
as a famous historical character (Cleopatra and Napoleon must have had a
massive number of multiple personalities). I have no personal insights, but
I attended a very interesting session during which a hypno-medium
Can anyone tell me, if the US has the power to unleash hurricanes
artificially, couldn't 'natural' ones be tamed ? Tony N-S.
Allan - I'm not entirely sure that bombing the Muslim world, by whatever
instigation, is necessarily the best indicator of a good President...
Tony N-S.
Y'know, there are times when the rest of the world feels that US Americans
(present company excepted, natch) _deserve_ the bum Presidents which they
elect... Pity that we have to suffer from their activities, too, though !
Tony N-S.
Richard K. criticises democracy and, of course,
he's right - but which other realistic system ispreferable ? Winston
Churchill commented (roughly) that democracyseems the worst possible way
to run a country, until you look at the alternatives. The 'democracy' of
the Greeks and, later, the
Sorry, Markess - I was extending thecomment
on the problem ofintroductions of alien plants and animals, which clearly
refers to material damage rather than spiritual implications. I wrote as
anenvironmental biologist and intended a seriousprofessional (not
PC) meaning behind a seemingly
Seems to me that the most damaging life form introduced into New World
countries (in the widest sense) has been European humans - subscribers to
BDNow excepted, of course! Tony N-S.
Thanks, folks, for helpful comments on how to get
rid of irrelevant thoughts when trying to meditate, both recently and when I
last brought up this topic. Suggestions seem to fall into three categories
-
1. Accept them calmly, briefly register them
and then let them go;
2. Expel them
Hugh (or anyone else) - what became of the couple who were taking capsules
of DDT daily, to prove that it was harmless to humans ? So far as I could
tell, they were eccentric, otherwise ordinary citizens, not conspicuously
sponsored by any chemical company. Can't remember any details, other
Allan - You were lucky that they sprayed after disembarking passengers!
Some years ago I was on a flight (can't remember the destination, possibly
Jordan) when, immediately after landing, the cabin attendants came through
with small aerosol cans and sprayed the passengers. It wasn't at all
I've made and repaired plankton nets from an appropriate grade of nylon
bolting cloth - sorry, can't remember the nomenclature of mesh-sizes and the
name of a British supplier wouldn't be much use to you, but you could try a
biological supplies house or a supplier to the flour-milling or similar
Thank you, Jane. At the other end of the scale, don't the Chinese point out
that nothing is quite so satisfying as seeing your neighbour fall from his
(presumably single storey) roof ? Tony N-S.
Several subscribers made helpful comments when I
last mentioned meditation problems, awhile ago, so I'm not too apologetic to
come back for more...
Often, after relaxing into meditation mode, I can
see behind my closed eyelids a duller version of the effect oneexperiences
when pressure is
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