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Post by synergy on Nov 9, 2010 23:17:54 GMT -5
I would love to buy some like that for the pacific northwest coastal climate. Pears and other fruit too!
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Post by synergy on Nov 9, 2010 22:34:02 GMT -5
Well I have tried to understand this principal from a layperson perspective and read that houses with plaster and stucco might function as faraday cages, but I do get a cell signal and the phone rings in the file cabinet, so then I thought maybe it is insulated from the ground too much so I put the cell phone inside a metal file box and set it on the basement cement. Also I tried putting it in the middle of a metal veggie grater and so far all I have determined is that I don't know how to really use or maybe even turn on the cell phone? So I will repeat those experiments when my children are home.
I had planned on storing all my information I wanted to access gathered on portable 20 gig USB sticks in case of an EMP but that would be then contingent on having power to run a laptop to access.
Hmm, I might have to buy books again right when I streamlined my house by discarding books in favour of computer files.
We have some solar panels so I am wondering how reliable they might be , surely some research has been done on this ?
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Post by synergy on Nov 9, 2010 11:42:25 GMT -5
I would very much like to have solar power as a summer source of electricity, though I am no where near able to purchase, I also wonder if it would be fried in an EMP event. Also i question if storing items in a rubber lined file cabinet drawer sufficiently guard elecronic items from EMP effects as a faraday cage , or would it need to be grounded further? I have posted a link for a car adapted to drive off methane produced in a biodigesting tank similar to a septic tank fed animal manure and plant waste: www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/Methane-Biogas-Powered-Car.aspxAlso this methane/biodigester article tweaked my interest as it seems that an interesting system was built of rather easily obtainable items, that produced a gas for fuel, fertilizer for plant cultivation, and both food production in the way of meat and plant products is a part of the system. And it seems to be a small scale that could be replicated and maintained without too much trouble: wanderinggaia.com/2010/09/05/guinea-pig-power/
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Post by synergy on Nov 9, 2010 11:18:31 GMT -5
I think any public social media such as this forum or facebook is only as good as the integrity of the people using it. I keep in contact with hundreds upon hundreds of horse friends and breeding clients on facebook, with overwhelmingly far more positive interactions than negative. For instance a young lady locally befriended me whom I did not know, I only knew her contacts and about three months later I was introduced to her through a mutual friend at a horse event. After that she volunteered at my farm , assisted in some critical aspects and has been a super friend I really enjoy, hence when the decision came to move one of my horses home from the east coast, she proposed a wonderful idea and we will be working together showing him. And that was initially a facbook connection.
I too have noticed horse breeders , be they ones I know are swamped with their own small farms chores, or multi millionaires running huge staffed farms and conglomerates of businesses playing Farmville on facebook, what the heck that is about I will never figure out. I have stock to buy, fences to mend and trees to plant right here , today !
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Post by synergy on Nov 6, 2010 19:01:37 GMT -5
There you go, you're started already on replicating a natural balance between the fish, biological filtering and plant growth. They also get to be very friendly eating out of your hand.
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Post by synergy on Nov 4, 2010 19:23:51 GMT -5
In the Pacific coast if Canada, Gulf Islands, there are producing olive orchards. The olive varieties they grow and offer are Frantoio, Leccino, Maurino. They also note: though the Frantoio is self-pollinating, you will achieve the best fruiting results if you also choose another variety to keep the Frantoio company. We are a zone 7 here and these growing sites are considered sub Mediteranean. Um, I think some people will try to grow anything because they also produce maple and birch syrup here . Some cold tolerance info: www.cloudforest.com/northwest/forum/20098270.htmlOlive harvest news in Oregon: www.oregonolives.com/
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Post by synergy on Nov 4, 2010 13:03:12 GMT -5
I was going to add to what you were speaking on, I use to see the soil erode away from the base of grass root on the sloping fields so I hand spread manure from wheelbarrows and now with the rotation I have much more retention of water in the pasture, very little sign of erosion due to run off. I am going to work on my swales to actually not just divert water away but to hold the water for longer and hopefully develop some small pond catchments to retain it in as well. Those are my goals. I see what works and slowly I adapt new ideas. I live in a coastal valley outside of Vancouver British Columbia where we have a lot of fall/winter and spring rain and fairly temperate weather year round zone 7 .This summer we had no rain for 4 months hence my decision that I need to conserve even more water despite our abundant climate.
Previous years my pastures were less intensely managed and never had the small plot configurations of fence and in summer the ground got yellow, barren, a proliferation of weeds , this year it retained a nice green cover, I seeded some flax and oats and wheat and red clover in any exposed areas (like small piles of dirt made by moles or voles) I don't know if that will be a success or not but I will keep adding things, herbs, trees etc which I do research a bit for compatability with my utilization.
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Post by synergy on Nov 4, 2010 12:53:01 GMT -5
I am not a sophisticated gardener in the least, for the most part I might be such a neophyte that I should not be participating in any discussion as I am actually learning to add permaculture in with my small 4 acre horse farm, that includes, barns, houses, different turnout paddocks so very small and intense in scale . So it is evolving . I divided up my grass pasture with a removable hot rope electric fencing system so I can change the configurations of small 60 x 50 foot paddocks to rotate different animals as I want to be set up for more diverse stock and diminish my horse breeding to jsut keeping my stallions. So areas and swales I protect for drainage and future water conservation here tend to be more sloping and those I keep the horses out of now and plant orchard . The perimeter i plant hedgerow , all very small plants now, but accumulating over time. An interior plot I wanted to garden I stacked soiled horse bedding for about three years and let the horses run on it which killed the grass and created lovely soil where previously it was clayish pasture, So that plot now in the fourth year is about 50 x60 feet and I will grow squash, some corn, potatoes and some beans this spring. This winter i am starting to run the horses in another small grid of 60 x 50 for a another plot , it may be plantable in spring but I will need to run them on it again the next winter to really churn up the soil and kill grass, but I was under some sad misconception I might have a perenial grain bed. Looks like I might have to do some small beds of annual grains for a while. So my system isn't completely evolved, but just evolving as I explore a more balanced lifestyle. In 15 years there has been no spraying or tilling. If I run horses around the mature tree crops the compaction is too hard on the roots so those areas will have to adapt to seasonal geese or turkeys or sheep. But remember this is very small scale , workable for me as single person. I could handle keeping small perenial plots of grain production generally weed free but I am not interested in cultivating big areas or tilling because even though compaction is not good after the horses run hard on an area the freeze thaw cycles loosen up the soil again when you remove them . As mentioned I am now noticing huge changes in the soil, I'd say I have about 10 more kinds of fungi than before even popping up in areas that were fescue monocultures with more trees and organic litter I am sure I will see more changes over the long term.
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Post by synergy on Nov 3, 2010 23:31:47 GMT -5
I have not tilled in 15 plus years on my small plot and have added manure, and definitely see richer soil, this year noting a lot of different forms of fungi that never existed before. I can see how tilling makes monocultures possible but that is not my goal. I will be running animals in a small plot to kill the pasture enough to plant a perenial grain area. I am not very experienced or sophisticated but I still hope it works : )
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Post by synergy on Nov 1, 2010 11:36:43 GMT -5
I think what happens here , by that I mean the small growers is critical to conserve the right and opportunity to produce our own food in the future , and this has everything to do with why we are using open pollinated seed sources . I think it is increasingly difficult to protect the integrity of open pollinated seed. And there is the suggestion that now there are patents on natural organisms : www.thefutureoffood.com/onlinevideo.html Plantsnobin Karen , you have some good points but the huge fight, in my opinion, is being lost daily. In my opinion small growers and backyard production and saving seed are the underground resistance protecting our childrens rights to grow food by circumventing the establishment of the agri industries. I for one think you are naieve to think they won't patent natural genes, they will tweak the vocabulary and bury it under legalese but it happens . What is happening in Svalbaard indirectly has everything to do with the future of agri food industries which influence the vast majority of world food production.
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Post by synergy on Oct 31, 2010 23:23:22 GMT -5
Silverseeds was talking about aquaculture the other night and then this post was the first I have seen on aquaponics and it was simply amazing to see so many examples on You tube. It really can be diverse in it's production . I have some personal idea of having a pond and channel system with subsequent small catchment pools on my sloping land , where buried under the pond is a geothermal heat system for my home heating and the pond itself serves for conserving water, moisture for other planted crop areas, animal habitat etc. I have never actually heard of anyone combining geothermal with a pond so i really have no idea how realistic and workable that is, I just thought it might be a good way to optimize use of the area the pond takes. Aquaponics too seems to optimize a permaculture type system .
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Post by synergy on Oct 31, 2010 21:46:04 GMT -5
Seeds of Change In August 2010, Mars, Incorporated announced that it would close the El Guique farm and move some management to Los Angeles. A final tour of the farm was provided on Saturday, August 14. A spokesperson for Mars indicated the closure was due to a "strategic shift" and that not all the employees would retain their jobs.[4] One farm employee was left as of August 14, 2010. Others were relieved of their jobs without prior notice about August 1, 2010. Employee Liz Clayton-Jones, Mars UK stated in an interview "One of the principles [of the Mars company] is "Freedom", which is embodied by the fact that we're a family-owned, private business with the freedom to innovate, invest and define success by our own high standards. In addition, our "Associate Concept" is fundamental to the way all our employees are treated and respected: we believe our employees are our most valuable assets. Common to this is our egalitarian culture of equality and accessibility, which stems from the Quaker roots of the Mars family." The property is being sold without consideration for the value of the accumulated knowledge that was on store at the site.
Hmm, Mars is a food corporate giant and whom owns and controls them? Well a quick little internet research shows Masterfoods and Masterfoods works hand in hand with Berkshire Hathaway whom 80% of their stock is bequeathed to the Gates Foundation (Bill and Melinda Gates) and they in turn are funding and working with Monsanto and are vested in their GMO distribution in world food development in the third world and in the safekeeping of our worlds open pollinated seed stock in the seed depository in Svalbaard, Norway.
Nice.
Keep planting, saving seed and sharing , we're going to need it.
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Post by synergy on Oct 27, 2010 23:02:51 GMT -5
I do not remember the name of the horse farm or region.
I am looking at the height they are achieving before they begin the laterals, anyone hazzard a guess if you could achieve this stature with apple and pear with the semidwarfing rootstock? I think I might have trouble finding regular standard trees and I would like to plant some this year as it looks like it takes a while... I will start checking out local nurseries for what is left and on sale . I have chestnut, hazelnuta , queen anne cherry and a greengage plum on my wish list too.
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Post by synergy on Oct 24, 2010 12:22:46 GMT -5
Forgive me if I missed a previous thread, I looked. I am trying to get ideas for saving space , utilizing plants for fencing, shelter and generally making a small intensive farm work synergistically. So I decided to share a photo of pear trees espaliered in Belgium on a horse farm. I thought this was fairly novel growing the fruit espaliered to allow a lot of light and air flow and high enough off the ground that the animals are not eating the fruit, it would allow a lot of gardeing or animal raising space to be utilized below though.
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Post by synergy on Oct 19, 2010 20:45:56 GMT -5
I am new here but I just wanted to say that looks amazing, any difference in the taste?
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