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Post by steev on Jun 22, 2016 1:02:45 GMT -5
I realize that I enjoy shooting shit; I don't do so to shut down anyone else; quite the opposite. As I am entirely committed to open-pollenated/landrace agriculture; I am entirely committed to open expression of opinion, although admittedly, I may sneer (not always justifiably). I claim no scholastic expertise, having trained as a zoologist (barely), so my botanical creds are purely experiential.
All I know of agriculture is mostly limited to my farm, a rather environmentally rigorous situation, on which I am mostly learning what can survive my ignorance long enough for me to get a grip.
My point is that, if those of us not entirely consumed by the Big Ag model of farming hope to survive, we must express ourselves, whatever our opinions, so that we may forge alliances to oppose Big Ag, for our own survival.
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Post by shoshannah on Jul 26, 2016 15:24:01 GMT -5
I'm glad we have a place to go and discuss with like-minded people. I like to research but the net is so full of big ag this and that and most home garden sites are just too basic, all fluff. I used to enjoy reading Mother Earth magazine in the 70's but somewhere along the line they switched to a new audience. I thought of it as yuppy gardening. Really turned me off.
Back in the 70's I could buy seeds off the racks and they actually germinated well and grew. We never did much more than add a few sacks of manure and grass clippings to the soil. I don't remember many pests. I grew broccolis, cabbage and cauliflower and only had to soak a few minutes in salted water to get a few green worms off. I did have trouble with wire worms on root crops. I only netted the strawberries. Gardening was real simple.
Last year the seed rack cabbage and cauliflower never formed heads. Zuchinni seeds never germinated. I think the squash family from starts had pollination problems.
We are planting more flowers and am going to let more veggies and herbs run to seed. Hopefully more pollinaters will show up.
This year I planted a whole packet of marigolds and got 7 that sprouted, 1 sprout of the nasturiums. I've never have had anything bother my lettuce, this year both kinds of cabbage worms overnight chewed most of it to nubs. It was seed rack lettuce from last year.
This year I've been buying organic open pollinated seed, hopefully from good local seed companies. I have this funny urgent feeling to buy organic seed now.
Big ag, Big M is buying up heirloom seed companies, buying seed from Seed Savors, searching Southern farms to get heirloom varieties, around the world to get heirloom/op seeds. Why isn't there enough organic seed that it's ok for an organic farm to use non organic seed?
Any thoughts on all this?
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Post by shoshannah on Jul 26, 2016 15:51:31 GMT -5
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Post by prairiegarden on Jul 26, 2016 18:38:29 GMT -5
It was interesting, if distressing, to watch the incidence of tent caterpillars this year. Many places ( including parts of my land unfortunately) were so inundated with them that they were even attacking pine tree seedlings, and you couldn't walk without the risk of stepping on them. The poplars and willows and saskatoons.. in fact everything except the manitoba maple, oddly enough, was literally stripped of leaves. the place looked like a poster child for nuclear winter. Yet 14 kms away at home.. hardly any. A few got onto an ash ( which is sick and coming out this fall) and from there wandered into an apple and two other seedlings and so forth but were summarilly dealt with and that was that. Yet a mile away a guy was mowing his grass as low as he could set the mower to kill the things before they could get to the trees, as he also had them everywhere. What is it about the Manitoba maple that left them virtually untouched? What decides where they will smother everything with caterpillers and where they won't?
On the property now, the leaves are all coming back and I have NEVER seen so many dragonflies, literally clouds of them, so hoping that they will take on the web moths as well as the mosquitoes.
One thing that was odd was that this year there were very very few ticks, last year a walk in the grass would guarantee at least 3 or 4, this year the whole season only one. I'd love to know if there was some sort of interaction there, what the connection might be.
It would be nice to be able to understand how these things interact and how the cycles play out.
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Post by steev on Jul 26, 2016 18:56:10 GMT -5
As is my wont, I would quibble with some of that article, mostly tonal matters, but I largely agree. I think I mostly object to the notion that every species, except ours, is only automatons, while we are not.
To quote General B S Horzpukky, "We're so special and everything else is here to serve our interests"; clearly not quite the same tone as "We may be able to find something useful/interesting/admirable in everything".
Nature's cycles are totally comprehensible, if we have all the relevant data and are capable of handling the scope and complexity, which we mostly don't and mostly aren't; this is exactly why we need to enable/fund curiosity/research that may not look probable to produce a better/more-profitable widget.
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Post by prairiegarden on Jul 26, 2016 18:56:19 GMT -5
one thing I learned from the plague of TC was that canola oil is an insecticide or some sort.. I thought it would work by smothering the things then someone sent a link to a study ( iirc at Stanford) of canola oil simply as an insecticide in which they seemed to decide it was a good one. Virtually all canola is GMO but whether that had anything t do with it I don't know. I do know that spraying it on a web caterpillar will kill it within a minute or so, one raised its head, looked left and right, and died, just that fast. Knew there was a reason for years I haven't given canola oil any place in the kitchen, much less any role in the process of putting food on the table.
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Post by prairiegarden on Jul 26, 2016 19:09:42 GMT -5
This sort of reflects the "nature or nurture" discussion regarding intelligence, and I must agree that animals can certainly demonstrate the ability to reason, if not ( as far as we know) to the level of philosophy. We tend to dismiss anything ( or anyone, many of us, unfortunately) which doesn't speak our language and of course animals are not physically equipped to do so, no matter what their mental capacity.
A video on You Tube which moved me to tears was when Koko the gorilla finally, after many many years of being held in what was basically a prison cell, was given a green space in which she could see the sky and touch grass and trees.. it showed her tentatively looking at the space, starting to move into it and then returning to her handler and signing, "thank you."
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Post by steev on Jul 26, 2016 19:48:25 GMT -5
That is indeed touching; any creature that can enjoy the companionship of a kitten, as captive gorillas sometimes have been allowed to do, is clearly a close cousin of mine; could it be an automaton and still enjoy a bond with a species to which its own was never ancestrally exposed? Is our own ability to bond with other species, as opposed to exploit them, evidence that we are autonamous, rather than automatons?
I am reminded of once in the San Diego Zoo (I think), while my companions were looking at the gorilla (in its solitary-confinement cage), I paid attention to a tent-caterpillar mass on a nearby branch, being embarrassed/unwilling to stare at the imprisoned gorilla; its resigned gaze cut too close to the bone.
Regarding the fact that animals can't speak our language, it has been found that cats say "Meow" only to humans, not to other cats; clearly they're trying to communicate specifically with the Keepers of the Can-opener and Kibble. Feline prayer, as it were? "Give us this day, our daily tuna. Meow!"
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Post by shoshannah on Jul 26, 2016 22:06:53 GMT -5
Cats have more words. Purt with a vibrational tone. Ahnt which is a quick sound. Meow can be for food but it also is used to get our attention. This meow sounds like they are in trouble and really need your help. They have a sound when they fuzz your leg. They have a sound when they're in pain. Purring sound when they're content. Some cats talk a lot and like to look deeply into your eyes. A chattering sound when a bird or squirrel is outside the window. A cat in heat has neowl sound. hissing and growl sounds. I like how bend their tail when they come running to greet you.
Susan
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Post by steev on Jul 26, 2016 23:30:15 GMT -5
Having had many cats, I don't deny that there are more sounds than "meow" and "others", only that "meow" is reserved for cat-human intercourse, whether in search of food or aid; I've had blind cats use it to know when I was in the room, seeking a beacon to my lap (me responding with the cat's name), always a pleasure to me; I'm so close to my cousins, the gorillas; never heard of one having a puppy.
Lest there be any mistake, I enjoy dogs, but I love cats. I think it's because a dog will love you, even if you're an asshole; a cat, not so much; I appreciate critical review; it's useful when one's head may have flown off or when one's head may be jammed where the sun don't shine. We are all liable to get crazy, if we get no reasonable input.
Landrace crops! Landrace opinions! Spit it out, folks. The worst that can happen is that you'll be opposed and/or contradicted; so what?! Did any of our ancestors get no push-back, when they moved into new territory? Landrace crops! That's how we adapt to where we've come to, geographically or socially, as so many of our folks did, one time or another.
I will state that I'm rather pleased at how my own forebears were squeezed out of where-ever and managed to survive; some pretty good genetics there, which have led to, I think, a decent landrace human stock.
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Post by prairiegarden on Jul 27, 2016 7:15:38 GMT -5
Re animal/human communication, the guy who had the various German Shepherds used for the tv series RinTinTin or the Littlest Hobo .. Don't now remember which..had at least one dog that was reckoned to have the equivalent of an average 5 year olds vocabulary, words and phrases the dog understood. There used to be challenges when the owner would be sitting in one room with reporters and pass on to the dog directions the reporters would give him, like bring me the salt shaker off the table, or the box of matches from the mantle in another room entirely out of sight of the owner, and the dog would do so with no hesitation. More usefully perhaps, all his dogs knew how to wipe their own muddy feet clean on the door mat before going into the rest of the house.
Perhaps because dogs are less judgemental is why some of us prefer dogs, there is already more than enough critical review and a creature that says " never mind, faults n all, you're just fine with me" is a refuge for a beleaguered soul. Cats tend to the " suck it up , princess, and get me some tuna" approach, sometimes highly appropriate, but generally not what's wanted. Once knew a lady who apparently carried on conversations with her two Siamese cats, very vocal creatures they were, too.
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Post by shoshannah on Jul 27, 2016 20:45:49 GMT -5
I'm all for landraces,
mongrelized veggies,
experimental crossings,
more genetic diversity,
improved insect resistance,
multi cropping,
symbiotic companion planting
developing more resistance to environmental onslaughts,
improved nutrition,
winter gardening
controlled self seeders,
seed saving,
no till, mulching, compost, multi cover crops,
perennial cover crops,
insect and animal management,
building beneficial soil life, but
I would like to see this achieved through organic methods and organic OP seeds.
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Post by steev on Jul 27, 2016 22:46:34 GMT -5
Well, of course.
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Post by reed on Jul 28, 2016 8:29:50 GMT -5
Yes, cats have a lot of words. When we were kids we had a bad and I do mean bad ass cat named Gerimia. My sister and I could pet him, pull his tail and wear him on our shoulders as ear muffs but woe on to those who ignored or misunderstood his nearly inaudible vocalizations.
Two giants,to a five year old, named Lightening and Bess taught me to speak horse, they are more about touch, eye contact and body language but certain sounds definitely mean something. For example "if you don't give me one of those pears I'm going back to the barn and you can find somebody else to stand on". I learned turkey from a gobbler named Brutus and cow from the ladies we milked every day.
People who think communication, feelings, contentment, anxiety and lots of things are peculiar to humans are just wrong.
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Post by mskrieger on Jul 28, 2016 14:03:07 GMT -5
yes, I think the reason that non-human emotion and cognition has been denied for so long in our culture is because of the way that we train scientists; emotion is downplayed, diminished, and only impartial observation and analysis is valued. Many people who are very good at science aren't so great at communication and emotion. So that assigning emotions to the object being studied, whether a rock or a gorilla, could be seen as invalidating your scientific analysis (and yes, just the fact that science can look at both a rock and a gorilla as 'objects' to be studied is one sign of its limitations. A very useful method for examining aspects of the world, but limited.)
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