tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103840462024-03-14T02:47:41.666-04:00Permaculture ReflectionsFrom EcoEdge Design Ltd.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-21920665006003134222015-07-28T22:20:00.000-04:002015-07-28T22:37:12.575-04:00We have moved!<p>A much better site is now available at <a href="http://www.permaculturereflections.com/">http://www.permaculturereflections.com</a></p>
<p>We've also taken the best content with us. (Sorry.)</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-90504833361214357842015-07-10T16:23:00.000-04:002015-07-19T12:58:35.544-04:00Relaunch Coming Soon!<h3>
Permaculture Reflections is relaunching this month!</h3>
<div style="font-size: 1.1em;">
For the past 7 months we've been planning, programming, and preparing to bring you better articles, free online courses, and bandwidth-friendly, mobile-ready content.</div>
<div style="font-size: 1.1em;">
The new site will feature:</div>
<ul style="font-size: 1.1em;">
<li>Free online courses</li>
<li>Online calculators to help you with your projects</li>
<li>Better visual explanations</li>
<li>Faster servers</li>
<li>Interactive infographics to make content more engaging and easier to understand</li>
</ul>
<div style="font-size: 1.1em;">
Click the sign-up button above to be a part of the launch.</div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="svg-container">
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><svg version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" x="0px" y="0px" viewBox="0 0 800 600" enable-background="new 0 0 800 600" xml:space="preserve"><g id="Layer_6"><linearGradient id="SVGID_1_" gradientUnits="userSpaceOnUse" x1="400" y1="192.2477" x2="400" y2="0.4497"><stop offset="0" style="stop-color:#B7C9E5"/><stop offset="0.1685" style="stop-color:#B2C6E4"/><stop offset="0.3715" style="stop-color:#A3BBDE"/><stop offset="0.5921" style="stop-color:#8AA9D6"/><stop offset="0.8237" style="stop-color:#6990CA"/><stop offset="1" style="stop-color:#4A79BF"/></linearGradient><rect fill="url(#SVGID_1_)" width="800" height="194.1"/><rect y="194.1" fill="#B87400" width="800" height="405.9"/></g><g class="exhaust"><line fill="none" stroke="#4D4D4D" stroke-width="17" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-miterlimit="10" x1="398.5" y1="138" x2="398.5" y2="62"/><circle cx="398.5" cy="62" r="7.5"/> <animateTransform attributeName="transform" type="rotate" begin="0s" dur="0.3s" values="0 340 288; -0.15 340 288; 0.15 340 288; 0.2 340 288" keyTimes="0; 0.15; 0.75; 1" repeatCount="indefinite"/></g><g id="hydraulics"><linearGradient id="leftside_1_" gradientUnits="userSpaceOnUse" x1="309.0737" y1="215.5798" x2="327.4223" y2="215.5798" gradientTransform="matrix(0.9946 0.1042 -0.1042 0.9946 24.2287 -31.4735)"><stop offset="0" style="stop-color:#FFB22F"/><stop offset="0.4556" style="stop-color:#FFE0AC"/><stop offset="1" style="stop-color:#FFB22F"/></linearGradient><path id="leftside" fill="url(#leftside_1_)" d="M324.9,153.1L324.9,153.1c5,0.5,8.7,5.1,8.2,10.1l-11.3,107.7c-0.5,5-5.1,8.7-10.1,8.2l0,0c-5-0.5-8.7-5.1-8.2-10.1l11.3-107.7C315.3,156.3,319.9,152.6,324.9,153.1z"/><linearGradient id="rightside_1_" gradientUnits="userSpaceOnUse" x1="267.9411" y1="219.8902" x2="286.2898" y2="219.8902" gradientTransform="matrix(-0.9946 0.1042 0.1042 0.9946 776.3217 -31.4735)"><stop offset="0" style="stop-color:#FFB22F"/><stop offset="0.4556" style="stop-color:#FFE0AC"/><stop offset="1" style="stop-color:#FFB22F"/></linearGradient><path id="rightside" fill="url(#rightside_1_)" d="M517,153.1L517,153.1c-5,0.5-8.7,5.1-8.2,10.1l11.3,107.7c0.5,5,5.1,8.7,10.1,8.2h0c5-0.5,8.7-5.1,8.2-10.1l-11.3-107.7C526.6,156.3,522.1,152.6,517,153.1z"/><circle id="leftoring" cx="312.7" cy="275.3" r="6.7"/><linearGradient id="leftsilver_1_" gradientUnits="userSpaceOnUse" x1="568.0897" y1="304.7054" x2="580.1282" y2="304.7054" gradientTransform="matrix(-0.9946 -0.1042 -5.321633e-02 0.5078 898.2593 195.7084)"><stop offset="0" style="stop-color:#B3B3B3"/><stop offset="0.4556" style="stop-color:#F2F2F2"/><stop offset="1" style="stop-color:#B3B3B3"/></linearGradient><path id="leftsilver" fill="url(#leftsilver_1_)" d="M313.3,269.5L313.3,269.5c-3.3-0.3-6.3,2.1-6.6,5.4l-3.2,30.2c-0.3,3.3,2.1,6.3,5.4,6.6l0,0c3.3,0.3,6.3-2.1,6.6-5.4l3.2-30.2C319,272.8,316.6,269.9,313.3,269.5z"/><circle id="rightoring" cx="529.7" cy="275.3" r="6.7"/><linearGradient id="rightsilver_1_" gradientUnits="userSpaceOnUse" x1="268.4321" y1="243.2051" x2="280.4706" y2="243.2051" gradientTransform="matrix(0.9946 -0.1042 5.321633e-02 0.5078 245.3361 195.7084)"><stop offset="0" style="stop-color:#B3B3B3"/><stop offset="0.4556" style="stop-color:#F2F2F2"/><stop offset="1" style="stop-color:#B3B3B3"/></linearGradient><path id="rightsilver" fill="url(#rightsilver_1_)" d="M529,269.5L529,269.5c3.3-0.3,6.3,2.1,6.6,5.4l3.2,30.2c0.3,3.3-2.1,6.3-5.4,6.6l0,0c-3.3,0.3-6.3-2.1-6.6-5.4l-3.2-30.2C523.3,272.8,525.7,269.9,529,269.5z"/></g><g id="Layer_3"><path fill="#FFB22F" d="M495,136H349c-6.6,0-12,5.4-12,12v146c0,6.6,5.4,12,12,12h146c6.6,0,12-5.4,12-12V148C507,141.4,501.6,136,495,136z"/><line fill="none" stroke="#FFB22F" stroke-width="15" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-miterlimit="10" x1="355.5" y1="136" x2="355.5" y2="43"/><line fill="none" stroke="#FFB22F" stroke-width="15" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-miterlimit="10" x1="489.5" y1="136" x2="489.5" y2="43"/><line fill="none" stroke="#FFB22F" stroke-width="15" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-miterlimit="10" x1="355" y1="43.5" x2="489" y2="43.5"/><path fill="#FFB22F" d="M318,203.3h10.8c6.6,0,12-5.4,12-12v-7.2c0-6.6-5.4-12-12-12H318c-6.6,0-12,5.4-12,12v7.2C306,197.9,311.4,203.3,318,203.3z"/><path fill="#FFB22F" d="M513.4,203.3h10.8c6.6,0,12-5.4,12-12v-7.2c0-6.6-5.4-12-12-12h-10.8c-6.6,0-12,5.4-12,12v7.2C501.4,197.9,506.8,203.3,513.4,203.3z"/></g><g class="swale"><linearGradient id="SVGID_2_" gradientUnits="userSpaceOnUse" x1="168.3924" y1="329.9695" x2="261.3924" y2="378.9695"><stop offset="0" style="stop-color:#452C00"/><stop offset="2.177056e-02" style="stop-color:#4F3609"/><stop offset="8.748421e-02" style="stop-color:#684D20"/><stop offset="0.1472" style="stop-color:#785C2E"/><stop offset="0.1951" style="stop-color:#7D6133"/><stop offset="0.2178" style="stop-color:#7B5F31"/><stop offset="0.5185" style="stop-color:#6A4B16"/><stop offset="0.7862" style="stop-color:#603E06"/><stop offset="0.9921" style="stop-color:#5C3A00"/></linearGradient><path fill="url(#SVGID_2_)" d="M259.2,191.5c8.9,2,3.5,18.2,32.3,11.1c2.7-0.6,2.7,1.8,1.8,4.5l-90,293.3c-4.4,14.2-13.1,24.3-19.2,21.8l-86.7-36.7c-6.1-2.6-4.9-15.9,2.3-28.9L242,198.2C243.4,195.7,256.5,190.9,259.2,191.5z"/><line opacity="0.12" fill="none" stroke="#603813" stroke-width="11" stroke-miterlimit="10" x1="272.1" y1="203.3" x2="151.5" y2="479.5"/></g><g class="blade"><linearGradient id="SVGID_3_" gradientUnits="userSpaceOnUse" x1="416.4999" y1="458.003" x2="417.4999" y2="291.003" gradientTransform="matrix(1 -8.719427e-05 8.719427e-05 1 -3.262305e-02 3.639143e-02)"><stop offset="0" style="stop-color:#999999"/><stop offset="0.4314" style="stop-color:#333333"/></linearGradient><polygon fill="url(#SVGID_3_)" points="680,288 154,288 154,461 680,461 "/> <animateTransform attributeName="transform" type="rotate" begin="0s" dur="12s" values="0 340 288; -10 340 288; -10 340 288; 0 340 288" keyTimes="0; 0.15; 0.75; 1" repeatCount="indefinite"/></g><g id="foreground-dirt"><rect y="461" fill="#B87400" width="800" height="139"/></g></svg></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-12882019674685112512014-09-02T11:30:00.003-04:002014-09-28T15:16:15.461-04:00Design Your Land Course in Eastern Ontario<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; overflow: hidden;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xLKWRo-VPOE/VAXiXgQsGbI/AAAAAAAACko/k_79zePePFA/s1600/60604_10151599403661039_135569613_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img class="zoom" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xLKWRo-VPOE/VAXiXgQsGbI/AAAAAAAACko/k_79zePePFA/s1600/60604_10151599403661039_135569613_n.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
It's almost time for our Design Your Land Course!<br />
<br />
<br />
Get more information at:<br />
<a href="http://www.eonpermaculture.ca/content/design-land-Fall2014">http://www.eonpermaculture.ca/content/design-land-Fall2014</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-27341456788157482962014-06-09T16:05:00.002-04:002014-06-12T18:03:48.700-04:00One Creamy Trick for Busting Aphids<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IVL2vb-uYWQ/U5YTAFUJYSI/AAAAAAAACh0/AFRiIdEroHk/s1600/aphid-sap-copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IVL2vb-uYWQ/U5YTAFUJYSI/AAAAAAAACh0/AFRiIdEroHk/s1600/aphid-sap-copy.jpg" title="Aphid" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
OK, so you've got aphids. Here's what you do:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<ol>
<li>Get a spray bottle</li>
<li>Put milk (2% or greater fat content) in the bottle</li>
<li>Spray it on the aphids. That's it.</li>
</ol>
<div>
Please insert your jokes about lactose intolerance in the comments.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
If you liked our article, you might like our free newsletter. Sign up and you get:
<style>
#columns {
width: 545px;
}
#columns .column {
position: relative;
width: 46%;
padding: 1%;
border: solid 0px #000;
}
#columns .left {
float: left;
}
#columns .right {
float: right;
}
</style>
<br />
<div id="columns">
<div class="left column">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lVInIjW80hg/U2aku_2q6gI/AAAAAAAACdM/9MC42sS0cd0/s1600/treecrop.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lVInIjW80hg/U2aku_2q6gI/AAAAAAAACdM/9MC42sS0cd0/s200/treecrop.png" /></a></div>
Additional articles</div>
<div class="right column">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VYNjXBz2e5s/U2ak9Jov8pI/AAAAAAAACdU/dmvD9e1yuVI/s1600/Excavatorcrop.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VYNjXBz2e5s/U2ak9Jov8pI/AAAAAAAACdU/dmvD9e1yuVI/s200/Excavatorcrop.png" /></a></div>
Announcements</div>
</div>
<style>
#columns {
width: 545px;
}
#columns .column {
position: relative;
width: 46%;
padding: 1%;
border: solid 0px #000;
}
#columns .left {
float: left;
}
#columns .right {
float: right;
}
</style>
<br />
<div id="columns">
<div class="left column">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CekivfXFizo/U2apXcTBcLI/AAAAAAAACdc/c6LI-572mPY/s1600/ideas.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CekivfXFizo/U2apXcTBcLI/AAAAAAAACdc/c6LI-572mPY/s200/ideas.png" /></a></div>
How-to tips</div>
<div class="right column">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0lXXass7NWo/U2apgOYcjrI/AAAAAAAACdk/NPtQ-dRlqyE/s1600/bookiconcrop.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0lXXass7NWo/U2apgOYcjrI/AAAAAAAACdk/NPtQ-dRlqyE/s200/bookiconcrop.png" /></a></div>
Course info</div>
</div>
<center>
<a class="button" href="http://eepurl.com/TiL3H">Newsletter Sign up >></a></center>
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-57244289948163399972014-03-21T13:21:00.003-04:002014-03-27T17:14:17.805-04:00Permaculture Home Design, Part 1The first volume of <b><a href="http://therhizome.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/rhizome-spring2014-01-01.pdf" title="Click here for a free PDF copy of The Rhizome.">The Rhizome: Permaculture Journal of Ontario and Québec </a></b> is out! [76.5 MB PDF]
<br />
<br />
You can read many fine articles, including a piece recounting part of my journey designing and building a passive solar home. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vrF7OXbcuwQ/Uyx09FWpTxI/AAAAAAAACXI/DCCCxOWi5U0/s1600/screen-shot-2014-03-20-at-12-04-24-am.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vrF7OXbcuwQ/Uyx09FWpTxI/AAAAAAAACXI/DCCCxOWi5U0/s1600/screen-shot-2014-03-20-at-12-04-24-am.png" height="320" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-31922913822391682812013-09-11T10:40:00.002-04:002013-09-11T10:40:39.032-04:00Kingston Introduction to Permaculture Course<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BJvopN5UP0M/UjCARdsF2pI/AAAAAAAACU0/qSe1WlfdInI/s1600/pc_intro_flyer_Kingston_2013(8-14-13)_for_online.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BJvopN5UP0M/UjCARdsF2pI/AAAAAAAACU0/qSe1WlfdInI/s320/pc_intro_flyer_Kingston_2013(8-14-13)_for_online.jpg" width="247" /></a></div>
Registration for the Kingston course ends Friday! <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This course is also the introductory module for our PDC, should you decide to decide to take the whole course. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
More information is available <b><a href="http://eonpermaculture.ca/content/introduction-Sept2013-Kingston" target="_blank">here</a></b>.<br /><br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-9833890494582757592013-06-17T12:22:00.001-04:002014-09-28T15:02:34.303-04:00Permaculture Earthworks Workshop, July 13th & 14th<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DFGeidbFLUM/Ub8xMBfTerI/AAAAAAAACT0/4EBm-QUDVw0/s1600/earthworks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; overflow: hidden;"><img class="biggify" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DFGeidbFLUM/Ub8xMBfTerI/AAAAAAAACT0/4EBm-QUDVw0/s320/earthworks.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Permaculture Earthworks Workshop, July 13, 14, 2013</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Thank you to all the students for making this event such a wonderful experience. Invite yourselves back for a visit to see the results.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This class aims to give students a practical understanding of the water-harvesting earthworks techniques used in permaculture. A theoretical section will be taught in which a variety of approaches will be introduced, including dams, swales, ripping, and more. This section will also cover site assessment and design. Students will have practical hands-on time for site measurement, design, layout and implementation. The topics covered in this course will allow students to assess and design their own sites. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Course books for the theoretical section will be provided to ensure all students have a copy of the material for future reference. The theoretical section will be taught using lectures some topics with student-directed deductive reasoning used wherever possible. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>July 13</u> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Day one will cover design theory. Students will also learn how to measure the site and map it for design purposes in a hands-on environment. Time will be devoted to design work with student design teams creating their own plans for the workshop's site.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>July 14</u> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Day two will focus on site layout and implementation. Swales will be cut into the site with a dozer. A subsoiler will also be used for patterned ripping of the soil. As part of the hands-on component, the swales will be groomed and level-sill spillways cut into the swales. The use of various levels will also be demonstrated, with students having an opportunity to use them in practice. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Equipment needed</u> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Students should bring a notebook, pens, pencils, a shovel (if possible), work gloves, boots, and rain gear. Sunscreen is also recommended as we will spend prolonged periods outdoors. Meals and accommodations will not be provided during the course. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #323232; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Contact Douglas for a list of area accommodations.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #323232; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please note that to provide the best learning environment, we are limiting ticket sales to 20 tickets.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #323232; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #323232; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left; width: 100%;">
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="214" hspace="0" marginheight="5" marginwidth="5" scrolling="auto" src="https://www.eventbrite.ca/tickets-external?eid=7121702203&ref=etckt&v=2" vspace="0" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 10px; margin: 2px; padding: 5px 0 5px; text-align: left; width: 100%;">
<a href="http://www.eventbrite.ca/r/etckt" style="color: #dddddd; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Event Registration Online</a><span style="color: #dddddd;"> for </span><a href="http://permacultureearthworks.eventbrite.ca/?ref=etckt" style="color: #dddddd; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Permaculture Earthworks</a> <span style="color: #dddddd;">powered by</span> <a href="http://www.eventbrite.ca/?ref=etckt" style="color: #dddddd; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Eventbrite</a></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://eonpermaculture.ca/sites/default/files/Earthworks%20July%2020131.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://eonpermaculture.ca/sites/default/files/Earthworks%20July%2020131.jpg" height="640" width="492" /></a></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com0Tweed, ON K0K, Canada44.474728 -77.31024918.9526935 -118.618843 69.9967625 -36.001655tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-529176892420420602012-10-07T10:49:00.001-04:002012-10-07T10:49:42.827-04:00 Site Mapping for Permaculture Design – November 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6ETYZ6aqPKY/UHGWHixdExI/AAAAAAAACRU/5_WpCpHEhGg/s1600/330_76295735222_2670_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6ETYZ6aqPKY/UHGWHixdExI/AAAAAAAACRU/5_WpCpHEhGg/s320/330_76295735222_2670_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Date:</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"> Saturday, November 3, from 1-3:30pm</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rain date:</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"> Sunday, Nov. 4th, from 1-3:30pm</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Location:</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"> meet at Just Food Ottawa’s office,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;" /><a href="https://maps.google.ca/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=2389+Pepin+Court,+Blackburn+Hamlet,+Ottawa,+ON&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x4cce0e38132d7579:0x9207f09bbc6ca079,2389+Pepin+Ct,+Ottawa,+ON+K1B+4C4&gl=ca&ei=K_ZmUPeQD8XLrQfLu4GICQ&ved=0CCEQ8gEwAA" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #0066cc; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">2389 Pepin Court</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">, Ottawa, ON, (in Blackburn Hamlet)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Suggested donation:</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"> $10-30 (no-one turned away for lack of funds). Any extra money raised will go towards Permaculture Ottawa’s Community Urban Food Forest project.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Transportation: </strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">OC Transpo bus</span><strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">#94 Millenium, some ride-sharing will be available.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
Join us for a hands-on workshop that will introduce you to the basic site mapping skills used in permaculture design. Participants will learn how to measure and map a site’s features, including elevation. The workshop will be led by Douglas Barnes, an experienced permaculturist who is the president of EcoEdge Design Ltd. Douglas studied with permaculture founder Bill Mollison, and has worked on projects in Canada, Japan, India, and Australia.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
This workshop will take place outdoors, so participants should take the weather into account and dress appropriately. Participants please bring your own paper, pens or pencils- and if you have one, a 100′ tape measure will come in handy! The workshop organizers will provide a set of workshop notes for the students, a surveyor’s level, A-frame level, bunyip level, farmer’s level, GPS, twine, stakes, a measuring wheel, and two 100′ tape measures.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
<strong style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* Limited space available- to reserve a spot email</strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
<strong style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sarah Lévesque-Walker at <a href="mailto:info@permacultureottawa.ca" style="border: 0px; color: #0066cc; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">info@permacultureottawa.ca</a></strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #404040; font-family: Arimo, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.6em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
<strong style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">and write “Mapping workshop” in the subject heading.</strong></div>
<div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px !important; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px !important; border-top-left-radius: 0px !important; border-top-right-radius: 0px !important; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #404040; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; zoom: 1;">
<div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon sd-sharing" style="border-bottom-left-radius: 0px !important; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px !important; border-top-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.129412); border-top-left-radius: 0px !important; border-top-right-radius: 0px !important; border-top-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; font-size: 12px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 605.4833374023438px; zoom: 1;">
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-83178128223664761702012-09-03T12:48:00.001-04:002014-09-28T12:31:27.462-04:00Water, Water, NowhereWhat a summer! Hot and dry, followed by hot and dry periods, interspersed with the promise of thunderstorms that bring furious, desiccating winds, and nothing else.<br />
<br />
<div class="biggify">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MDPhDuOzw8U/UETXXol1hLI/AAAAAAAACNw/y9PB2y23y1g/s1600/ScreenShot004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MDPhDuOzw8U/UETXXol1hLI/AAAAAAAACNw/y9PB2y23y1g/s320/ScreenShot004.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div></div>
<br />
For a few reasons, there has been little activity on this site until this month. A large part of the reason for this is that I have been building a passive solar home by myself (big hat tip to my wife who helped hoist heavy things and who passed me tools at many critical moments).<br />
<br />
Last summer we had a trench dug to hook us up with electrical power. While the backhoe was here, I got my earthmover to get a chinampa started. At that time, the water table was much higher, and when we dug deep enough, it was like a water main was burst. Water gushed into the chinampa.<br />
<br />
But then we had a relatively dry winter with next to no spring run off. This turned into a rather dry May, which became a dry June, which became a parched July, followed by an arid August. Just a couple minutes walk from my door there are poplar trees in the ditch (those wet channels that run alongside roads) that are dead and dying from lack of water.<br />
<br />
I had planned an earthworks seminar at our farm for July, but an inability to track down the equipment needed in time (namely a subsoiler) led me to cancel it for this year (sorry to all the folks who inquired). This is very unfortunate because we really could have used all the help we could get this summer.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rp6sAR5b6ws/UETZakPjZKI/AAAAAAAACN4/y82VnC6JSFw/s1600/285438_10152079143160223_472313088_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rp6sAR5b6ws/UETZakPjZKI/AAAAAAAACN4/y82VnC6JSFw/s320/285438_10152079143160223_472313088_n.jpg" height="310" width="230" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">The back end is the bottom of a ditch that<br />
holds water during wetter years. This year<br />
The water dried right to the bottom of the<br />
chinampa, about 130 cm down below the<br />
bottom of the ditch.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The water level in the chinampa grew lower and lower until all the water in one dried up, taking all the fish with it. Another one was down to a little wallow with a few surviving minnows and tadpoles. I dug a water hole in that one and gave the minnows and tadpoles a second chance, but without rain soon, that little hole will dry up, too.<br />
<br />
Clearly, I will have to start putting into action some of the techniques I used in the more arid <a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.ca/2009/07/india-talupula-site-part-iii.html">India</a>. I am shocked at how bad things have gotten in one year. Mature trees are turning colours (some as early as July) because of the lack of rain, while temperatures remain about 3 to 5C higher than normal. If there has been one upside, it is that the lack of water has meant a lack of mosquitoes. But there is a lack of more other things, too. Dragon flies and damsel flies are missing in action, as are most of the other insects you would expect to see.<br />
<br />
Happily, our garden has done rather well. Our beds are either <i>hugelkultur </i>beds, or heavily mulched beds, so when we water them, they stay moist for a long time. But the pasture looks rather disastrous. Lots of farmers in the area have had to cull herds due to a lack of hay, and the large round bales are selling as much as $45 higher than normal.<br />
<br />
Doom and gloom. But what about answers?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jfH2foxczI8/UETdf1ajHtI/AAAAAAAACOI/oP0d8W6I-es/s1600/304483_10152079153110223_1827887472_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jfH2foxczI8/UETdf1ajHtI/AAAAAAAACOI/oP0d8W6I-es/s200/304483_10152079153110223_1827887472_n.jpg" height="149" width="200" /></a>Answers there are! There are subsoilers around, or so goes the rumour. Hitting our pasture with an intelligently applied subsoiler will allow more infiltration. It will also capture more of the snow melt that otherwise runs off the land. We can place swales across the pastures to allow more water to sink in, too. Planting up some pioneering trees will help with soil building, which will help with water retention, as well.<br />
<br />
It seems the devastating droughts that climate modellers have been warning might have slipped over from future possibility to present reality. It's time to start getting greedy with the water that hits this site.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-3050611890354649022012-08-28T17:42:00.000-04:002012-08-28T18:26:51.684-04:002nd Annual Ottawa PDC<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Permaculture Institute of Eastern Ontario is pleased to present its second permaculture design course in Ottawa, beginning September 21st.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Who is this course for?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IVEYJVzhODE/UD0kRBxD2UI/AAAAAAAACMs/iodj_qZnmZo/s1600/P1160040.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IVEYJVzhODE/UD0kRBxD2UI/AAAAAAAACMs/iodj_qZnmZo/s200/P1160040.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you want to learn how to design human environments in a way that benefits the Earth rather than degrading it, this course is for you. If you believe that there is a way for humans to repair the damage done to the Earth, and you want to know how to do that, this course is for you. If you want to get out and start building a sustainable future for yourself and others, this course is for you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>What will you learn in this course?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You will learn how to design sustainable systems to meet material needs in any region of the world where there is permanent settlement. We will cover regions from tropical to arid to temperate. And as a side benefit of this knowledge, you will learn how to save a lot of money along the way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Our team</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bonita Ford has a Permaculture Diploma with l'Université Populaire de Permaculturein France, an M.A. in Holistic Health Education from JFK University in California, and a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from Queen's University in Ontario. Bonita took an Introduction to Permaculture with Brock Dolman in 2002, and took her first Permaculture Design Course through Urban Permaculture Guild and Oakland Permaculture Institute in California from 2005 to 2006. Shortly thereafter, she directed and co-facilitated one of the first Urban Permaculture Design Courses in the San Francisco Bay Area. She did work exchange with permaculture teachers Steve Read, Andy Darlington and Jessie Darlington in France. In 2011, she was a teaching assistant in a Permaculture Design Course in Haiti, taught by Larry Santoyo and Hunter Heaivilin. In Haiti, she also created a training program and trained a group of over 40 teachers, community facilitators and agronomists in basic concepts from permaculture and Nonviolent Communication. Bonita has led workshops and groups worldwide for over eight years, including in Port-au-Prince, Budapest, Soweto, San Francisco, Seattle, New Mexico, Vermont, Toronto, Ottawa and Perth. She is a co-founder of Transition Perth and the Permaculture Institute of Eastern Ontario.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sébastien Bacharach, originally from France, is an Eco-logical Educator, Community Builder and Web Architect. He is the former Education Director of the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG) and co-founder of the San Francisco Permaculture Guild. Sébastien became certified as a permaculture designer in the spring of 2001, at the Permaculture Research Institute, New South Wales, Australia, by internationally renowned PRI Director Geoff Lawton. He trained as a Permaculture Teacher in 2004 at Ocean Song, California. He has applied his knowledge in many different settings, in France and especially in San Francisco, California.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Douglas Barnes has been an educator for 20 years, and part of the permaculture movement for 8 years. He has taken two permaculture design courses, one in Brisbane with Geoff and Danial Lawton in 2004, and the other in Melbourne with Geoff Lawton and permaculture founder Bill Mollison in 2005. Using what he learned in his courses, Douglas has designed a passive solar home in Tweed where he is in the process of setting up a permaculture farm. He has taught permaculture in Canada and Japan, and has consulted on projects in Japan, Australia, Canada, Uganda, and India. In 2006, he established EcoEdge Design Ltd., a permaculture design and consultation company. In 2009, he worked with the Green Tree Foundation in Talupula, AP, India on a local agroforesty project, regreening an arid 7-acre hillscape, turning it into a productive polyculture mango orchard. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>What our students say</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dy6-jAuhzbY/UD0kdNKTAFI/AAAAAAAACM0/Dm-orZqxdTY/s1600/P1160125.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dy6-jAuhzbY/UD0kdNKTAFI/AAAAAAAACM0/Dm-orZqxdTY/s200/P1160125.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>When I first learned about permaculture, I thought it had to do with the garden. I was amazed when I attended the permaculture course with Bonita, Sebastien, and Doug at how much permaculture can be applied to everything in your life. This course taught me so much, and completely inspired me in other areas of my life that I didn't think had anything to do with permaculture. I met so many great people, and we've started lots of initiatives within the city using the permaculture principles. This course expands your mind and encourages you to get out there and be part of the solution. I would take this course again in a heart-beat! </i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Nathalie P.</span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8q-P8-MVYGo/UD0knTJU6rI/AAAAAAAACM8/izc3RaqMDy4/s1600/P1160120.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8q-P8-MVYGo/UD0knTJU6rI/AAAAAAAACM8/izc3RaqMDy4/s200/P1160120.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Taking the Permaculture Design Course was an eye-opening experience. It taught me how communities can design cooperative livings spaces in ways that contributes to the vitality of the planet. </i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Chris B.</span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>This is one of the best courses I've ever taken. The teachers were great, the course itself was life changing, and some of the relationships I made will probably last a lifetime.</i> - Brittany Boychuk</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Schedule</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The course runs September 21 (evening), 22, and 23, September 29 and 30, October 13 and 14, October 27, and 28.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Enrolment</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$750 CAD, HST included. For more infomation, please see the <b><a href="http://eonpermaculture.ca/PDC_fall2012">PIEO</a></b> site.</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-43079965712880447162011-04-07T09:48:00.002-04:002012-08-28T18:28:24.553-04:00Toronto PermaConCome on out to the TPP-GTA PermaCon this weekend. I'll be giving a seminar on design strategy and compromise in design and one on earthworks.<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ycz6ENkw1HQ/TZ3BHOq3vaI/AAAAAAAACAY/i6sAMZXQqhQ/s1600/The.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5592838642205179298" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ycz6ENkw1HQ/TZ3BHOq3vaI/AAAAAAAACAY/i6sAMZXQqhQ/s400/The.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 309px;" /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-90890251293869995642010-07-04T22:03:00.010-04:002010-07-06T14:24:56.312-04:00Workshop: Make Compost in 18 Days!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/TDE-JnwZ0BI/AAAAAAAAB5g/6MP22Gy-13w/s1600/iStock_000011232286XSmall.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/TDE-JnwZ0BI/AAAAAAAAB5g/6MP22Gy-13w/s400/iStock_000011232286XSmall.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5490237755753091090" border="0" /></a>Learn to make compost that is ready in just 18 days!<br /><br />Fee: $10 per person or $12 for 2 <span style="font-size:85%;">(Refreshments and workshop notes provided.)</span><br /><br />Time: July 10, 1 pm - 3 pm<br /><br />Location: 231 Rusholme Rd., Toronto<br /><br />Please register <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="mailto:workshop@ecoedge.ca">HERE: workshop@ecoedge.ca</a>.<br /><br /><a href="mailto:workshop@ecoedge.ca"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 132px; height: 64px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/TDNyvNCHRJI/AAAAAAAAB5o/KKnL_g4qf4o/s200/GreenRegisterButton.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5490858525972710546" border="0" /></a><br />Please note that space is limited to 30 participants.<br><br>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-13235693860644500772010-04-29T19:04:00.002-04:002014-05-23T12:33:20.227-04:00Selling Big Ag<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Selling Big Ag or: False Dichotomies Are Fun!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">By Douglas Barnes</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3540/3521143839_acb8a6dbfe.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3540/3521143839_acb8a6dbfe.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 131px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 198px;" /></a>I just had the misfortune of reading Robert Paarlberg’s article <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/26/attention_whole_foods_shoppers?page=full"><span style="font-style: italic;">Attention Whole Foods Shoppers</span></a> in Foreign Policy in which he pooh-poohs what he thinks is “sustainable” agriculture. What is the prescription from this political scientist who sits on the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_Paarlberg">Biotechnology Advisory Council to the CEO of Monsanto</a>? Why, more industrial agriculture, of course! While I find many faults and outright falsehoods in the story, I shall reserve my critique to only the most egregious of errors in the piece to avoid making a book out of this.<br />
<br />
First off, I suppose that I should praise Paarlberg for having the courage to so publicly demonstrate that he has no clue as to the meaning of sustainable. He makes the claim that<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“[S]ustainable food” in the future must be organic, local, and slow. But guess what: Rural Africa already has such a system, and it doesn’t work. Few smallholder farmers in Africa use any synthetic chemicals, so their food is de facto organic.</blockquote>
<br />
For the benefit of the reader, I shall give that definition in a manner that is clear and concise and has a useable metric behind it: <span style="font-weight: bold;">A system is sustainable if it can capture and store more energy over its lifetime than it consumes in its creation and maintenance.</span> A system can be organic and still be unsustainable, and many are, especially when externalised costs are properly included in the calculations. As far as the modern farming he advocates goes, it is virtually always, if not always unsustainable.<br />
<br />
Why is that important? It is important to realise that the word “sustainable” can also be traded for the word “survivable.” Modern conventional agriculture is wholly dependent on fossil fuels to exist. In fact, <a href="http://www.npg.org/forum_series/tightening_conflict.htm">ten kilocalories of exosomatic energy – energy outside of human labour – are needed to provide a U.S. consumer with one kilocalorie of uncooked food energy</a>.<br />
<br />
Now, I fully admit that I am not an accountant, so take the following with a grain of salt. It seems to me that if a system relies on consuming over ten energy units of a finite energy resource to produce one energy unit of an item, that system is neither sustainable nor survivable in the long term. I say “over ten times” because when losses from cooking, soil and water degradation and the documented adverse health effects of the modern food system are factored in, the costs increase.<br />
<br />
I have trouble with Paarlberg's the assertion that we have two choices for our future: The energy-intensive approach to farming in the so-called developed world, or traditional agricultural approaches. It is worth pointing out that many of these “traditional” approaches are the not-quite sustainable approaches developed in the temperate world and exported inappropriately to tropical, sub-tropical, arid and semi-arid regions of the world via colonialism.<br />
<br />
While this does make arguing the case easier, it is a logical fallacy known as a false dichotomy. A false dichotomy is an argument that reduces an argument to just two options, ignoring all other options. In this case, it offers only labour-intensive approaches to farming or energy-intensive approaches. Totally ignored is a design-intensive approach to farming. More on this later.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/SmNi1nhkO0I/AAAAAAAABtY/kMxWqNO1jCI/s1600-h/genes.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/SmNi1nhkO0I/AAAAAAAABtY/kMxWqNO1jCI/s200/genes.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360236654783380290" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 150px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 200px;" /></a>Paarlberg writes of “bringing improved seeds and fertilizers to traditional farmers,” but what are these “improved seeds”? Many of them are genetically modified seeds that he has advocated elsewhere. These crops have never been tested for long term health effects on humans, although the amount of research finding harm to animals <a href="http://www.i-sis.org.uk/mon.php">fed</a> <a href="http://www.owenfoundation.com/Health_Science/Pusztai/GM/GMHumanHealth.html">GMOs</a> <a href="http://www.pagepress.org/journals/index.php/ejh2/article/viewArticle/920">is</a> <a href="http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/04/16/6524765.html">increasing</a>. This is to say nothing about the hubris of randomly jamming transgenes into crop DNA when the science of genetics is just reaching the point where we understand that we don’t really understand what a gene is. In other cases, it means promoting the spread genetically homogeneous seeds. Luckily, this project is not complete. If it were, we would not have the <a href="http://www.teatronaturale.com/article/1632.html">100 or so varieties of wheat resistant</a> to the strain of <span style="font-style: italic;">Puccinia graminis tritici </span>that popped up in Uganda in 1999, more commonly known as Ug99 - a fungus that threatens world wheat supplies.<br />
<br />
And then there are the synthetic fertilisers he wants to bring to “traditional farmers.” <a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2008/03/killing-soil-with-synthetic-nitrogen.html">I’ve written about this before</a>, so the question is, why does he want to destroy soil organic carbon content, particularly when that is so vital to soil fertility and the ability of soil to hold water?<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tKGqbFoOZAs/U393xyiq_uI/AAAAAAAACeo/qH331_u8whc/s1600/Striga4_jpg_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tKGqbFoOZAs/U393xyiq_uI/AAAAAAAACeo/qH331_u8whc/s1600/Striga4_jpg_0.jpg" height="200" title="Striga" width="195" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from <a href="http://striga.aatf-africa.org/fr/foire-aux-questions-sur-le-striga-et-le-ma%C3%AFs-ir">AATF</a> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Coming back to design-intensive approaches, let's look at Africa, since <span style="font-style: italic;">Striga hermonthica</span>. <span style="font-style: italic;">S. hermonthica</span> is a fascinating genus of plant that actually parasitizes other plants, tapping into their roots for nutrients and water. Now, the folks Paarlberg work for propose a solution: genetically modify your crop so that it resists herbicides that would kill Striga. But Striga is actually a useful plant, in that it is an indicator plant. When it starts to appear, it is saying, “Hey Bozo, stop farming the wrong way!” You see, Striga only survives in conditions with very low available nitrogen. So, if you are repeatedly farming corn, a nitrogen-demanding crop, and are in a region such as East Africa that is prone to Striga, you will have a problem if you don’t take soil health seriously.<br />
Paarlberg is so intent on focusing on it. No, agriculture there isn’t sustainable. There systems are bleeding energy on the whole. Consider the case of <br />
<br />
So, <a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2009/07/permaculture-versus-conventional-corn.html">the solution could be spend millions on research to develop a proprietary technology</a> (i.e. GM crop) allowing plants to survive dousing with expensive and dangerous herbicides, ignoring the problem (neglect of soil health). <a href="http://www.worldwatch.org/node/507">Or the solution could be the one that has actually been put into practice</a>: Treat soil fertility seriously by inter-cropping corn in an alley-cropping regime such as the Taungya system, inter-planting with nitrogen-fixing trees such as <span style="font-style: italic;">Leucaena </span>that can also provide fodder, wood and fuel. The use of nitrogen-fixing plants, green manure and mulching are an effective way to address fertility without relying heavily or solely on animal manure, which Paarlberg asserts organic agriculture is dependent upon. Additionally, human wastes can be composted and returned to the land. This closes the fertility loop while tackling the water-borne disease problem so prevalent in Africa. Unfortunately, the latter, sustainable approach does not make money for industrial agribusiness.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-k_84wUVuI/AAAAAAAAAM0/YZEvzTKd38Q/s1600-h/PDVD_031.BMP" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-k_84wUVuI/AAAAAAAAAM0/YZEvzTKd38Q/s200/PDVD_031.BMP" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181743161526212322" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px;" /></a>Paarlberg also writes of “learning to appreciate the modern, science-intensive, and highly capitalized agricultural systems we’ve developed in the West.” Well, no one who knows me or has read my articles in this blog would accuse me of being unappreciative of science, but it is true that I do not appreciate Western agriculture. Why would I appreciate a system that has ruined more soil more quickly than at any time in history, reduced nutrition (more on this later), contaminated groundwater and riparian systems, ruined farming as a way of life, while subjecting an unwilling population to ongoing experimentation that may be making them infertile, among other things (i.e. GM crops)? All for a system that is so inefficient that it requires 10 units of external energy (not counting human labour) to produce one unit of food energy and cannot survive without massive public subsidy? No thanks. You can keep that system.<br />
<br />
He also asserts that organic has been found to be no more nutritious than conventionally grown produce and provides two sources to back him. I’ll provide two of my own. The first is a study by chemist Donald R. Davis published last year in HortScience in which it was found that<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<a href="http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/reprint/44/1/15?ijkey=RfqpDkPqP6D3rRt&keytype=ref">Recent studies of historical nutrient content data for fruits and vegetables spanning 50 to 70 years show apparent median declines of 5% to 40% or more in minerals, vitamins, and protein in groups of foods, especially in vegetables.</a></blockquote>
<br />
The second study was also released last year by the UK’s Food Standards Agency. The study omitted numerous studies showing higher nutrition in organically grown food and made the claim that there are <a href="http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2009/jul/organic">“no important differences in the nutrition content , or any additional health benefits, of organic food when compared with conventionally produced food.”</a> So, why am I citing this as support for my argument? Because despite the FSA’s characterisation of the study, <a href="http://www.soilassociation.org/News/NewsItem/tabid/91/smid/463/ArticleID/97/reftab/57/t/Soil-Association-response-to-the-Food-Standards-Agency-s-Organic-Review/Default.aspx">the study found</a> that organic produce had 53.6% more beta-carotene, 38.4% flavonoids, 13.2% more phenolic compounds, 12.7% more protein, 11.3% more zinc, 10.5% more sulphur, 8.7% more sodium, 8.3% more copper, 7.1% more magnesium, 6% more phosphorus, and 2.5% more potassium. It sure would help us to form a reasonable opinion about the issue, if the people presenting the evidence were even remotely honest. But I digress.<br />
<br />
Without a shred of evidence, he makes the claim that "Organic field crops also have lower yields per acre." Well, the Rodale trials don't square with that claim very wall. They found that<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
After a transition period of about four years, crops grown under organic systems yield as well as and sometimes better than crops grown under the conventional system. Moreover, organic systems can out-produce the conventional system in years of less-than-optimal growing conditions such as drought. [<span style="font-style: italic;">The Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trial: The First 15 Years, </span>The Rodale Institute, Kutztown, 1999]</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
As mentioned, Paarlberg assumes that the only way to address soil fertility is through animal manure, which would require more forests to be cut down in order to provide for the animals, saying “Mass deforestation probably isn’t what organic advocates intend.” Actually, increased trees cover through agroforestry is what I intend, though I don’t speak for organic agriculture.<br />
<br />
Our simple monoculture approach to production is a product of simple thinking. It’s time to stop burning those calories on either back-breaking labour or on producing synthetics and the machines to spread them around, and start spending it on brain power as outlined in the approach to Striga above.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-61414481717010729812010-04-27T17:27:00.003-04:002014-05-23T12:44:28.392-04:00The Winter That Was<span style="font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">The Winter That Was</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">By Douglas Barnes</span></span><br />
<br />
We had been bizarre winter here in Ontario, Canada. For most of Canada, the winter was rather anemic. While it did ease the home construction I did over the winter, it also threw us for a loop. So, imagine my surprise when renowned scholars such as real estate magnate Donald Trump made comments like this one: ""With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore."<br />
<br />
The coldest winter ever recorded? Really? Well, the popular myth goes that the very wealthy are very wealthy because they are very intelligent and very knowledgeable. But let's have a look at what happened this winter nonetheless.<br />
<br />
The combined global average of land and sea temperatures for December, 2009 made it the eight warmest winter on record; and the month came in 0.49°C above the average for the 20th century. The following image shows the temperature anomalies for December. The more an area was below the average, the larger a blue dot it has. The higher above the normal, the larger the red dot it has. The map is very red.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=map-blended-mntp&year=2009&month=12&ext=gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=map-blended-mntp&year=2009&month=12&ext=gif" height="328" style="display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 500px;" width="400" /></a>What was really bizarre was the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic taking a detour and heading towards Western Greenland instead of Europe. I would suspect that this under-reported phenomenon contributed to the cooling from the <a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=42260&src=fb">arctic</a> <a href="http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2010/030310.html">oscillation</a> that kept Europe and the eastern seaboard of the U.S. so chilly this year.<br />
<br />
<br />
This phenomenon continued more or less right through the winter as can be seen in the <a href="http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/html/produits/psy2v3/ocean/global/bull_ocean_g_en.jsp">Mercator reports</a> over the winter.<br />
<br />
The story for January was a little different. Whereas 2009 had the <span style="font-style: italic;">eighth </span>warmest December on record, 2010 had the <span style="font-style: italic;">fourth </span>warmest January on record with temperatures 0.60°C above the 20th century average for combined land and sea temperatures. The picture for January looks like this:<br />
<a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=map-blended-mntp&year=2010&month=1&ext=gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=map-blended-mntp&year=2010&month=1&ext=gif" height="328" style="display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 500px;" width="400" /></a>Yes, yes. But what about February when it was so cold in the eastern U.S. and when Trump made his comments?<br />
<br />
Well, I have to admit, there is a gotcha. It was only the <span style="font-style: italic;">sixth </span>warmest February on record with the combined land and sea temperatures 0.60°C above the 20th century average. Incidentally, the sea temperatures for December, 2009 through February, 2010 were the second warmest on record at 0.54°C above the 20th century average. The picture for February looks like this:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=map-blended-mntp&year=2010&month=2&ext=gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=map-blended-mntp&year=2010&month=2&ext=gif" height="328" style="display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 500px;" width="400" /></a>As for March, this year was the 34th year in a row where March was above the 20th century average. The combined average of land and sea temperatures were 0.77°C above normal making it the <span style="font-style: italic;">warmest </span>March on record ever. March looked like this:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=map-blended-mntp&year=2010&month=3&ext=gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=map-blended-mntp&year=2010&month=3&ext=gif" height="328" style="display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 500px;" width="400" /></a>So what happened? Donald Trump and too many pundits were wrong? How can that be? Simply put, they made the shockingly common error of assuming that where they happened to live was the entire world when, in fact, it is only a tiny corner of the world.<br />
<br />
The figures for April aren't out yet, though I know that the region I live in is a full month ahead of where it was last year and will be showing up as a large red dot on the map when it is released. Stay tuned...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">References</span><br />
<a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2009&month=12&submitted=Get+Report"><span style="font-size: 78%;"><br />http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2009&month=12&submitted=Get+Report</span></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=1&submitted=Get+Report"><span style="font-size: 78%;">http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=1&submitted=Get+Report</span></a><br />
<a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=2&submitted=Get+Report"><span style="font-size: 78%;"><br />http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=2&submitted=Get+Report</span></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=3&submitted=Get+Report"><span style="font-size: 78%;">http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=3&submitted=Get+Report</span></a><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-23754188465414814092010-03-31T15:20:00.002-04:002010-03-31T15:38:23.317-04:00Getting the Gist of PermacultureIf you are just running into permaculture or are attending my upcoming seminar (fully booked, sorry) and are wondering just what this permaculture thing is anyway, the following links might help out:<br /><br /><a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2005/01/what-is-permaculture.html">What is permaculture?<br /></a><br /><a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2006/12/sustainable-defined.html">What does "sustainable" mean?</a><br /><br /><a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2005/01/permaculture-ethics.html">What are the ethics of permaculture?</a><br /><br /><a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2009/02/goals-of-permaculture.html">What are you trying to achieve with permaculture?</a><br /><br /><a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2009/06/india-talupula-site-part-i.html">Show me what you mean.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2008/03/home-design-in-cold-climates.html">Show me another example.</a><br /><br /><br />Be sure to check out some of the links in the right hand menu to see some of our friend's takes on permaculture, too!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-77901759978952515242010-02-09T10:36:00.004-05:002014-05-23T12:41:58.924-04:00Composting Workshop in Toronto, Feb. 15On Monday, February 15th, 2010, I will be running a composting workshop in Toronto, Ontario. To find out about 18-day composting and vermicomposting (using worms to compost), come out the the 3rd annual La Famille festival. Tickets for the event are only $12 or $30 for a 3-adult family pass. For more infomation see <a href="http://tovacoproductions.com/departments.php">Tovaco Productions</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://tovacoproductions.com/departments.php" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad253/TOVACOProductions/LaFamillePoster20102.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 500px;" /></a><br />
<br />
These guides may help if you cannot attend:<br />
<a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2009/08/compost-in-18-days.html">18-Day Compost</a><br />
<a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2007/01/wealth-and-health-from-waste-and-worms.html">Worm Composting</a><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-7841503568385395792010-01-25T17:33:00.002-05:002012-09-13T15:05:24.150-04:00<a href="http://pdf.textfiles.com/zines/INTERESTINGTIMES/it03.pdf" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430809896132577458" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/S14c062oiLI/AAAAAAAABz8/W1RTMxMI980/s400/IT+image.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 266px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
Please see my recent article in <a href="http://pdf.textfiles.com/zines/INTERESTINGTIMES/it03.pdf">Interesting Times Magazine</a>, page 8.<br />
<br />
Cheers all!<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When was the last time you stopped and asked,</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“What are we doing here? What is our goal as a</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
society?” By just looking at the outcomes, we</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
are pursuing neither happiness nor trying to</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
maximize human potential – that is assuming we</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
aren’t grossly ignorant and incompetent.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-27749554240950437662009-11-18T19:31:00.003-05:002009-11-18T19:54:03.540-05:00Kafrin Site VideoI have posted a few articles on <a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2006/10/introductory-look-at-jordan-valley.html">Geoff Lawton's work in Jordon</a>. Here is a new video, updating the status of the site.<br><br /><object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=7658282&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=7658282&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/7658282">Greening the Desert II: Greening the Middle East</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user2553348">Craig Mackintosh</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-9984437830103012122009-05-01T09:14:00.002-04:002009-05-01T09:20:03.085-04:00We are flooded!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/Sfr2Xgir3wI/AAAAAAAAAgU/ZDL3d4D29R4/s1600-h/flooded.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 259px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/Sfr2Xgir3wI/AAAAAAAAAgU/ZDL3d4D29R4/s400/flooded.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330843992679243522" border="0" /></a>My apologies the the readers of this site for missing the Species of the Month for April. It has been a hectic month. I've been finalizing a house design and prepping for a project in India. Scott Meister has had his hands full, too.<br /><br />Scott will be publishing a piece here in about a week's time and I will give some updates from India. Please bear with us.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-57927659363565656112009-03-23T13:00:00.008-04:002009-03-25T10:04:34.694-04:002009 Sustainable Living SymposiumI will be giving a presentation on <span style="font-style: italic;">Designed Landscapes for Food, Fibre & Energy</span> at the Sustainable Living Symposium at 10:30 am at Loyalist College in Belleville, Ontario. Click the banner below for more information.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: bold;">The event is selling out fast, so click now to ensure entry!</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.quintesustainability.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=53"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 418px; height: 336px;" src="http://www.quintesustainability.ca/images/sympo_web_ad2009web.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.quintesustainability.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=53">Sustainable Living Symposium</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-13094837255602096042008-08-17T09:16:00.009-04:002009-08-05T16:39:38.806-04:00Remembering a great man: Masanobu Fukuoka<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/34/801/1600/Fukuoka.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 255px; height: 186px;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/34/801/1600/Fukuoka.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> Sadly, natural farming innovator Masanobu Fukuoka passed away yesterday, Saturday, August 16, 2008, at his home in <span class="lingo_region">Iyo, Ehime Prefecture, Japan of old age. He was 95.<br /><br />Fukuoka authored a number of books including <span style="font-style: italic;">One Straw Revolution: The Natural Way of Farming</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Natural Way of farming: The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy</span>, both of which are available in English. Fukuoka taught us to observe nature and work with it rather than trying to impose our desires on the land. He also popularized the use of seed balls, which has been used in agriculture and in re-greening projects.<br /><br />The father of the permaculture movement, Bill Mollison, spoke very highly of Mr. Fukuoka and said that, before hearing of Fukuoka's work, he could not see a way to produce grains sustainably, and had not thought they could be incorporated into permaculture.<br /><br />Around the world, Fukuoka's work resonated with people and it continues to be adopted and applied to different conditions around the world. His work and his teachings remain a great inspiration to us and we will miss him.<br /></span><br><br>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-63545868691093344062008-06-12T18:03:00.007-04:002009-08-05T16:39:46.153-04:00Killing me softly with his investments<span style="font-style: italic;">On Thursday, June 12, 2008, CBC's </span><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/">The Current</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> did a report called Buying Farmland about the trend of financial investment firms to buy up farms worldwide (after they devastated all the other markets available to them). One of the guests was Gary Blumenthal, president and CEO of </span>World Perspectives<span style="font-style: italic;">, an agricultural investment consulting firm. Among other things, Blumenthal claimed that large farms are more productive (any agricultural census will demonstrate that this is false) and that peasant subsistence farming was not conductive to maximising human potential (not that this is the business that </span>World Perspectives<span style="font-style: italic;"> engages in, mind you). The following is my response sent to </span>The Current<span style="font-style: italic;">:<br /><br /><br /></span>Listening to your report on investors buying farmland, I was deeply impressed by Gary Blumenthal's willingness to demonstrate his ignorance of both agriculture and the economy.<br /><br />He tells us that "half of all production in the U.S. comes from just 34,000 farms." This says nothing about the relative efficiency of farms with respect to size, it only tells us the status quo, as though mere existence is an indicator of efficiency.<br /><br />Looking at the data from the USDA census, we find that the most productive farms are small farms with production rapidly falling off as acreage increases. And any positive production on large farms is based on fudging the numbers. If you consider that on these farms it takes an average nine calories of energy to produce one calorie of food crop, you quickly realise that the energy intensive, poorly yielding large farm does not have a future.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/SFGf_D-D2zI/AAAAAAAAAOI/G-The3Ekalc/s1600-h/Soweto_township.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 167px; height: 125px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/SFGf_D-D2zI/AAAAAAAAAOI/G-The3Ekalc/s320/Soweto_township.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211122149590555442" border="0" /></a>Furthermore, traditional peasant systems, elements of which I use in the systems I design, normally require little input in terms of time and energy. Assuming there is a tradition of sustainable agriculture in the region, peasant agriculture is not arduous. What is genuinely disastrous is the repeat of England's Enclosure which is currently being played out across the Third World. It does not "maximise human potential" to force people off the land and into shanty towns to become $4-a-day sweatshop workers.<br /><br />Considering that people like Gary Blumenthal are going to have increasing say over farm administration, my advice to listeners as a designer of sustainable agriculture systems is to start to forgo your flowerbeds and grow as much of your own food as possible.<br /><br />Douglas Barnes<br />President<br />EcoEdge Design Ltd.<br><br>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-47952334966781441722008-03-22T16:15:00.011-04:002010-11-21T10:59:55.575-05:00Home Design in Cold ClimatesHome Design in Cold Climates<br />by Douglas Barnes<br /><br /><br />I am currently in the process of designing a home for myself and my wife. Living in Canada, the number one priority is warmth. To solve that problem, we must focus on energy capture and energy storage.<br /><br />To capture energy, the house will be oriented with the long side facing the sun. This side will be fenestrated to allow the entry of solar energy from the sun (which, strikes the Earth with over 950 Watts per hour per square metre before any loses come into play). The energy needs to be stored once it has entered the home or the house will heat up nicely in the daytime but become quite cold in the evening. In this case, the main storage will be a monolithic concrete slab floor.[1] In addition to this storage, there will be a masonry fireplace, whose massive brick structure will hold energy, and earthen or lime rendering of the walls will also help.<br /><br />Windows are good. Too many windows are bad. So, fenestration will be reasonable. We will match percentage of window area with our latitude. We’ll be building in Southern Ontario at about 45o north latitude, so we’ll have around 45% window area on the southern wall.[2] Too many passive solar homes in Ontario have nervously designed what amount to glass walls on the south side thinking that if a little is good, a lot is better. The result is over-heated homes. While there are some who might not mind 30oC temperatures inside in January, they certainly don’t like the over-heating that will occur at other times of the year.<br /><br />The Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation recommends making thermal mass (the dense material that serves as heat storage – concrete, brick, and mud in this case) be around ten times greater in area than the area of sun-side fenestration.<br /><br />General layout of the rooms recognizes at what times the rooms are used during the day. The first place people go in the morning is the kitchen. It therefore makes sense to place the kitchen on the southeast side of the building (northeast if you are in the southern hemisphere). In this way, light and solar heat is available first thing in the morning. From there, other rooms follow the sun according to the usage of the room. The exception is the dining room which is placed next to the kitchen for practical reasons.<br /><br />With this information, it is possible to design a building that performs brilliantly from an energy perspective. However, there is no guarantee that the house will be even remotely livable inside.[3] To make the home a place that I actually want to live in and keep for the rest of my life, I am using Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language to design the home.<br /><br />Another advantage to the passive solar layout is that it creates a nice pattern in the home. A long, thin home has a series of rooms one after another. This helps create privacy in the home and avoids giving the house an overcrowded feeling.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-VpjIwUVkI/AAAAAAAAALk/jnBMwtowpss/s1600-h/home-blueprintlongthin.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-VpjIwUVkI/AAAAAAAAALk/jnBMwtowpss/s400/home-blueprintlongthin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180662998726104642" border="0" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal">In too many modern homes these days, visitors immediately have full view of the private areas of the home as soon as they enter, and sometimes as they approach the main entrance. There needs to be a gradient of intimacy from public to private areas of the house.</p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-Vp3owUVlI/AAAAAAAAALs/oGZAKhBumw8/s1600-h/home-blueprint-intimacy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-Vp3owUVlI/AAAAAAAAALs/oGZAKhBumw8/s400/home-blueprint-intimacy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180663350913422930" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal">The interior space must have a natural flow that takes into account the uses of the space inside. Hallways and corridors have been avoided as much as possible. Rather, movement flows through rooms making some areas very social and inviting to people moving through the building. </p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-VqN4wUVmI/AAAAAAAAAL0/SzrxMOJcsug/s1600-h/home-blueprint-flow.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-VqN4wUVmI/AAAAAAAAAL0/SzrxMOJcsug/s400/home-blueprint-flow.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180663733165512290" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal">The common area of the home is at the heart of the building that intersects with all the major traffic flows throughout the home.</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-VqlowUVnI/AAAAAAAAAL8/PMjPZN7Xsno/s1600-h/home-blueprint-central-comm.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-VqlowUVnI/AAAAAAAAAL8/PMjPZN7Xsno/s400/home-blueprint-central-comm.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180664141187405426" border="0" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal">There is a sequence of seating spaces in the home that offer different levels of intimacy. The living room has a main seating area that is very social. It’s on the main path through the home, in a sunny place, and centrally located. Just off this main space are two other seating options ranging from semi-private to private. There is also a sunny nook off the kitchen. An additional seating space will be available on the second floor (which is currently being revised). </p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-Vq44wUVoI/AAAAAAAAAME/iEukE_hWyzw/s1600-h/home-blueprint-seating.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R-Vq44wUVoI/AAAAAAAAAME/iEukE_hWyzw/s400/home-blueprint-seating.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180664471899887234" border="0" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal">While this does not include every pattern I used in the design, it highlights the main ones that had the most influence in guiding the layout of the interior spaces.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The optimal thickness for thermal mass storage is 4 inches thick. Any thicker and diminishing returns start. If it is too thin, it will heat up and cool down too readily rendering the mass less effective. (For example, tile on subflooring heats up and cools down so fast as to have no appreciable effect in storing energy.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->This is Bill Mollison’s rule of thumb, and I have checked it out with a local architect and <span style=""> </span>friend, Steve Hilditch (<a href="http://hilditch-architect.com/">hilditch-architect.com</a>), who has designed passive solar homes. Steve agrees that Mollison’s ratio is appropriate for this area.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->I have a number of friends that have built many homes for themselves in the same area. After each one is build, they find that the house was not what they really wanted, so they sell and build a new place, hoping that it will be the right one. The error is that the layout of the home was not approached with a recognition of what problems one faces in designing a space. For example, when designing the entrance, it needs to be readily apparent what the entrance is; there needs to be a transition from the inside to the outside; and there needs to be some sort of an entrance room that creates a public space for visitors that is separate from the private areas of the home.<span style=""> </span>This is just one example of many problems in design that must be addressed in the layout of the house.</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></p><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-style: italic;">For more design information, please see</span> <span class="title"></span><a href="http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2010/11/designing-livable-passive-solar-home.html">Designing a Livable Passive Solar Home</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-47118750351019789492008-03-16T17:14:00.013-04:002011-04-15T12:45:01.042-04:00Permaculture BooksPermaculture Books<br /><br />I get asked frequently enough to recommend books that it warrants a look at some of my most favourite books. Originally, I had thought to just go through my entire library and write a brief synopsis of each book. The list, however, would likely be longer than any reader would care to parse through and certainly longer than I would care to write. Instead, I will just go through the top ten books that I use the most.<br /><br />Without further ado:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92Q3Set4XI/AAAAAAAAAK0/xkF5XRoFvIo/s1600-h/manual.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92Q3Set4XI/AAAAAAAAAK0/xkF5XRoFvIo/s200/manual.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178454426073817458" border="0" /></a>Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual by Bill Mollison. Simply put, this book is a must if you are a designer. And it is sort of like a martial artist’s black belt: the experienced designer’s book starts getting frayed over the years. Even weighing in at a hefty 1,520 grams, it <i style="">always</i> goes out with me whenever I am designing a site.<br /><br />The book introduces the permaculture concept, covers how to go about designing and methods of design, patterns in nature, climate, trees and their impacts on environments, water in systems, soil and soil health, earthworks, designing in the humid tropics, designing in drylands, designing in cool and cold temperate regions, aquaculture, and strategies for designing on a society-wide scale.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92RMCet4YI/AAAAAAAAAK8/bojXV0LpxY4/s1600-h/intro.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92RMCet4YI/AAAAAAAAAK8/bojXV0LpxY4/s200/intro.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178454782556103042" border="0" /></a>Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison with Reny Mia Slay. Introduction to Permaculture is basically a condensed version of the Designer’s Manual. Most of the topics of the Manual are in Introduction, though with a few variations on some of the techniques illustrated.<br /><br />Edible Forest Gardens Volume 2: Ecological Design and practice for Temperate Climate Permaculture by Dave Jacke with Eric Toensmeier. It is not a mistake putting Volume 2 first. The appendices of this book have excellent quick-reference information on plants that is invaluable. Most permaculturists have these tables of plants floating around in notebooks or on hard drives; but this book puts a huge collection of temperate plants together in one format. It is an expensive book, but the 149 pages of appendices alone make it worth every penny. The rest of the book has practical information on designing and establishing forest gardens.<br /><br />Edible Forest Gardens Volume One: Ecological Vision and Theory for Temperate Climate Permaculture by Dave Jacke with Eric Toensmeier. <span style=""> </span>A handy but hefty text on forest gardening for people who are intimate with sub-zero winters. Volume One introduces the theory behind the integrated approach to edible forest gardens and has a handy “Top 100” plant list in the appendix.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92RiSet4ZI/AAAAAAAAALE/Rd3yj6zt1RI/s1600-h/running.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 95px; height: 117px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92RiSet4ZI/AAAAAAAAALE/Rd3yj6zt1RI/s200/running.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178455164808192402" border="0" /></a>Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Save the World By Paul Stamets. I agree with the author that this is his most important book. In writing this book, he was terrified that he would have a heart attack or a car accident and never get it finished. Thankfully he did. Reader’s will want to look elsewhere for a basic understanding of mushrooms, but with a brief introductory background, this book will change the way you look at the world. There is no clearer illustration of the importance of the interconnection of organisms in ecosystems than this book. After reading it, it might even have you wincing with each step the next time you walk through a forest. But the book is not only theory. It has tested and proven techniques for rehabilitating devastated landscapes and strengthening currently existing systems. It also opens up a huge new avenue in energy cycling. Our standard waste-to-compost cycles can be expanded into waste-to-mushroom-production (and secondary and tertiary mushroom production) to compost to soil. Or better still, waste to mushroom production to animal feed production, the waste from which can then go to mushroom production or compost or biogas to compost. The combinations are exciting to say the least.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92R9Cet4aI/AAAAAAAAALM/cP4mxJv7OBk/s1600-h/cornucopia.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92R9Cet4aI/AAAAAAAAALM/cP4mxJv7OBk/s200/cornucopia.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178455624369693090" border="0" /></a>Cornucopia II: A Source Book of Edible Plants by Stephen Facciola. I call it the phone book of plants. It is the closest thing to an exhaustive list of the world’s edible plants. I have used it to suggest plants for overseas systems and used it to cross-reference many plants in many different situations. Here’s an example of a random listing:<br /><br /><b style="">Eleusine coracana</b> – <i style="">Ragi</i>, <i style="">Finger millet</i> {S}. Grains are boiled and eaten as a cereal or porridge, popped, malted, ground into flour for use in cakes, breads, and puddings, or made into a beer-like alcoholic beverage called <i style="">marwa</i>. Other fermented foods made from the grain include <i style="">ambali</i>, <i style="">kaffir</i> beer, <i style="">busaa</i>, m<i style="">erissa</i>, <i style="">chang</i>, and <i style="">munkoyo</i>. In India, the flour is boiled in diluted buttermilk and kept overnight for use the next morning. Ragi malt is mixed with milk to form a refreshing beverage. The leaves are also edible. Tropical Asia, cultivated.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92Sfiet4bI/AAAAAAAAALU/ImVgfnEHOj8/s1600-h/pattern.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 82px; height: 126px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92Sfiet4bI/AAAAAAAAALU/ImVgfnEHOj8/s200/pattern.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178456217075179954" border="0" /></a>A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein with Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King, Shlomo Angel. The book just hints at the subject of passive solar design, so it cannot help much on that front. But when it comes to designing a livable home or a complex of buildings put together in a functional pattern, the book is invaluable. After reading this book, I can understand why so many people buy a home then want to move out after just a few years. Most buildings do not recognise the aspects of design that makes them places where people want to spend their time. If you are designing a home, keep the general design in tune with your climate, but use this book to show you how to make it a functional home.<br /><br />Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms By Paul Stamets. This thick text covers growing dozens of mushrooms on different substrates indoors and out, and it even has recipes. If you get hooked after reading Mycelium Running, you are going to want to get this book. At 575 pages, it packs in a lot of really useful information.<br /><br />The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy without Chemicals, edited by Barbara W. Ellis and Fern Bradley. This Rodale book does not cover every single method of pest control you will need, but it is a handy reference for identifying friends and foes and suggests methods to balance your system and reduce foes.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92S0yet4cI/AAAAAAAAALc/m1hvxTRUkrU/s1600-h/ferment.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R92S0yet4cI/AAAAAAAAALc/m1hvxTRUkrU/s200/ferment.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178456582147400130" border="0" /></a>The Permaculture Book of Ferment and Human Nutrition by Bill Mollison. This unique book covers preserving, storing and cooking, fungi, grains, legumes, roots and bulbs, fruits, nuts, flowers and oil, edible plant stems and leaves, aquatic food sources both fresh and salt water, meats, dairy, fermented beverages (hooray!), spices and sauces, composts, silages and liquid manures, and an excellent section on nutrition and environmental health. Sometimes cross-referencing brings me to this book. But most of the time, I just open it up because it is fascinating.<br /><br />There are many, many other useful books I did not include in this list, but they often are very specific like seed saving, growing organic apples, constructed wetlands, etc. They are incredible books, but to keep a general list that would be useful to the largest group, I whittled down about 100 books to just these 10. It is not necessary for someone to have all ten books on their shelves and not all these books are suitable for all climates. These are the ones that I have used the most so far and are broad enough to interest a wide audience of readers. <br /><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10384046.post-89401730032805002652008-03-03T16:36:00.012-05:002009-08-05T17:33:38.529-04:00Paradigm Shifts and Permaculture<span style="font-size:130%;">Paradigm Shifts and Permaculture</span><div style="border-style: none none solid; border-color: -moz-use-text-color -moz-use-text-color rgb(79, 129, 189); border-width: medium medium 1pt; padding: 0in 0in 4pt;"><p class="MsoTitle">by Douglas Barnes<br /></p> </div> <p class="MsoNormal">Not long after I started this website, I came to the shocking discovery that there are those who express an almost violent hatred of permaculture. At the time, I could not understand why anyone would object to a system that simply seeks to provide us with the tools to make our lives sustainable. What could possibly set someone off against a system that treats long-term sustainability as a serious endeavor and works to develop simple, affordable systems that lead us in that direction, I wondered. I had thought that even if one is set on continuing their life within the model of the status quo, surely they would be happy that we permaculturists are there in the background working out solutions to current and future problems.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I was wrong. There is something in permaculture so inherently threatening to some that I occasionally receive very irrational attacks, extending on one occasion to what basically amounted to a death threat. What could it be that causes some people to react so irrationally?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">One clue is the origin of the attacks. They are always coming from individuals in wealthy nations. The comments I have received from people living in economically poorer nations have always been ones of appreciation and support. For one group, the need for inexpensive, sustainable solutions that really work is readily apparent. For the other group, people can currently afford to ignore reality, and the suggestion that change is needed is threatening. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R8xxqQKsr5I/AAAAAAAAAKM/3fghK0sNdFw/s1600-h/lueceana%2Bbeing%2Bplanted.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 231px; height: 174px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R8xxqQKsr5I/AAAAAAAAAKM/3fghK0sNdFw/s320/lueceana%2Bbeing%2Bplanted.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173635042650140562" border="0" /></a>An example of the first group expressing appreciation is my relationship with the Green Tree Foundation in Andhra Pradesh, India. Though formerly a tropical region, Andhra Pradesh is now a semi-arid zone receiving as little as 500 mm of rainfall after very long and hard dry seasons. Rainfall is the source of water; and there are tense times waiting for the rains. (Last year they even tried cloud seeding to get rainfall, and when the rain finally fell, I felt relief from 10,000 km away.) The need for sustainable solutions is not a matter of debate there; the solutions are literally needed if they are to survive the short term. Food is produced locally, and drinking water is sourced locally as well.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R8xy1gKsr6I/AAAAAAAAAKU/nrb75CQMN2g/s1600-h/TucsonAZ_ISS009-E-10382.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 259px; height: 259px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R8xy1gKsr6I/AAAAAAAAAKU/nrb75CQMN2g/s320/TucsonAZ_ISS009-E-10382.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173636335435296674" border="0" /></a>That can be contrasted with a First World equivalent. Consider an average ¼ acre lot in Tucson, Arizona, which receives 253,621 litres of water a year via rainfall, but the average 3-person family there consumes 454,248 litres (almost twice that nature provides them with). Additionally, the 253,621 litres it receives in rainfall is largely shunted away quickly by storm drains.<sup>1</sup> Water supplies come from expensive outside sources. Food is trucked in from other parts of the U.S. and from other nations. Only monetary wealth makes such waste possible.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">For the Third World, there are few illusions regarding their future. They know they are in trouble and the trouble will only increase without serious changes being made regarding the capture and storage of energy and resources. The Third World not only comes from poverty, they remain in poverty. <span style=""> </span>The First World, however, has come out of poverty into a spurt of opulence. Once one acquires a taste of opulence, though, it is like a drug – hard to let go. And any suggestion that living high is no longer possible is met with lashing out similar to the confronted junkie.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rereading the ideas of science historian Thomas Kuhn recently, I came to realise that what I was seeing in the attacks was a clash of paradigms.<sup>2</sup> The old paradigm of progress driven by monetary wealth has a science fiction version of the future with fantastic technologies addressing every issue of material need and opening us up to a world of constant leisure time where human beings are freed from labour, able to pursue whatever endeavor their hearts desire. (Ironically, the monetary paradigm is giving us less and less free time to go along with the ever increasing amounts of technology it gives us.)<sup>3</sup> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">This paradigm is so enticing that real answers to serious questions are glossed over. The appeal to technology as savior is the “sweeping under the rug,” in the late physicist Richard Feynman’s words<sup>4</sup>, of pressing problems humanity now faces. The appeal of seeking technology as an answer is understandable. As historian Ronald Wright pointed out in the 2004 Massey Lectures:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">Our technological culture measures human progress by technology: the club is better than the fist, the arrow better than the club, the bullet better than the arrow. We came to this belief for empirical reasons.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Wright also points out, however, that “[o]ur practical faith in progress has ramified and hardened into an ideology – a secular religion which… is blind to certain flaws in its credentials.”<sup>5</sup></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Technology, it is said, is neutral – it is neither harmful nor beneficial. Only its uses determine helpful or harmful outcomes. I think it is rather the case that technology normally creates new problems that require ever more technology to solve the problems that technology creates.<sup>6</sup> For instance, the creation of the modern steam engine led to the increased mining of coal, increasing the volume of machinery making coal inadequate to meet energy needs, necessitating the internal combustion engine, creating a car culture, necessitating highway systems, leading to the increased use of oil, leading to the current problems of peak oil and climate change, both very pressing problems we now face. The worst possible outcome I can imagine for the problem of peak oil is a technological fix providing the replacement of oil with some form of abundant, cheap energy. Energy on the scale we use today is only needed to continue us on our current path of ever more growth. At current world growth rates, we would see a doubling in economic output in a little more than 20 years time. However, each doubling of the world economy requires an equivalent to all the resource inputs for all of human history prior to the last doubling.<sup>7</sup> In other words, to double the economy from where it is today, we will need to use up as many resources as we ever did in the past. Clearly, this would be disaster. Under the current paradigm, a technological fix to the problem of peak oil would lead to ecological collapse.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R8x0FQKsr7I/AAAAAAAAAKc/oG1dGS9plJE/s1600-h/for+sale.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 215px; height: 142px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R8x0FQKsr7I/AAAAAAAAAKc/oG1dGS9plJE/s320/for+sale.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173637705529864114" border="0" /></a>None of this is controversial, but if you are committed to the current paradigm, any reminders of such facts are threatening. If your way of life ends, so too do the dreams of the bright, shiny technological future. By seeking workable solutions only by currently existing technology and only by technologies that have either a chance of being sustainable or putting us on a sustainable path, permaculturists are indirectly shining light on the threats to the current paradigm. Permaculture then becomes an unwanted reminder that the days of the current paradigm are numbered. If one is emotionally invested in that paradigm, one may lash out against it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Choosing to practice permaculture, on the other hand, means shifting paradigms. As Kuhn points out, one can only fully understand the perspectives of a given paradigm if one is in that paradigm itself. Permaculture causes a shift in perception of the world. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Traveling through a new subdivision, for instance, I do not see nice new modern homes that I would like to live in. Rather I see homes built without consideration for the energy needed to heat or cool them – homes that need tremendous energy inputs to make them livable. Looking inside, I see internal room layouts that do not facilitate either work or movement within the home, and little or no understanding of what patterns in architecture actually make people feel comfortable within a home.<sup>8</sup> I see urban development without any consideration of community or energy. I see land dedicated only to conspicuous displays of opulence rather than the production of healthy food. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Walking into the forest, I don’t see trees and dirt. Rather I see complex, symbiotic networks of fungi, microbes, plant and animal. I see parasitic organisms not destroying, but carrying out vital roles in keeping the overall system healthy and even increasing diversity .<sup>9</sup> I don’t see “problem” organisms, I see organisms whose importance I do not yet recognise. Looking at a field, I see potentials for the capture and storage of water and the possibilities for a vibrant and dynamic diversity of organisms that can be placed to create an ecosystemic system to meet not only the needs of the individual organisms, but also the people living on the site. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R8x15gKsr8I/AAAAAAAAAKk/h9qmIYjc5Ow/s1600-h/wasp.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 211px; height: 177px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uH8JDRwUtr0/R8x15gKsr8I/AAAAAAAAAKk/h9qmIYjc5Ow/s320/wasp.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173639702689656770" border="0" /></a>Under the old paradigm, an infestation of corn borers means you need to spray pesticides, or spend millions of dollars to genetically engineer a variety of corn to produce a toxin (then still need to spray anyway). Under the new paradigm, you first of all see an over-abundant food source for parasitoids. Secondly, you see evidence of some sort of imbalance: soil infertility perhaps, lack of predator habitat, over concentration of borer food, etc. The costs of the old paradigm are ecological destruction and risks to human health both known and unknown. Additionally, there is a rather substantial monetary cost in the form of chemical and genetic research (funded in large part by tax payers), externalized health costs and clean up costs, and costs to the farmer for seed and chemicals. The costs of the new paradigm are investments in learning the functional ecology of your system and an acceptance of temporary losses while balancing the system.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">What are you talking about?<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Coming from a completely different paradigm, communication with those in the old paradigm becomes difficult, as Kuhn points out. Were Claudius Ptolemy to jump through time to today and teach a first-year physics class, he would tell his students, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">The Earth does not rotate; otherwise objects will fling off its surface like mud from a spinning wheel. It remains at the centre of things because this is its natural place – it has no tendency to go either one way or the other. Around it and in successively larger spheres revolve the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, all of them deriving their motion from the immense and outermost spheres of fixed stars.<sup>10</sup></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The students would either think it was a joke, or an argument would ensue with each side wondering why the other could not understand what was clearly the nature of the universe as evidenced by observation.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In my own experience, pointing out the potential dangers in biotechnology as an approach to pest problems<sup>11</sup>, for example, I am always met with stunned silence when I ask why there is a pest problem in the first place. One rarely encounters devastating pest outbreaks in natural systems, and there is a reason for that.<sup>12</sup> That reason, however, is only visible from within the new paradigm. The new paradigm lets us see that the problem is not one of pests attacking corn or cotton or brinjal, or weeds choking out soybeans. The problem is approaching a piece of land as a factory. The “pests” are only doing what organisms do: finding a niche and filling it. Create a niche conductive to early-stage pioneers (what people commonly call “weeds”) and you will see a lot of those pioneers. Create vast monoculture smorgasbords of pest food with little or no reserves for pest predators (or kill the predators by spraying insecticide on them) and you should know what to expect.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Point this out to people dedicated to the old paradigm and at best they will just ignore you. More likely they will dismiss your approach <i style="">a priori </i>as impossible or unworkable. Or worse, they will lash out at you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">To give another example, this one less extreme but still important, a colleague of mine recently did a large design and implementation job for a farm in Australia in which I participated by providing graphics for swale designs. Not only is Australia dry, they have not been receiving normal amounts of rainfall over the past few years, so the swales where really the cornerstone of the design. Without the capture and storage of water, there is no guarantee that the trees planted on site will survive and the site would definitely not do as well without them. Unfortunately, the client did not operate from the same paradigm as my colleague and decided that the swales were unnecessary and would not put them in. As a result, our expectations for the site are not high. If nothing else, this can serve as a practical warning to designers of cross-paradigm communication. Clients need to understand fully what you are doing and why.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Shifting gears<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">For the permaculturist him or herself, the paradigm shift has its own challenges. The greatest obstacle to overcome is fear. Permaculturists in the First World must step out of the material culture that they grew up with. This is a huge challenge, even if they identify that paradigm as the source of many of the hardships they face in their lives. Questions arise as to whether or not they should just keep doing what they've always done: Can you really heat and cool a home passively? What happens if I attempt to grow my own food and the entire crop fails? Do I know enough about animal husbandry? Gardening? Building? Will I be adopting a way of life that leaves me alone and isolated? Will I miss the old life I had? How will I get land? Where should I get land? Can I use the site I’m on now? How can I pay for the initial expenses of setting up my system? Will this stuff really work? Really?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Studying permaculture is a bit like going to a swimming pool: you are there because you want to jump in. The pattern most follow is dipping their feet in the permaculture pool as it were. You know that after jumping in, you will quickly adjust and enjoy it. It’s just that initial jolt you fear. People generally step in and step out, staying in longer each time until finally they just jump right in.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Once in, you don’t want to come out again. Personally, I am on the verge of selling off vacation property to purchase acreage on which to build a home of my own design and set up systems on a scale that I have only had the opportunity to do on others’ land. The choice between that and returning to my old life in the suburbs of Tokyo is clear. I will be happy to give a requiem for the nightlife, the hustle, the gleaming technology, the grocery bills, the water bills, the path that I know is not sustainable. It had its moments, but the perspective gained from the new paradigm makes living the old life impossible for me. As the physicist cannot go back to the Ptolemaic model of the universe revolving around the Earth, the permaculturist cannot look at the status quo conceptual framework of industrial society as even remotely sensible. Change becomes a necessity, even if that threatens some.</p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">1.</span></span> Lancaster,<span style=""> </span>Brad. <i style="">Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands. Volume 1: Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into Your Life and Landscape</i>. Tucson: Rainsource Press, 2006, p. 18 . </p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">2.<span style=""><span style="font-size:100%;"></span> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Bird, Alexander. "Thomas Samuel Kuhn" <i>Dictionary of Literary Biography</i> (2003), draft version available at http://eis.bris.ac.uk/~plajb/research/papers/Kuhn_for_DLB.pdf; Okasha, Samir. <i style="">Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002; Strohman, Richard. <i style="">Epigenesis and Complexity: The Coming Kuhnian Revolution in Biology</i>. Nature Biotechnology, March, 1997, pp. 194-200.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">3.3<span style=""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The San of the Kalahari work about 750 hours a year living in one of the harshest environments on Earth. By contrast, most North Americans work close to 3000 hours a year, more if you count housework. The best I have personally heard a permaculture system to achieve is around 620 hours a year. The is on a par with hunter-gatherer societies, which, counter-intuitively, require much less work to sustain themselves than “civilized” societies.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">4.<span style=""><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Strohman (1997).</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">5.</span></span> Wright, Ronald. <i style="">A Short History of Progress</i>. Toronto: House of Asansi Press, 2004, p. 4.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">6.<span style=""> <span style="font-size:100%;"></span> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->This is not to say that some otherwise destructive technologies – the bulldozer for instance – cannot be put to very productive uses such as the creation of water catchment earthworks. However, I think a lot of the “green” technology is going to turn out to be subject to the Jevons Paradox, allowing increased and accelerated resource depletion because of increased efficiency.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">7.<span style=""><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Smith, Rod. Lecture to the Royal Academy of Engineering, <span style="font-style: italic;">Carpe Diem: The Dangers of Risk Aversion</span>. Civil Engineering Surveyor, October 2007 cited in Monbiot, George. <span style="font-style: italic;">What is Progress?</span> December 4, 2007 available at http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/12/04/what-is-progress/</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">8.</span></span> For a guide to good design, see Alexander, Christopher et al. <i style="">A Pattern Language</i>. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">9.<span style=""> </span></span></span> For example, Armillaria mushrooms (honey mushrooms) kill off trees, but in doing so, they can create open pasture in forest. This creates new habitat for a variety of species that otherwise would not exist. It also sets up a rich edge ecology on the forest/pasture border. See Stamets, Paul. <i style="">Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World</i>. Berkley: Ten Speed Press, 2005.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">10.</span></span> Verma, Surendra. <i style="">The Little Book of Scientific Principles, Theories & Things</i>. Sydney: New Holland Publishers, 2005, p. 16.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">11.<span style=""> </span></span></span> Problems include but are not limited to unknown and unpredictable effects from gene order disruption, gene scrambling in or around the insertion points of transgenes, genome-wide disruptions, deletions of genes, currently marketed GMOs with anti-biotic marker genes, possible undesirable gene activation due to promoter genes, recombination hotspots within the CaMV 35S promoter gene, unpredicted allergenicity or toxicity, unintended environmental consequences from toxin expression in insecticidal GMOs, problems from increased use with herbicide-tolerant GMOs, etc.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=""><span style="">12.<span style=""> <span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Pest plagues in nature are almost always temporary whereas in conventional agriculture, they are systematic.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><br><br>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690861764394531319noreply@blogger.com4