Altamira Garden

One of My Favorite Websites on Weight Loss & Maintenance

2012-01-29T11:13:00.001-08:00

I forgot to include this one in the letter to my friend:

http://weightmaven.org/

An Open Letter to a Friend Who Wants to Lose Weight

2012-01-29T11:03:00.000-08:00

Dear ___________.

If you truly do not like being overweight, you need to do whatever it takes to get rid of the fat. The only logical way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories than you use, each and every day. Sugars and starches are literally addictive, and they're fattening so it helps a lot to eliminate 100% of the sugar and concentrated starches from your diet. Concentrated starches are things such as wheat, corn, and rice. The refined versions of these grains are even worse than whole grains, but even eating whole grain products can make it more difficult to lose weight.

Eliminating sugar and concentrated starches means no sodas (diet sodas are OK, except many of them are sweetened with aspartame, which is toxic), no sweet tea (you can use Splenda or stevia sweeteners to sweeten tea, but the sweet tea sold at stores and fast food places contains corn syrup), no tortillas, no hamburgers, no bread, no rice, no fast-food french fries (they add sugar to the french fries to make them taste better!), and go easy on potatoes.

It sounds grim at first, until you actually start eating meals without sugars and starches. Once you get used to not having these things, it becomes much easier to enjoy meals without them. For example, I love Mexican food, especially things such as enchiladas and tamales. I've been working on recipes that approximate these foods but without the masa. For example, a beef and cheese fritata is a tasty substitute for an enchilada. I'm pretty sure one could make something similar to a tamale using ground nuts instead of masa. They would not have the smooth consistency of a traditional tamale, but they would taste great.

One of my favorite lunches is the lettuce roll, where you roll up sliced turkey, chopped tomato, onion, olives, etc -- whatever veggies you want -- in a large lettuce leaf. It tastes a lot like the sandwiches they make at Subway, only I actually like the lettuce rolls better.

Here's the website of Barbara Berkeley, a doctor who specializes in helping people lose weight and maintain their new weight once they've lost:

http://refusetoregain.com/

Dr. Berkeley has also written an excellent book called Refuse to Regain about how to keep the weight off for good, once you get to your target weight.

Here are some websites of people who were overweight and who have lost weight and, even more impressive, kept it off:

http://refusetoregain.com/refusetoregain/about-lynn-haraldsonberin.html

http://justmaintaining.com/about/ (scroll down to the middle of the page to see her "before" picture)

http://www.freewebs.com/ivanarama/apps/photos/

http://www.fittothefinish.com/blog/

http://www.escapefromobesity.net/

http://annieweighsblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/year-from-now.html

There are lots more blogs and websites. You don't have to do this alone, there are thousands of people out there trying to lose weight.

I KNOW how hard it is. Even though I've only lost 26 pounds (9 to go to reach my target weight of 130), I've gone through the same things everyone else goes through when they lose 10% or more of their body weight. I posted a comment on the weight-loss doctor's blog, and she confirmed that it's just as difficult to deal with maintaining one's new weight after a 20 pound loss as it is to maintain it after a 150 pound loss.

I'm not going to lie and say it's easy. It's one of the most chanllenging things I've ever done. It's much harder than quitting smoking and, I suspect, harder than quitting addictive drugs. One reason is that we're constantly bombarded with temptations to eat unhealthy foods. You have to plan each day carefully. For example, if you know you're going to be away from home all day, pack a healthy lunch and healthy snacks instead of buying food at a convenience store or fast food place.

Here's something surprising -- even though I'm eating more fresh veggies and good-quality nuts and grass-fed beef from Central Market, my food bill has actually gone down. I'm not spending money at restaurants, I'm not buying prepared foods and I'm eating less. For a snack, I used to have, say a mini-cheeseburger from Wendy's or a $1 carton of yogurt and some crackers or maybe some prepared food from Central Market (they add sugar to their prepared foods, including things such as chicken salad). Now I eat a few nuts. Easier, cheaper, healthier. And, surprisingly, just as satisfying.

Modern Paleo: The Blog

2012-01-13T17:03:00.000-08:00

I've been ill the past ten days with a cold that led to sinus infection. Although the sinus infection is probably due to bacteria, I dislike using antibiotics except as a last resort, especially since the newest ones can have pretty debilitating side effects. So in an attempt to heal myself, I've been hanging around the house, getting lots of sleep, drinking lots of water and herbal tea, steaming my head, and irrigating my sinuses. I've also had a wonderful time reading books and seeing what new things I could learn following web links. No more headache now, and I'm feeling almost back to normal.

One of the most delightful results of my web searching has been my discovery of Diana Hsieh. I've enjoyed her Noodlefood blog tremendously and highly recommend it, but Moedern Paleo is more relevant to my recent line of inquiry into weight maintenance and health.

Dr. Hsieh does not advocate going back to the stone age, or even to the agricultural age. Instead, she "uses the evolutionary history of homo sapiens, plus the best of modern science, as a broad framework for guiding daily choices about diet, fitness, medicine, and supplementation." (Modern Paleo) From the time I began raising chickens when I was young and noticed how much healthier they (and their eggs) are when they have access to basic needs, such as dust baths and insects, I've thought it made sense to consider what humans need to eat and how they need to act to be healthy. For the diet, I don't rule out grains entirely, as some Paleo dieters do. People need some carbs in their diet, and archeaological evidence indicates that ancient humans gathered seeds of grasses. Certainly modern gatherer-hunters do, even Intuits whose diet consists largely of meat and fish. One of my mentors when I was a young person, Wild Horse Havard (about whom I must write more someday) told me about a malady he called "rabbit fever" that people suffered from when they were away from civilization for a long time and had mostly lean meat to eat. I suspect "rabbit fever" -- that is to say, lack of fats and carbs in the diet -- is what killed Chris McCandless, the young man who died in the old Fairbanks city bus on Stampede Trail in Alaska.

Anyhow, in addition to a diet that suits the human metabolic system, there are other things people need in order to be healthy. The human requirement that's been the most important to me from as far back as I can remember, is the flexibility to base one's actions on decisions made according to one's own reasoning. (I use the word "flexibility" because "freedom" has been used in so many different ways it no longer has much useful meaning.) Therefore, I was excited to see that Dr. Hsieh's Paleo Principles includes this (at the very end):

You are 100% responsible for your own life, health, and happiness. Refuse to submit to the standard dogmas just because everyone believes them. Read, think, inquire, and judge for yourself. Don't depend on the government and its lackeys to keep you healthy. Insist on the inalienable rights of all persons to produce, trade, and consume voluntarily -- free from the unjust burdens of government regulations, subsidies, and taxation.

Thank you, Dr. Hsieh!

Hever Castle Buddleia Blooming in January

2012-01-07T18:37:00.000-08:00

I odered one-gallon containers of Buddleia x pikei from Mountain Valley Growers last spring. I thought of it as a gamble, because plants bred to grow in England, even in the southern regions, do not always do well in my Texas gardens. The arching branches and lavendar colored blooms attracted me. In less than a year, the plants have grown to be about 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide. This is pretty impressive, especially considering the summer drought. A couple of days ago I was surprised to find that the shrubs are beginning to bloom. The wind was blowing too hard to get a good photo, but I'll be sure to take more when the plants are in full bloom. The fragrance is very fresh and spring-like. I'll plant paperwhites and other early-blooming bulbs in the bed in front of these shrubs, to make a perfumed corner of the garden for sunny winter days.

Weight Maintenance and the Punishment of King Sisyphus

2012-01-04T10:49:00.000-08:00

King Sisyphus was a character in Greek and Roman morality tales who was punished by the gods by spending eternity pushing a huge boulder up a hill, watching it roll back down, pushing it up again ...

This is a pretty good description of the experience people go through in trying to maintain a constant body weight. I've spent the last few days reading weight-oriented blogs and websites, and of course I've experienced my own struggle to maintain a constant weight. At the bottom of this post, I've linked to some of the most interesting blogs and websites.

Based on what I've learned so far, it looks as though there are a few people who are genetically predisposed not to store fat. These people would be in big trouble if they were in a situation where food was not always available, but they do well as long as there's plenty to eat. It is possible to be born with a genetic tendency to be thin but to be infected by a virus, such as the AD36 adenovirus, which causes the body to create fat cells. Between genetics and infection, something like 80% of people tend to gain weight when we eat regularly. Of these people, some are able, through constant vigilance and deprivation, to lose and/or maintain a constant weight.

Until fairly recently, few people had a constant source of food. For people who are subject to periods of food scarcity, fat cells are literally life-savers. Those fat cells are like having a readily available cache of food that doesn't spoil or become infested with insects.

It is possible for one to eat so much in one sitting that one's stomach bursts, but in all but a very few cases, this does not happen, because eating is regulated by hormones that cause a person not to be hungry any more when the blood sugar reaches a certain level. Hormones also drive a person to eat when the blood sugar level falls. These hormones seem to have a "memory" of a person's highest weight, so when person loses weight, the hormones drive the person to eat enough to regain the weight. When people lose weight, they lose both muscle and fat; many people (especially if they are 40 years or older) add more fat than muscle when they regain the weight they lost.

The body's reaction to weight loss would be likely to prolong one's life in a situation where food is not always available -- which would have been the condition of most people who have ever lived. Therefore, it's not accurate to think of it as a flaw, and it's not appropriate for people to hate their bodies for "betraying" them by driving them to gain weight.

Many people do appear to hate their bodies, or even themselves. They believe that their inability to lose weight or stabilize their weight at a certain point is due to weakness or a moral defect of some sort. Some people accept their weight, which is fine to a point. But there is a point at which a person's stored fat begins to interfere with the normal function of their bodies. Walking becomes difficult; running impossible. Weight-bearing joints such as knees deteriorate more rapidly due to the stress of carrying more weight than they were meant to carry. The heart has to work harder to service the larger bulk of the body (but the heart also grows larger, so this may not actually be a health problem). Meanwhile, the hormones keep on doing their job -- the drive to eat is almost at inexorable as the drive to breathe.

I saw many blogs that were full of hope to begin with but ended abruptly after an initial weight loss followed by a gain. Then there were the very rare people who managed to lose significant amounts of weight (up to 1/2 of their initial weight) and keep the weight off. One of these people describes weight maintenance as a part-time job (Debra's Just Maintaining). In general, there appears to be a rift between weight-acceptance people and weight-loss people. Debra's philosophy is that she could easily gain weight again (for example, if she were unable to do the relatively high level of exercise required to keep the weight down), and if that were to happen, she doesn't beleive she would deserve self-hate. I agree with her, and the research supports her -- maintaining weight after weight loss requires far more exercise than maintaining one's highest weight. As part of the body's fight to keep itself alive in a sitatuion of perceived food-scarcity, muscles function differently after weight loss. They become more efficient, can perform more on a given amount of fuel. So exercise that requires 100 calories when done by a person who has never lost weight might require only 75 calories after weight loss. This is great for a person stranded in the woods with nothing to eat but lean meat, insects, and plant matter, but not for a person who has ready access to concentrated sources of carbs and fats.

Food is at the center of almost every special event and celebration of friendship. This is not surprising, given that most people who have ever lived went through regular periods of food scarcity. It makes it really hard for people who are trying to lose or stabilize their weight. Given the statistics, it's completely normal to gain weight. The exceptional people are the ones who don't gain. Therefore, it's not accurate to refer to low body weight as "normal."

What to do when "normal" is not healthy? Some people recommend support groups, which seem to work well for short-term weight loss. But people who get the weight off and keep it off seem to be motivated more from within themselves, like artists.

I myself have 4 motivations:

(1) my knees are shot, and I want to avoid knee surgery -- this is my main reason for wanting to lose weight. My knees function a lot better when they have less to carry;

(2) I'm getting old and do not want to accumulate great masses of belly fat, as my mother has done;

(3) I started sewing and became interested in fashion, and many of the garments I'd like to make look better on slim bodies than on larger ones;

(4) I feel better when I eat a diet that consists mostly of fresh veggies, fruits, fish, whole grains, seeds, and nuts; this same diet results in weight loss, especially if I go easy on the grains.

I'm fine long as I'm in weight-loss mode, but one cannot stay there indefinitely. At some point, one reaches one's goal weight and must add just enough calories to maintain that weight. That's when it gets really difficult.

Here are some of the blogs I found most interesting and helpful:

Debra's Just Maintaining - This is the best blog I've found so far. There's a lot of good research here, and the author is a very good writer. She also has a healthy attitude -- she didn't hate herself when she was larger; she thought of herself as a Botticelli Babe, and judging by her photos she is attractive at both large and small sizes.

Tara Parker-Pope New York Times article -- the first part of the article is sort of depressing and hopeless, but keep reading to the end, and look at some of the blogs.

Refuse to Regain - a website about maintaning a constant weight, especially after weigh loss.

Jenny Craig - I'm put off by this company -- it's owned by a large corporation (Nestle) and charges people lots of money for frozen foods and advice. But it does seems to work for many people -- there are some good before-and-after photos and stories on the website.

South Beach Diet - I like this one. You can join for $5 per month, with no long-term contract. This is what I used to go from 165 to 145. I no longer use the South Beach diet recipes but instead look for interesting recipes on the Web or make up my own.

The Paleolithic Diet websites and blogs are interesting, but I believe they have their proportions wrong. As this Wired article points out, it's likely that most Paleolithic people ate grains and other plant-based foods at least as often as they ate meat. People such as the Inuit would have been the exceptions. Even the Inuits gather and preserve tubers, berries, grass seeds (i.e. grains), sea weed, and other vegetable material to supplement their meat and fish diets.

Paul Campos is a lawyer who makes a good case against the obsesssion with weight loss in his book The Obesity Myth. Here's a good interview in which he explains his position: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/07/americas-moral-panic-over-obesity/22397/

I'm editing this post to include this excellent blog: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2006/11/introduction-and-why-i-created-this.html
For years, I have traced virtually every science, food and health story in media to their original press releases, which are reported verbatim. Literally everything we hear and read today - on the internet or mainstream media - is marketing and created by those trying to sell us something: a belief, cause, product, service, or themselves. That’s why we hear “science” finds something one day, and something entirely different the next. “Pop” science, what is popularly believed and marketed as “science,” is oftentimes really the junk science.

From the Winter Garden

2012-01-03T15:09:00.000-08:00

The summers here in San Antoinio are vicious, but the winters are, for the most part, very pleasant. Many rose bushes produce larger, more deeply colored blooms in winter than they do in other seasons.

I've been sick with a cold, so I picked these roses from the garden today, to cheer myself. The pink ones are from a bush I originally planted in the Tilmon garden (near Austin) but dug up and brought to San Antonio when the Tilmon grasshoppers ate it down to a nub. It has since recovered from its near-death experience.

Infection as a Cause of Obesity

2012-01-03T14:58:00.000-08:00

Effects of Obesity on The Brain

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2012/01/high-fat-diets-obesity-and-brain-damage.html

This is one of the blogs I discovered while looking around the Web for

information on gaining and losing weight. I have to go to bed now,

so I won't have another relapse of this cold, so I cannot write

about this in detail.

The gist is that eating a fattening diet (that is to say, consistently

consuming more calories than one burns) causes inflammation of

brain tissue. One reason it's so hard to keep weight off after

one has gained and lost may be damage to the portion of the

brain that controls appetite.

There's also this on the AD36 virus, which appears to contribute to

obesity in those infected:

http://www.pbrc.edu/the-center/faculty/?EmployeeID=2449

Seven viruses have been reported to cause obesity in animal models by

various research groups.

We reported the first human virus, an adenovirus (Ad-36), which causes

adiposity in chickens, rodents and non-human primates and shows

association with human obesity. Our in-vivo and in-vitro data show

that Ad-36 increases adiposity, lowers serum lipids, increases insulin

sensitivity and preadipocyte differentiation.

Plants Growing in Our Yard

2011-11-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

These are some of the plants we are growing in our yard. There are some more photos available on a blog entry I made on September 17. I have identified the plants under each photo, and there is a list of unpictured plants at the bottom of this blog entry.

Day Lily

20th Century Asian Pear

Vinca Major, Day Lilies, Esperanza, Canna Lily, and Red Knockout Rose, Caroline Hairston Rose, Hever Castle Buddleia

Castor Bean, Day Lilies, Ornamental Grass (don't know name), Cleome, Germander

Impatiens

Caladiums in background, coleus in foreground

Cleome

Queen's wreath, also called coral vine

golden crownbeard, queen's wreath, yellow and orange lantana, portulaca (in blue container), vinca major, 4 o'clocks, huisache tree upper right corner

verbena

from spring - not flowering now: geraniums, pansies, violas, purple spider wort

Anagua Tree in flower (spring)

Queen's wreath, mealy blue sage, 2nd variety of salvia (name unknown), Mexican honesuckle, Pride of Barbados (not flowering now)

Some other plants that are not pictured:

Anna apple

Ein Shemer apple

3 varieties of dwarf peach

semi-dwarf Spring gold peach tree

LeConte pear tree

Celeste fig tree

3 Wonderful pomegranite shrubs

several loquat trees - they were here when we bought the place

Persian Mulberry

common mulberry

5 Chinese photinia shrubs

8 white Indian hawthorne shrubs

8 Japanes ligustrum shrubs

olive tree

8 abelia shrubs

9 vetiver plants planted as privacy screen

6 sophora shrub/trees (Texas mountain laurel)

4 elm trees

2 oak trees

2 rain trees (will probably remove)

4 chinaberry trees (will probably remove all but 1)

star jasmine

night blooming jasmine

Fanick's perennial phlox

Souvenir de la Malmaison rose bush

Mutalis rose bush

unidentified rose bush grown from cutting from rose bush at corner of Lewis & Howard St

pink Knockout rose bush

Bolero rose bush

The Fairy rose bush

unidentified rose bush grown from cutting from rose bush on Bois D'arc St in Lockhart TX

Maggie rose bush

Mademoiselle de Sombreuil rose bush

Blush Noisette rose bush

Cecile Brunner rose bush

Gruss an Aachen rose bush

6 florida jessamine shrubs

kitchen herbs: basil, rosemary, cilantro, thyme, parsley, sage, Greek oregano, common oregano, spearmint, winter mint, catnip, chives

bay tree

Meyer lemon tree

jalepeno and ancho chiles

chile pequin

tomatoes

irises

nardo, also called tuberose

pink and purple ruellia

honeysuckle

agapanthus

native pecan tree

amaranth

Rain !!!

2011-09-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

There were very isolated bands of T-storms yesterday. We got maybe an inch of rain here in central San Antonio, but a friend in north San Antonio said they only got a few sprinkles there.

Today there were wider bands of showers. No violent storms around here, but enough good, steady rain to saturate the ground.

I took my camera into the back garden yesterday and found a few pretty things to photograph. The rose bushes are in full bloom, which would be gorgeous if they were larger. They're still quite small, though. It's been all they can do to stay alive over the summer. They haven't had the resources to add much size. I grew most of the rose bushes from cuttings started spring before last. I bought a couple from the Antique Rose Emporium.

Unburned

2011-09-09T15:51:00.000-07:00

I came to the country today. I already knew my travel trailer and barn would be OK, because I had talked to a neighbor, but I was not sure about the sandhill woods between Delhi and McMahan. As it turned out, the fire did not reach my land. There are many dead trees and shrubs, still sitting there waiting for the next fire.

The weather has turned very hot again after a few days with highs in the low 90's F. Nothing like the hot weather of a couple of weeks ago, though. The thermometer under the shade of the barn says 35.5C. Bull nettle seeds are the only things I can find to eat here today. I'm awfully glad I can go to stores to buy food.

Healthy Diet

2011-09-07T22:34:00.000-07:00

Our adopted stray cat, Edith, has just given birth to three lovely kittens. One has spots, like the mother. I think Edith is part Bengal or Egyptian Mau.

I'd forgotten how good I feel when I consume a berry-roots-nut-meat-fish kind of diet. I don't know why I stray from it. I guess the smell of hot grease is just too enticing. What usually happens is that I go to a restaurant and eat unhealthy stuff, assuming that one unhealthy meal isn't going to hurt me. But I can't stop at just one unhealthy meal. I go maybe two days, then I have do it again. My love for Tex-Mex food is one of my greatest weaknesses. Sounds like the tale of a drug or alcohol addict, doesn't it?

I bought grass-fed beef at the store, but one never knows for sure exactly what that means. It's quite misleading to refer to feedlot-finished beef as grass-fed, but people do it. I prefer to buy 1/4 steer at a time from someone I know, but the calf I was supposed to get this year died in an accident (got stuck in mud and broke a leg) and had to be slaughtered early.

I've personally known 2 people and heard of others who were sent home to die, because there was no known medical treatment for their conditions (one had an advanced case of Crohn's Disease). After switching to a diet that included no feed-lot finished beef, they got well. This is certainly not scientific evidence, but it gives one pause.

A Tasty Snack - Peanut Butter & Broccoli

2011-09-06T23:19:00.000-07:00

Ingredients:

Some broccoli florets, or sliced stems
A glob of peanut butter

Put the glob of peanut butter and the raw broccoli on a plate. Dip the broccoli in the peanut butter. Eat.

Preparation time: 3 minutes or less

I know this probably sounds like a weird food combination, but it's surprisingly good.

The Paleolithic Diet Again

2011-09-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

The first time I ever needed to lose some weight coincided with my discovery of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. The author writes quite a bit on the topic of food (or lack thereof) in Soviet prison camps during the 1930's, 40's and early 50's. Prisoners were expected to do work that burned many calories each day but were fed only small amounts of bread and watery soup. Under such circumstances, a potato, even a rotten one, was worth fighting for.

I tend to become deeply emotionally involved in books I'm reading, especially if the writing is vivid. After the unsettling experience of reading Solzhenitsyn's descriptions of putting in a long day of heavy physical labor and being given watery cabbage soup and a small hunk of bread, I could sit down to a meal of broccoli and lean meat and feel very, very lucky. Now and then I might walk past a restaurant and feel deprived. I vividly remember walking past Trudy's on W. 30th in Austin one wintery afternoon, smelling the enticing fragrance of warm Tex-Mex fare with longing. I had to remind myself: "That's not for the likes of me." But most of the time, I was happy with my low-cal meals, because they were so much better than the prison camp food I was reading about.

The Gulag Archipelago consists of three rather thick volumes. I was a grad student and also working during the period when I was reading it. There was not much time for extra-curricular reading, so it took quite a while to read all three volumes, long enough to lose 20 pounds or so.

I've used the Gulag method of weight loss a few times since then. I have read about many situations in which people did not have enough to eat -- people in prisons, people who were shipwrecked, people who were lost in the woods or whose plane crashed into a remote area. Please understand, I do not mean to make light of anyone's suffering. I have been deeply moved by these books, especially the ones about innocent people being imprisoned and starved. I am inspired by these people. Their strength in surviving their ordeals gives me the strength to get through a few weeks of a healthy calorie-restricted diet, even though my body figuratively cries out for carbohydrates.

So now the time has come again when I need to lose some weight. I am reading Alexander Dolgun's Story: An American in the Gulag and listening to an audio version of Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.

Alex Dolgun's American father went to Moscow to work as an engineer during the depression of the 1930's. Dolgun, in his early 20's, was working at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow when he was arrested. He spent the following eight years in closed prisons and prison camps and was in the general amnesty after Stalin's death.

Louis Zampirini was an Olympic runner who became a bombdier in World War II. His plane went down in the Pacific Ocean, and after spending 47 days on a raft, he was picked up by Japanese and held in various prison camps from 1943 until the war ended in 1945.

This time around, after reading Michael Rose's blog I am doing a modified Paleolithic diet. I intend to eat lots of berries and nuts and roots and meat. No refined carbohydrates. Only small amounts of whole grains. My goal is not only to lose 10 pounds, but, more importantly, to get rid of the round belly I've grown over the last several years. I hate the way it looks, and I've read that carrying around abdominal fat is unhealthy. So far, losing weight has not helped much with the belly. A year or so ago, I went from 170 pounds down to 142 and thinned down everywhere except for the belly. I've remained at 142 but would like to return to my young-adult weight of 132.

It will be interesting to see if the modified Paleo diet helps. The reason I refer to it as modified rather than strict is that I plan to eat a little yogurt and cheese, and possibly some milk and ice cream (I like to blend berries with yogurt and a bit of ice cream), and also olive oil and condiments such as vinegar. I'm close to 100% sure I'll lose weight on the diet. Since I've already dropped 28 pounds last year, I know it can be done. If I still have the belly when I get down to my desired weight of 132, I'll try a strict Paleo diet and see if it helps. I also exercise, of course -- working in the garden, pedaling a stationary bike, and doing Pilates mat exercises.

So here's my first meal of the diet: Salmon cooked in olive oil with chopped garlic and fresh basil and parsley (from the garden) and sliced tomatoes with oil & vinegar. Lemon juice sqeezed over all. It was delicious. The basil leaves were surprisingly wonderful. I threw them into the oil in which the fish was cooking, and they came out crispy.

I can't truthfully say I'm not a little hungry, but it's certainly not unbearable.

Fire

2011-09-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

The satellite maps show evidence of the work of the fire fighters. There were flame icons on the map, indicating that the fire had crossed the 3000 acre pasture and was in the woods just SE of Altamira, only a couple hundred yards away. Then a long, straight cloud image showed up, and the flame icons disappeared.

Wildfires in Central Texas

2011-09-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

I am in San Antonio at the moment, watching (via satellite) the relentless advance of the wildfire that was burning in the Bastrop area yesterday. It is now less than one pasture away from my land. The pasture separating the fire from my land is 3000 acres that was planted in Bermuda grass with only a few trees. I hoped that maybe the relatively wide expanse with not very much fuel might have stopped the fire, but it doesn't look as though that's going to happen. I heard that the fire easily jumped Colorado River in Bastrop County.

None of my domestic animals are on the land at the moment. There's furniture and stuff I'll be sad to lose, and most of my books. My cute little travel trailer, and the pole barn and the 3/4 ton Ford pickup and the pump house and pressure tanks. But I can live well without these things. I guess the old oak and hickory trees will be the saddest loss.

My losses are nothing compared to the losses of my friends who live there and who will lose their homes and livlihoods.

It's weird to think back to two days ago when I was last at my land. Sometimes, I stop for a moment as I"m about the close the door and walk away and think, "Goodbye, little house." I didn't do that when I left Saturday. I was in a hurry to get to Lockhart to take care of some work I needed to do there. It never occurred to me that it might be the last time I'd ever see my cozy little trailer.

Texas Drought Continues, Despite Rain and Floods Elsewhere

2011-09-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

TEXAS DROUGHT: SPOT THE OUTLIER

"The year 2011 continues the recent trend of being much warmer than the historical precipitation-temperature relationship would indicate, although with no previous points so dry it’s hard to say exactly what history would say about a summer such as this one. Except that this summer is way beyond the previous envelope of summer temperature and precipitation."

In the city, there are dead shrubs, and even a few large trees that have not been able to withstand the desert-like conditions. In the country, corn and even milo crops are brown and shriveled. Many farmers have plowed everything under, and the fields are just sitting there, waiting for wind to blow the soil away. It's pointless to plant winter wheat with no rain. Pastures, like many of the front yards in the cities, are bare soil with a few tufts of dead grass. Most of the cattle are gone. Ranchers with the means to move their breeding stock to other parts of the country did so. Some are importing hay from states such as Montana. But many ranchers have sent even their breeding stock to slaughter, beause they could not afford to keep them alive.

Former ponds are now dry depressions lined with cracked clay like shards of broken pottery. Creek and river beds are dry. Even large lakes have been reduced by evaporation to less than half their former volume.
Rain will show up in the 7-day forecast from time to time, but the meteorologists have to revise the forecast later to 0 precip.

There is one very small bright spot in all this: the drought has been so severe that it even seems to be affecting the grasshopper population. If the grasshopper population is low at the time of year when they lay eggs, the population next year will be relatively low.

Weather

2011-08-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

When my grandmother Lois Lamar was a child, she would spend a couple months in Galveston each summer. Her father would have to stay in Austin where he worked, but he would join Lois and her mother in Galveston on weekends. Lois, born in November, 1899, was in Glaveston for the 1909 hurricane. She told me that she and her mother left their cottage and sheltered in a brick building in the center of the city. Being a child with her mother close by for comfort, Lois slept through the worst of the storm. The adults were too nervous to sleep. The memory of the 1900 hurricane was too fresh.

I recently acquired a book about the 1900 hurricane, Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson, which tells the story from the point of view of Isaac Cline, the regional head of the U.S. Weather Bureau. A timeline of the weather bureau shows that in 1898 President McKinley ordered the bureau to establish a hurrican warning system in the West Indies. Wireless telegraph service made this possible. According to Larson's book, the Cuban meteorologists had a better understanding of hurricane behavior than their U.S. counterparts. Unfortunately, Luther Moore, national head of the U.S Weather Bureau at the time, had ruled that only U.S. meteorologists could make wireless transmissions (Cuba was under U.S. control at this time, after the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American war). The Cuban meteorolgists expected the tropical storm that made landfall in Cuba on August 27, 1900, to turn toward the west toward Texas. But Cline, in Galvestron, only received the opinions of the U.S. meteorologists, who were sure the storm would head north over Florida and up the east coast of the U.S.

There was no ship-to-shore wireless service at the time, so the residents of Galveston knew nothing of the hurricane until the storm surge hit. Even then, they still had no idea of the ferocity of the storm. Isaac Cline stayed with his wife an children in their home just 3 blocks from the beach. By the time the eye wall made landfall, it was far too late to seek shelter. Cline's house was demolished by a steel rail road trestle, its inhabitants flung into 20 foot deep, debris-loaded water.

The hurricane remains the United States' deadliest natural disaster. 6000 - 8000 people died that night, and the city, which had been so beautiful the day before, was a pile of rubble and rotting corpses of humans, horses, dogs, cats, chickens, cattle, and wild animals.

There are many variables associated with weather events, some of them quite subtle. Even with satellite images that allow storms to be tracked at the level of meters and even centimeters, no one can accurately predict when a group of thunderstorms will become a tropical depression, nor can anyone say with any degree of certainty whether or not a troical depression will become larger and stronger.

The weather in the southern U.S. in 1900 was unusually warm, as it has been this year. For the areas 100 miles or more inland from the coast, the hurricane would have brought relief from the heat, as a major hurricane this year would bring relief from the drought.

I grew up in Houston and lived through several hurricanes, the most notable of which was Carla in 1961. I made a sail from wood scraps and a sheet, put on my roller skates, and let the wind push me down the street (what were my parents thinking, to let me do such a thing???). We filled the bathtub, and glass jugs, with water, in case we lost water service. The electricity went out, and neighbors gathered at my friend Beth's house, because her family had a gas cook stove. The streets flooded, and we kids made rafts. I remember it all as good fun. But we were more than 50 miles in from the coast, and only the streets flooded, not our houses. The scariest storm I've experienced was when I was first building the house at Altamira. I had built only a small cabin at the time, and there was no siding yet on two of the walls, just a plastic tarp. There was a metal roof that amplified the sound of the storm. The rain beat down, and the wind blew fiercely and there was almost constant thunder. It was difficult to distinguish the roar of the wind from the crash of thunder. In the morning, a large oak tree about 20 yards from my cabin had been twisted until its trunk broke. A small tornado, I guess.

I must be thinking of storms because I long so much for rain. I have to go to Tilmon today to water the few remaning trees that have not been killed by grasshoppers: a sophora (Texas Mountain Laurel), 4 loblolly pines, a magnolia (bad grasshopper damage but still hanging on), 3 roses bushes (damaged but still alive), two turk's caps (for some reason, the grasshoppers leave these alone), and vetiver grass, which the grasshoppers don't touch. Vetiver blades have sharp edges, which I think must put the grasshoppers off. These days I dread going there. With the oil well, the grasshoppers, the drought, it's like descending into the outer chambers of hell.

Celebration of Nature

2011-07-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

I've noticed that, at least in my time and place, people tend to pick up the philosophical principles according to which they run their lives as package deals. I think this has probably been true for most people most of the time from when humans were first able to think about running their lives according to anything other than instinct.

Since I dislike inelegant sledge-hammer types of technology, people often mistakenly assume that I am against all forms of advanced technology. They also mistakenly assume that I am a vegetarian and a supporter of liberal politicians (liberal as in the modern USian usage of the term). If I tell them I do not give blanket support to the Democratic Party, they assume I like Republicans. And so forth.

One of the things people tend to assume about me, since I enjoy spending time away from the city and since I like to try to work with nature rather than against it, is that I am a tree-hugging nature-lover. I don't so much love nature as appreciate its amazing complexity. I work with it rather than against it out of laziness and the desire for efficiency. One thing I know about the way nature works: every contestant in the game of life is fighting a dangerous, constant battle. Rich city people can thank advanced technology for their ability to forget about the fight for days, weeks, even lifetimes. By rich, I mean anyone who can afford a constant source of electricity, clean water, temperature control, food, and medical technology. Rich people can pay someone else to fight the battle for them.

I am a rich person, by the above definition. There have been periods in my life when I was not rich, when I was not completely sure I'd have enough food, when I could not afford to pay for medical help, when I did not have an entirely secure shelter from the rain. The periods when I was not rich were real eye-openers with respect to nature.

The grasshoppers that have devastated my country garden are a reminder, and I've just had a particularly gruesome reminder due to misplaced trust in a building contractor.

This man, who came highly recommended and whom I trusted, recently built two chicken pens for me. After the first one was built, I noticed there was a gap at the top of the pen. The contractor used a method similar to the one I used at Altamira when I built pens and pole barns, except that I attached the wire to a wood frame on the outside of the poles, so there was no gap between the wire and the roof of the pen. The contractor had his men attach the wire directly to the poles and cross pieces. This leaves a gap at the top of the wire, large enough for my cat to crawl through.

I pointed out the gap to the contractor, and asked him to be sure and not leave a gap on the second pen, and to fix the gap on the first one. He told me he would. This is where I made my big mistake: I trusted the contractor when he said the work was done and did not climb up to inspect the tops of the pens with my own eyes.

Relying on the contractor's word that the pens had been properly constructed, I put 4 mature hens, 10 pullets, two roosters, and 17 half-grown guineas into the pens. When I arrived at Tilmon last night, I caught a possum and a raccoon enjoying chicken dinners, inside the second pen. These two, plus probably all the other small predators in the neighborhood, killed all 4 mature hens, 8 of the pullets, both roosters, and all the guineas.

I've buried the bodies to get rid of the death-smell, and sent an email to the contractor with photos, to give him a graphic demonstration of why I asked him not to leave gaps at the tops of the pens.

The scene last night, viewed by by flashlight, was worthy of a horror movie. Here are a few photos of Nature in Action. Imagine seeing this in brief, disjointed glimpses in the beam of a flashlight while breathing the odor of decaying flesh. Dark cavities with ragged edges, wet with blood serum. Maggots like glistening, squirming grains of rice. I wanted very much to run away and never come back. But I stayed to clean up the mess. It was still horrible in the morning, but not nearly as bad as it was at night.

It occurs to me that what a good horror movie does is make the viewer see what it would be like if one were dropped into the jaws of Nature, without the protection of human technology. Of course, the slaughter of my birds was not really completely natural, since if they had not been penned, they would have been roosting high in trees instead of on roosts that possums and raccoons can reach with ease (in the trees, owls could have been added to the list of potential predators), and absent their association with humans, the birds would probably have had sharper instincts. But still ...

The San Antonio Garden

2011-07-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

I've put my country garden on hold until I can figure out how to work around the grasshoppers. I've thought of a couple of new things to try. One is an automatic watering system. The soil at Tilmon is sandy, so even after a deep watering, the upper layers of soil dry out quickly. Until plants get their roots down deep, they suffer from lack of water when I'm not there during the hot part of the summer to water them every 2 or 3 days. The plants that were kept in containers through the summer last year survived with only minor grasshopper damage. This year, when they were planted in the ground, they didn't survive. I dug them up, planted them in containers, and brought them to San Antonio. Three have died -- a Fuji apple, a peach (lost the tag and don't remember what variety of peach), and a catalpa. The rest seem to be thriving. I've already planted two peach trees. two mulberries, a fig, and a pineapple guava in the garden here in San Antonio. Looking good in containers are an Anna apple, a Le Conte pear, and an Ein Shemer apple. Thes Israeli apple trees (Anna and Ein Shemer) can take the south Texas heat and need very few chilling hours. The grasshoppers have killed 4 peach trees, 3 pears, an apple, and a fig. (I'm making myself feel bad taking inventory in this way; I need to focus on the future instead)

Asking why the trees survived in containers but not in the ground, I came up with the following answers:

1. soil
2. location
3. frequency of watering

I've tried enriching the soil. This actually seemed to increase the grasshopper damage. I guess they were getting more nutrients from the plants grown in healthy soil. I tried planting in the ground where the containers had been. The grasshoppers still defoliated the trees.

The one variable left, unless I've overlooked something, is water. I had an automatic watring system set up to water the containers.

So this is the next thing I'll try in my attempts to make the land at Tilmon into an edible garden.

Meanwhile, the garden in San Antonio is taking shape. We have a small 1-story house (2200 sq ft) on half an acre, so there's a lot of garden space. The existing shrubs and small trees include anaqua, sophora (aka Texas mountain laurel), nandina, pomegranite, and loquat. There are three oak trees, which I have not precisely identified (this is a whole different biosphere from Altamira and Tilmon, and many of the trees are different), an elm (I think), a palm which I think is a Windmill Palm, but I'm not 100% sure, some china berries, and some trees I've never seen before that have very brittle branches. One recently fell across a part of the garden I'd been in only a couple of minutes earlier. It was a large tree, about 40 feet tall. There's another growing next to where it was and seedlings coming up all around. I think I'll keep the one that's still there as a nurse tree while the young fruit trees are getting started, then have it removed. The wood is so brittle, I think it's probably dangerous.

There were no shrubs defining the perimeters of any of the garden spaces. The place was mostly a jumble of weeds. I've let many of them grow back, just to hold down the soil and give the birds and lizards food and refuge. There are many sunflowers, which attract dozens of cardinals and doves. The hedges I've planted are growing so you can sort of see the outlines of the hedges; there are always dozens of tomatoes and peppers to eat and give away and many flowers blooming. I was pretty sad for a while, because of the grasshopper devastation in Timon. I felt like a failure as a gardener. But I'm beginning to feel better now, as the SA garden takes shape.

Here are some photos. Next year at this time, I'll look at these and say, "It looked so bare!" But it's a beginning. I've included a very quick and very rough sketch of the part of the garden directly behind the house. The yellow highlighted areas are raised beds. The Hever Castle Buddleia is planted along the drive way. There are cannas planted in front of the ugly wooden fence. they should grow tall enough to almost complete hide it. In front of the buddleia (looking from the direction of the house) are shrub roses. In front of the rose bushes are various perennial flowers including salvias and day lilies. The Pride of Barbados (what San Antonio garden would be complete without this flamboyant shrub?) is against the stucco wall of the back underpinning. The house is built on a slope. The floor is at ground level on the north side and high up off the gound on the south side. The south side was the front yard when the house was built. Later, the lot to the south was subdivided and sold, and another house was built on it. So the back of our house now faces the street. This all sounds very confusing as I read it. I apologize for that, but I don't have time to go back and make it clearer now, as the outdoor temperature is getting bearable. Time to go outside and play in the garden. It gets too hot here for gardening to be enjoyable except in the mornings and evenings. At those times of the day, it's rather pleasant.

Knapped Flint

2011-07-24T16:09:00.000-07:00

While I was sitting in the garden day before yesterday digging a hole for a Fanick's phlox, I found a piece of flint. This is unusal, as flint does not seem to occur naturally in my yard.

It looks like a spear head someone threw away when it was only partly done, probably because it split in such a way that the finished head could not be shaped correctly. I wondered if I was just imaging this scenario. Was this a partially finished, or just a piece of flint?

Below I've pasted in part of an article from http://www.belchalwell.org.uk/artifacts-flint.asp. This is about knapped flint from the eastern hemispere, but I would think it should also apply to flints worked in Texas. My spear head (if that's what is was going to be) has ripples, bulbs of precussion, secondary working (see right edge of upper photo), fissures. Hard to see how it could be anything other than knapped flint.

I've been told that there was once a spring in our back yard. This is not difficult to believe. San Pedro Springs park with its spring-fed swimming pool is less than half a mile from here. It's easy to imagine a group of people spending time here, toward the top of the hill overlooking the San Antonio River bottom. To imagine that someone sat in the same place as I was sitting when I planted the phlox, making spear heads, talking. I wonder if he cursed when the flint cracked and ruined his spear head. Of if he just shrugged, "Meh," tossed it away and pulled another piece of flint from his bag. I say "he" and "his" because I'm pretty sure men made the spear and (later) arrow heads and did the hunting and fighting.

How to Identify Knapped Flint Tools.

Whilst the use of some flint tools is obvious from their shape and size, many are not, and it requires an expert to ascertain their exact use and age. But perhaps more importantly, how do you tell if a piece of flint is a tool, or just a piece of flint?

Knapped flint has several characteristics, and while none are fully diagnostic of a knapped flint, virtually all knapped flints will display one or more of the following, as displayed in the picture.

Ripples (ripple marks on the flat surfaces radiating away from th point of percussion)
Bulb of Percussion (a small lump left in the flint immediately below the point it was struck)
Secondary working or 'nibbling' (fine working on the edge of a tool to sharpen or resharpen it)
Point of Percussion (sometimes shows as a small area of damaged or crumbled flint where it was struck, above the bulb of percussion)
Percussion Platform (the flat 'edge' remaining where the flint was struck from the edge of a flat face of a core)
Fissures (fractures produced by the shock of the knapping)
Percussion Scar (a scar of less cleanly cleaved flint below the point of percussion)
Polishing (occasionally scrapers and similar tools will show signs of a high polish from much use, though the fully polished tools, ie. stone axes, sometimes seen in museums, are very rare finds, and would have had more to do with wealth and ceremony than 'working' tools)

Saving Green Lives

2011-07-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

I have given up trying to grow fruit trees at Tilmon, or anything else other than mesquite, juniper, prickly ash, and bull nettles. The grasshoppers have beat me, at least for now.

I tried everything I could think of, short of toxins that would kill birds, amphibians, and mammals along with the hoppers: NoLo Bait horticultural kaolin, low-dose Sevin bait (Eco-Bran), putting black plastic on the ground around the trees, putting screen cages around the trees, coating the leaves, branches and trunks with pepper spray. Nothing seemed even to put a dent in the number of grasshoppers knawing at my trees. I had one particularly healthy peach tree that survived last year's grasshopper defolitation. I even hoped it might be large enough and strong enough to survive this year and maybe produce fruit next summer. When I left one Sunday, it had a fine big canopy, higher than the top of my head. The following Friday when I returned, it had been completely defoliated and the branches eaten down to nubs.

The fuckers are even eating the needles off my 2-year-old pine trees. (please forgive my rude choice of words, but I can't think of anything more appropriate).

I couldn't bear to just let everything die. I started digging up the trees and shrubs and moving them to San Antonio. There was no point in trying to move the pines -- they crave acidic soil, and the soil and water in San Antonio are toward the alkaline end of the pH scale. So I left them. I also left two rose bushes that, for reasons I cannot yet grasp, the grasshoppers are not molesting, and one rose bush that is being eaten but is too large to comfortably move. If they completely defoliate it, I will cut it back and dig it up. The turk's caps seem to be holding their own, and one pear tree that's planted among some prickly ash trees. This is my most promising clue: the plants that have not been destroyed by the hoppers are the ones planted in close proxmity to prickly ash trees. Two of the pines are next to prickly ash trees, and so far these pines are OK. I will certainly follow up on this clue, especially if the plants close to prickly ash trees continue to survive mostly intact.

I have brought to SA in containers fig, apple, pear, and peach trees, rose bushes, day lillies, cassava, blue berry. The blueberry is risky, since blueberries like acidic soil -- I'll add some sulfur to the container and hope for the best. This fall after the weather cools, I'll take the blueberry back to Tilmon and plant it next to a prickly ash tree.

Here's the way the trees looked after the'y been worked over by the hoppers. This is a Le Conte pear. the trunk and baby limbs are white from the kaolin coating I put on the to try to keep the hoppers from girdling them and killing them. That much, at least, did work.

Here's the way they look after being in their containers in San Antonio for a couple of weeks, with much TLC from me in the form of fish emulsion fertilizer and solutions of micronutrients:

There is one peach tree, the one that was especially beautiful and healthy just a month ago, that may not make it. It's a very sad sight, indeed. Yet I did notice a tiny green tip emerging a couple of days ago, and there are now two small leaves. It's too early to tell for sure, but I think it may survive. The rose bushes are leafing out as though to shout, "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger!"

My husband commented that he can now see why people resort to using strong poisons on insects. The problem is that the poisons are only short-term fixes. Better, in my opinion, and certainly more elegant, to figure out how to discourage the hoppers without wiping out a large % of the other animals in the region as well.

In addition to having an Idea (prickly ash as nurse trees), I am also raising some guinea keets. Now that I've saved many of the trees and shrubs, I'm no longer as sad about the situation. I'm able to take an interest in it as an interesting experiment. I'm glad I wasn't depending on those fruit trees as a major source of food. I guess if I had been, there would have only one thing for it: I would have had to master the art of grasshopper cookery.

It's Been a While

2011-04-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

Blush Noisette in Drought Apr 2011

I didn't feel like writing anything in the blog for the longest time. I even thought of trying to sell this place or sticking a mobile home on it and renting it out and never coming here again. The weather and soil here are challenging enough without toxic neighbors. The situation with the oil well got even worse, as the opertor began venting large quantities of "sour" gas into the air. In mid-March, I sent the following to the operator, with a copy to his attorney (names left out to protect privacy):

Dear WWW

You are not properly disposing of the toxic gas coming from XXX #1 on the YYY lease. Instead, you are venting the gas directly into the air. The level of hydrogen sulfide in the air is high enough to cause burning eyes and throats on my land. I suspect there are also high levels of hydrogen cyanide and sulfur dioxide. I became dizzy and sick to my stomach after breathing the air for four hours last week, and my neighbor ZZZ told me he and his family have suffered similar symptoms. ZZZ has emphysema, and he says the gas from the well makes his cough worse. ZZZ's grandson's wife, who also lives on the land next to mine, is pregnant. Hydrogen sulfide can cause birth defects if a pregnant woman is exposed to it.

Because of the gases you are venting from your well, I am unable to spend more than two or three hours on my land when the wind is blowing from the north. Besides violating state rules on on H2S safety, your venting H2S into the air is denying me the use of my surface rights.

Please correct the situation immediately.

The situation was altered within the next couple of days. Now the operator is piping the gas half a mile away and releasing it on someone else's land. So the air at the Berry Farm smells sweet and fresh, but someone else has to breathe H2S.

Here's the thing that makes me feel especially sad: I am not an innocent party. I use gasoline and oil in my car. I use methane and propane. I buy goods that have been transported across long distances, using fuel that comes from wells like the one next to my land. Even the photovoltaic system I used at Altamira required fossil fuel to make the equipment and ship it. At this very moment, I am consuming electricity created by generators running on methane (natural gas).

I've tried living without electricity, and I didn't like it. Even before I put in the electrical system at Altamira, I used kerosene and propane lanterns. Even when I heated my house with a wood burning stove, I used a gasoline powered chain saw to cut up the wood. I loved my chain saw. I love machines. I don't have any desire to return to life as it was in the 18th century. What I'd like to have happen, if I were writing the script, is small-scale photovoltaic and wind systems that wouldn't require huge power lines, and more efficient energy storage systems, and perhaps a completely new energy source.

The weather and land here at the Berry Farm continue to be vicious. Hard to believe, but there was a frost here this past week. The low temperature for the week at the Austin airport was something like 46, but it got down to 32 here, just 40 miles away (and to the south!). Killed the new growth on the catalpa tree and grape vines and even one of the sophora trees, which is a tough central Texas native. Made the fava bean blossoms shrivel up and turn black. There was frost damage to the new leaves on the pear trees. It's all very discouraging. The gardening mentors of my youth told me: "Plant your corn when the mesquite trees start to leaf out." The mesquite trees were wrong this year. Then, of course, there's the lack of rain. Pity I don't have the contact info for the person to whom to write a cease and desist letter concerning the weather.

I've been reading a book about relatively abrupt climate change (that appears to have been global in scope) in the 16th century -- the beginning of what's known at the Little Ice Age. There's something to be learned from those times. In particular, the Dutch people provided an example of a good response, which was to change the way they grew food, adopting a more diverse range of food crops and changing their methods of farming. The French, on the other hand, provided an example of how NOT to respond. They insisted on keeping their traditional ways of farming, even if it meant death by starvation to thousands.

Speaking of thousands, there are thousands of baby grasshoppers hopping around the Berry Farm. I'm trying Surround kaolin spray on the fruit trees, putting a thin layer on the leaves. I think I'll try painting the trunks with a thick layer. The most horrible thing the grasshoppers did last year was eat the bark on the young fruit trees, girdling them, which caused them to die.

On the brighter side, the roses and phlox are beautiful, and the collards taste better after a frost.

USDA Deregulates GM Alfalfa

2011-01-29T16:57:00.000-08:00

http://blog.wholefoodsmarket.com/2011/01/urgent-action-needed-to-support-organics-and-non-ge-crops/

The USDA is considering only two options:

1) fully deregulate GM alfalfa OR
2) conditionally deregulate it by placing certain rules and restrictions on growing GM alfalfa that would minimize or limit contamination of non-GM crops (including organic).

Far as I can tell from what available online, the only advantage of growing the GM alfalfa is that one can eliminate all non-GM plant life on the field by spraying the herbicide Roundup. According to Gurain-Sherman* using Roundup does not increase yields significantly, even over the short term. In the long run, weeds will become resistant to Roundup, either through naturally occurring mutations or through borrowing the Roundup Ready gene from GM crops. Herbicide resistance has already become a large problem in some locations (http://huerto-de-altamira.blogspot.com/2010/09/herbicide-resistant-pigweed-jobs-for.html)

*Gurain-Sherman,D. 2009. Failure to yield: evaluating the performance of genetically engineered crops. Cambridge (MA): Union of Concerned Scientists.

Dangers of Consuming Genetically Modified Organisms

2011-01-29T16:53:00.000-08:00

American Academy of Environmental Medicine:

http://www.aaemonline.org/gmopost.html

Excerpt:

There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation as defined by Hill's Criteria in the areas of strength of association, consistency, specificity, biological gradient, and biological plausibility.⁵The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.^{2,6,7,8,9,10,11}

Specificity of the association of GM foods and specific disease processes is also supported. Multiple animal studies show significant immune dysregulation, including upregulation of cytokines associated with asthma, allergy, and inflammation. ^6,11Animal studies also show altered structure and function of the liver, including altered lipid and carbohydrate metabolism as well as cellular changes that could lead to accelerated aging and possibly lead to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ^7,8,10Changes in the kidney, pancreas and spleen have also been documented. ^6,8,10A recent 2008 study links GM corn with infertility, showing a significant decrease in offspring over time and significantly lower litter weight in mice fed GM corn.⁸ This study also found that over 400 genes were found to be expressed differently in the mice fed GM corn. These are genes known to control protein synthesis and modification, cell signaling, cholesterol synthesis, and insulin regulation. Studies also show intestinal damage in animals fed GM foods, including proliferative cell growth9 and disruption of the intestinal immune system.⁶

Regarding biological gradient, one study, done by Kroghsbo, et al., has shown that rats fed transgenic Bt rice trended to a dose related response for Bt specific IgA. ¹¹

Also, because of the mounting data, it is biologically plausible for Genetically Modified Foods to cause adverse health effects in humans.

In spite of this risk, the biotechnology industry claims that GM foods can feed the world through production of higher crop yields. However, a recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists reviewed 12 academic studies and indicates otherwise: "The several thousand field trials over the last 20 years for genes aimed at increasing operational or intrinsic yield (of crops) indicate a significant undertaking. Yet none of these field trials have resulted in increased yield in commercialized major food/feed crops, with the exception of Bt corn."¹²However, it was further stated that this increase is largely due to traditional breeding improvements.

Therefore, because GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health and are without benefit, the AAEM believes that it is imperative to adopt the precautionary principle, which is one of the main regulatory tools of the European Union environmental and health policy and serves as a foundation for several international agreements.¹³The most commonly used definition is from the 1992 Rio Declaration that states: "In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation."¹³

Cost of Homemade vs Canned Soup

2010-12-27T13:12:00.000-08:00

I've been eating Tasty Classics soups for $0.25 per serving, but this is because it was on sale for $0.50 per can. There was a recall of some of the Tasty Classics soup because of possible botulism contamination. I don't know if they'e now stopped making the soup, or if my local grocery store got hold of a large lot of it for almost nothing.

Most canned soup costs $0.50 per serving or more.

I found this interesting post on the Julie At Home blog. It compares the cost of homemade with canned soups.
http://juliemcm.blogspot.com/2010/11/canned-soup-vs-homemade-cost-comparison.html

Based on Julie's comparison, the cost of homemade soup is significantly lower than the cost of canned soup, and the homemade version tastes better as well.

Here is another of Julie's comparisons of homemade vs purchased prepared foods: http://juliemcm.blogspot.com/2010/11/7-foods-you-waste-your-money-on.html

The Gardens in Winter

2010-12-27T10:43:00.000-08:00

My nephew, who lives in Brooklyn, was going to visit San Antonio tomorrow but is stuck at JFK. Due to the blizzard, all flights have been canceled, the streets are closed, and trains are not running. There are even people stuck on trains.

Here in central Texas, it's a sunny, spring-like day. The recent foggy nights followed by rain have made the winter grass grow. I have not written about my gardens lately, because I have been too sad. A promoter from Houston got several hundred thousand dollars from European investors and drilled an oil well on the land next to mine, into the shale that lies just beneath the sandstone. They used hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") to break up the shale, which frees the oil so it can be pumped up. The methane that comes up with the oil in this area is what's called "sour gas" -- that is to say, it has a high sulfur content. So now, every north wind brings the smell of hydrogen sulfide. I have not had the water tested yet. The well operator assured me that they were casing the well with concrete down to 700 feet, which is below the level of the water. The theory is that this will keep oil, gas, and fracking fluid from entering the aquifer.

When I bought this land, I knew that it was in an oil field. Also, I benefit from oil and natural gas on a regular basis, to run my vehicle, to heat my house, to ship my food to the store, to operate the machinery to grow and harvest the food, to produce fertilizers and pesticides (to the extent I do not use "organic" food and fabrics), to create plastics and synthetic fibers. As I look around the room where I now sit, few of the objects in the room would be here without oil. So it would be wrong for me to feel angry. Instead, I am sad about the choices we humans have made, to trade our land and water for oil. According to the information I can find online, most of the oil used in the U.S. (the largest oil consumer of any nation in the world) is used for transportation and shipping. In fact, it looks as though more than half the oil purchased in the U.S. is used to make gasoline to run cars. Only a small fraction is used for shipping goods. I have not found a carefully researched table about where people go when they're burning all that gasoline, but based on observation, I'd expect to find that most of the gasoline used in cars is to go to and from work and to shop. So we could make a huge dent in the amount of oil used simply by living close to where we work and shop. Changing zoning laws to allow businesses and homes to coexist should significantly reduce oil consumption. In addition, I imagine it would make life far more pleasant for most people. I've always arranged to live close enough to my work place to walk or ride a bicycle, because I hate driving cars through rush-hour traffic, or riding in buses or trains. I especially enjoy walking, just going out the door and walking to work. I'm definitely no saint, though. I walk to work because I enjoy doing it, not specifically to reduce oil consumption. If the weather is rainy, I drive. If I need to take home a lot of paperwork, I drive. Not to mention driving between San Antonio and the country place once each week and driving 30 miles to buy milk.

Anyway, I have been so sad about the oil well next door that I have not felt like writing. But I'm not one for feeling sad without thinking of things to do to remedy the situation. Sometimes, that means actively doing something, such as moving. It would certainly be easy enough for me to move. I still own the land at Altamira, just a couple of miles from here as the crows fly. But in the present case, I've decided to change my point of view, rather than moving. It will be an interesting challenge to make beautiful gardens in the midst of ugliness. I will put plant living windbreaks that will absorb at least some of the hydrogen sulfide. If the ground water has been contaminated, I will install a rainwater collection system.

I will get guineas to eat the grasshoppers and use Nolo bait in the spring.

With respect to excessive driving ... most people will probably stop doing it when the price of gasoline goes up to $6 or $7 per gallon, or they will shift to engines or motors that do not burn oil. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

December 26 Low-Cost Healthy Meals

2010-12-26T19:07:00.000-08:00

Breakfast: cup of milk $0.5

Snack: V8 juice $0.3

Lunch: Baked tuna steak with crushed pecan crust $4.50
asparagus $0.88 Cost of meal: $5.38

Dinner: lentil soup $1; fresh spinach $0.45; grapefruit $0.05; cup of milk $0.5 Cost of Meal: $2.00

Snack: 2 large raw carrots $0.06

Bedtime snack: 2 oz cheese $0.25

Total Cost of Meals: $8.49 (I could have had approximately the same nutrients by eating canned tuna instead of fresh tuna steak, and the cost would have been about $1 instead of $4.50. The total cost of meals for the day would have been $4.99, which, I believe, is still about $0.49 cents above the daily budget for the Texas Food Stamp Challenge http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/274948/austinites-take-on-the--food-stamps-challenge-) However, some of my other days have been below the $4.50 per day budget, so maybe I'm still within budget. Not that I set out to take the Food Stamp Challenge, but it's interesting to see how well one can eat within the budget. I could have brought today's meals within the $4.50 budget by making my own lentil soup instead of buying the relatively expensive Amy's brand soup, and by eating canned tuna instead of fresh.

Kristi Willis of Austin Farm to Table came up with some wonderful recipes, all within the food stamp budget and all healthy. She prepared food as though she were cooking for a family, and stored the leftovers in her freezer. http://www.austinfarmtotable.com/2010/05/hunger-awareness-dinner-5-green-chile.html

Christmas Day Low Cost Healthy Diet

2010-12-26T18:49:00.000-08:00

Breakfast: egg $0.15 (I'm guessing, since I got the egg from my hens); sausage $0.70; grapefruit $0.05; coffee $.05
Total cost of meal: $0.95 Time to prepare 5 minutes

Lunch: yogurt & berry smoothie - 1 cup yogurt $1; backberries $2; a little vanilla; some stevia
Total cost of meal: $3 Time to prepare: 4 minutes to prepare, 2 minutes to wash food processor

Snack: 1 oz cheese $0.13

Dinner: Chicken broth $0.50; fresh spinach $0.45; pecans (free); lettuce and tomato salad with croutons $0.6; cup of milk $0.5
Total cost $2.05

Snack: grapefruit $.05

Bedtime snack: banana $.05

Total cost of meals for the day: $6.23
I did not add up the protein for the day, because it's clear I'm getting plenty of protein. Today was the most expensive day so far, because of the berry smoothie. Blackberries are not in season anywhere nearby; the ones I ate were shipped from central Mexico. Also, the yogurt I used was a relatively expensive brand.

The milk I drank was also relatively expensive. I do not like the taste of pasteurized homogenized milk, so I found the Strykly farm, 30 miles away from my country place where one can buy fresh raw milk for $5 per gallon. The reason one has to go to the farm to buy the milk is that it is illegal to sell raw milk in retail stores. This is unfortunate, but probably necessary in an economy where most milk is sold through large dairies that purchase the milk from many different farmers, not all of whom take good care of their cows. The Strykly's Jersey cows appear to be well-loved and well cared for, and the facility where the milk is bottled is clean and pleasant. http://www.texascheese.com/milk.htm This is the sort of place where, if no one is around when you go by to pick up milk, you take what you want from the cooler and leave your money on the desk. It's cheering to know that such places still exist.

I do not have enough knowledge about the health benefits of raw vs pasteurized milk to have a confident opinion. I believe there have been a couple of studies that showed a negative correlation between drinking raw milk and suffering from asthma. Here is one of them: http://www.scribd.com/doc/36759777/Asthma-Raw-Milk I used to raise goats for milk. I would have them tested for brucellosis every year, but I never worried about getting brucellosis from them, because I knew them personally and would know if any one of them was ill. I think the same is true for small dairies where the owners are in direct contact with the cows every day.

Nesting Boxes

2010-12-25T10:28:00.000-08:00

http://henpals.mybisi.com/

Low-Cost Healthy Diet, Another Day

2010-12-24T10:14:00.000-08:00

This is for Thursday, Dec 23:

Breakfast: 2 oz cheese $0.25 16 g protein
Cup of coffee with half & half $0.05 Time to prepare: 2 minutes

Lunch: 1/2 large sausage link made fresh by local butcher shop $0.70. 5 g protein
Egg: about $0.15 ? I'm not sure of the price of eggs, because I've been using eggs from my hens. 6 g protein
grapefruit $0.05 Grapefruit is in season here, and I bought an 18 pound bag for $4.50 Time to prepare: 7 minutes

Dinner: 1/2 can minestrone soup $0.25 (this soup was on sale; I think the price would ordinarily be higher)
Added to soup: fresh spinach, fresh zuchinni, fresh green beans approx $0.75. 6 g protein
Pecans: Free. protein 3 - 5 g protein
Ricotta cheese dessert (this is a South Beach diet recipe, except I use whole milk cheese rather than low-fat): a scoop (about 1 cup) of ricotta cheese flavored with almond extract, sweetened with Stevia $0.35. 25 g protein (can this be right? It's what I found at several sources online, but it seems awfully high) Time to prepare: 6 minutes

Bedtime snack: 1 cup milk 8 g protein $0.5 Time to prepare: 30 seconds

Total prep time: 15.5 minutes

Total cost for the day: $3.05 If I had to buy the pecans, the cost of food for the day would increase by perhaps 25 cents. I don't think it would be more than that, given that pecans are in season at the moment, and unshelled nuts are less expensive than shelled ones that you buy in packages (also healthier, I'd think, since the nuts go rancid more quickly after they are shelled)

Throughout the day I drank mostly water, but did have two cups of licorice root tea, the cost of which would have been about $0.12 each. I have not been including the cost of herbal tea in the daily food calculations, because I don't consider it nutritional, but perhaps I should include it, in the interest of full disclosure. So if I add the cost of the pecans and tea, the total food bill for the day would have been $3.54.
Total Protein: 70 grams (if the ricotta cheese actually has 25 g of protein)

A Very Agrarian Meal

2010-12-20T18:22:00.000-08:00

Note: I am using organic veggies and milk that are relatively expensive. A person could probably find fresh veggies for less than I'm paying for mine. I believe WalMart now carries milk products without hormones and possibly some organic vegetables. One can also get relatively inexpensive organic veggies at farmers markets. Not to mention growing stuff in one's garden if one has some outdoor space. One could grow herbs such as mint and cilantro on the balcony of an apartment. The people who were interviewed in Food Inc. said they're at work all day, so perhaps they would not have time to tend a garden. Maybe the parents are both working two jobs or something. When I was young, I worked two jobs -- night audit in a hotel from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. and in the office of an insurance company from 8:00 until noon. I had very little spare time, that's for sure, but I still managed to have a small garden that I tended on weekends when the insurance company office was not open. Of course, that was before I had a child to take care of. But the children of the family that was interviewed were in their teens, and it didn't appear that they had jobs. Maybe they could spend a couple of hours a week looking after a garden or a few herb plants on the balcony if they lived in a apartment.They didn't look like completely down and out people living in a motel or vacant lot. I'll bet they had a yard or at least a balcony.

I'm not saying it would be easy to get most kids to tend a garden or that it's a common thing. I'm just saying that it's possible for many people the grow at least some of their veggies and herbs, to further reduce the cost of fresh food so they don't have to eat foods with toxic levels of refined carbohydrates and unhealthy fats.

My meals today were definitely not the sort of thing a hunter-gatherer would have been likely to eat, but still, there were no refined carbohydrates, and the calorie count was within reason.

Breakfast - oat porridge with milk $0.60 6 minutes 18 g protein
Cup of coffee with half & half $0.15

Lunch: 2 oz string cheese $0.25 less than 30- seconds 16 g protein
cold cucumber soup:
   plain Bulgarian yogurt 1 cup $1.50 8 g protein
   cucumber $0.80
   mint from garden (I don't know how much this would have cost at the store, but it could be left out and the soup would still be good)
   chopped garlic $0.05
   1/3 large avocado $0.50 3 g protein
Total cost: $2.85 time to peel and chop cucumber, gather mint, chop garlic, slice and peel avocado and run through food processor 8 minutes (this is rather expensive in terms of time & money, but it's very good, and it was so filling I didn't need an afternoon snack)

Supper: bowl of Tasty Classics Corn Chowder $0.25 with 1/2 ear fresh corn $0.12
Time to shell corn: 5 minutes; time to cook corn: 3 minutes; time to heat soup: 4 minutes
A few grapes $0.15 protein 6 grams for soup and 2 grams for corn

For mid evening snack I will have some freshly shell pecans. Free, because I gathered them from the ground, protein 3-5 g protein

For bedtime snack, a bowl of applesauce $0.25

Total cost to eat today: $4.57
Total protein about 57 g

Even though I ate rather extravagantly today, my total daily bill was still under $5. I believe it would cost more to buy three meals at McDonald's. Lessee ... a "value meal" with chicken mcnuggets, fries, and a drink is $6.39, but apparently you can get 12 chicken mcnuggets without the drink and fries for $3.00. You can get a sausage Mcmuffin with egg for $2.29. Looks as though a Big Mac is around $3.75. Looks like it would be very difficult, perhaps impossible to buy three meals at McDonald's for under $5.

The Low-Cost Healthy Diet

2010-12-19T20:27:00.000-08:00

In November, 1998, Texas Gardener Magazine published my article The Paleolithic Gardener. I am interested to see that the "paleo diet" is now all the rage. http://paleodiet.com/

I no longer have a copy of the article, as it was lost when my house burned down, but as I recall, the article was more about gathering and eating wild foods than adopting a strict paleo diet. Recent advocates of the paleo diet do not insist on gathering wild foods, although I'm sure they would not object to this. According to the author(s) of the Paleo Diet website, "Paleo is a simple dietary lifestyle that is based on foods being either in or out. In are the Paleolithic Era foods that we ate prior to agriculture and animal husbandry (meat, fish, shellfish, eggs, tree nuts, vegetables, roots, fruit, berries, mushrooms, etc.). Out are Neolithic Era foods that result from agriculture or animal husbandry (grains, dairy, beans/legumes, potatoes, sugar and fake foods)."

I'm not sure what's meant by "fake foods," but I'm guessing that would be stuff such as Chicken McNuggets (see note 1 below). These would not have been Neolithic treats, but still, I see the author's point.

The reason very old-fashioned diets are supposed to be healthy is that the human body evolved prior to the neolithic period (the Neolithic period was believed to have begun around 12,000 years ago, although I think I read somewhere that recent archaeological evidence indicates that people may have been farming and living with domesticated animals prior to that time). Our bodies are made to deal with certain kinds of sugars, proteins, and fats; we don't thrive on substitutes. As a gardener, I would not plant azaleas in the highly alkaline clay soil in my San Antonio garden. I would, instead, plant azaleas in my Caldwell County garden, where the soil is well-draining sandy loam and slightly acidic. For similar reasons, it makes sense for the human consumer to give his or her body the sort of nutrients that will help it to thrive.

There are two reasons I've suddenly become especially interested in my diet:
1. Ever since I reached the age of 50, I've tended to put on lots more fat than I need;
2. The extra weight is very hard on my knees;
3. I was recently ill with a bad cold or flu. I'm not sure which it was, but it involved fever and feeling completely drained of energy. And it made me lose my appetite. I didn't eat much for several days, and I was amazed to find that even after the cold or flu symptoms were gone, and my energy level back to normal, I didn't crave carbohydrates the way I had before.

I am now able to get by well on about 2/3 of the calories I was consuming before, almost none of which are refined carbohydrates. I can go for many hours without eating, with none of the symptoms of low blood sugar I would have had before (headache, shaky feeling, dizziness).

It reminds me of when I quit smoking as a young person. I had not been able to kick the habit, no matter what I tried, until I got sick with a nasty cold. While I was sick with the cold, I had no desire to smoke. By the time I got well, I'd gotten past the most horrible withdrawal symptoms, and it was not that hard to never smoke again. It was not easy, by any means. For at least a year after I quit, I'd really want to have a cigarette when other people lit up. But it was possible, whereas before I got sick, it was not.

Having developed an intense interest in diets, as a result of what recently happened to me, I watched Super-Size Me and Food, Inc. on Netflix over the weekend. Food, Inc. included an interview with a family who said they could not afford to buy good food. The whole family was eating fast food from paper bags -- stuff that was probably heavily laced with high-fructose corn syrup, fried in rancid oil. They also said they didn't have time to cook, since they had to leave the house early in the day and didn't get home until about 9:00 in the evening.

I don't believe this. I believe it's possible to eat a healthy diet for less than the cost of buying fast food, at least in terms of money. I'm not sure about the time. I see that a McDonald's franchisee has reduced the drive-through order time down to one minute by outsourcing the order taking function to a call center. http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/brandautopsy/2004/07/welcome_to_mcdo.html It would be hard to beat that time, but my experience with drive-through fast food joints is that it takes more like 5 - 10 minutes to get all the way through the line from order to pick-up. In the interest of full disclosure, though, I've never been through a McDonald's drive-through, only Jack-in-the-Box and Taco Bell.

But "According to Nielsen Media Research's latest report, the average American household watches 8 hours and 15 minutes of television in a 24-hour period. The average amount of time per individual (over the age of 2) is about 4 and a half hours." http://www.helium.com/items/954928-average-amount-of-time-americans-spend-watching-tv

If people believed they could lose weight and feel better by trading off a couple of hours of TV a week for going to the grocery store instead of to McDonald's, I'll bet most people would be willing to make the trade, if it were not for one thing: addiction.

I believe addiction is the main reason people continue to eat unhealthy food, even though they know it's bad for them, just as a person addicted to cigarettes and short on money will buy cigarettes instead of food. I was addicted to carbohydrates before my recent illness. If I didn't have some carbs every few hours, I would get a headache and might even feel shaky and dizzy. It's VERY hard to stop eating carbs when stopping makes you sick. Also, people are constantly exposed to the smells of frying foods and pictures of food, and people eating on TV.

I'm going to test the theory that healthy food costs more than fast food by tracking the cost of my food, in terms of time and money over the next several days, and see how hard it is to eat a healthy diet without spending a lot of money or time.

Today I have eaten:

Breakfast: oat porridge with milk (8 grams protein in the milk; 10 in the oats) 60 cents for oats and milk [about 6 minutes to pour the rolled oats into a pot with some water, cook, and pour in the milk; 3 minutes to wash pot, bowl & spoon]

Lunch: 4 oz string cheese (8 grams protein in each stick, total 32 grams) [less than 30 seconds to remove wrapper] 50 cents

Snack: a large carrot, eaten raw 5 cents at most [less than 30 seconds to remove from fridge]

Supper: bowl Tasty Classics (Canadian brand) chicken and rotini soup (6 grams protein) 25 cents [4 minutes to open can, pour into pot and cook]

Fresh asparagus 90 cents [3 minutes to break into pieces and throw into the pot of soup]

Small can V8 juice 40 cents [less than 30 seconds to open can]

5 pecans, gathered from beneath a pecan tree earlier today (3 - 5 gram protein) [5 minutes to gather a bag of pecans]

Mid evening snack: another carrot, eaten raw 5 cents [less than 30 seconds to remove from fridge]

For bed time snack, I will have some unsweetened applesauce and maybe a few more pecans 25 cents for the applesauce

The fresh asparagus was the most expensive thing on the menu today. True, 90 cents per serving is kind of expensive, but my total cost for food for the day was still under $3, which is less than one would spend for a meal at McDonald's.

I didn't consume a paleo diet today, since the soup contained wheat pasta, and the oats and milk would not have been available in quantity prior to pastoral and agricultural times. But I ate very few refined carbohydrates. I got plenty of protein and fat and carbohydrates, along with a good assortment of vitamins. I spent the morning doing fairly demanding mental work and the afternoon doing physical work in the garden. I felt good the whole time -- no hunger pangs at any time during the day.

I'll admit that this is not a very interesting diet, so far, but it's at least as varied and visually appealing as a fast food meal. Some of the paleo diet cookbooks have very nice photos of yummy-looking food.

This is the second week I've been on what would have seemed like a very restrictive diet before my illness. Yet I don't feel at all deprived. I enjoy eating when I'm doing it, but I don't have constant cravings to eat, and I get full on less food than before. I've been losing a pound every 2 or 3 days, which is fairly rapid weight loss, but since I feel good and am getting the other nutrients I need, I think it's OK. I've lost about 5 pounds, and my knees are already working better. I would like to lose 11 or 12 more pounds. I expect the weight loss will taper off as I get lighter and it takes less energy to move my body around. If I'm still losing weight when I get to my goal, I'll want to add some calories to keep my weight stable. I'm sure those calories won't be in the form of refined carbohydrates. The last thing I want is to get addicted again. Instead, I'll eat more fruits such as bananas and more nuts and maybe more meat.

Note 1: "The ingredients listed in the flyer suggest a lot of thought goes into a nugget, that and a lot of corn. Of the thirty-eight ingredients it takes to make a McNugget, I counted thirteen that can be derived from corn: the corn-fed chicken itself; modified cornstarch (to bind the pulverized chicken meat); mono-, tri-, and diglycerides (emulsifiers, which keep the fats and water from separating); dextrose; lecithin (another emulsifier); chicken broth (to restore some of the flavor that processing leeches out); yellow corn flour and more modified cornstarch (for the batter); cornstarch (a filler); vegetable shortening; partially hydrogenated corn oil; and citric acid as a preservative. A couple of other plants take part in the nugget: There's some wheat in the batter, and on any given day the hydrogenated oil could come from soybeans, canola, or cotton rather than corn, depending on the market price and availability.

According to the handout, McNuggets also contain several completely synthetic ingredients, quasiedible substances that ultimately come not from a corn or soybean field but form a petroleum refinery or chemical plant. These chemicals are what make modern processed food possible, by keeping the organic materials in them from going bad or looking strange after months in the freezer or on the road. Listed first are the "leavening agents": sodium aluminum phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, and calcium lactate. These are antioxidants added to keep the various animal and vegetable fats involved in a nugget from turning rancid. Then there are "anti-foaming agents" like dimethylpolysiloxene, added to the cooking oil to keep the starches from binding to air molecules, so as to produce foam during the fry. The problem is evidently grave enough to warrant adding a toxic chemical to the food: According to the Handbook of Food Additives, dimethylpolysiloxene is a suspected carcinogen and an established mutagen, tumorigen, and reproductive effector; it's also flammable.

But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness." According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food: It can comprise no more than 0.02 percent of the oil in a nugget. Which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse." Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can kill."
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Tomato Hornworm or Tabacco Hornworm?

2010-10-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

This is either a tobacco hornworm or tomato hornworm. I believe it's the former, because it has seven white stripes and a red horn.

It's an amazing looking creature. Click on the photo to enlarge it. It has a fake eye below each white stripe. It also has a face on its rear end (the end with the red horn).

The tobacco hornworm is the larval stage of the beautiful Sphinx moth. I'm very fond of the moths, which become active as the sun goes down. I have many 4-o'clocks and a few daturas in my garden, so the Sphinx moth is a common visitor. Today when I went into my garden for the first time since last Monday, I found one of my fall tomato plants defoliated, with two large hornworms who look as though they're getting pretty close to the point where they will drop off the plant and burrow into the soil to pupate over winter. The other tomato plants are fine. I took one of the worms off the plant and gave it to the chickens to eat, but I left one there. What the heck. The plant is already ruined -- there's no way it can recover and produce tomatoes before the first frost -- and I'll be glad to have the moths in the garden.

Not All Politicians Are Afraid to Mention This Topic ...

2010-10-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

This photo has nothing to do with the following text. I found the picture on an old hard drive and wanted to save it. My daughter took this photo of me a few years ago when I was in my freight-hopping phase.

Until today, I had no idea that a person could be branded for life, barred from employment and housing, forced to endure perverted "treatments" reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange, for the "crime" of falling in love with someone three years younger. Sex Offenders Exposed, published in the Austin Chronicle last month, describes insane laws that group high school sweethearts together with sexual predators who rape and kill children, all under the heading "Sex Offender."

I'm not sure whether this is a worst-case example of a glitch in the way people assess risk, or if there is some other reason for these laws. Maybe a combination of causes. In any event, the laws are clearly hurting people, not helping, and could never have been expected to accomplish the goal of protecting children from sexual predators. Unfortunately, politicians don't want to touch the subject, for fear of being accused of being "soft" on sex offenders. Most people probably don't know how broad the law is -- I certainly didn't. I had no idea you could do prison time, be placed on parole for life, be subjected to monthly lie detector tests, and forced to undergo "treatments" that would make it difficult for you to ever have a normal sexual relationship. You could be subjected to all this, not because you hurt anyone, but because you were a young person who was curious, and you looked at some photos; or because you were 19, and a girl you were in love with told you she was 17, but actually she was only 15, and you held her hand.

In the comments under the article, one politician was willing to stand up for reason -- Ed Kless says:

I am running as a Libertarian against Senator Shapiro in November. I am running is a straight up race, there is no Democrat in the race.

While I am sure Senator Shapiro (mentioned in the article) meant well in passing this legislation she is just wrong about the purpose of government. It is not to protect people from all harm, but rather to protect their individual rights.

The unintended consequences of legislation of this nature are rarely looked it. Kudus to Jordon Smith for a fine piece of investigative reporting. We need more stories like this.

Please visit my campaign site at http://electkless.com, if you like what you see please consider passing it on to your friends.

More On Javelinas

2010-09-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

Here's a wonderful video Mark Gridley took in his back yard. It reminds me of one time when we had some adolescent kittens at our house. The back of the breezeway between my cabin and Kat's was open at the top and had a small opening at the bottom, large enough for a kitten to go through. The javelinas were milling around behind the house, and one young javelina had his nose right down by the opening when one of the kittens scampered through. When the kitten and javelina laid eyes on each other, they both started and jumped back. It was quite funny, as the javelina was about 20 times the size of the kitten.

http://fountainhillsinformation.com/2010/09/08/javelina-nursing-her-2-babies-amazing-close-up-hd-video-fountain-hills-az/

This shows the good side of javelinas. Their bad side, for me, was that they could completely destroy a garden if they got in; they were not a all scared of people and would come right into the house if they could (you can see this in Mark's video -- the javelinas are coming right up onto his patio) -- no amount of yelling would persuade them to leave (the only thing we found that would discourage them was Kat's French horn); they killed my chickens and tore open my dogs. Other than that, they were delightful little creatures. I actually miss them, sort of, now that I'm living in a less wild area where they don't hang out.

Mark mentions walking with the herd. Maybe that afternoon when I found myself surrounded by them, they were just curious. Still, I'd have been afraid to mingle with them. If a mother thought I meant harm to her baby, the whole herd could attack in a heartbeat.

An Explanation After Many Years

2010-09-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, when my daughter Kat and I were living at Altamira, we were walking in the woods at night. I don't remember why. There must have been some good reason, because usually we stayed inside the fenced area around the house at night. There were two types of mainly nocturnal animals I especially wanted to avoid: pumas and javenlinas. Pumas typically avoid humans. I was aware of at least one puma who lived on our land, or at least passed through from time to time, and she always kept her distance. On the other hand, the javelinas were not in the least afraid of humans. When I was first building the house, before I'd put on the doors, the creatures would come right into the house. This is why a fenced yard around the house and outbuildings was one of my highest priorities.

Photo from Carnivora website

Javelinas are omnivorous. They eat lots of nuts and roots, but I have personally seen them break into a chicken pen to kill and eat the chickens. I've also seen them tear a large dog to shreds, and they have been known to seriously injure or kill people. One evening, a couple of years prior to the evening my daughter were walking in the woods at night, I was walking in the woods with my dogs late in the afternoon (although javenlinas are mostly nocturnal, expecially when the weather is hot, they seem to start foraging shortly before sundown and continue until shortly after sunrise) and found myself surrounded by javelinas. They usually make quite a bit of noise as they go through the woods, digging around for food and grunting to each other. But that evening, they were very quiet. I did not notice them until they had surrounded me, nor did my dogs notice them at first. They must have kept downwind from us, so we didn't smell them (they have a fairly strong, distinctive odor). It's possible they were just curious about me (they are highly intelligent, curious animals), but I got the distinct impression that I was prey, that I was to feature as the main course for their dinner that night. I went up the nearest tree, and the dogs ran off in the opposite direction. I stayed in the tree until I was sure the javelinas had gone.

Anyhow, this one night Kat and I were walking in the woods well after dark, and we heard a pack of javelinas approaching. Javelinas can run surprisingly fast (the Carnivora website says they have been clocked at up to 21 mph); there was no way we could be sure of outrunning them for long in the woods. It was dark and cloudy, so there was little light from moon or stars. We would likely have tripped over a vine or run into a branch. However, there was a fenced enclosure not too far from where we were. "Go over the fence!" I said to Kat, and ran to the fence and leaped over, putting a hand on the top wire and vaulting over, something I never could have done if I hadn't been pumped up with fear. Once I got over myself, I helped Kat over.

This incident has always disturbed me, because I believed my first thought should have been to save my child. I don't know whether or not the javelinas would have hurt us. But at the time, I certainly believed that we were in great danger. How could I jump over the fence and leave my child on the other side, even for a few seconds? When I talked about it with friends later, they all said they thought I did the right thing. They said it was like putting on one's oxygen mask first before helping one's child, in the even of cabin depressurization in an airliner. This makes sense. If the javelinas had gotten me, they probably would have gotten Kat as well, because she would have had trouble jumping the fence herself, and there was not enough time to climb through the wires. But I didn't stop and think this all through at the time. I just leaped the fence and only thought about Kat once I was safely on the other side.

I'm reading a book by Jeff Wise, Extreme Fear. It says that when one is in an immediate life-or-death situation (or believes one is in such a situation), the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex stops working. We don't think. There isn't time to think. If there's an escape route, one flees; if not, one stands and fights. So it would have been my amygdala that induced me to leap over the fence and my prefrontal cortex kicking in after I was safe, directing me to rescue my child.

Wise writes: "Unfortunately, most of us have a hard time appreciating before the fact how nonnegotiable this [amygdala driven] effect will be. We get so used to making our way through the wold under the stewardship of our complex and sophisticated C-system (prefrontal cortex) that we tend to assume that we will always have it at our disposal When we suddenly find ourselves drowning in a flood of noradrenaline, it can be shocking how little brainpower we have at our disposal."

The more you practice facing certain kinds of danger, the less likely you are to end up running on fear's autopilot. With events that are relatively likely to happen, you can think ahead before you're in a desperate situation. For example, when I was a teenager learning how to fly a single-engine Cessna 182, my instructor taught me to always be on the lookout for a place I could land if the engine quit. I got into the habit of doing this sort of thing when driving as well. So, for example, if I'm approaching a truck or car, I think of where I'll go if the other vehicle suddenly veers into my lane (or if I noticed that there's no escape route, I'll usually slow down). When I'm listening to an audio book or talking on the phone while driving, I'm not as likely to be scanning ahead like this, so I'm more likely to crash the car.

Yes's or No's?

2010-09-20T07:33:00.000-07:00

A young person (I assume) writes on a Chris McCandless blog:
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Imagine, opening your eyes to discover the vas[t], unseen wilderness. Waking up in a place without any yes’s or no’s, only you and your surroundings, hearing nothing but the sweet sound of Mother Nature.
=========================================
--Lance Wood
http://www.christophermccandless.info/lance-wood.html

Maybe Mr. Wood means no arbitrary yes's or no's, but I suspect he has a naive view of the wilderness as something like a vacation resort, with regular meals, no mosquitoes, and an infirmary stocked with antibiotics. The wilderness is one place where there are absolute yes's and no's. If you disobey them, you get hurt or die.

Living in the Wilderness

2010-09-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

The first definition that pops up on Google under the search term "wilderness" is: "Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity."

By this definition, the part of the central Texas sand hills where I built a house for my daughter and me qualifies as wilderness, even though the closest neighbor was only a mile and a quarter away. Our land is at the top of the Carrizo sandstone ridge that runs from south Texas through Louisiana and Arkansas, roughly parallel to the coast line of the Gulf of Mexico. The darker colored strip in the image below, labeled "outcrop" is known locally as the "sand hills" throughout most of its range (click on image to see the website from which I took it).

The soil of Altamira consists of medium-coarse sand overlying red sandstone and clay. As the red color suggests, the iron content of the soil is high; there are other minerals, including uranium, lead, and silver. It's said that in colonial days, the Spanish dug several silver mines in the area. There are remnants of what appears to have been an adobe house with a sandstone fireplace and chimney next to a trail that is said to have been a portion of El Camino Real, that went from East Texas down into the main part of Mexico (I have no idea whether this story about the trail is true -- in maps I've seen of El Camino Real, the road looks as though it may have run through our land, but I would have expected the road to run along creek bottom land, not right up over the top of the ridge). Next to the path are the remnants of what appear to have been a small adobe house with a sandstone fireplace and chimney (evidence of the old house include a pile of stones and a large amount of clay on the surface of the sand, bits of pottery and china table wear, as well as stuff I found with a metal detector: part of a cast iron stove, a barrel hoop, odd bits of metal). The ruins of the old house, occasional stone spear heads, and an oil pipeline running through the center of the property, roughly parallel to the trail but a bit north of it, were the only signs that people had been on the land.

According to a (very non-technical) book I have called Roadside Geology of Texas, the Carrizo outcrop was caused by sedimentary layer laid down in the Eocene period when the Gulf Coast was a couple hundred miles inland from its current location. A paper presented at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 11-14, 2010, says: "Sandstone modal compositions and detrital zircon U‐Pb analyses of the Paleocene‐Eocene Wilcox Group of the southern Gulf Coast of Texas indicate long‐distance sediment transport from primarily volcanic and basement sources to the west, northwest, and southwest. ... This study indicates that the drainage area for the Gulf of Mexico during the Paleocene‐Eocene was larger than previously thought, encompassing not only the Laramide basement uplifts, but the volcanic province of northern Mexico and possibly Cordilleran tectonic regions along the westernmost North America." [U-Pb is shorthand for uranium and lead, as I recall from my university chemistry classes]

The red color would indicate that lighter minerals have washed out of the soil, leaving mostly iron. In fact, old timers have told me that the Caldwell County sand hills used to be known locally as the "Iron Mountains."

I have seen multiple flocks of wild geese circling Altamira in stacked layers, like a huge traffic jam at a major airport. it's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen -- I wondered if their navigation system was somehow messed up by a magnetic field created by all the iron in the soil. Would love to know if anyone else has observed this sort of behavior in migrating geese.

Strictly speaking, based on the distance between trees that make up the climax canopy, the land is savannah -- post-oak savannah, to give its "official" name. It is a 3 million hectare (7.4 m acre) borderland between the deciduous forests of the eastern U.S. and the prairie grasslands to the west. Annual rainfall averages 45 inches in the eastern-most parts to 35 in the west, where my land is located. According to climatic change research being done at Texas A&M University, 'Oak savannas contain the dominant life forms of both adjacent biomes to form a “tension” zone between grasslands and forests which may increase their responsiveness to global change drivers. Global change scenarios can be envisioned where either the tree or grass life forms would gain an advantage and encroach upon the adjacent biome. It is within this context, that tension zones provide a valuable opportunity to explore the responsiveness of these life forms to various global change drivers.' More on this later, for sure, but for now, back to the concept of wilderness.

One of the main reasons I bought the Berry Farm is that it transitions from post oak savannah soil to blackland prarie soil, to creek bottom, all within its 1/4 mile (about 400 meters) length. The native flora have been removed from the eastern, sandy part of the land. Unlike Altamira, with its coarser sand, the Berry Farm has loamy sand on its eastern side and was useful for growing crops. So settlers in the 1800's cleared the land and grew cotton here. Therefore, the Berry Farm does not qualify as wilderness, nor does it feel in the least like wilderness, as there are neighbors living within a few hundred feet.

Altamira felt like wilderness. It was far enough away from neighbors that one could yell and scream, and no one would hear. I liked this aspect of it when I was angry or frustrated and wanted to shout obscenities at high volume. The downside was that my daughter and I were on our on. We were on our own in other ways as well. The place was pretty much inaccessible from the county road, except on foot or by horse or the most rugged off-highway types of vehicles. I could get my old Datsun pickup in, but only because I knew exactly where to drive and when I needed to speed up to skitter across areas of deep sand. When people came to visit, I had to meet them at the county road and give them a ride in my truck, or walk with them up to the house. It was not feasible to call someone to come out and repair my washing machine, say, or get the truck running when it wouldn't start, or set up a water purification plant to clean up the silty water from the pond for household use. I had to learn how to do everything myself.

In many respects, it was like wilderness, but it was not truly wilderness. It was only 4.5 miles from the village of McMahan, where one could buy gasoline and barbecue. Only 16.5 miles from Lockhart, where one could buy almost any sort of supplies one could possibly need. So in that respect, it was very much a part of civilization. One of the first things I did was to find an old water heater in someone's trash and rig it up so I could build a fire under it and take a warm bath (in a little tub I got from an old travel trailer).

One reason I moved to the "wilderness" was so I could live cheaply. I found being a single mother very difficult. I wanted to spend time with my daughter as she grew up, and it was literally almost the death of me. Working full time, and also trying to do volunteer work at my daughter's school, participate in Girl Scouts, etc. wore me down. In ... I think it was 1990 ... I got bilateral pneumonia and came close enough to death to know what it's like to die (it's not bad -- once you accept that you're probably going to die and give up fighting it, there is no more pain). I could see that I needed to change the way I was living, if I wanted to see my daughter grow up. So there was that -- the need to work fewer hours and get more rest (it never occurred to me to work the same number of hours and reduce the amount of time I spent with my daughter).

Besides convincing me that I needed to figure out a way to live on almost no money, the close-to-death experience changed my thinking in some fundamental ways. My post-1990 life was like a bonus, a chance to do all the things I'd regret not doing, next time I was lying on my death bed.

Ever since I was a 4-year-old child, I had longed to live in a small village or on a farm. My great-grandmother, Annette Lamar, taught me to read from a book she'd used for her students when she was a school teacher in the 1930's. The main characters in the book were Alice and Jerry, two children who lived in a place called Friendly Village. At the time, I lived in a sterile suburban neighborhood in Houston, where the land was flat, all the houses were pretty much alike, and kids played in fenced back yards. I had such a longing to live in a place like Friendly Village! There was a picture I especially remember, a view of the village from the top of a grassy hill.

A village like that was really what I'd longed for all those years, but I didn't know of any such place in real life, certainly not in central Texas. I wanted to stay in central Texas so my daughter could maintain an on-going personal relationship with her father, who lived in Austin. Lockhart would be a lot like that, if there were no cars. I think cars have been the main source of destruction for U.S. cities and villages. I don't want to get started talking about Robert Moses right now. What's done is done, and one has to start where one is.

The views from both Altamira and the Berry Farm are somewhat like the view of Friendly Village from the grassy hilltop -- minus the village ... well, and without quite so many hills [Altamira is actually quite high up -- from the northwestern edge of the land, we could see across the valley all the way to San Marcos and the "hill country," 32 miles away].

Here's Altamira, looking north from (this is a mile and a quarter from our house, looking out over the neighbors' land, into civililzation):

and the Berry Farm, looking east from:

If I'd been more of a sociable person, an organizer, I might have found a bunch of like-minded people to create a new village. But the people I knew who would be interested in such a thing were not the sort of people who would be competent to actually go out and create a village. So I decided, what the hell, I'll do the best I can on my own.

In the course of building a house and growing my own food, I discovered that, even in a gentle land like central Texas, it's pretty nearly impossible for one person to be self-sufficient. There's a reason humans are called "social animals." If we had been completely on our own, my daughter an I would almost surely have died. It was easy, easy, easy to grow, or find, fruits and vegetables. We never would have had to worry about scurvy or folic acid deficiency. It was pretty easy to get protein as well. The really difficult thing was getting enough calories. It's so much the opposite of what one is used to dealing with in our culture, that I think it's probably hard for people to believe, if they haven't actually tried to live off the land for an extended period of time. Back in the time when there were ways of making a living in the U.S. that involved being away from civilization for a while -- trapping or prospecting, for example, there was a nutritional disease called "rabbit fever." I'm not sure where I first heard this -- maybe from Wild Horse Havard, who grew up in the piney woods of Liberty County, Texas. When you google on "rabbit fever," you get mostly websites about sick rabbits, but the pre-1900 meaning was a sickness resulting from getting too many of one's calories from protien. It is also sometimes referred to as "rabbit starvation."

Rabbit starvation, also referred to as protein poisoning or mal de caribou, is a form of acute malnutrition caused by excess consumption of any lean meat (e.g., rabbitt) coupled with a lack of other sources of nutrients usually in combination with other stressors, such as severe cold or dry environment. Symptoms include diarrhea, headache, fatigue, low blood pressure and heart rate, and a vague discomfort and hunger that can only be satisfied by consumption of at or carbohydrates."

I recently watched a documentary about the adventures of Chris McCandless (The Call of the Wild by Ron Lamothe). I was not unfamiliar with McCandless's story, having seen the Sean Penn movie and read Into the Wild by John Karkauer (which somewhat glorified McCandless), and several essays by Alaskans most of whom think of McCandless as a dumbass who went out into the wilderness deliberately unprepared. Lamothe's view of McCandless is the most similar to my own -- McCandless did some really stupid things, but don't we all, when we're young and adventurous? Remembering my self in my early 20's, recalling some of the close calls I had, I don't feel scornful of McCandless. I feel sorry that he didn't make it, because I'll bet he would have turned out to be a very interesting person if he had lived to be a mature man.

Anyhow, based on the diet described by Krakauer, who said he got it from McCandless's jounal, once his 10 pound bag of rice was gone, McCandless was living almost entirely on lean meat. So I suspect that he suffered from "rabbit fever." Even if he'd been able to preserve the caribou he shot, he'd have been in trouble.

Dick Proenneke, who lived in a log cabin in the Alaskan wilderness for 30 years, routinely had supplies brought in from the outside. Even though he was alone in the wilderness most of the time, he had a constant lifeline from civilization.

When my daughter and I lived at Altamira, we made regular trips to town for supplies. I kept many pounds of staples, such as wheat and corn seeds, sugar, and salt on hand at all times. In 1997 (or was it 1998?) a flood washed out the bridge on the only road that connected us to the rest of the world. I went down and saw that the usually peaceful little creek had become a raging torrent 15 feet deep, and I would no sooner have tried to cross it than to jump from a 10-story building. But life went on as usual at Altamira. My daughter didn't want to miss school, so we hiked out the back way, and she stayed with friends until the flood subsided and the bridge was re-built.

Reading about Chris McCandless, knowing that there was a "back way" out for him too, I have to wonder why he didn't follow the Teklanika River, when it blocked his path, until it intersected a road. Maybe he thought he'd be OK living on wild game. Maybe he didn't know about rabbit fever.

Something to Ponder

2010-09-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

David Rowan (Wired) writes in his article about why not to post Facebook profiles
===========================================
[...]

2) They make it harder to reinvent yourself
“When you’re young, you make mistakes and you do some stupid stuff,” President Obama warned high-school students in Virginia last September. “Be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do will be pulled up later somewhere in your life.” He’s right: anything posted online might come to haunt you permanently, yet all of us need space to grow. As the writer Jaron Lanier said in a recent lecture, if Robert Zimmerman, of small-town Hibbing, Minnesota, had had a Facebook profile, could he really have re-created himself as the New York beatnik Bob Dylan
============================================
Hmmm ... I wonder how often people are embarrassed by things they've posted online. I can imagine Facebook having a negative impact on one's career -- for example, if someone were trying to get a job as a teacher in a conservative private school, and their Facebook page had photos of them posing nude to show off their tats. I myself have two separate personas -- the tax lawyer and the farmer. I'm not ashamed of either, but they're each very different from the other.

How Did This Happen?

2010-09-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

Most of the people I know work very hard, but I'm pretty sure most of them love their lives. When I get into a pensive mood, as during the past week, I sometimes wonder if my own life is tragic or glorious. There have definitely been tragic moments, such as when my cousin Liz died at the age of 46. She'd been one of my closest friends since we were babies just learning to walk. We talked on the phone every day, saw each other often. I was the one the cops came to with the news that she'd crashed her car. I think she herself (or some aspect of her) came to me as well, that same day. I was working in the garden and suddenly saw a vision of a bloody face. My first terrified thought was that something had happened to my daughter, and I ran to the house to make sure she was OK. I learned later, that the vision came at the same moment Liz died.

My father, whom I adored, died five years after Liz.

I've also been, at various times, financially destitute, divorced, near death from pneumonia. When I was a young person first trying to make it on my own, I sometimes didn't have much money for food and had to subsist on beans, brewer's yeast, vitamin C pills, and food people left on their plates at the restaurant where I worked as a waitress (I would encourage customers to order meals I especially liked, hoping they'd leave some for me).

Even during the times when I had very little money, I never felt poor. I always considered it a temporary condition. And yet, I've also had, from as far back as I can remember, a sense that things can change in an instant. I lost two childhood friends, one when I was two, to pneumonia, another when I was 5, to leukemia. Maybe that's one reason ... maybe too because the threat of nuclear war was a constant ... our neighbors had a bomb shelter that doubled as a pool room, and in school we had to do drills where we cowered in the hallways with our arms covering our heads. I can remember, even as a young person, thinking at a birthday celebration where a decadent chocolate cake was served after a rich meal: "I must remember every detail of this, in case some day I am starving and have only my memories as comfort."

I have never even come close to starving. Even when I was eating the leftovers off customers' plates in the restaurant, the worst thing I suffered was a boring cuisine. I never actually went hungry, nor was I even undernourished. In fact, I usually felt really good. I think the beans and brewer's yeast were a pretty healthy diet, or would have been if I'd thrown in some fresh fruits and veggies (at the restaurant I tended to love such treats as cheese blintzes rather than fruits and veggies).

I eat very well now, my main problem being self-restraint. In fact, my life is close to everything I every dreamed of having when I was young and poor: a loving, highly intelligent husband; work I enjoy; pleasant places to live; occasional travel, but not too much travel; a beautiful, intelligent, sweet daughter. Almost every day is a joy to live. Of course I know it can't last forever. I'm already getting old. But, as someone called Mary Butts once said, I "build a little fence of trust around today."

One of the most wonderful things about my life is that I can walk to work, and it is a lovely walk. I've always arranged my life so that I could either walk or ride my bicycle to work, but some walks or rides have been better than others. My present walk between home and work in San Antonio is one of my favorites.
Below are some photos of what I get to look at when I walk to work. From late spring to late fall, the sun is so bright, and the shade so deep!

A couple of days ago, I took a short break from working on tax returns. A couple of blocks from my office, there is a Methodist church. From the sidewalk, I could hear the sounds of an organist practicing. I followed the sound; the front doors of the church were locked, so I sat on the steps and listened. Here is my view west from where I sat on the steps:

And here are some photos I took with my phone as I walked between the office and home:

High Cost of Housing

2010-09-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

I have been disappointed not to find any new insights into the reasons for high housing costs in Jane Jacob's book; however, I'm grateful for the motivation to think about it. Jacobs mentions the following reasons:

supply and demand
low-density of housing in suburbs
greedy landlords in urban areas

The first seem obvious. The third is not as obvious to me. I'm not sure I agree with it, except in special cases where landlords are given special deals by local, state, or federal governments, or where they are backed by organized crime.

No doubt, some landlords are greedy. Some waiters are greedy too, and some engineers, and some senators, and some students. It's true that some lines of work might appeal to people who are less greedy than average -- Peace Corps volunteers, for example. But in the 23+ years I've been working with small business owners, I have not noticed that landlords are any more or less likely to be greedy than most other groups of people. So OK, some landlords are greedy, some are not.

Given that the group of people who are landlords contains some greedy members, is it reasonable to conclude that those members who are greedy can cause an overall increase in the cost of housing? The only way this could be true would be if the greedy landlords had a disproportionate influence on the price of real estate. Otherwise, if the greedy landlords raised their prices, people would rent or buy from the non-greedy members of the group, and the greedy landlords would either have to lower their rents, or go out of business.

In some cases, greedy landlords do have a disproportionate influence on real estate prices, such as when a developer gets special privileges from a city government (tax breaks, use of the government's eminent domain powers, free or low-cost infrastructure, etc.). My grandmother Lois Lamar was ripped off by greedy developers who had friends in the City of Austin planning department back in the late 1960's. She owned an entire block of land between San Pedro and Salado Streets near the University of Texas. My great grandfather Arthur Lamar had bought the land and built three houses on it with his own hands. He and my great grandmother rented out two of the houses and lived in one. My father's parents lived in one of the houses from the time my father was born until he was 6 or 7 years old. [Lady Bird and Lyndon Johnson lived across the street for a while, back when Mr. Johnson was a teacher]

The developer's friends in the City of Austin sent my grandmother a notice that San Pedro Street was going to be widened, and she would lose more than half her front yard and would have to pay for all sorts of remedial plumbing work. If I received such a notice from the city, I'd check it out, but my grandmother was an old woman and not in the best of health. I don't know why my father didn't step in. Maybe he didn't know any better either.

When the developers showed up and said they were willing to buy the land (at a ridiculously low price, to be sure, but after all, the street was going to be widened and chop off a huge chunk of the land), my grandmother agreed to sell it to them. I have always been a somewhat cynical, suspicious person, but I was just a kid at the time. I urged my grandmother not to sell, to fight it. But no one would listen to me. So the greedy developers pretty much stole the land from my grandmother, put up a hideous apartment complex, and rented out the apartments for the highest price they could get. One of the most infuriating things to me about the whole affair was that the apartment owners mentioned in their advertising that the land had once been owned by a descendant of Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas. This was not strictly true, as my great grandfather was the descendant of Mirabeau B. Lamar's brother. But this particular land owner had already demonstrated that he was not an honest man. [San Pedro Street has never been widened, to this day]

To the extent this sort of thing has happened and continues to happen, greedy landlords are part of the cause of high housing costs, but only to the extent that they can work in partnership with groups of people with coercive power, such as local, state, and federal governments, and in some cases, organized crime. The entire west campus area of UT is now masses of large apartment complexes. There are very few of the small houses, duplexes, and four-plexes left. My daughter lived in one of the very last ones when she was a student at UT. She had to move when the owner sold it to make way for another large apartment building. One might imagine that, with the higher density, it would now be cheaper to live in the west campus area, but the new apartments rent for more per unit than the old houses did.

Why is this, I wonder? When you replace, say, 32 units with 70 units, why don't the new units rent for something in the neighborhood of 1/2 the cost of the old units? One reason is that the new units are, well, new. Shiny and clean and new. But, based on my observation of both the old and the new, the new units are not as well built as the old ones; the finishes and fixtures are usually not especially nice. One cannot get any cross ventilation, so one is forced to use electric or gas heating and cooling, all year round in order to be comfortable. There are no private outdoor areas. One reason new units cost more than old is that building materials cost more now. But given this fact, isn't is insanely wasteful to just tear down the old buildings and cart away the lumber to landfills? So I suppose one needs to add profligate waste to the equation. This still doesn't explain what motivates the owners to waste materials -- perhaps the cost of labor makes it more expensive to remodel than to tear down and rebuild? I don't think this is the answer, at least not the whole answer. [This is something to think about and return to later]

Also, city codes now require more expensive building methods. People have so many electrical gadgets that many electrical outlets are required in each room. Since the structure allows for only limited (sometimes no) ventilation from the outside, air conditioning is mandatory. People also demand more bathrooms per household. One bathroom is no longer adequate for a two or three bedroom unit. I can't think of anyone but tenants and home buyers to blame for this situation. Sure, I guess you could blame advertisers, movies, TV shows for giving people the idea that they must own 150 electric gadgets per household and have one bathroom for every 1.5 occupants, or whatever.

But people don't have to do what the advertisers suggest.

A Philosophical Moment

2010-09-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I decided to find out what career coaches do, so I signed up for a few hours of coaching. One of the things the coach did was administer some aptitude tests. I was relieved to find that both law and accounting were on my list of good career choices, since I earn a substantial part of my living from the joint practice of law and accounting (I am a tax lawyer). I was also very surprised to find library science as a top career choice. It's true that many of the people I know have lots of books, and my husband and I together probably own 7,000 volumes, maybe more. We've never actually counted, but they take up a huge amount of shelf space. But library science had never, ever occurred to me as a possible career choice.

Wiki says, "Library science (or Library and Information science) is an interdisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools ofmanagement, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; the collection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information resources; and the political economy of information."

Various careers in library science include librarian, metadata librarian, legal research, general research ...
I find legal and general research very appealing. I have a compelling need to learn new things, every day, and delight in integrating new pieces of information into my whole concept of The Way Things Work. By compelling, I mean utterly necessary for my mental and emotional well-being. I become very unhappy if I am not able to spend at least an hour or two a day learning new things.
Which explains why I am spending time reading *Dark Age Ahead* by Jane Jacobs on the morning of a tax return deadline. This is not mere frivolous dawdling. I am getting my fix of new knowledge, so I can go forth and review tax returns for the rest of the day.

Writing in the early 2000's Jacobs focused on the breakdown of 5 pillars of cuture in the U.S. and Canada:

community and family
higher education
effective practice of science and science based technology
taxes and governmental powers directly in touch with needs and possibilities
self-policing by the learned professions

Just before I began writing this blog entry, I was reading Jacobs' analysis of the availability of housing to people, and how the cost of housing relative to earnings has risen during the latter half of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st. I had to stop at that point, to check Jacobs' statements against my own observations and other things I've read or heard about. She's definitely right about the cost of housing, but why has this happened? I'm sure Jacobs goes on to discuss the reasons, but I want to think about it myself first, before I read what she says (an aside: Jacobs died in 2004, yet I am writing of her as though she is speaking right now, today -- what a marvelous thing writing is, to allow the dead to speak to the living)

Because of recent experiences I have had with tenants who told me, in all earnestness, that they had no money to pay their rent, while at their sides was the fresh, new box that had contained the 42 inch TV they had just purchased, my thoughts naturally turned toward blaming tenants and homeowners.

Far as I can tell, the particular tenants who are living in my house, rent-free, even as I write this, used to have more money for their household. The husband had a well-paying job in Michigan, while the wife shopped and minded the home. The husband lost the job in Michigan, took a lower-paying job in Texas; but the wife still spends as though the household had its old, higher income.

That leads to a further question, because I don't think "my" tenants are unique. Considering the huge amount of credit card debt that USians have collectively run up, millions of USians have kept on spending based on income levels they no longer have. Likewise, our Congress continues to spend money it does not have. What is the cultural root of this tendency to be out of touch with reality? The answer is definitely not "capitalism." I think it's something more deeply rooted in human biology. Perhaps the same root that causes people to keep eating, even after they have already eaten enough to satisfy their energy needs. I say this, not as an aloof observer, but as a human who constantly struggles with my weight and budget.

Tortilla Soup

2010-09-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

Corn tortilla Chips (made from non-GM corn -- see Seeds of Deception)
Olive Oil
Diced tomatoes to taste
Shallots or onions to taste
Garlic to taste
Chile (poblano, jalapeno, etc) to taste
Cooked chicken and broth
Sliced avocado
Cretan oregano
Lime
Salt to taste

Ideally, cilantro should be used for flavor, but the summer heat has killed mine, and I have not gotten around to planting more. I used some cretan oregano to give the soup more flavor; common oregano would also be good.

Make chicken broth; remove bones and cut meat into small pieces
Add diced tomatoes (I prefer my tortilla soup not to be overpowered by the tomatoes, so I only use one or two; other people prefer to use lots of tomato)
Chop challot and garlic and cook in olive oil until tender; add to soup
When the soup is hot and ready to serve, put tortilla chips in a bowl, and pour the soup over them. Garnish with avocado slices.
Squeeze lime juice into the soup just before eating it.

With a piece of cheese on the side, this makes a complete meal.

Feeling Sad

2010-09-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

I have seven too many roosters in my small flock. They have reached the age where they're making life miserable for the hens, so the time has come to begin eating them. I killed the first one this evening -- he is becoming tortilla soup.

It's been a while since I killed an animal. I feel sad about ending the rooster's young life, even though the soup smells delicious. Eating meat is something one has to accept if one raises chickens for eggs, or cows (or goats) for milk. There are always too many males, and you can't just turn them out into the streets.

When I lived at Altamira, I used an ax to kill chickens -- chop off the head in one swift blow. I used the "broomstick" method this evening, because I left the ax in San Antonio and don't trust my skills with a knife. The broomstick method (I actually used a wrecking bar) seems quite gentle, compared with the ax. The bird relaxed for a moment, then went into the usual death spasms. One can never say for sure, but I got the impression that it was a painless death. I've noticed, when I've been in accidents, I don't usually feel pain as the injury is taking place, only later. I would guess that death by guillotine or neck snapping is painless.

At least when I kill chickens myself, I know they had a very happy life up until the last moment, and that their deaths are quick. If I were to buy chicken meat from a store, I could be pretty sure that the bird had an unhappy life, and the last moments could have been really horrible.

Herbicide Resistant Pigweed - jobs for people on farms

2010-09-11T14:25:00.000-07:00

Summary of news story: An ABC news story from the cotton fields of Arkansas:at least one strain of pig weed (amaranth family) has developed a tolerance for herbicides, and can no longer be controlled by chemical spray. Like the giant ragweed that's currently growing in abundance on my land, pig weed grows large, fibrous stems within a few weeks. The stems "stop a combine in its tracks" (according to a farmer who was interviewed), preventing harvest by machine. Some farmers are paying laborers to chop out the pig weed; others will have to hire labor to harvest the cotton by hand. The chemical companies say they're working on the problem but do not expect marketable results for 6 to 8 years.

My comments: I do not know of any herbicide-resistant GM crops in the amaranth family. It looks as though pig weed probably developed the herbicide resistance on its own, in the same general way that certain bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. Researchers have observed cross-species and even cross-family sharing of nutrients and genes. I recently read an article about the danger that antibiotic-resistant strains of staphylococcus will pass their resistance to other kinds of bacteria. If cross-family sharing of genes is possible, then it's possible that pig weed could have "picked up" genes for herbicide resistance from GM crops, but far as I know, it's not likely.

It's interesting to consider the affects that herbicide resistant weeds and insecticide resistant insects could have on the economy. One possibility is that unemployed people could find work on farms chopping weeds and harvesting cotton. I would not expect many U.S. residents to take this sort of work, and the general mood in the U.S. seems to be against allowing in immigrants. More intelligent farm machines could be be very useful for chopping out weeds before they get large, but it will be several (many?) years before machines of this sort are available commerically. Most of the focus right now seems to be on robots for harvesting, because until recently, the least expensive means of controlling weeds has been chemical sprays. Another possibility would be a move toward more elegant farm management, using permaculture techniques. I would like to see a combination of intelligent machines and elegant management techniques.

See: Precision Ag Works (progress on crop machinery robotics) and Vision Robotics

The Wonderful Mesquite

2010-09-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

I've written about the mesquite before (http://huerto-de-altamira.blogspot.com/2009/02/germination-of-honey-mesquite-prosopis.html). February, 2009, when I wrote about germinating mesquite seeds was before I bought the Berry Farm. I no longer need to germinate seeds, unless I want to introduce genes from mesquite trees in San Antonio (which is where I picked the seed pods).

Soon after posting the 2009 blog entry on the mesquite tree, I was delighted to get an email from a fellow mesquite-lover, Peter Felker. He studied mesquite trees when he was at Texas A&M University, Kingsville, and sent me several articles that confirmed my own observations that mesquite trees fix nitrogen, making it available to neighboring plants, as well as helping neighboring plants withstand droughts. Many people around here believe that mesquite trees suck water away from other plants, but the evidence I've seen is all to the contrary. My guess is that mesquite "pump" water from deep down (I've read that their roots can go up to 100 feet deep; don't know whether this is true, but I know they're very deep-rooted trees) and release it through their leaves.

Here is a photo I took yesterday of a stand of giant ragweed near a group of mesquite trees. The ragweed only grows around the mesquite trees. Outside a radius of 20 or 30 feet from the edge of the canopy, there is no more ragweed.

Ragweed has a shallow, fibrous root system, so is unable to tap deep into the soil for nutrients. Since nutrients tend to wash easily down through East Berry Farm's sandy soil, it's very likely that the mesquite trees are providing both food and water for the giant ragweed, which explains why they grow only in the vicinity of the mesquite trees.

A study done in Virginia showed that common ragweed (closely related to giant ragweed) contains more digestible dry matter than alfalfa and is almost as high in crude protein.

[See The Nutritive Value of Common Pasture Weeds and Their Relation to Livestock Nutrient Requirements

A. Ozzie Abaye, Associate Professor, Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences, Virginia Tech; Guillermo Scaglia, Assistant Professor, Iberia Research Center, Louisiana State University; Chris Teutsch, Associate Professor, Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center; Pepper Raines, Montgomery County Public Schools]

The giant ragweed produces a tremendous amount of biomass, and with its high protein (~ nitrogen) content, makes excellent mulch for the garden.

Native grasses, Coastal Bermudagrass, day lilies, canna lily, strawberries, and olive trees all grow better at the Berry Farm than similar plants not planted near mesquite trees.

Besides improving the garden soil and providing light shade, mesquite trees provide a more direct source of human food. Dr. Felker also mentioned that he had helped to set up a business in Argentina that sells flour made from mesquite pods. At the time, I had to hunt it down in a store (I found some at Central Market in San Antonio), but it can now be purchased online: Casa de Fruta. It is a delicious addition to many breads and pastries, including pancakes, bread, and pie crust.

Mesquite also provides a beautiful hard wood for furniture and building (I've seen incredibly gorgeous mesquite floors (See Texas Mesquite Wood Flooring).

Traveling

2010-08-28T22:26:00.000-07:00

I love being in different places, but I hate riding in cars, planes, and buses. Trains are marginally better, but not much. Since I don't have time these days to travel by foot or bicycle, I mostly limit my traveling to the relatively short trip between San Antonio and my country place.

This month has been unusual, as I traveled to New York, NY and Gonzales, TX. The NYC trip was mostly for business, but my daughter and future son-in-law went with me, and there was time for enjoying the city in the evenings. We rented an apartment not far from where my cousin lives, and she introduced us to some pleasant restaurants. One of our favorites is Zen Palate http://www.zenpalate.com/ . We spent one evening at a Fraunces Tavern Museum evening lecture (Trudy Eden spoke on the political effects of the 18th century American diet), followed with a private tour conducted by Fred Cookinham (yeah, I know it sounds as though we were fixated on food and cooking that evening). Fred made New Amsterdam and early New York come alive for us. (I highly recommend Fred's tours; I definitely plan to do more in the future http://indepthwalkingtours.com/ )

I wondered what trees originally grew on Manhattan Island, and Fred suggested that I go up to Inwood Hill Park, which is a chunk of relatively undeveloped Manhattan Island. Sounded like a good idea, so we went to Inwood Hill Park the next day. The terrain is incredibly rugged, with huge gouges and boulders left by glaciers. It's amazing to think that the whole island was once like that. The photos below were taken by my future son-in-law, Ryan Becker.

photo by Ryan Becker

I love the buildings of New York, but there are so many wonderful photos of them, I didn't think I had anything to add. Instead, I wanted photos of places you don't see all the time, like the park above, near 92nd St and the farmer's market below.

photo by Ryan Becker

And one of the gardens at The Cloisters:

photo by Ryan Becker

Gonzales, Texas is just down the road from my country place, but I had never been there before today. I went there to visit Discovery Architectural Antique. My husband and I need to replace the doors that someone stole from our home in San Antonio. http://www.discoverys.com/

Gonzales is famous as the location of the first battle of the Texas War of Independence on October 2, 1835. It's said that the Mexican government had given the settlers in Gonzales a small cannon to use as protection against Comanche warriors. Prior to October, 1835, the Texas settlers ("Texians") had begun to protest against increasing federal control over their lives. The Mexican government, no doubt foreseeing the need for the use of force against the settlers, asked the settlers of Gonzales to return the cannon, and sent around 100 dragoons (light cavalry) to retrieve it. The Texians were determined not to give up the Cannon and rallied under a white flag that bore a picture of a cannon and the words, "Come and Take It." I saw "Come and Take It" signs on several buildings when I was in Gonzales today.

As I was driving around looking for the architectural antiques store, I noticed that all the streets bear the names of saints: St Andrew, St Francis, St George, etc. There are large squares of land kept nicely mowed, but I didn't see anyone using them. In fact, the place was a bit like a ghost town. Other than a kid on a skateboard, I was the only person walking around the town. I wondered what it would feel like to live in Gonzales, and what it was like in the early 1900's when, judging by the fancy buildings and mansions, it must have been a far busier place than it is now. What did it smell like then? Today, it smelled mostly like hot asphalt. There was a building with a sign that said, "Alcalde Hotel." During Spanish and Mexican colonial days, an alcalde was something like a city magistrate, who also acted as judge when there were disputes among the residents

.
The Alcalde Hotel is clearly no longer used as lodging for travelers. There are, however, a couple of motels in Gonzales and at least two pleasant looking bed & breakfasts. The sidewalks have rings at the curb, for tying up one's horse.

I'd like to go back someday, when the weather is not as hot as it was today, and wander around.

Here's a very enticing mansion that was smothered in vegetation, with No Trespassing signs all along the stone wall that surrounds its grounds. You can just see the chimneys and a bit of the roof.

On the way back to the Berry Farm, I drove through Palmetto State Park. Very pretty place with the San Marcos River flowing through it.

Trees on My Land - Prickly Ash

2010-08-22T17:03:00.000-07:00

Prickly Ash Tree

Zanthoxylum americanum or Zanthoxylum lave-herculis

I am not sure which of these I have, but I lean toward lave-herculis because of the pointed leaves.

The trees on my land are attractive small trees whose bark is covered with small spines that hurt if you grasp a branch or truck. It is the most common tree on the east, sandiest part of the land. In addition to the prickly bark, these trees have leave that tingle on the tongue when you chew them. One name for this tree is "toothache plant."

It is said to be useful to treat tooth and gum disease and as a poultice for sore muscles. I have never tried it. The tree is also used as a home by birds. They are pretty trees, most of which I will keep.

Trees on My Land - Slippery Elm

2010-08-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

Slippery Elm Tree

When I bought the Berry Farm, I got a living pharmacy in addition to a garden site.

I'll talk about the trees first, starting with Ulmus rubra, aka Slippery Elm. According to Trees, Shrubs and Woody Vines of the Southwest by Robert A. Vines,

elm bark ... contains a mucilaginous substance forming a jelly when mixed with water. A warm infusion was used as a treatment of coughs and diarrhea by early settlers. It was prepared by stirring an ounce of powdered bark in a pint of hot water. Somtimes the strips of elm bark prevented fat from becoming rancid, and settlers sometimes cooked bear fat with the bark.

I see lots of it for sale on the Internet. It seems to be an ingredient in many cough drops.

Sloan Kettering says,

Derived from the inner bark of the tree. Slippery elm has been used historically for gastrointestinal disorders, skin ulcers or abscesses, cancers, cough, fevers, and inflammation. The primary constituent is mucilage, which is thought to account for the demulcent effects. To date, no human or animal studies have been performed to evaluate the efficacy of any proposed claims. Toxicity of slippery elm is low based upon chemical components. No adverse reactions or drug interactions are reported in the literature. Slippery elm appears to be safe for coughs and minor gastrointestinal complaints, but it should not be used to treat severe conditions such as cancer or bronchitis.

I have never tried it, so I cannot say anything about it from personal experience. I will certainly keep the trees here.

A Quick & Dirty Gabion

2010-08-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

The concept of the gabion has been around for a long time, I don't suppose anyone alive today knows for sure how long. I have read that they were used in some form by the ancient Egyptians to retain the banks of the Nile. The idea is to enclose rocks or rubble within a cage made of light-weight but strong material. Most of the gabions shown on the Internet have wire mesh cages, although I've found a few with fabric cages.

The most common use of gabions seems to be as retaining walls, such as this one, made by Gilbert Geosynthetics.

However, gabions can also be used as walls. There's an apartment building in San Antonio a couple of blocks from where we live with a gabion garden wall.

And here's a decorative fountain-gabion one can buy for $5400 from Unica Home

.

So this weekend I've been wondering what to use to build a small retaining wall in my garden. Most of the plants I have in the Berry Farm garden can tolerate dry soil, but I have a place next to the trailer that is shady, and I've planted moisture-loving plants there, such as hoja santa and spearmint and taro. The chickens love to scratch in moist soil, and they've scratched bare some of the taro roots. What to use to hold up the soil? There are no rocks around here.

So yesterday I was cleaning out my storage container (this is an on-going project) and when I reached up on top of a stack of boxes to move a plastic box down, the lid of the plastic box popped open, and hundreds of sea shells fell out. My father was a collector: stamps, coins, sea shells. His stamp and coin collections were very valuable, and my mother sold them after he died, for Big Bux. But no one was interested in the sea shells. I kept them for sentimental reasons, although I have never shared my father's enthusiasm for learning about them. See, he didn't just save pretty shells; he found out who had lived in each shell, where the creature fit into the food web, and so forth. Each shell was in a box, with the creature's botanical name -- Anadana lienosa, Cardita floridana, Barnea truncata, and so forth. I inherited (or learned?) his insatiable curiosity about the way things fit together in the world, but I've always been more interested in plants.

Anyhow, I kept my father's sea shell collection, but yesterday when it fell, all the shells came out of their little boxes and mixed together. The results of my father's careful sorting and identifying were lying there in ruin. It was getting dark, so I left the mess there on the floor of the shipping container over night.

This morning, I had an idea. There was no way I was going to get those hundreds of shells sorted again, so ... I would use them as filler for a gabion retaining wall for the taro plant. The lovely shells will be preserved. If I ever develop an interest in sorting and identifying them, I can. Meanwhile, they are serving a useful purpose.

So I made a basket from poultry wire, put in a couple of layers of rubble first, then placed the shells at the top. It's not terribly unattractive, and I think it will work fine.

My Land

2010-07-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that I have never properly introduced my land. Partly this is because I am only just getting to know it myself. When I bought the land last year, it was suffering from the worst drought ever recorded for central Texas, so few of the trees produced seed. Many of the deciduous trees and shrubs dropped their leaves.

Altamira, where I lived with my daughter for 5 years in the 1990's, is only a couple of miles from here, all uphill. I bought this land after the house I built at Altamira burned down (a Bluebonnet Electric pole fell down on a neighbor's land, and the transformer started the fire -- it was a very dry time of year, and the fire spread to my land). I didn't have time to build another house with my own hands, because I'm working in the city now, and besides, I'm not a very good carpenter. Altamira is not easily accessible from the county road. When I had guests there, I had to meet them at the county road, because everyone who tried to drive up to the house ended up getting stuck in the sand. You had to know exactly where the deep spots were, and drive very fast so the car or truck would sort of float across the sand.

I decided that if I wanted to use Altamira as a weekend home, I would have to make a real road and install some large tanks for storing rainwater. The Wilcox-Carrizo Aquifer is under Altamira, but it's 1100+ feet deep, so it's very expensive to drill a well. Also, the City of San Antonio will soon be piping water from the aquifer. I wouldn't be surprised to see metering of water taken from the aquifer by landowners who, supposedly, purchased water rights along with surface rights. When my daughter and I lived at Altamira, our sole source of water was this pond:

I made a small water treatment plant to flocculate and clarify the silty water. It made decent water for household use, but in drought years the pond would get terrifyingly low. In the drought of 1996, it became a big mud puddle. A Great Blue Heron would stop by every day to eat fish. It could wade all the way across the pond. We had to haul water from our neighbor's well in 55 gallon drums that year.

To build a road and rainwater tanks would cost about the same as buying a smaller tract of land with better access. So I decided to keep Altamira wild and build a house downhill, but close enough to Altamira that it would only take a few minutes to go from one place to the other. There's still a small cabin at Altamira that was upwind from the fire, so the place still feels a bit like home.

The highest land at Altamira is the second highest point in the area, perhaps in the county, being at the top of a sandstone ridge that runs from the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo) north of Laredo, northeast to Northern Louisiana, roughly parallel to the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The land there is classified as Post Oak Savannah, though when you are on the land it feels more like a forest because of the dense thickets of yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria). The canopy consists of post oak (Quercus stellata), blackjack oak (Quercus marilandica), shellbark hickory (Carya laciniosa), loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), and eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana). I can walk down the hill from Altamira and encounter 3 distinct bioregions within less than a mile. Midway down the hill are trees such as mesquite and hackberry; at the bottom are pecan and live oak.

The Berry Farm consists of 15 acres. It was subdivided from a 54 acre tract, and since the western half of the 54 acre tract was in the flood plain, the owner subdivided the land into long, narrow strips, so every new tract would have some high ground. At the eastern edge of the Berry Farm, the soil is loamy sand, similar to the soil halfway down the hill from Altamira. The floodplain portion of the land is black clay, and there are live oaks and pecans growing there. Altamira is 160 acres, more than ten times the size of the Berry Farm, yet the Berry Farm has an amazingly greater diversity of plant species.

An old-timer who grew up around here told me that the 54 acre tract of land was used for growing cotton. I assume the cotton would have been rotated with milo (grain sorghum) or corn, which is a typical crop rotation in this area. I don't know what grew here before the land was cleared for farming.

Altamira was considered trash land, because of the nutrient-poor sandy soil, and was never used much by humans. There is evidence that people passed through -- stone spear heads from a long time ago, a mound of stones and assorted stuff that I found with a metal detector (barrel hoop, tip of a plow, leg of a metal stove) that mark the location of a small house -- from the piles of clay mixed with the stone, I assume it was an adobe house with a stone fireplace. Old timers told me that the house sat beside a Spanish road from the colonial period. The Spanish mined silver in the sand hills -- Kenny Mitchell, who's probably about my age and grew up here (in fact, he was good friends with the man who owned the 54 acre tract that the Berry Farm was carved out of), told me that when he was a kid, he and his friends found one of the mines and went down into it. Supposedly there was a mine on Altamira, but I never found one. It's possible it was hidden within a very dense thicket that I didn't penetrate.

The silver mining operations must not have amounted to much, because the land appears to have been pretty much undisturbed by people, unlike the Berry Farm land. I'd guess that the up-hill eastern part was probably Post Oak Savannah, with the flood plain part being Blackland Prairie creek bottom land. However, the banks of Tenney Creek, at the western end of the land, are sandy.

Tenney Creek begins near McMahan, about 5 miles from here, and flows generally south until it reaches, and becomes part of, Plum Creek. Here are a couple of photos of Plum Creek flowing through blackland prairie, about 3 miles from here. Tenney Creek is intermittent, depending on the amount of rainfall. It's flowing at the moment, but it was quite dry last summer.

More on Gophers

2010-07-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

Here is another article about people studying the ecological benefits of gophers:
http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/washington/misc/art24950.html'

The Nature Conservancy in Washington State is studying Mazama pocket gophers by catching them and inserting electronic tags under the critters' skin (similar to the chips used for pets). This will allow them to learn more about the range of individual gophers.

O.J. Reichman and Eric W. Seabloom have also published an article on the pocket gopher in Ecology and Evolution. (January, 2002) in which they too noted the soil-moving effects of the gopher. They observed that the gopher burrows accelerated erosion on shallow slopes and slowed erosion on steep slopes. I have not noticed increased erosion on my gently sloping land. In fact, the gopher borrows encourage the water to penetrate the soil, rather than running off. The run-off causes erosion. When the water soaks into the soil instead of running off, none of the soil is washed away.

Another article Lisa F. Cantor and Thomas G. Whitham in Ecology discusses the gopher's role in preventing aspen invasion of mountain meadows.

Grasses, incidentally, tend to benefit from root pruning by gophers (I have read this and observed it first-hand), so gopher activity would encourage prairie landscapes in regions that do not provide ideal growing conditions for trees.

This article by Jake Weltzin, Steve Archer, and Rod K. Heitschmidt looks really interesting: "Small Mammal Regulation of Vegetation Structure in a Temperate Savannah," Ecology: Vol. 78, No. 3, pp. 751-763. This article focuses on the prairie dog rather than gophers. Since prairie dogs don't live here, I don't have any first-hand knowledge of them, but they apparently eat roots and seeds and live in burrows, so their ecological niche would be similar to that of the gophers.

I think I may have to buy a few of these articles so I can read the entire articles rather than just the abstracts. Here is an excerpt from the abstract of the Weltzin, Archer, and Heitschmidt article:

These data illustrate how transitions from grassland to woodland vegetation can be mediated by a rodent herbivore. They further demonstrate how purposeful or inadvertent removal of native herbivores can have unforeseen effects on plant species composition and landscape physiognomy. Investigations of environmental constraints on vegetation distribution and abundance should take into account the historical role of herbivores in shaping the present system. Inconsistencies among historic accounts of woody plant distribution and abundance in semiarid western North America may be resolved by considering population dynamics of prairie dogs. Widespread eradication of this formerly abundant rodent has eliminated a significant constraint to woody plant establishment on many semiarid grassland and savanna landscapes and has thereby facilitated transitions to shrubland and woodland states. Past land management designed to remove one perceived impediment to livestock production appears to have contributed significantly to development of another management problem that is now a major detriment to sustainable livestock production.

Pocket Gophers

2010-07-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

The tops of the fruit trees are not the only parts of the trees that are in cages. I have to plant the trees in wire cages to keep the gopher from eating the roots of young trees down to a nub. By the time the root system is large enough to outgrow the cage, the tree is usually big and strong enough to withstand gopher nibbling.

Some people use traps or poison to kill gophers. For various reasons, I don't want to use poison, and traps seem pointless. If you kill one, another will move in. I find it's best to incorporate gophers into the landscape. Let them aerate and fertilize the soil, and prune the roots; keep them out of places where I really don't want them, such as around the roots of young trees and shrubs.

I found a dead one in the orchard today. It's too far decomposed for me to guess how it died. You can see from the photo that it was a cute, furry little thing with delicate hind feet like a rat, but it has large front feet with huge claws. Edward Scissorhands.

Most gopher discussions I've found online focus on killing by one means or another, without even trying to understand how gophers fit into the life cycle of the land as a whole. I found a couple of articles whose authors seek a more elegant and intelligent way of living with gophers.

Ecological Benefits of Pocket Gophers (from Living With Wildlife - Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife)

A typical pocket gopher can move approximately a ton of soil to the surface each year. This enormous achievement reflects the gopher’s important ecological function.

Their tunnels are built and extended, then gradually fill up with soil as they are abandoned. The old nests, toilets, and partially filled pantries are buried well below the surface where the buried vegetation and droppings become deep fertilization. The soil thus becomes mellow and porous after being penetrated with burrows. Soil that has been compacted by trampling, grazing, and machinery is particularly benefited by the tunneling process.

In mountainous areas, snowmelt and rainfall are temporarily held in gopher burrows instead of running over the surface, where they are likely to cause soil erosion. [my note: even in non-mountainous areas, gopher burrows help to hold water in the soil and prevent water run-off]

Surface mounds created by gophers also bury vegetation deeper and deeper, increasing soil quality over time. In addition, fresh soil in the mounds provides a fresh seedbed for new plants, which may help to increase the variety of plants on a site.

Many mammals, large birds, and snakes eat gophers and depend on their activities to create suitable living conditions. Salamanders, toads, and other creatures seeking cool, moist conditions take refuge in unoccupied gopher burrows.[my note: I have found a couple of toads lately living in abandoned gopher burrows] Lizards use abandoned gopher burrows for quick escape cover.

Gabriel J. Miller, Steve A. Johnson, and Lora L. Smith, University of Florida, have published an article titled Ecological Engineers: Southeastern Pocket Gophers Are One of Natures Architects
The authors discuss the soil mixing benefits of gophers then move on to discuss the effects of the gophers' diet:

Root Herbivory By feeding on plant roots, Pocket Gophers can drastically affect the local plant community. Some plants can tolerate root herbivory and even flourish, but others are adversely affected. For example, grasses are known for responding favorably to root herbivory, which may be why gophers and grasses coexist together. Little is known about the effects of root herbivory on most plants, but it is likely that the root herbivory of gophers influences plant communities.http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/uw285

It's disheartening to realize that the only advice being given to farmers and gardeners by government supported agricultural extension services, and agricultural universities is grounded in ignorance. It's true that most people who grow plants in regions where gophers live are very well aware of the effects of gophers on specific plants in the garden. But most people farm and garden in ways that make their plants vulnerable, instead of establishing communities of plants and animals that support and protect each other. I'm close to 100% sure that some things I did with my fruit trees made them attractive to the grasshoppers. I'll write more about that later.

Caging the Fruit Trees - Update July 16

2010-07-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

The Anna apple tree in the garden just south of my trailer, which is also where the chickens spend most of their time, is looking good. After two weeks in the protective cage, it has more leaves than I can easily count. I believe it will make a full recovery, as the fig tree has.

The fig tree has now had its cage removed, and after two weeks, it's untouched by the hoppers. It too is in the garden just south of the house. I don't dare let Anna out of the cage yet, but the hopper population in this area has declined so that I only see one now and then.

Even in the orchard where the chickens don't go often, there are fewer hoppers now. I think the frequent rains we've had have helped to clear them out. They tend to get fungal infections when the weather is damp. I applied Tangle Foot to two of the cages in the orchard, and they are hopper-free this morning. There were no hoppers caught in the Tangle Foot. It looks as though it discourages them from even trying to get in.

I believe I'll lose at least two of the fruit trees, but they were sickly little things to begin with, purchased from Lowe's. It was a mistake to buy trees there. I should have known better. I ordered the other fruit trees from Bay Laurel Nursery http://baylaurelnursery.com/ . They were in excellent condition when I planted them, and although the grasshopper event certainly has not been good for them, I'm pretty sure they will recover and grow into big, healthy trees. I highly recommend Bay Laurel Nursery.

The photo was shot from the top, looking down on the new leaves.

Walking By Starlight

2010-07-15T23:47:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a night walk; though I am back in my little travel trailer, the most passionate part of my mind is still out there on the road that curves through the woods.

I have to walk south, downhill from my place, to get away from urban life. I have neighbors here, who have installed pinkish sodium vapor lights high up on poles. These people moved here from the city and tried to bring the city with them. I hate those lights.

I walk about a quarter of a mile, to where the gravel road curves west, and the dense trees obscure all traces of electric light of any kind. It's 12:30 a.m. The moon has already disappeared below the horizon. The only light I can see is starlight.

My husband wrote a book called Reading By Starlight, a scholarly work about postmodern science fiction. I love the title of that book and think about it now, walking down the pale gravel road. Even though I know how bright starlight is, and expect it, I am always surprised at how well I can see. There's my shadow, surrounding my feet like a small puddle.

I stop, listen, sniff the air. I smell water and animal-scent that is not mine or my dog's -- deer maybe? I'm not sure. The night is far from quiet -- I think of when I was a little kid and my dad and I would listen to music together, and he would say: "Listen. Can you hear the violins? Can you hear the oboe?" Now, in the woods, I try to pay attention to each sound in turn. There's the constant pulse of crickets and six other insects I don't know. I wonder if anyone knows. Since they only perform their concerts at night, and since, from the sound of it, they are high up in the trees, it would be difficult to catch them at it. Two kinds of owl calls -- a great horned owl and, I think, a screech owl. And then the frogs start up. I am filled with joy. If I were a child again, I would fling out my arms and run, as I used to do. But I'm old, and my knees are shot, so I do the next best thing. So help me, I can't resist - I howl. A fairly soft, polite little howl that sets off my dog. I've trained him to do duets with me. When we pause, I find, to my delight, that a coyote has joined in. Or maybe two or three. It's hard to tell with coyotes. One of them can sing several parts and fool you into thinking there's a whole pack. Then someone else howls, a longer, deeper howl than the coyote's -- a dog? A wolf? A coyote wolf hybrid? I feel a little prickle of fear, just a tiny jolt of adrenaline like a refreshing drink of cold water.

I wish I could sleep directly under the stars tonight, in a hammock strung between two trees. But I have to work tomorrow, so I head back to my den.

Caging the Fruit Trees Update

2010-07-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

I noticed last week that grasshoppers were forcing themselves between the tops and sides of the screen cages to get at the fruit trees. I immediately ordered some Tangle Foot to coat the cages at the vulnerable points and used duct tape as a temporary measure. We had quite a bit of rain during the week, and the tape came off most of the cages. In the two cages on which the tape held, the little trees are beginning to sprout leaves.

The Tangle Foot arrived in today's mail, so I can paint it on the cages this coming weekend.

One plant the hoppers don't like much is the bull nettle, though I've seen them eating the flowers (in fact, I posted a photo of one doing that, not too long ago, in this blog). Most of the native plants that manage to survive here are early spring annuals; and trees, shrubs and perennials the hoppers don't much like: juniper, camphor weed, prickly ash ... bull nettles. I think the large grasshopper population may be due, in part, to the way the land has been used. It was a cotton farm for many years, then left fallow for several years. I need to learn more about grasshoppers, to see if I can figure out a way to limit their numbers.

When I lived at Altamira, up the hill from where I am now, I didn't have grasshoppers, but there were plenty of leaf cutting ants -- they created huge ant cities that covered up to a tenth of an acre and went down 6 feet or more -- the ants could defoliate a fruit tree overnight. I began studying the ants, because I wanted to learn how to kill them. But I ended up getting interested in them and becoming ... well, ... fond of them in a way. My father told me about Tangle Foot, which has apparently been around since the 1800's. I painted the tree trunks with it to keep the ants off. This won't work for grasshoppers, of course, since they can fly right up into the tree canopies.

I visited Altamira over the weekend and stopped by the largest ant city, to see how everyone was doing. Their population seems to have been diminished by last year's severe drought, along with the population of blackjack oak and post oak and even a few junipers. There are many, many dead trees, but I was pleased to see young ones sprouting up to take the places of the deceased. When I lived at Altamira, I used a wood fire to heat my house. There were always plenty of dead oak branches lying around. I never had to cut a living tree for fire wood.

I went searching for bull nettle seeds Sunday and found some ripe ones in an area where the air was fragrant with their flowers. The seed pods shatter explosively when the seeds are completely ripe, flinging the seeds many feet from the parent plant. So to harvest the seeds, one must take them when they're almost ripe, but not quite ripe. The photo shows an almost-ripe seed pod and a seed -- they come 4 seeds to a pod. The seeds have crunchy coats and soft, very tasty insides, sort of like M&M candies without the chocolate.

Ripe seed pods are ivory-white. Almost-ripe seeds still have some of the hairy outer covering, as in the photo. A pair of leather gloves is a must for picking bull nettle seeds. I leave them in a container (covered by a cloth to keep the seeds in) until they shatter. I can see I should have included a coin or some other object of known size in the photo to show the size of the seed. That's a demitasse saucer the seed and pod are sitting on. The pod is a little less than an inch long.

Caging the Fruit Trees

2010-07-08T22:21:00.000-07:00

My land has a new name: The Berry Farm. Not really new for the land, but new for me. I was recently talking to the woman from whom I bought the land, and she said she called it the Berry Farm, because there were so many berries growing wild there. I was going to call it The Junipers because of the large old juniper trees growing around the old farm house, but my husband thought that sounded pretentious. I suppose it might, a little, even though it's an accurate description. But the Berry Farm sounds very wholesome.

My husband has never seen the Berry Farm and never wants to. He is, he says, a creature of the city. Still, I value his opinion, and after all the land is half his under the Texas community property law.

So ... back to the saga of the Lone Woman against the Voracious Grasshoppers

I couldn't bear the thought of letting all the fruit trees be killed by grasshoppers without at least making an effort. About 6 weeks ago, I made a screen cage to fit over a young fig tree that had been completely defoliated by the hoppers, its stem eaten down to a nub. Here's what it looks like now:

The screen cage was such a huge success, it seemed worth trying on the other fruit trees. So I made cages for all the apple, pear, and peach trees. Here's a poor little apple tree, with the girdled branches and top removed:

The poultry wire frame was already in place. After I shot the photo, I wrapped the wire frame with aluminum screen (fiberglass would have been easier to work with, but the f---kers would chew right through it. I had some clothes hanging to dry the other day the other day, and found a hopper eating a hole in a silk shirt.)

Here's a photo of some of the young trees in their protective cages:

The trees are placed so that there will be a little space in between the crowns when they're mature (if the poor little things live to grow up). The soil is loamy sand that drains quickly. I don't want the trees competing too viciously with each other for water, so I've planted them a bit farther apart than one might place trees in a standard orchard. The cylindrical sliver object in the mid-foreground is an upside down garbage can I was using as a portable table for my supplies.

I've been living the lawyer part of my life in San Antonio since Tuesday. I'm eager but also a little scared to go to the Berry Farm tomorrow. Will there be new leaves? Or will the hoppers have found a way in to continue their destructive work?

Just for fun ...

Here's the view from my shady chair where I sit and eat watermelon and toss the rinds for the hens to gobble down:

See? There are still some pretty spots here and there that the hoppers have not destroyed. They don't like impatiens and vinca. They'll nibble on the hoja santa and datura but don't eat them all up. They don't like castor bean at all. Maybe it's as poisonous to insects as it is to mammals. Some people say that if you plant stuff the hoppers hate, they'll leave your other stuff alone, but I have not found that to be true. There was a little pear tree planted close to a castor bean tree. The latter is now lush and beautiful, while the pear tree has been stripped bare and many of its branches girdled.

And, as an antidote to a horrible video I watched last week about factory-farm hens kept in cages so small they can't even stand up ... here's one of the Berry Farm hens going about her business.

Entomophagy

2010-05-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

My daughter once had a dream in which we (she and I and I believe some other people as well) were being threatened by a scary monster. "Don't worry," I said (in the dream). "I'll take care of it." And I went out and killed the monster, and we ate it for dinner.

I love this dream, because it so nicely expressed my approach to dealing with obstacles. Sure, it's good to overcome them. But ever better is to figure out a way to use them to one's advantage. In that spirit, I have been combing the web for grasshopper recipes (the insect, not the beverage).

One writer says (on a web page that includes Terminix as a sponsor) that her husband ate fried grasshoppers in Thailand and reports that their consistency was like that of Rice Krispeys and their flavor nutty, something like pecans. Wow! That sounds great!

The hardest thing this time of year (if I could overcome my culturally instilled revulsion at the thought of eating insects) would be to catch enough hoppers to make a meal or even a snack. They are young and spry, and small. I'm not sure what the ideal size would be for frying.

The one in the pic above might be just about right, but it's one of the largest ones I've seen this year. Most are only about half an inch long. The one in the pic is eating a bull nettle flower. The one part of the bull nettle flower that is nice for humans (the flowers are very fragrant and mature into delicious edible seeds), and that horrid creature destroys it.

Nature is Cruel

2010-05-22T23:44:00.000-07:00

So I walked down toward the creek bottom today to see if any of the wild plums were ripe. A few were, and I took the photo above before picking the subject and eating it. These sweet fruits are bite-sized, like large cherries. They're a treat, to be sure, but as Wild Horse Havard used to say, they come at a terrible price.

There are all manner of biting, sticking, stinging things down in the creek bottom. I don't mind the snakes and bull nettles -- they won't get you if you watch where you're going and avoid them. But the mosquitoes are horrible enough to make a person crazy. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands. They lie in wait in cool, sheltered areas -- the very places where wild plum trees grow. [the plum trees here are Prunus angustifolia, also known as Chickasaw Plum. They can grow well in full sun or partial shade. They tend to form dense thickets]

Even though I had applied insect repellent before going down to the creek bottom, the terrible buzzing creatures coated my skin, biting even through my clothing. I hoped I would not catch some terrible disease from them. I would have done almost anything to be rid of them: coated my skin with stinking mud, worn a heavy coat (even if it put me in danger of passing out from the heat) ... I almost would have been willing to rub something truly toxic on my skin, such as kerosene. I left quickly, but my tormentors followed me, even up the hill and into the sun and wind, buzzing around the leeward side of my body. It was mid-day, mind you, not early morning or late afternoon.

There are also grasshoppers -- thousands of them, I'm sure, maybe 100's of thousands. The chickens eat a few but barely make a dent in their numbers. They are destroying many of the things I hold dear, such as the Saturn peaches and ears of sweet corn.

I am trying not to be depressed. When I lived up the hill at Altamira, there were few mosquitoes or grasshoppers, but there were other problems, such as packs of javelinas, and our only source of water was a pond which would dry up to a big mud puddle in drought years. Life is never easy for long.

To end on a bright note, though, there are many grapes growing on the wild vines, and even though the grasshoppers have eaten the leaves off the potato plants, there are already many potatoes under the ground. I have not planted any southern peas yet. I'm wondering if it will even be worthwhile. I don't think the hoppers like the leaves much, but they'll eat the young pea pods.

Also, the countryside is beautiful, and the mosquitoes aren't bad except in the creek bottoms and densely shaded places.

Beautiful Flowers on Well-Armored Plants

2010-05-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

The white prickly poppy (Argemone albifora subsp texana) has viciously sharp leaves, so sharp that cattle won't eat it even when everything else has been grazed to the ground. Bees like it for the pollen, but I have not seen many bees around this year. (There is an article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/02/food-fear-mystery-beehives-collapse about the world-wide bee die-off).

I let some of these plants grow, despite the pain when I accidentally bump into one of the, because their flowers are very pretty.

The Texas thistle (Cirsium texanum) is another spiny plant you don't want to run into. In addition to producing pretty flowers, its foliage is food for caterpillars of the painted-lady butterfly, and birds eat the seeds. So I only cut down the ones that are right next to places I need to walk to tend the gardens.

I Love This Place

2010-05-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

The reason I bought this strip of hard-used land was that it has a wide range of soils, so I could grow a wide range of plants. Since there is only one of me to do all the gardening, I did not want to till up lots of soil. I've left the land to its own devices, except for the parts I'm actually using.

I've been amazed and delighted by the wide range of wildflowers and the critters that use them for food.

This is Monarda punctata, colloquially known as spotted horsemint or spotted beebalm. The little horse shaped flowers, which are located between the pinkish-tinted bracts, are yellow with maroon dots. Very pretty little things. The leaves of this plant produce an antispectic substance called Thymol. One use of it is to control mold in beehives, which may account for one of its names. They are such pretty things I hate to pull them up, but I have had to clear some of them from the garden, as they were crowding the tomato and bean plants

Another pink flower I like is Proboscidea louisianica, known as devil's claw or unicorn plant. The young seedpods can be pickled and eaten, and are rather like pickled okra. The ripe seed pod is a vicious thing with curved spikes, but I find the fowers and leaves very pretty. I was happy when this plant came up just outside my veggie garden.

There have been ripe dewberries for a couple of weeks now. The ripe berries are very dark purple -- delicious to eat but not very pretty to look at. Here's a photo of a berry a few days before it was ripe, when it was a beautiful liquid-red.

And for the last photo of the day, a lovely treat. I got this recipe from The Accidental Huswife's blog:

http://accidentalhuswife.blogspot.com/2009/04/eggs-poached-in-chili-with-greens.html

Eggs Poached in Chili With Greens. I'd been wishing for a good recipe for eggs, and a good recipe for greens. You can imagine my joy at finding one that combined both. It was very easy to make -- took only a few minutes. And it was very fine eating. I suspect I used more tomato in the sauce than the Huswife had in mind. I served it with avocado and tomato slices.

Still No Time for Blogging

2010-04-02T22:07:00.000-07:00

But a few minutes for beautiful flowers. These photos were taken with my phone this afternoon on a short walk near my country house. I brought my good camera but forgot to pack a charged battery.

They include:

Wine cup (Callirhoe involucrata) mallow family
Texas paintbrush (Castilleja indivisa) figwort family
Texas bluebonnet (Lupinus texensis) facaceae family
Drummond phlox
Texas groundsel (Senecio ampullaceus) sunflower family

Speaking of the fabaceae family, I have fava beans in the garden ready to harvest. Like garden peas, fava beans have a short growing season here, since they don't flower when it's too cool, and they die when it gets hot. Since they are only productive for about a month out of the year, they are always a special spring treat.

Too Busy to Blog

2010-03-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

One of the ways I make money is preparing tax returns for small businesses, so I am always very busy this time of year. I still find time to work on my land, but not much time for blogging.

The mesquite trees are beginning to leaf out, which (according to some of the farming mentors of my youth) means it's time to plant corn. The wildflowers are making the pastures look like Persian carpets.

Tonight as I sat in the garden enjoying an evening cup of coffee, a herd of about 20 deer passed by across the fence. So far, I have not had problems with them in my garden -- I fence small areas with 3 or 4 foot poultry wire. I think the deer do not like jumping into small areas. I may be deluding myself. After all, I've only been here a year. But I grew food at Altamira for 6 years and never had problems with the wildlife. Only with my neighbor's cows, who once got out of his fence and destroyed my entire corn crop.

I wouldn't mind eating a deer or two each year, but I cannot bear to kill them. I can kill chickens and snakes, but it is very hard for me to kill mammals. I killed a javelina once and cried all day (the meat was delicious, but the meals were not worth the sadness). If someone else kills them, I do not mind skinning and cleaning the carcass, but I cannot bear the moment between life and death. It's difficult for me even with snakes, they are so pretty and graceful when they are alive.

The Land Reclamation Project Proceeds

2010-02-21T08:43:00.000-08:00

I have not dug up any more snakes this weekend. Maybe the snake population got tired of the disruption and moved on.

Daffodils, phlox, and fava beans are blooming.

Permaculture as a Means of Restoring Haiti's Environment and Economy

2010-02-09T13:43:00.000-08:00

Haiti Rewired (an ongoing conversation about technology, infrastructure and the future of Haiti) has an interview with Geoff Lawton of the Australian Permaculture Research Institute on using Permaculture to rehabilitate Haiti`s landscape and provide sustainable livelihoods for residents.

Whereas typical government or corporate aid generally encourages dependence and helplessness, Permaculture has the opposite effect. By integrating local people`s skills with local resources, Permaculture projects create independence by teaching people to think for themselves and act in the best interests of their communities.

Although Haitians need emergency food supplies for the short term, it would be to their disadvantage to receive emergency aid without help for the long-term sustainability of the population. One of the reasons for Haiti`s ongoing poverty has been "aid" from organizations such as the World Bank that created the need for more and more exports to generate cash to make payments on the debt. Instead of growing food to feed the local population, Haitian agriculture focused on growing cash crops for export.

The urban gardens of Cuba are a good example of how a nation can deal with a crisis constructively. I have read that Havana`s urban plots provide more than 90% of the city`s fruits and vegetables at a low cost -- small gardens are far more efficient than large farms, and since the produce can be sold right where it is grown there are no shipping costs.

See Eat Local - Cuba`s Urban Gardens Raise Food on Zero Emissions

Idiots With Heavy Equipment

2010-02-07T14:57:00.000-08:00

This photo is an example of what happens when a non-thinking human gets hold of the controls of a bulldozer. That fencing probably could have been re-used. Now I'm going to have to spend hours cutting the mess apart and getting the metal to a recycling center.

More Snakes

2010-02-07T11:31:00.000-08:00

Poor dead snake

Debris pile

I came upon a nest of snakes today -- these are clearly copperheads. No mistaking their beautiful skins. I messed up the skin of the first one when I killed the snake, so I have been more careful with the others, just to chop off the heads and leave the skins intact. Copperheads are pretty aggressive snakes. I found one in my house once, and the thing actually came after me. But it's cool today, so the poor things are moving slowly. I'd like to do something mean to whoever pushed all that wood into a pile. I've attached a couple of pictures to show what I'm up against. It reminds me of playing pick-up-sticks when I was a kid. I have to figure out which piece I can take off the pile next without making the whole thing collapse. What in incredible mess! And with the snakes in there too, and all manner of garbage -- soggy fiberglass insulation, parts of radios, bits of plastic. I wish I could find whoever made that pile and make THEM clean it up. It may have been the person I bought the land from. May have been some of the neighbors who thought they were doing me a favor by getting the stuff "out of the way."

You might ask, as one of my neighbors did, why I don't just torch the whole thing. There are four reasons I am putting myself at risk of falling, being crushed, or being snakebitten:

1. It is a very large pile, and the fire could get out of hand and burn down things I do not want to burn

2. The pile is right under a couple of trees, and I do not want to kill the trees

3. There is good stuff mixed in with the trash, and I do not like to waste stuff

4. There is toxic stuff that would make toxic fumes if I burned it.

Well then, you might ask, why don't you hire someone to do it for you, since you're a frail old woman? I dunno ... I don't want someone else to be at risk of falling, being crushed, or being snake bitten? It would be really expensive to hire someone, because it is quite time-consuming? Someone else wouldn't know what I want to keep and what I want to get rid of? I kinda enjoy doing it?

Don't Know Whether to Be Sad or Glad

2010-02-06T19:12:00.000-08:00

The skin of the snake I killed

Photo of Western Massasauga from the Web

Pic of juvenile rat snake from Web (the head of the snake I killed did not look like this)

The snake when it was freshly dead

I killed a snake today while working at clearing the huge pile of debris that someone created with a backhoe or dozer. It looks like a Western Massasauga. But then ... it could also just possibly have been a young rat snake (it was definitely not a grown rat snake). It was very definitely not a hognose, as the head was completely different from a hog nose head. Its head looked like a pit viper head, but there were no obvious rattles on its tail.The massasauga's rattles are said to be small, but still ... this one had no rattles at all, far as I could see.

Anyhow, it did not go to waste. The skin is in the freezer until I can get a tanning kit, and I fed the meat to the dog and chickens. There's a delicious looking recipe online for spicy snake meat pasta but my weight increased by 5 pounds when I had a sinus infection recently and felt too bad to exercise, and I am on a raw-veggie-with-the-occasional-egg diet for a while.

If anyone sees this and has an opinion as to what sort of critter's life I ended today, please let me know.

Gardening in Second Life

2010-01-31T17:52:00.000-08:00

Cabbage, broccoli, fava beans, beets, spinach are growing in the garden here at Altamira, and the daffodils are beginning to bloom. The winter grass is emerald green, and it's pleasant to go for a walk on a warm day; but really, there's nothing worthy of a photo at the moment, and it's not fun to be in the garden on days like today -- cloudy, temps in the 30's (Farenheit). I worked at excavating the pile someone made with a tractor -- good lumber, trash lumber, bricks, bags of garbage, weeds, soil all pushed into a huge pile. What could they have been thinking?? It's slow, dangerous work to dismantle the pile, moving the good lumber into the barn, burning the scrap lumber, stacking the metal to be recycles, and putting the non-recyclable plastic into the bin to be taken to the county landfill.

I come inside from time to time, to warm up and hang out in a land where it's always summer, if I want it to be -- Second Life. I do not tend to socialize in Second Life, although I have met some interesting people there and actually ended up doing business in Real Life with some of them. My favorite thing to do in SL is design things -- buildings, landscapes, furniture. I had a furniture store there for a while, and an office building that I rented out. But I got too busy in RL and did not have time to manage my SL holdings. So I sold out and now rent a small tract of land on a quiet island, to use as my own personal retreat.

I have used SL to design furniture I want to have custom made in RL, and shipping container houses (I had wonderful plans for a 4-container house at Altamira, but I have now scaled that back to 2 containers), and of course gardens. Here's a pic of me hanging out in SL this afternoon, in front of the garden house. What a contrast to RL!

More Ice in the Garden

2010-01-08T21:39:00.001-08:00

The water coating these oregano leaves formed round balls.

Ice in the Garden

2010-01-08T21:35:00.000-08:00

This is Carolina Jessamine in my San Antonio garden. I left the garden faucet valve slightly open last night to keep the above-ground pipe from freezing and breaking. This particular valve is a gate valve that sprays instead of drips when it is just open a little. The droplets coated the branches and leaves of the plants and froze in layers. Very pretty -- like a china garden.

צמחים עמידים בפני בצורת

2009-12-30T20:36:00.000-08:00

http://www.sviva.gov.il/Enviroment/Static/Binaries/Articals/gan_eklum_2.pdf

צמחים עמידים בפני בצורת

Desalinization

2009-12-30T20:31:00.000-08:00

Israel’s water tech hits the Valley

Excerpt:

It is almost mind-boggling that Israel, a country with such a dearth of fresh water resources, has become a leader in water technologies. That is, until you learn about Mekorot.
Most of Israel's $1.4 billion in water tech exports last year wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for the government-owned water carrier and water tech company, chairman Eli Ronen tells ISRAEL21c. Mekorot transformed Israel into a global water leader by making water research and policy a national priority decades ago.
Now Mekorot's expertise in water management, specifically in desalinating water, is on its way to south California. Ronen confirms that Mekorot has signed an MOU with Water Solutions Technologies (WST) of Fresno, California.
The company's activities in California will extend to water-poor areas such as Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley and other regions like it. The contract between Mekorot and WST was signed at the Fresno Convention and Entertainment Center where Ronen recently lectured to about 800 people about Israel's water solutions.

Fresno is America's number one agricultural producer and new solutions for the large quantities of water needed to sustain agriculture there are badly needed. Poor water allocations for farmers have forced them to leave thousands of acres to lie fallow and many farmers are in a holding pattern.
"California suffers from the same problems that Israel suffers from, especially in its southern parts and it needs to overcome these difficulties," says Ronen. "We hope to be the one who can help."

Allocation of Water

2009-12-30T20:07:00.000-08:00

I like to pay attention to books and articles on water allocation in countries such as Israel and Australia. The part of Texas in which I live is subject to frequent droughts, but during the past 75 or 80 years, we have not had to worry much about water use, aside from restrictions on lawn watering in the summer. Israel and Australia are ahead of us in such areas as desalinating soil and growing drought resistant food crops.

In central Texas, we can easily import food from other states in the USA or from other countries. But increasing shortages of water and salinization of irrigated soils could change this situation, as could more frequent droughts in other parts of the world. In my own garden, I have learned to conserve water by mulching, using drip irrigation, growing perennial crops that can get by with less frequent watering, incorporating trees that produce "light" shade, such as mesquite, into the garden and planting annual food crops in such a way that they get partial shade from the trees.

The article below is about allocation of water in Israel. One of the author's suggestions for conserving water is to reduce agricultural exports and eliminate subsidies for agricultural water.

http://www.greenprophet.com/2009/04/28/8587/agriculture-roots-israel-shuval/

Stress Resistant Crops

2009-12-30T19:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.prlog.org/10437415-vai-researchers-find-long-awaited-key-to-creating-drought-resistant-crops.html

VAI Researchers Find Long Awaited Key to Creating Drought Resistant Crops

Findings published in the journal Nature could help engineer hardier plants and have implications for stress disorders in humans

PR Log (Press Release) – Dec 03, 2009 – Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) researchers have determined precisely how the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) works at the molecular level to help plants respond to environmental stresses such as drought and cold. Their findings, published in the journal Nature, could help engineer crops that thrive in harsh environments around the world and combat global food shortages. The findings could also have implications for stress disorders in humans.

VARI scientists have determined the structure of the receptors that plants use to sense ABA, a hormone that keeps seeds dormant and keeps buds from sprouting until the climate is right. Locating these receptors and understanding how they work is a key finding — one that has eluded researchers for nearly a half-century. This discovery is crucial to understanding how plants respond when they are under stress from extreme temperatures or lack of water.

“The plant community has been waiting for this discovery for many years,” said VARI Research Scientist Karsten Melcher, Ph.D., one of the lead authors of the study. “It could have major effects on nutrition and crop yields, especially as fresh water sources become scarcer.”

“The work by Dr. Xu and his colleagues, published in one of the most prestigious science journals in the world, will undoubtedly become known as an historic defining moment in our understanding of the mode of action of the important plant hormone abscisic acid,” said Grand Valley State University Plant Development Biologist Sheila A. Blackman, Ph.D. “They show how the signaling molecule and its receptor initiate a cascade of events that ultimately affects the expression of genes that are critical for a plant’s survival under harsh conditions. This work has enormous implications for global food supply.”

Melcher works in the VARI Laboratory of Structural Biology led by Distinguished Scientific Investigator H. Eric Xu, Ph.D. The lab began studying abscisic acid signaling in March this year because a proposed ABA receptor was reported to be a member of G-protein coupled receptors, a group of proteins that the lab studies. More than 50% of all drugs on the market target these proteins, but it has been extremely difficult to determine their atomic structure.

Xu’s laboratory uses a technique known as X-ray crystallography to determine exactly how and why the drug compounds work in molecular detail, which can then help drug developers engineer more potent drugs that have fewer unwanted side effects.

Although it later resulted that the abscisic acid receptors were found to be members of another protein family, Xu’s lab continued their studies on the newly identified ABA receptors. Their findings could help to develop crops that grow in drought, cold, salt water environments, and other harsh conditions, perhaps aiding in stemming or reversing food shortages around the world. Additionally, proteins central to ABA sensing are related to human proteins involved in cellular stress responses and may have implications for stress disorders in humans.

“Proteins with similarities to plant ABA receptors are also found in humans,” said Xu. “Further studies in this area could reveal important implications for people with stress disorders.”

The lab worked with specialists in plant biology at other institutions to validate the data, including the National Center for Plant Gene Research in Beijing, China, the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences at the University of California at Riverside, the Center for Plant Stress Genomics and Technology at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, and the Department of Biochemistry at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

“A finding of this importance helps demonstrate how discoveries at the molecular level in plants can have profound implications for the diseases of humans.” said VARI President and Research Director Dr. Jeffrey Trent. “Remarkably Dr. Xu’s findings (made in only a few short months) will open a decade of research on both plants and man. From a key role in the ripening of fruit through increased understanding of how stress affects a myriad of diseases in man – this finding starts a new chapter in plant and animal biology.”

* The project described was supported by Grant Number 1R01GM087413-01 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

The Wonderful Pole Barn

2009-12-20T19:36:00.000-08:00

My neighbor David and his crew finished working on my pole barn today, but I neglected to take a photo of it before dark. However, I have a photo taken last week, when the barn was pretty well along. The walls are 14 feet high. Looking up through the trusses, I get the feeling of being in a cathedral. I know that probably sounds silly. How can a utilitarian pole barn feel like a cathedral?

It is 25 feet wide by 36 feet long, with a lean-to on one end that extends the length another 10 feet. It's certainly the nicest garage/workshop I have ever owned.

Hard Times - Happy Day

2009-12-20T19:30:00.001-08:00

Working on the land reclamation project was especially fun today, because of the glorious weather. There was frost on the grass this morning, but by 10:00 it was warm enough to work comfortably outside without a jacket. The afternoon was gorgeous -- clear, winter-blue sky, warm sun, cool breeze. Sitting in the garden planting fava beans, I felt perfectly content, but at the same time slightly guilty for being happy when so many people are having a terrible time.

There are always the background thoughts that at any given moment: someone in the world is dying of hunger, someone is being murdered, someone is being tortured, someone is being beaten. But today there was a more immediate sadness. A neighbor dropped by and told me that his wife has been diagnosed with lung cancer that has spread to her stomach. Why does my life continue on its happy way? I am no better than those people who are dying of hunger, whose bodies are serving as fuel for cancer cells.

I have, of course, lived through my own hard times, have come close to death on a couple of occasions; people I loved have died, and taken some part of me with them, into another dimension, or into emptiness. I am sure I will have hard times again in the future. As one gets older, hard times seem more likely. One's friends and family die off, getting up in the morning becomes painful. Death is always there, leaving little tweets and IM's in the form of an irregular beat of the heart or stinging pain the gut. So it is right, I think, to be happy while one can, within one's own small island of time and space. To cherish each calm, comfortable moment.

When digging a trench for a cable a couple of weeks ago, I came across the corner of what appeared to be an enamel-coated steel table top. This afternoon, I decided to dig it up. I was looking forward to using the table top for my outdoor kitchen. But it turned out to be something different (see photo). I think it may be the top of a rectangular electric water heater. There is a Permaglas label on the vertical portion. Well. So I didn't get my table top, but I'm sure I will find some use for the thing.

I do not believe there is even a square inch of this place that does not contain some kind of discarded human-made object. Some of it is useful, but what does one do with filthy wads of fiberglass insulation or small, disintegrating bits of gypsum board? I suppose the latter could be used in the garden.

Very Easy Baked Custard

2009-12-12T18:34:00.001-08:00

Big Daddy Geoffrey, our Brahma Rooster

4 eggs
2 1/2 c. milk
sugar or other sweetener to taste
Vanilla
Nutmeg

Beat the eggs moderately well. Put the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla into a sauce pan and beat gently until mixed. Heat the mixture until hot, but not boiling. Place in baking dish, sprinkle more nutmeg over the top if desired and bake in a 325 degree oven for 40 minutes.

Healthier Eggs

2009-12-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

Everyone who has eaten eggs from chickens who run loose in the grass and chickens raised in cages or warehouses knows that eggs from pastured chickens have a far superior color, structure, and taste. One would logically expect the eggs from pastured chickens to also be healthier.

Mother Earth News had eggs tested from 14 flocks in different parts of the U.S.

They found that, as compared with eggs from penned or warehoused hens, the eggs from pastured hens had:
• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene
This is not a huge sample size, and the article does not go into details such as the variance within the results. Nevertheless, they are interesting results, and there are other studies showing similar results. The article points out what one could easily guess just by looking at the thin shells and pale yolks of warehoused "free range" chicken eggs sold in supermarkets. The USDA definition of "free range" includes hens who live in crowded warehouses and never see a blade of grass in their lives. I have a picture of such a place in another entry on this blog: http://huerto-de-altamira.blogspot.com/2009/01/35000-free-range-chickens.html
Given the misleading USDA definition, factory farms can label eggs from warehoused hens as "free range" and gullible people pay twice as much, or more, as they would pay for factory farm eggs laid by caged hens. As pathetic a life as caged hens lead, the lives led by warehoused hens is probably even more terrible.
On a happier note, my hens have a pleasant wooden house where they roost at night, and in the day time they run around eating whatever plants appeal to them, and scratching in the soil for insects. Here are the eggs I gathered from mine over the past week (minus the ones we ate).

The green and pinkish ones are from the Ameracaunas. The brown ones are from the Rhode Island Reds and Dominiques. The eggs themselves are pretty, but it's what's inside that really counts. The yolks are deep orange-yellow, rather than the insipid pale yellow of warehoused or caged hens. You should see how easy it is to separate the yolks from the whites!

Lentils & Rice

2009-12-12T13:10:00.000-08:00

Ingredients

1.5 cup lentils
1 cup brown rice
onions to taste
enough olive oil to sauté lentils, rice & onions
enough water to cook rice & beans
lemon juice, cumin, pepper, salt to taste

I use a slow cooker, but of course you can use a cooking pot of any kind, preferably a heavy one that will maintain a uniform temperature so the rice & lentils will not stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. You can avoid sticking and burning by keeping the heat low and stirring from time to time.

Clean the lentils and rice, put them into a pot, pour in the water and start the slow cooker or bring the pot to simmer. If you want to add flavor, you can sauté the rice and beans before putting them into the slow cooker, or if you are using a cooking pot on the stove, you can saute them right in the pot before adding water. Sauté the onions until they are just beginning to turn brown and add them to the rice & beans after the rice and beans have been cooking for a while.

Cook until the rice and beans are tender and ready to eat.

I like to add the other ingredients toward the end, when the lentils and rice are almost ready to serve.

Terra Cotta Composters

2009-12-12T08:54:00.001-08:00

http://www.dailydump.org/products

These are attractive terra cotta kambhas

You can buy a license to "clone" this business to produce and sell these terra cotta composters. Far as I know, these are not being sold in the U.S.

Here is an article that shows one of these kambhas in use: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090222/spectrum/main4.htm

I found a U.S. terra cotta composter for sale online from $168 to $189. It is not as attractive as the Daily Dump abd cannot be stacked, but it appears to have one technological advantage: a small door at the bottom that can be opened to take out fully composted material.

http://www.algreenproducts.com/catalogue.php?cat=Composter

Desalinating Drip-Irrigation System

2009-11-25T15:03:00.001-08:00

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4698135/description.html

This patent is for a system that uses microporous hydrophobic materials such as Goretex to desalinate salt water within irrigation pipes that deliver the desalinated water directly to the root zones of plants.

I was thinking that something like this would be good to have and wondered if anyone had come up with a prototype. So I searched the Internet using the terms "desalination salt water irrigation," and found this patent application. Far as I know, this system is not being produced commercially. Based on the drawing that accompanies the patent application, the hydrophobic membranes are around the outer edges of the pipes.

My idea was to divide the pipe into two sections, separated by the membrane. Saltwater would flow along the bottom section of the pipe; water vapor would rise through the membrane and condense along the top of the pipe. The pipe would have small openings just above the membrane, to release the water to the soil. This would be simpler to make than the system described in the patent application, but there may be some reason this would not work well. For example, maybe the water has to be under pressure to keep the holes from clogging up with soil.

Asimina parviflora

2009-11-23T23:47:00.000-08:00

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=ASPA18

Dwarf Pawpaw

Making Adobe Bricks

2009-11-21T20:14:00.000-08:00