There's a thundering hailstorm in Phoenix today, sending drops of frozen hate clattering across the skylight and beating the life out of weak trees. On the outskirts of my peripheral vision, I caught a glimpse of something white and jagged -- the future.
Life as a human right now is akin to having woken up inside the chute of a woodchipper. We may not even recall how we got inside the woodchipper in the first place. The one thing that is clear : the inevitability of the blades.
A feeling like saws chewing into my neck. The sounds of weeping just outside my door. And a cold light knife into my pupil reminds me : This is a world divorced from hope.
When facing a suffocated reality of nonexistent future, what do you do? Here are some options :
1) Lie down and wait quietly for the ice weasels to come. 2) Cry until you're too tired to cry any longer, then die. 3) Fight until death. 4) Put on heavy metal records and rock out for as long as possible.
Now, I don't know which of these sounds most attractive, or which you, the reader, may already be doing. I choose option #4. Here's why :
* Metal music is brain floss. * Metal music improves blood flow to the face. * Metal music is not a norm. * Metal music has no sympathy for your suffering. * Metal music remembers when you were only an animal. * Metal music hasn't heard about your regrets, but it can drench them in molten @#$%^& * Metal music will survive long after the Universe is toast. * Metal music recognizes your true form and can restore it if lost. * Metal music connects you with that aspect of youself that you forgot about. * Metal music is truth erupting from a sea of lies.
There's no future. But with metal music, the present can be made to rock. In these bleak and doomed days, everybody looks for help. Some go to shrinks, some watch TV, and some try in futility to numb the pain with drugs. Well, you all are welcome to your 'cheese' heroin, 'lean,' and amphetamines. I'm an Earache man myself. (19,004)
Care and maintenance of your soil and ecosystem Now that you've started rocking down to Urban Agronomy Avenue, it's time to take it higher with some maintenance basics. - Ground cover : dying plants and so-called 'cover crops' function as 'living mulch' to protect your soil from excess solar damage, discourage weeds, and keep moisture in the ground. - 'Cover crops' as they're traditionally known are nitrogen-fixing plants that are aggressive and will kick out grass from your garden. Classic species are brassica, clover, and the delightfully-named 'hairy vetch.' Cover crops can be cut down and added back to the soil for a soil nutrient boost. Take care : cover crops will kick out not only noisome Bermuda grass, but a lot of other species as well.
Cycling the addition of compost and amendments : - You need inputs to get output. Plants use up the food you give them, so for best results, follow a regular schedule of 'feeding' the ground mulch, compost, and other amendments every season. Look at the nitrogen cycle diagram to see how the whole soil fertility thing happens :
If a plant looks sickly, feed it with compost. As the seasons pass and you keep up the soil-maintenance schedule, the problem of soil nutrient deficiency will decrease and your soil will stabilize.
Soil deficiencies and their signs : - Purpling of leaf edges = phosphate deficiency - Red + yellow leaves = potash deficiency - Yellow at leaf center : nitrogen deficiency - Red leaf tips : magnesium deficiency - Spotted leaves : disease, not deficiency - Striped leaves : nutrient deficiency, could be several nutrient culprits - Curled leaves : drought, not deficiency - Crazy and messed-up looking : chemical toxicity (remedy with compost tea or so-called "effective microorganisms")
Pests : - Serious pest problems are a sign of an unbalanced ecosystem (such as that seen in monocropping arrangements). Most pests, such as cutworms that chomp on leaves, can be controlled by companion planting and by controlled bird activity (such as letting chickens into the garden for a short while each day -- but be aware that birds like to eat what's growing as much as they like bugs). Below are a few common pests and things you can do to control them : - Cutworms : they're repelled by molasses - Ants : they're repelled by cinnamon, or lure them away with sugar bait - Burrowing pests like groundhogs : bury hardware cloth / wire mesh 24 inches deep around the perimeter of your growing area.
The danger of over and under-watering : take care! Under-watering results in drought, while over-watering leads to fruit splitting and mushy crops. Use your head and read the watering instructions for the crop at hand to avoid these pitfalls.
Pollination : - Pollination is required for food production, and low pollination = low yield. There aren't enough bees to go around these days, so do your best to attract and retain a healthy population of mason / wood bees, which are good native pollinators and don't sting (see the article on bees and their housing at ?k=urban.farming#234 ). Wasps should be dissuaded; if they're really causing problems, a solution of one part bleach in nine parts water will harm them a whole lot. Likewise, honeybees can be kind of a drag with their stinging habit, and if a killer bee queen takes over your honey bee hive it's nightmare city. So, encourage mason bees (with a bee block), butterfiles (with bright red flowers), and hummingbirds (with flowers and a feeder).
Excess carbonaceous material in soil (like dry organic matter) will cause nitrogen leaching as the nitrogen moves into the carbon material in order to break it down and decompose it. [see the article on composting for more detail on how this works : compost#230 ] This is one of the reasons why you want to be sure that compost is fully broken down before you put it into your soil.
Frost can be a problem in winter, even in arid climates. Cover your crops with a light sheet or cloth at night when there's a danger of frost. You can also bury jugs of water underground to store solar heat collected during the daytime.
Protect against sun excess by having good shade structures in place for both summer and winter solar patterns.
When planning, building, and evolving your urban agriculture setup, aim to have each item and plant serve more than one purpose - this is called "stacking function." For example, if you grow grapes over the mesh roof of your chicken coop, they'll keep the chickens cool as well as providing you and the birds with tasty grapes. - Use observation and incremental experimentation to learn how the system works and the most efficient ways to harness it; plan for the next season with the things you learn and look at the "big picture." Write everything down so that you can study what's happened. - An old but useful cliche here is : "The problem is the solution." That is, don't try to fight against natural processes -- instead, harness and work with them. - Things are going to die and crops will fail. Learn from your mistakes, and don't take failure too hard.
Notes : On beans : pintos, etc grow well in summer, but green beans need cooler weather. Bats eat flying pest bugs, give them a bat house.
The bulk of this information is taken from Heather Welch's lecture series "Designing a Vegetable Garden," presented November 2008 courtesy of the Phoenix Permaculture Guild. (73,488)
Ah, the whale.
A noble beast, the whale is and perhaps it just may be the freest of all mammals. Can you imagine anything better for the soul than swimming through the cerulean depths fighting off vermicious giant squid and cavorting with all manner of aquatic beasties? Swimming with siphonophore’s, dallying with dolphins and in general killing all manner of lesser fish with noggin conks from your massively monolithic boner? It may just be me, being myself somewhat a man of the sea but if there is a finer way to be than you should enlighten me for it’s the best as far as I can see.
Having just crawled out from under the rock (located on mars and full of spiders mind you) I’ve been living under for the past 20 years it has come to my attention that there is an all too serious effort being put forth from super apes all over the globe to ‘Save the Whales.’ This in itself is a chivalrous cause, and if it’s a bit egotistical and completely impractical well so fucking what. After all, how much help can a group of cacophonous land dwelling monkeys really be when it comes to helping out creatures many times their own size? Again, saving the whales is a noble sentiment for a noble beast but let us add a bit of sense to this endeavor!
If we are to really save the whales and not just make a show about it, reality and ideals must somewhere collide and in this grim union we must make practical sense of some issues for the greater good of man and giant boner’d leviathan. First there is the rather major issue of the megaton carcasses of x-whales to be dealt with. If this issue cannot be resolved then all efforts to keep whales safe will have been for naught because beaches and resorts the world over will quickly be shut down by malodorous stench and the bulky blight of something wholly unwholesome. Taking into account that the majority of whale carcasses washing up on shore are going to be freshly decomposing or completely rank, it seems reasonable to assume that most whale bulk could be used in the manufacturing of fancy decorative soaps (with liberal scented oils added) and high-grade pet foods. Also, in the laudable attempt to kill two or more pelicans with one boulder, the feeding of whale blubber to vagrants and other ne'er-do-wells must be instituted as a matter of common practice. What remains is the issue of putting to practical use the skeletal remnants of our barnacled blue buddies, bones much too large to be efficiently relocated. What I propose is nothing resembling a Cetacean ossuary; no what must be done is to create dwelling places out of these relics.
What you see above is a lifelike and to-scale anatomically correct draft of a blue whale skeleton. Now imagine if you will a few patches here and there, a chimney sticking out through one eyehole and a little round door with a doorknob in the middle of it straight out of the Hobbiton Shire. Economical and energy efficient material between the rib bones and electrical/speaker wiring running from the skull down through the spine and supplying various outlets and entertainment pods located throughout the dwelling places. For the high-end whale-dweller, some solar panels and a little bench encircled garden area near the tailbones would not be uncalled for, even the penis bone could be utilized as a storage shed for whatever nonsense people will be pack ratting away once the whales are liberated from the tyranny of Japanese whaling fleets. I suspect some form of highly nutritious algae based cheeto, but don’t buy stock based on my predictions, my oracle isn’t quite what it used to be. It reasons to stand that the smaller whales could make fine orphanages whereas the colossal marmoreal remnants of a mighty blue whale could provide shelter for a large family or even house a concert hall for a little beachside rock n’ roll. Osteoporotic whales could even be utilized as massive bee colonies, or at least low-income housing for destitute swallows.
So if you were one of those malcontented fellows all to happy to sit on the sidelines and let your sea-faring mammalian cousins go the way of the dinosaur, just imagine how fucking cool it would be to stash your gardening supplies inside the erectile ossification of a defunct fin whale. Exercise your neglected imagination and feel the amplified vibrations of an amplified guitar as it caterwauls its way down the hollowed thoracic cavity of a blue whale. Next time a chance in your life comes to lend a hand to the whales, remember that you too could be growing your organic cannabis inside the inside of a truly freed Willy. (25,930)
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