teonanacatl

http://priyan.me/keyholes-raised-beds-and-maximising-gardening-space-3-hyper-efficient-garden-layouts/ This is a very nice design, they used varied paths etc so its not really fair to compare at the moment. Ill try and adapt it to my model and see if I cant get better then straight lines!

Ive got a new bone to pick with Mollison over his mandala garden beds and his non-linear plantings. In the book, and many other permaculture resources, it is claimed that planting in rows is inefficient and that curves, zigzags and mandala/keyhole style garden bed make best use of the space. Here is a google sketchup I made of various styles of bed. In all cases the straight lines fit more plants in when the spacing of paths etc is the same or less. Each is designed as a repeating unit for a 10mx10m area. The far left mandala style bed is how Mollison describes to make it in his book, with .5m wide paths. I counted all space outside the circular beds as wasted even though yes one could plant companion plants there, technically is not garden space (make sense?). The second I optimised for space making garden beds no deeper then 1.5m from a path (ie how far I can reach without walking all over the bed). The third is straight lines optimised for to repeat in 10m with .5m paths and 2m wide garden beds. One could get even more from the space making the beds 3m wide ie 1.5m from each path but I wanted it repeatable. Here is the math: Garden bed comparisons Garden area (m2) Walkway area (m2) Extra area (m2) Straight 2m beds .5m row 80 20 Straight .5 and 3m rows 90 15 Mandala 1m wide gardens 36.84 13.02 50.14 Mandala 1.5m wide garden 59.8 13.2 27.18 The two plots on the right are a crooked planting vs a straight planting. They are 100x100m (scaled to 1:10) and trees are planted at 2m spacings along the rows which are 7.1m apart. They are both designed to be within a fence with space to the fence. The total length of the planting and the # of trees are provided below. Each zig-zag row is 127.3m long where as each straight row is 90m long, however there is an extra four straight rows! The math: Layout Length (m) # of trees Zig-Zag 1145.7 572.85 Straight 1170 585 I tried other patterns and none would touch the straight unless you started removing access points, ie make it like a maze or a spiral. I think the problem is people make a grid (lets say 1x1m grid in a 10x10m area) and go zig-zag but dont realise the distance between rows is at its min .71m and max 1m, so its unfair to compare with a 10x10m area with 1x1m straight rows. I hope that makes sense. It is also claimed that curves, zigzags etc increase edges, this is obviously not true in the field or garden examples as seen above. In the case of the garden beds the mandala garden has only 76m of edge vs the 96m of edge in the straight field. The zig-zag planting and mandala gardens do offer more aspects and therefore likely more microclimates, great for poly culture but there is no reason why this could not be done with the straight plantings- I think more of a test of the designers skill and plant selection then whether its curvy or straight. The correct answer should be that choice of cruvy, zigzag or straight plantings depends entirely on the property under design.

Just finished this piece after months of work. Im really happy with how it turned out. Its my entry in the World Jade Symposium (www.jadesymposium.com) You can see the progress shots here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.559006450840517.1073741839.506811786059984&type=3

Took a photographer hunting pigs with me and he got this snapshot as I was giving him an anatomy lesson.

Yeah not the same as the lab ;)

CANNABIS should be sold in supermarkets and hard drugs be available from the Government for heroin, cocaine and ice addicts under a federal MP’s radical drug reform plan. Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm wants to kill the power of organised crime in Australia by decriminalising drugs, opening up the market and bringing down prices. Senator Leyonhjelm said while it might not be smart to use marijuana, it was a harmless, non-addictive drug and should be openly available. His party’s philosophy is that if a person is not hurting anyone else, the Government should stay out of their business. Like in the fruit-and-vegetable industry, farmers should grow cannabis for sale in supermarkets and other shops, he said. And anyone should be able to grow it in their garden. Senator Leyonhjelm believes the same open slather availability could be possible for party drugs, such as ecstasy, as long as it can be proven the only real risk is to the person taking it. “I’m not saying they’re safe, I don’t recommend them, advise them, endorse them, no,” he said. “All I’m really saying is it’s an individual, adult choice.” For hardcore, addictive drugs, the NSW politician suggests the Government stop wasting millions on chasing crime gangs peddling drugs and peddle them itself. Under a “harm minimisation” model, registered addicts would get replacement drugs, such as methadone or “other options”, erasing the need to pay up big to criminals. In the days of legal opium smoking, people lived their whole lives addicted to heroin, he said. “Because supply was never restricted, they lived a normal life and they functioned quite well.” He said while being an addict was “not ideal”, it wasn’t destructive until you added in the desperate behaviour of scoring a fix. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/federal-mp-wants-pot-in-supermarkets-hard-drugs-available-for-addicts-to-break-crime-rings/story-fni0fit3-12 Positive step forward I think. I dont think 1900 opium addicts lived totally normal lives and functioned fine, but hey if its available and help is available then its better then what we have now.

Little off topic

I had this idea today, imagine if the mining companies in Australia were run by the people of Australia for the people of Australia! What a ridiculous idea! Marxism! Everything is overinflated in our society because its made cheaply in third world countries that underpay workers. You can see this when the cost of making something is more expensive then buying it already made. Global minimum wage would sort that out but then if everything was at its actual value people couldnt own so much shit- what a tragedy!

http://healthmap.org/ebola/

Ok so here are some references on farm dams. http://www.clw.csiro.au/publications/waterforahealthycountry/2008/UWSRA-tr7.pdf http://archive.nwc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/10968/Surface_and_or_groundwater_interception_activities_23June.pdf http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/9329/waterreform.pdf Basically farm dams result ~1ML reduction in runoff for every 1ML stored. So whilst a few dams on one farm are minor comparison to the large dams built by government when counted in total they represent a significant cause of stream flow reduction. Though I do think having the equivalent volume in farm dams would be better then damning up a main river for one big dam. Dams, swales etc would also act to slow the movement of water to the creek, perhaps the creeks would run lower but for longer though quite a lot of water is lost through evaporation ~10% and plenty more through transpiration of crops and removal of produce. Swales and dams have their place in farms, its really just a matter of population as to whether something is low impact, sustainable and eco-friendly etc.

My motor controls go to shit when high so Im useless at creativity then. I also loose mental sharpness and my memory goes to shit so even if I think up a good idea its probably not that good or I forget it. The only drug Ive found useful is ayahuasca, I didnt get any mental fuzz and memory is fine. Motor controls are gone still though....

TI: Ill search for the references when I get my internet speed back. I was looking it up to see if all farms in an area adopted the keyline/permaculture plan would it be better then a large town type dam.Reality is anything you do to a property is going to affect the natural system which is why I think most choose degraded agricultural land. If there is agriculture then one has made the choice and effecting the environment/ waterway is a side product that one is happy with. Then it becomes about doing it as low impact, sustainably and intelligently as it can be done which is keyline and swales. Cant argue with that either DL, one has to wonder if that was Mollison's original plan- if it was then he is even smarter then I thought

Would think every extremist group in the world would be on flights to the infected area as we speak?

Ive been listening to a bunch of permaculture podcasts whilst carving of late and the american presenters and the people asking questions are terrible. The presenters were greedy, economically minded though they claimed otherwise, naive puritans who used the interviews to boost their ego. The guests were brilliant- Paul Stamets, Darren Doherty Bill Theil? and even Geoff Lawton impressed me. I find Geoff rambles to much and makes up sentences that dont make sense and just repeats key words, his lack of chemistry understanding drives me nuts too. Geoff did redeem himself though in telling people to take up lands that were full of pesticides, herbicides, lands that had been raped etc as it was out pollution as a whole and therefore we had a responsibility to deal with it. One thing that also became apparent to me was that a lot of the permaculture places making money run a non-profit and profit organisation, the tax is fed back through the non-profit and so much seemed focused on how to build the right business plan which I think is good if one is going to do it. They also kept saying how labour costs were so expensive these days that one had to rely on free labour to do all these things which is exactly true. They talked about the productivity of each zone and obviously zone 1 was the biggest producer, but it quickly fell away as one approached zone 3. Most people use intensive garden beds in this area anyway with lots of stacking regardless of permaculture. I read P.A. Yeomans book on water and farm development and it was great (the new edition is poorly edited but the info is good) and Id highly recommend it. I think Darren Doherty has the right idea as well, very much a system designed around doing agriculture better without the fluff. I think the initial layout is very important and once that is done your are 80% of the way there, its more about smart designing then permaculture. People focus too much on the food forest aspect of the permaculture. The agree wholeheartedly with your advice DL Maybe the point of permaculture is to give people a way to make money whilst spreading the idea of smart designing? I did some research on the implications of dams on waterways and one cannot really do any dams whether smaller farm dams or large town dams without influencing the river ecosystem in someway. Large town dams rarely were economical and neither were a lot of hydroelectric dams. It did surprise me that even small farm dams had an effect. I think a reasonable number that was thrown around was storing <20% of the annual river flow. Kinda makes me think twice about putting in dams like Yeomans recommends.

Dremel is fine for starters, they are cheap and will last for long enough till one saves for a foredom. I use a foredom micromotor and a fordom flexshaft. Im making another green python now, will be larger. Logan river? In SEQ? You should take a photo! They are only recorded as being found in the iron range/mcIllwraith range area if Cape york and then in PNG, it would be quite significant if they were found there as well! Thanks for the comments

Here it is, doubt there is any copyright issues anymore. He also goes to Arnhem land on a sailing holiday and the aborigines there are quick to want to trade but they want opium and reluctantly take tobacco when they realise he has no opium The god without a job is pretty funny :D Jack McLarens My Crowded Solitude.pdf

A much fairer and more realistic statement is " Death follows change in an ecosystem", whether that be from humans, weather, new predators etc. One more thing, oil, coal, nuclear power etc are not evil, we are just using them above their sustainability levels. With a much reduced population we could burn as many tyres as we wanted. The problem is people dont have a clue what the real price of food, clothing, water, electricity etc are, the real prices for everything needs to fairly represent their true values, but that doesnt make much economic sense. Try and do everything yourself, live without them and you will realise the true value of these things. We have plenty of resources, people just need to learn to use them efficiently.

A big difference between aboriginal inhabitation of Australia and european inhabitation was population numbers. Impacts are less when there is less people, simple as that. Humans are not innately more evil than any other animal, we are just tool makers that have progressed to some pretty epic tools. If you ask my dogs if they could get rid of all fleas would they, they would say yes without caring about what ecological problems that would have down the line. The aboriginals did farm, on a broad scale and it did affect the environment! They still had low food security and honestly it would have been a plain lifestyle, remember aboriginals had about three options to cook things, in the coals, in ground oven, or not at all. People dont realise how nutrient dense our foods are these days, even just using oil when cooking. Ive got a great book written in the early 1900's up here in Cape York, it was written by a man who started a copra plantation here and used aboriginal labour (paid) to help him. He was as far as Ive read a fair and honest man who treated others well. He isnt an anthropologist but his account of the aboriginal lifestyle and things he saw is in a way better then that of an anthropologist. A few things of note are that before he had much of an influence on their lifestyle (after a year or two of working for him they chose to settle rather than be nomadic so they could have food security) he said their days consisted of sleeping, finding something to eat, cooking it if need be (animals were thrown whole on the fire hair guts and all and everything was eaten), if still hungry finding more, sleeping, get up when hungry and get something else, dance and sing a few nights of the week and generally gossip lots. He also give an interesting account of when he first introduces them to boiling food in water, and everything they then boiled all their food for a while after that and took anything that one could use to boil things in. In the end he taught them to farm, something they much preferred over their nomadic lifestyle, they then chose to formed one of the only aboriginal settlements that was done without without white intervention.

Its crazy to see how the tide has turned as soon as they saw how profitable it can be!

Thanks YM. That hammerhead has surprised me how popular its been, some of the pieces I make like the little dugong, hammerhead, simple abstract shapes for necklaces and earrings dont really make it to the website or my facebook page, the hammerhead was one of those but it got more attention then blue jade flower I made. Just goes to show you never know what people will like. The hammerhead is quite small and was a lesson that going small doesnt always mean it will be easier and quicker! Ive got a large block of blue nephrite from canada and I plan to carve a much larger hammerhead from it. Skills are paying some of the bills

yeah now to refine Im excited because it only looks better and better from now on, still a long way to go before its done though. Ive clocked 84hrs on this piece already and it will be another 100hrs at least till its done I think. YT the fish and the hammerhead are all thats left, good to see your still around bro!

Finished all of the roughing, not to refine, smooth and polish!

Ill probably post an update on that piece tomorrow, Im 1/3 done, so if I get 2/3rds done Ill post a pic. Im running out of diamond burrs at a rapid rate though!

Wait until its done! Its going to be epic!

Opps and a few more.....