Rethink

(Slightly corrected  altered from the original.  I knew what I was talking about and now you, dear reader, may be able to understand also)

I am quite disappointed with myself for letting things get a little off-track in what I originally intended this blog site to be all about.  My intention was that it was mainly to be a clearing house for what goes on inside my head.  A sort of record of the things that occupy my attention or even perhaps of my subconscious, if it were possible to tease such muses out from the murky depths in which they dwell and induce them to be transcribed into prose.

So why hasn't that happened?  It is not for a shortage of material by any means.  I mostly find it difficult to keep up with the pace at which my thoughts are generated, progress, momentarily coalesce and dissipate, or more often than not, instantly diverge onto some other track as a result of some sensory stimulus (visual, auditory, olfactory etc.), or perhaps through the random firing or etheric incitement of some backwater synapses at some time linked to an ancient memory.

It has often been the case that I have had (conjured, cajoled, dreamed, or received from the ether) a thought that I considered worthy of dwelling on and developing during those moments of being in the state half asleep - half awake, that occur just before rising for the day while gazing through eyes half opened at the ceiling or, recently, at the tree line on the ridge of the gully high above me as it appears between the gaps in the venetians covering my bedroom window, and also in many other settings at this time of day throughout my life.

On many of these occasions I have resolved to hold the thought and quickly get to writing about it. But, and it is a big but, 'twixt (always wanted to use that word in a sentence, just once), 'twixt thinking the thought and sitting down at my computer, a million other inconsequential ideas have served to erase, nay obliviate (courtesy H. Potter Esq.), that important thought irretrievably from memory.  Never, as far as I can tell, to return again. Bummer!

No. No.  I can tell what you are thinking. "Why don't you write the bloody thing down straight away".  If it were that simple, don't you think I have enough nouse to have walked that road years ago?  Not an option.  Even if I were so organised that I would prepare pen and paper in a handy location beforehand in anticipation.  Especially these days when, after thirty two years of banging keyboards, I find it a daunting task to decipher my own handwriting unless it is produced so slowly and carefully that any self-respecting thought would not hang around to witness the event.

I will just have to learn to live with the unfulfilled realisation that I could have saved the world many times over if only I had the capacity to hold onto the answer without distraction.

We have of course covered only one small part of the day.  Thoughts arise continually and I do spend some time, occasionally too much time, sitting in front of my computer, where I have caught myself in a state of contemplation on some occasions, staring at the screen.  Productive time. Thinking time.  Often leading to fruitful research.  So maybe I don't need to beat myself around the head too much.  Just need to get it together and record stuff a bit more than I have done in the past.

I have sometimes thought that I should consistently dedicate a particular time every day to writing about my thoughts but that doesn't really work.  Apart from the fact that this would require a certain level of order to my day, something that I naturally shy away from, the process of inspiration demands a level of spontaneity.  Spontaneity is my friend and an arch-enemy of order and time keeping.  I have spent too many years leading an ordered life, ruled by the clock. No more, good friend, no more.  Oh dear, I shall just have to give myself a 'Must try harder' report card and resolve to do just that in future.

There, that feels better.  Now that I have gotten all this off my chest I can, with a clear conscience, go back to playing Civ5, my current drug of choice for occupying my mental capacities (and soothing me with a very relaxing soundtrack) and acting as a tap to turn off or exclude all those irritating thoughts that would otherwise flood into my consciousness, for a while.

But I do promise, before I go, that I will endeavour as often as possible to put into writing here such ideas as I can muster from time to time.

Dangerous Ideas

Added after publication:
I have now completely removed the original content of this article which contained links to the AMEG (Arctic Methane Emergency Group) website.  I have taken this action, not because I disagree with their message on the acute situation regarding ice melt in the Arctic (on the contrary I couldn't agree with their findings more) but I cannot in any way condone or promote their plans for a geoengineering solution to the issue.  These are very dangerous people whom I would now classify as the archetypical 'Mad Scientists'.  I do not say that their crazy schemes would not work in some way but would ensure that we have a chance to continue to live, at least for a while longer, in a world just as fucked up as the one we have engineered for ourselves already.  If we survive as a species at all then it would be better to not do anything more outrageous than we already have done to the planet.

All or most of us alive now, are going to die in one or more horrible ways, possibly not too far in the future.  If I should be one of those who might survive, I do not want to have to live in a mad scientist's nightmare.

Pre-season

Recently I took my camera out into the garden so that I could spend some time reviewing how things stand before the Spring planting and growing season starts in earnest.

They say that up here you shouldn't plant anything out until after Melbourne Cup Day (first Tuesday in November) because frost free nights are not guaranteed prior to that date. Tish!  I can't wait that long. We have a short enough growing season as it is.  But I will likely wait until mid October for the most vulnerable of my sowing items.

My garden has been prepared for its second season for a few weeks now.  So, how are things going?  Here is a bit of a review.

I have noticed that there are a greater number of birds visiting my garden this year.  Two pairs of Kookaburra spend some of their daily hunting time here now whereas I only really got to hear them in the area previously.  Of course there are the ubiquitous magpies and also a pair of what I think may be wattle birds.  I have also noticed a pair of Corrawong.  My favourites are the friendly and cheeky Rosellas, a few of which will actually take food out of my hand.  All of the birds, even the similarly sized Corrawong, are intimidated by the Magpies, and they all of course scatter noisily when the Wedge-tailed Eagles fly over the gully.  My garden is now teeming with life at ground level, and the birds love it.  I too love them all for the good work that they do in maintaining nature's balance and for the little packages of garden beneficial nutrients they leave behind during each visit.

One of my successful crops last year were the spinach and kale varieties.  They have continued  to provide me with the basis of some meals even over the winter and are one of only a few things that remain from that time.  They are continuing to produce abundant new growth now.

Another survivor is my celery, which only produced quite thin stalks last year but new growth is looking much better now, even though snails appear to have been a problem for them over winter.  I am glad that I didn't pull them out earlier.

I almost trod on these little beauties sitting in the middle of my walkway between beds.  Baby Kale plants which have self-seeded from last year's stock.  They will get moved to a safer place soon.

I did plant a couple of things over winter.  Here are some onions that have popped up recently...

...and here is my new strawberry patch.  Eleven new plants sown from bare root stock to supplement the five plants from last year towards the other end of the garden.

I am not sure what happened to the garlic I planted but I did get it in very late.  Maybe there is still time for it to appear.
I am very pleased with how most of the herbs in my spiral planting have survived winter frosts and are now flourishing.  A few did not survive but at least I now know which ones require a little special care and replacements perhaps should be planted in a better sheltered area.

I planted these potato bags over winter because some eating stock had been left too long in the cupboard and had begun to sprout.  Another experiment which appears to have gone well, so far.  The bucket contains worm pee from my worm farm.  I expect the plants will love some of that.

My fruit trees are now in leaf and a few have actually blossomed, including this Nashi pear.

My Hugelkultur, built (if I remember right) just before winter, is really asking me for things to be put into it.  I did plant some extra potatoes there and they popped up a few times but each time the frost cut them off.  A couple are now showing again, so here's hoping.  There is also a celery and perpetual spinach that were recently planted.
I did put a few Yacon rhizome cut-offs in there but they are not showing, yet, he says hopefully.  I separated my Yacon rhizome into about ten cuttings, each of which looked, to me, as though they might make it on their own.  We will have to wait and see.  They are planted in various parts of the garden.
I am nothing if not an experimenter and new idea follower.

This sorry looking thing in the cage is an almond tree.  It had a lovely set of leaves when I planted it, but the next day it had none.  Those wascally wabbits, or maybe the kangaroos.  I bought a roll of 60cm wire last year but found no reason to use it except to cover the sweet potato.  Perhaps the local wildlife were giving me a honeymoon period.  It is different this year and this almond defoliage event was when I started caging things.  Not everything.  Most of my fruit trees are untouched but this almond and especially the blueberries came in for some unwanted attention.

This is a Wintersweet, which I decided not to take chances with.  It was caged immediately on planting.  Wish I could remember why I bought it now.  Must have had a good reason at the time.  It is supposed to fruit.  Maybe it was just another experiment.

I am growing to love doing this stuff.  Last year I was almost afraid to start working on what was pretty much a blank canvas.  Now I am eager to get stuck into a new growing season with a little bit more confidence than at this time last year.  Successes and failures; successes and failures.  Hopefully a few more successes than failures.  Need to get the failures out of the way before they could become life-threatening and to get the successes bedded in before the need for life-sustaining practices becomes critical.

Addendum

I took the above photo snaps a few days ago.  This afternoon I went out again with my camera and found a few surprises.

This is a Sturmer Pippin apple with some unexpected blossom.  Ok, I know my plants are currently very small but they have only been in the ground for a short time.  Less than a year, and in some cases only a couple of months.  So, after Winter, it gives me great joy to see them doing something special.

 The next three pics show fruit forming on Blueberry, Gooseberry and Blackcurrant bushes.

Growing stuff is so rewarding.  Even before you get to eat anything.

Emerging Emergency

I simply post this video from YouTube for your information.  Think or do about it what you will.

Added after publication:
I have now removed links that I included here to the AMEG (Arctic Methane Emergency Group) website.  I have taken this action, not because I disagree with their message on the acute situation regarding ice melt in the Arctic (on the contrary I couldn't agree with their findings more) but I cannot in any way condone or promote their plans for a geoengineering solution to the issue.  These are very dangerous people whom I would now classify as the archetypical 'Mad Scientists'.  I do not say that their crazy schemes would not work in some way but would ensure that we have a chance to continue to live, at least for a while longer, in a world just as fucked up as the one we have engineered for ourselves already.  If we survive as a species at all then it would be better to not do anything more outrageous than we already have done to the planet.

All or most of us alive now, are going to die in one or more horrible ways, possibly not too far in the future.  If I should be one of those who might survive, I do not want to have to live in a mad scientist's nightmare.

There will come soft rains...

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

A poem by Sara Teasdale, first published 1920.

Thirty years later, in 1950, a short story was published, by Ray Bradbury science fiction author.  The story was loosely based on the Sara Teasdale poem of the same title but of course she, in her time (she took her own life in 1933), would have had no knowledge of the intimated cause of the situation depicted in the Bradbury story.  Interestingly, or perhaps I should say sadly, Ray Bradbury passed on on 5 June 2012 at age 91, only around ten weeks before I write this.  There are other links in this chain of related works...

Four years ago, in 2008, a young Scot, Peter Cotter, produced an animated video based on the Ray Bradbury story, based in turn on the Sara Teasdale poem.  Cotter is a young photographer and animator who from 2006-2008 studied at the Glasgow School of Art. According to his resume of 2008 he was awarded The Motion Graphics Award for outstanding achievement in animation and time-based media, presumably for this dramatic, poignant and beautiful animated video.

This chain of links goes one step further in that, although the poem on which all of this is based is a very well known work, I first read of it today in a blog post by Damien Perrotin. Here is an article that explores our reluctance to accept the likely fate of our civilisation, as all civilisations do in time pass away, yet we are fascinated with the idea of joyfully continuing to trash the biosphere on which we depend for life.

Of course, though I claim no artistic merit or input into the process, this, my own post, is the final link in this current web of connections on the subject.  Or is it?

How Time Flies

It is the 31st July and I haven't blogged this month yet.  Well, I haven't blogged here.  I did open another blog site here which has seen some action this month but I do feel a certain responsibility (not sure why, because no-one else seems to read my thoughts, and perhaps that is a good thing in itself) to say something on Meanderings also.

I have to say that time does seem to fly these days.  Is there any truth in the speculation that this is some sort of actual cosmic phenomenon?  Or is it perhaps a function of the ageing process?  It is certainly not associated with having too much to do in an allotted time, although there never does seem to be enough hours in the day.  Perhaps this is why I have sub-consciously (ie. without any valid reason) taken to staying up later and later recently.  This practice of course consequently shortens the day by making it start at a later time, so defeating the objective and making it pointless.  As long as I understand that this is happening, it is OK.  I expect I shall adjust my habits, probably also sub-consciously, when I feel the need.  As a mostly self-regulating creature, I usually do.

Bye-bye July.

Yacon Do It

Seems I have been able to successfully grow Yacón up in the North Central Victorian mountains.

I needed something to cheer me up this morning as my car wouldn't start again today.  It made me miss out on birthday lunch with my daughter Naomi yesterday.  So, I was very happy when, wandering around my garden, the thought came to me to dig up a Yacón tuber to try something new for dinner tonight.  I already knew that there were some tubers under my plant but I had no idea how big they were or whether they are ready to harvest.

Now, Yacón, a native of South America, is known to be not highly frost resistant and we do get frequent winter frosts where I live. So it was with some risk that I planted a sample, not knowing what results to expect. 

  

The leaves of the Yacón are huge and quite beautiful.  Sort of like a leaf within a leaf.  There is a well defined normal ovate leaf shape set within a fairly triangular jagged arrowhead shape.   But Yacón leaves are very, very tender, and hairy.   

My plant was almost in flower when the first frost came, a few weeks back.  I got up early next morning to check on it and it appeared to be fine.  The leaves were still green.  But that was before the sun appeared over the mountains to the east.  Later that day the leaves had turned black and the tips of the stalks were drooping.

I had a peek underground and was delighted to see lots going on there but resolved to leave things as they were until I had time to investigate further.  I did cover the area with straw for frost protection but not before I noticed that there were green shoots coming from what I later discovered are the smaller propagation tubers that sit a little closer to the surface than the huge edible ones.  I have yet to decide whether to lift the whole lot or leave next years young plants in the ground and hope they do not show their heads before winter is over.  Food gardening really is fun, and so rewarding.

Back to today and renewed delight when I uncovered and just snapped off my first harvested Yacón tuber.

But what to do with it?  Time to consult. 

I recently came across what I think is a great gardening site called Foodnstuff which is run by a gentleman previously unknown to me but who lives in my general locale around Melbourne, Australia and whose site I am very happy to recommend.  His Yacon page (you have to scroll down in it a bit to find the detail) contains some useful information on growing, harvesting, storing and using Yacon.  If you scroll down a bit further there is also a picture of the beautiful leaf detail I mentioned earlier.

Wikipedia has a very good entry for Yacón.  Well worth reading for information on this lesser known but useful edible food source.

Then there is also the Diggers Club web page.  This is where I sourced my plant.  There are of course many other information sources available.

Now to think about dinner.

Later That Day

So what did I do with my first Yacon tuber? Well, first I just had to try it raw so I washed and brushed the complete thing before weighing it. It weighed just under 500gm and that is only one tuber. I don't yet know how many there are to be harvested from this one plant and I am also wondering just how many rhizomes I can separate from this years growth to expand next year's crop.

Anyway, the taste test. Having cut and peeled a slice and taken a big chomp I can say that the texture was something between an apple and a pear. Very juicy and cooling in the mouth with a pleasant taste and a definite but not overly-strong sweetness. I have nothing so far to provide a comparison as to whether this was more or less sweet then could be expected although I have read that after a couple of weeks of drying in the sun, the sweetness really comes to the fore. Still, fresh from the ground, it was a pleasant treat and I could have eaten more but I wanted to do other things with it. 

I decided to use half to make juice with some apples. Half a tuber (250gm) to five smallish apples almost filled my juicer jug and made a fine thirst quencher which I can recommend but which might have benefited from a slightly increased Yacon content.

The remainder I sliced, chipped and fried together with some tofu cubes in a small amount of coconut oil. I added to this a small can of baked beans which may not excite everyone but hey, I am not out to impress anyone here. This is the first time that I have eaten fairly crisp (in a fruity, apple type sense), semi-translucent, semi-sweet fries, and I can honestly say that the experience was very satisfying. OK. The baked beans. I admit it. They were there just as a backup in case the whole thing flopped, but there was nothing left on my plate when I had finished eating.

Grand Harvest Next Day

Today I dug up, well probed about in the dirt with my hands actually, the remainder of my edible Yacón tubers, and here they are.

Three and a half kg, just under 8 lbs, in total with yesterday's dig.  Very happy with that, considering they did not have a full growing season.   I left the main plant with it's new propagating rhizomes in the ground well covered with straw.  I will decide whether to lift them all for indoor over-wintering later.  From the number of new node points it looks like I will be able to start around 8 or 10 plantings next Spring.