Permaculture Blog

Flowers Bob 310 429 8477 www.PuraVidaAquatic.com

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/oregon-spotted-frog-05-09-2016.html

Oregon Spotted Frog Gains More Than 65,000 Acres,
20 River Miles of Protected Habitat in Oregon, Washington

PORTLAND, Ore.— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today designated 65,038 acres and 20.3 river miles of critical habitat for Oregon spotted frogs in Oregon and Washington.

For the second time in less than a month, SpaceX has landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a ship at sea.

Source: Wow! SpaceX Nails Rocket Landing At Sea Again

https://youtu.be/E6KoMAbz1Bw

A great little video done by Bruce Lanphear: Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University.

It is about some of the things that I also fuss about. And one of the big things I am concerned about is that we know so little about brain development.

Bruce has excellent points about the parts per billion of toxins and the parts per billion of prescribed drugs such as Ritalin.

Nice statistical examples.

I like number 6 stop spraying pesticides around your home

Bob www.PuraVidaAquatic.com

Friday was fired a day after the cartoon was published in a local Iowa newspaper. 

Source: Monsanto Strikes Again: Cartoonist Fired over Pro-Farmer Strip

Cartoonist Rick Friday was fired for a cartoon lampooning Monsanto a day before World Press Freedom Day.

It’s not entirely Monsanto’s fault but you better believe they knew what would happen– so maybe it is. They didn’t just pull a few ads they pulled them all. They absolutely knew what would happen.

But, I tell you who should be fired and it’s not the cartoonist Rick Friday. In my opinion Larry Kershner the Editor is the one that should be immediately terminated. For the love of advertising money he fired a cartoonist for simply being a cartoonist, and who had been working with the the paper for 21 years.

The editor, Larry Kershner writes on the paper’s website: “I am currently news editor for Farm News, an Ogden Newspapers publication based in Fort Dodge, Iowa. I have been a working journalist since 1981. I’ve worked for magazines and weekly and daily newspapers in California, Minnesota and Iowa. I have won my share of awards in several categories of reporting in Minnesota and Iowa,”.

He should give his “Awards” back.

All of them.

Just my opinion.

I’m not the fondest of the ground squirrels but they’re part of the ecosystem and the Hawks, Bobcats, and Coyotes need them. It’s amazing how many animals come to drink :-)

Love watching them.

I have California toad puppies all over the place. I can’t walk in the orchard without them hopping madly out of the way. The second picture shows 6 calmly sitting next to the pond. And in the first one there is a toad puppy that is posing for a close up. There were two dozen under a liner I have over my redworms. They run in and out of old gopher holes. It’s crazy :-) fun. Bob

Every single pool I have done, the ducks have shown up within a month. How do they know that the water is now clean for them?

I was also recently showing a client all the small aquatic organisms in her pool and she was so excited.  I have to laugh because I’m very good at wearing out the knees on my work pants getting down and looking at stuff and she was right there, looking too.  There were damselfly larvae, tadpoles, cyprids, midge larva, and a host of others. She sent me and some of her friends an email later on the day. And I am going to include a excerpt.

>
> I also saw beetles for the first time…maybe not beetles, but round and swimming with jerky motions back and forth at the edge… water beetles?  And I saw the little copepods….like fairies, fanning the water.
> And yesterday, saw my first polliwog!  It looked almost big enough to sprout limbs!  They are Pacific Chorus frogs!
>
>  I’m stoked.

I really do get a kick out of providing a product that people get “stoked” about :-)

And that the little California native aquatic animals can get “stoked” about too. :-)

The tears are real, the pain is real, the problem is real. So, I don’t come here playing games with you all. I don’t come to sit and be a part of a caucus where we talk and do nothing. You, you, you, you don’t know my pain. God forbid you go up to another grieving mother and say you know how she feels, that is a lie. Unless you have lost a child. Am I angry? Absolutely. I’m not angry enough to create a riot where I burn things down, but I will create a riot, I will set off so that people will understand that this is real. Movements move. Activists activate. We have got to stop talking and move. So I leave you with this: it is time to wake up, get up, step up, or shut up.

Source: Read the short, devastating speech Sandra Bland’s mother just made to

It is definitely time “to wake up, get up, step up”

A new study shows in some cases restored wetlands can be a source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Source: Restored Wetlands in California May Be Source Of Greenhouse Gases

Wow who’da thought that sticking a few twigs in the ground and calling it a wetland wouldn’t force it to actually act like an _old growth_ wetland.

I mean it’s certainly reasonable to hand over acres of old-growth redwood forest to a developer, have them clear cut it, stick a few seedlings in the ground in an entirely different area that they don’t happen to want to build on, and expect to have an old-growth redwood forest restored in a year or two.

Geez there is just something wrong with the world when we cannot just make biology do what we would like it to do all the time.

Oh and as just a comment. Compare the picture of the restored wetland above with the pictures of my wetland below ;-)