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 ;-)
I have developed three different ecologies that can be added to a converted pool separately from the filter modules.
The plant component can be made up of:
1) Only California natives.
2) A majority of California natives with some edibles.
or 3) All edible plants such as Watercress, taro, Cattail, and others.
Wouldn’t it be cool to grow your own food in your swimming pool.
I have been adding a few of these plants to some of my pool conversions.
I have also been mind boggled at the biology in my 2 newest conversions. It maybe the time of year but the damselfly larvae population has just exploded! I probably have 100s of larva in 3 square feet of surface. They’re going to hatch out and decimate the mosquitoes that fly in from the neighborhood. No chemical pesticides and neurotoxins to control mosquitoes around these pool conversions :-)
Bob
The long and daring career of Harriet Tubman, explained briefly
Source: You have no idea how hardcore Harriet Tubman really was
Fighting for what is beneficial for the human race is what permaculture is about. Read the story! Harriet Tubman did not take the easy way out. I will not say that she fought for what is right because everybody believes their own version of right, but she fought for justice, and equality, and morality. Also words that are just words. But I fully believe that she fought for what she believed in, and things that benefited Humanity of her time.
I believe it is important for permaculturists to fight for things that benefit all of Humanity. I believe that it’s important to not take the easy way out of simply agreeing with people that want to pollute and destroy the environment, try to kill everything that’s in their way, and believe that ignorance is bliss. Harriet Tubman didn’t know what we know today about molecular biology but that’s absolutely fine with me because it was honest lack of information rather than deliberate ignorance.
You….
Go…
Gurl…
A study finds the world’s most widely used herbicide turning up in a bunch of morning favorites.
Source: What’s for Breakfast? How About Some Monsanto Weed Killer?
Yeah but organic free-range eggs? Wow
Most of the diversity outlined on the new tree has been hiding in plain sight.
Source: Scientists Unveil New ‘Tree of Life’
Humans, plants, gorillas, chimpanzees, dinosaurs, lizards, birds, shrimp, fish, all are in the amoebozoa. :-)
Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday that there is now enough evidence to definitively say that the Zika virus can cause unusually small heads, brain damage and other neurological problems in infants born to infected mothers
Source: Zika Causes Birth Defects, C.D.C. Officials Confirm
Well there you go. The New York Times and the CDC have proven it. Case closed.
