Permaculture Blog

I have a neighbor next door who is wonderful! .  The other morning, after I had sent her the post on this blog about the bald eagle, she sent me the following response.

The other –

morning just before 7 am we had a fun start to the new year.

We sat in bed for about 30 minutes watching a bobcat under our bird feeders.

First “B” noticed that there weren’t any birds around and thought that he saw a rabbit sitting under the bird feeder that is on a pole when he realized it was a bobcat!

It was sitting there grooming then went over to a gopher hole in the same area and sat and watched the hole.  She (don’t know if male of female though it was on the smaller side) started to crouch, then sprang on the hole catching the gopher.  She drug it a few feet and proceeded to have her breakfast (later “B” didn’t find any trace of the gopher – so she ate everything).

After eating she groomed then:

Got a drink of water out of a water tray “B” has there.  After drinking she started to play in the water with her paws.

Groomed herself some more under the bird feeders.

She went back over to the hole & started to throw dirt around.

Ran partway up one of the trees.

Groomed some more.

Then went off to the shrubbery in the gully between our houses.

It was so cool just to watch her, especially when she was playing around.  Looked just like any cat.

Being able to watch her, the coyotes, weasels & birds of prey is always a reinforcement of why we don’t put out poison for either the gophers or ground squirrels.

Love living here & being able to watch all the wildlife

I have another neighbor across the street who lets his dogs out in the morning with no fence and no leash and they harass the people walking up and down the street, run around on everybody else’s property, and cause damage.

And the other morning he told me that quote _my_ coyotes had attacked and seriously injured one of his dogs. And he meant it!

He was not kidding around. He was not laughing at himself. He honestly believes in his head that because of me his dog got attacked by coyotes.

I’ve been looking at several websites that promote adopting cats to use as rodent defense in barns and outbuildings in rural areas. I think the people running these programs are wonderful, kind hearted, and are doing all they can to try and stem the tide of unwanted animals.

But I must completely disagree with their good intentions. And if a reader is one of these good intentioned people or is close to a similar program, I’m very sorry.

But I think that it is absolutely appalling to dump a flood of unwanted city cats in rural areas. And if you are thinking of doing this, Stop!

While initially it sounds like such an obvious and wonderfull solution. It is not. Outside cats kill the native reptile preditors, they kill our song birds, and discourage the presence of owls and hawks.

I was a member of a big community garden and we finally got rid of the cats. Against several old “cat ladies” wishes. We then actually had less rodent damage. And fewer gophers. The redtailed hawks would come down and sit on fences and railings and get the gophers. :-)

I actually saw the red-tailed hawks doing just that, eating gophers and dropping their skulls, on multiple occasions. I, on several occasions, walked over and got the skulls that the hawks dropped and know that several were gophers. And I love biology and its not that hard for me to tell the difference between a vole skull, a mouse skull, and a gopher skull

More and more people are realizing that outside cats are not the answer. And to take the flood of city bred cats and place them in a rural environment where they cause great havoc is not a long term solution.

And to the people running these programs, I realize that you are trying to make a living but sometimes its best for the environment to find another way.

Best to everyone for a great 2016

Bob www.PuraVidaAquatic.com

Twins born in a San Diego hospital will forever share different birthdays: one baby was born in the final minute of New Year’s Eve, while the other debuted in the first minutes of New Year’s Day.

Source: San Diego Twins Born in Different Years

I like this. It is cute. And I decided to put it here because it’s a great example of analog versus digital. Think about it. Have fun

Bob

Source: Elon Musk: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is ready to fire again

Wooooooohooooooo!

The open source community was stunned this week to learn that Ian Murdock, the “ian” in Linux distribution Debian, has died at the age of 42.

Source: Open-source community mourns Debian creator Ian Murdock

There is nothing more permaculture than open source software! I don’t believe that Permaculture is about going back 50 years and I do believe that technology can drag us out of our hole. And certainly open source is the future.

Open source software is about living _with_ the world, and with the community, to its very core!

We all have different strengths and while I don’t know personally of Ian Murdock’s belief system, I think the Permaculture community should include him as a founding member. :-)

Ian Murdock I salute you.

Bob

Many of you in reading this little blog know that I don’t tend to pull punches with organizations that I feel aren’t living up to their promises. I have been critical of the Friends of the Madrona Marsh I have been critical of Paul Wheaton, and with large permaculture websites whose goal it seems to me is to sell things (in some cases snake oil) and not actively promote many of the basic permaculture ideas about not killing everything on the face of the planet. I have been critical of big chemical companies, Monsanto, genetically modified organisms, cigarette companies, and even the readers of my own blog.

I have worked for Deer Park in Escondido, and a couple of months ago had a situation where the pond water became very toxic. It killed all the small aquatic organisms I had been working to establish.

This was the third time in so many years that something toxic was added to the pond. In the first two cases it was obviously an algaecide as the algae immediately took on a sickly green color and certain sensitive Daphne species were wiped out. In those situations I recommended that they do water changes and keep the water off their landscaping because algaecides are known carcinogens. I also cautioned them that the kids playing in the water would allow the pond water to air dry on their skin which would concentrate the carcinogens in the water on their skin.

This time it did not look like an algaecide. I took water samples and ran biological assays with a variety of different organisms and it killed all of them. Even killing insect nymphs. The toxin may have been an insecticide used on landscaping in the general area of the pond or come in with landscaping mulch. But it’s a big pond ( thousands of gallons) which means an awful lot of toxin got in there.

One of the difficulties with identifying any sort of toxin is that you can’t test for something you don’t know what it is. It could have been neem oil it could have been a variety of things and it would be pointless to spend tens of thousands of dollars to try to test for 100 different compounds. Regardless, I pointed out that the water had become toxic enough to kill insects and literally a week later they put up a sign “Bee Friendly Garden”. WTF.

I was upset not only because I had been exposed, but because bees regularly drink (see WTF above) and dragonfly larvae, and hundreds of different aquatic organisms making up an entire ecology had been killed.

But, I have dealt with situations like this before. People put crazy things in their ponds. And it might not have been avoidable. Yet this time when I tried to talk to them, the response I got was less than concerned. Which bothers me even more then the fact that there was a problem.

That an organization that has children regularly dabbling around in their pond (see pictures below) would respond to “something toxic has gotten into the water” with we will think about it is not the best response. IMO.

Not what can we do. Or, what is your suggestion. My friend Diane Kennedy talked me out of terminating the client.

So I gave them a recommendation to set the filtration system external to the pond so that if something like that happens again that at least the system can be shut down to save the biological systems. And of course being a big organization they can’t decide. Not good.

What do they care for more?: A nice landscaped area that they can put up signs that don’t tell the truth or the children?

So the head guy comes to me yesterday and says that “the Friends of Deer Park have lost their confidence in me.” And my response probably surprised him a bit because I said “Oh good”.

My friends, I have terminated more clients than have terminated me. I believe in putting your money where your mouth is and I believe that there are a variety of people out there that do not deserve my abilities or in this case want them. And there are too many who do and will.

And now they will hire someone who won’t monitor water toxicity, won’t be _able_ to monitor water toxicity, won’t care about monitoring the biological activity of the water. And the groups of kids will come back and be exposed and be in 10-20 years no one will ever be able to prove what gave them a neurological issue or skin cancer or….

And Friends of Deer Park, I cannot understand how you think that it’s good Buddhist behavior to expose people to toxins so that you can have a nice looking area, and make money on people coming to your property. And put up signs like “Bee Friendly Garden” when it’s anything but. But I am also very sure that you’re very comfortable in the fact that you are good Buddhists and good stewards of the earth.

And how an organization that claims to be Buddhist can rationalize exposing children to carcinogens is beyond me.

I am standing near downtown Los Angeles and sent the following to another client who responded with pleasure that they were so blessed.

I have just been fortunate enough to be standing here and watching a little Bushtit pick bugs off the vine along one of the walls down by the pond. Just before that I heard a Pacific Chorus frog singing in the bushes.

It is becoming their breeding season and I expect to have tadpoles in some of the features again this year. You have dragonfly larvae in many of the features which will emerge next year. Thank you!, thank you all! for working with me to have a non-toxic wildlife node so near downtown LA. Have a wonderful new year.

Bob

I am blessed that the majority of my clients are getting it.

http://www.vegetariat.com/2015/12/plant-guild-5-mining-plants/

Now for a little comfrey prosthelytizing: Comfrey keeps coming back when chopped, so it is often grown around fruit producing trees to be chopped and dropped as a main fertilizer. Its leaves are so high in nutrition that they are a compost activator, an excellent hen and livestock food (dried it has 26% protein), and have been heavily used in traditional medicine. Also called Knitbone, the roots contain allantoin, a substance also found in mother’s milk, which among other benefits helps heal bone

Bob
http://www.PuraVidaAquatic.com

I almost put goop down these holes and then I said to myself, you know they are not doing any damage here. It may be a jumping off point to attack my trees 20 30 feet away but right here, right now, it’s not a problem.

I claim that I am willing to share so let’s do it. I don’t need to beat up on the gophers now, simply because I can. I almost feel sorry for putting goo down their holes because it is so easy for me and so annoying for them.

I can’t imagine how it would be to come home and find my living room full of goop. I do feel sorry for them. And the incredible thing about this new system is that I _can_ feel sorry for them. And I can redirect them instead of killing them. But the bald eagle circling the other day I guess is a bigger worry than a little bit of goop in a new expansion project :-)

Peace to everyone and please try to live with the world instead of against it.

Bob http://www.PuraVidaAquatic.com

http://www.vegetariat.com/2015/12/plant-guild-4-nitrogen-fixing-plants/

[Quote]
It would be pompous for us to believe that plants, which began about 450 million years ago on Earth, just fiddled around until their true keepers (humans) came along and evolved enough to produce chemical nitrogen to dump onto their roots.
[EndQuote]

Oh how true, how true!
Bob

http://www.PuraVidaAquatic.com