Permaculture Blog

I didn’t know a praying mantis would catch something this big. The tomato hornworm must have been almost as big as the mantis was

by voice recognition on bob’s droid. Sorry for the Weird capitalization. Website http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/

Christmas eve just after nightfall I was leaving the house in the car and as I came down the driveway my lights shown out over the orchard. I caught a glimpse of something in the air and looked again and right at the top of the headlights was a barn owl flying around the orchard it made at least 3 loops/circuits while I watched. Hopefully looking for Gophers :-)

by voice recognition on bob’s droid. Sorry for the Weird capitalization. Website http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/

I must have planted my fruit trees on gophercentral. I would get home and a tree would be completely wilted. I could just lift it up out of the ground. I had a lemon that was maybe 2 inches thick and it looked like I had stuck it in a pencil sharpener. There would be a fresh mound of dirt at a gopher tunnel nearby.

But I really, really, didn’t want to poison them. And I didn’t want to trap them either.  Although I did trap one :-( They are truly rather awesome animals. (I looked them up on Wikipedia.) In addition, from my own observations they’re the only animal I know that can actually run at least as fast backwards as they can forward.

But I did not want to eliminate them as a food source for the Hawks, the coyote and the Bobcat that are are around. I kept telling the gophers that I was willing to share but only share. They wouldn’t listen.

So I tried several things such as putting wire mesh under the trees but I didn’t really want the wire in the ground either.

At one of the trees, I had dug down trying to at least find out where they were coming from and had ended up digging sort of a trench along 2 sides of the tree. Well the Gophers would not cross the trench they kept trying to fill it in but it was very easy to just scoop the dirt out in the morning. They wouldn’t dig under and finally gave up.

Now let’s be clear I have on other occasions put in a barrier such as wire or concrete. Filled the dirt back in. And they just went under it almost immediately. So my assumption is that with an open trench they have nothing to follow down and go under.

So I dug a trench around a couple more of the trees. And that worked so well I have ended up digging more trenches. I guess I kind of turned into a giant gopher myself. But knock on wood I have not had a gopher attack a tree in about 6 months now. Before the “moat” I lost 10 trees. I was so bummed. But I kept telling myself it was just expensive Hawk, bobcat, and coyote food.

Okay so now its forced sharing. The Gophers have their property and I have mine. The hawks and bobcats and coyotes still have gophers to eat and I have my trees.

And there is an even better way now.

So this gal looks exactly like the grey one that was in the same bush this last summer. I think it is, and just changed colors. I wonder if it’s the temperature or something else. Anyways it laid a second set of eggs in the bush. An Angels Trumpet — no karma there. Hope everyone is having a great week!

by voice recognition on bob’s droid. Sorry for the Weird capitalization. Website http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/

This guy or gal was on in the same area that the grey 1 was in several months ago. It looks almost identical except for the coloration I wonder if they can change colors.

by voice recognition on bob’s droid. Sorry for the Weird capitalization. Website http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/

I used to have all sorts of difficulties with the critters mostly rabbits and the ground squirrels chewing into the narrow irrigation lines to the trees. This would end up defeating the emitter at the end of the line and cause water to spray all around and not drip where I wanted it, and let all the water out so that the drippers at the far end had no water at all.

I guess I could have gone and bought a pellet gun and tried to shoot rabbits and ground squirrels. Many people would. The pesticide companies would sell you squirrel bait.

But here’s another way. Maybe a way of working with the environment as opposed to trying to break its will to mine. I took the idea of someone else, so it is not my idea and I wish I could give credit but I’ve lost that information.

I put bowls under some of the emitters which then fill up with water, dribble into the ground and act just as well as the dripper alone.  And the critters have a water bowl so they don’t have to chew into the lines.

In 4 months they have chewed into only one line. One that did not have a bowl but which now does. I have actually seen the birds, and animals come and drink out of the bowls. Problem solved. And the Bobcat, coyote, big big gopher snakes all still have poison free, free range rabbits and ground squirrels to eat. And speaking of food! Happy Thanksgiving to all!

The coyote waiting for me to stop taking pictures of it so it can go down into my constructed wetland, get a drink, and hunt for voles.

Well as this is supposed to be a blog about my constructed wetland not just about the critters that I find around it I guess I should mention some difficulties. Several of my plants started doing rather poorly in the wetland. I also use the water for irrigation around my fruit trees and some of the trees started looking poorly too. The water hyacinth had lost its chlorophyll and when I noticed the Asian pear doing the same thing (See the picture below) I was sort of worried.

My cranberries died as well as the blueberry.   Both acid loving plants.

I was cleaning up the house from when my significant other had departed and found a half empty bottle of liquid plumber under the sink in the bathroom that she had been using.

That was the only thing left in the bathroom. I would suspect that the other half had been put into my wetland before she left.

The bottle says not to put it even in septic tanks. As it is a very strong base I have added measured quantities of pool acid to the system and amazingly everything is looking much better. So my ex significant other gave me a lot of information that I can pass on to you — don’t put liquid plumber into your constructed wetland.  And if you do you can neutralize it with pool acid. :-)

Last night the praying mantis was sitting on this branch at the exact same spot. This morning there were the eggs in the picture. Got my fingers crossed :-)

by voice recognition on bob’s droid. Sorry for the Weird capitalization. Website http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/

One of my objections to some of the current ideas of teaching in the Los Angeles school district is the focus on critical thinking.

My friends you CANNOT think critically about something without any knowledge of it or the facts about it. You cannot think critically about whether 2+2 = 4 or 5 until you learn what addition means and what 2 is and how much 5 is. There are some schools in Los Angeles where there is no focus on facts before a (desire for/focus on) critical thinking.

You CANNOT think critically about chemical pesticides unless you know something of the facts about them.

If you only have facts from one side … If the research required for obtaining facts is only funded from one side– there CANNOT be a fair and CRITICAL discussion about any potential dangers of widespread pesticide use.

If data suggesting a link with something and say autism is suppressed and vilified and the surgeon who publishes it has of all things his license to practice surgery taken — and what a surgical license has to do with research on immunization is so beyond me it is in the next galactic quadrant. — that is not a fair and critical discussion.

If tobacco companies fund “research” that only has the purpose to show no link between cigarettes and lung cancer and to muddy the water — that is not contributing to a fair and CRITICAL discussion.

Learn about pesticide use and then decide.