Rumigeration

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Please Watch "September Clues"

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Seed Saving and the Importance of Growing Heirlooms

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: KOYAANISQATSI
Date: Aug 31, 2008 7:19 PM

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: annie
http://www. myspace. com/upacrik
Date: Aug 24, 2008 12:31 PM

It's time to reap -- not just the garden's bounty of fruit and vegetable, nut and grain -- but also the seed for next year's garden

http://blog. oregonlive. com/homesandgardens/2008/08/save_your_seeds. html

Seed saving is economical. It's easy. It's what humans have done summer after summer, year after year, century after century.

Seeds take little storage space. One shoebox in a cool, dry place will hold your garden-in-waiting. Next spring, watch them come alive again in your garden and give some to friends to sow in their gardens, too.

Here's how:

PREPARE

• Stop deadheading flowers or harvesting vegetables to allow seedpods to form. Expect your garden to look a little untidy.

• Save seed only from standard or open-pollinated varieties. For vegetables, designate one plant of each variety for seed saving and harvest the rest.

COLLECT

Dry seed: Let seedpods dry on stalks. They will turn yellow or brown. Collect pods. In a bucket, break them open. Separate the seed from the chaff.

Wet seed: Throw tomatoes whole into a bucket. Scoop out innards of squash, melons, peppers and eggplant and throw them in a bucket. Add a little water and let them rot for several days. The flesh will separate from the seed and rise to the top. Viable seed will fall to the bottom. Pour out old water and then rinse the seed; pour it on a screen to dry. Once dry, rinse it again.

STORE

• Place clean, dry seed in paper bags, envelopes or glass jars. Baby food jars work well. Lightweight plastic bags are not moisture-proof and aren't recommended. Moisture is a seed's worst enemy.

• Label containers and keep in a cool, dry spot, 55 to 60 degrees, such as a closet in an unheated bedroom.

• Next spring, get sowing.

-- Kym Pokorny

--

Some other sources on seeds/saving

native seeds

seedsaving and seedsaver's resources

google directory of seedsavers

indigenous seed savers of new york state

Here are results from a google video search on how to save seeds... some of us learn better from seeing rather than reading... those of us with PTSD, head injuries, etc... often absorb and retain more information this way too... then there's always hands-on learning, but i guess we'll get that by doing it ourselves if we don't have others around who can teach us in person :-)

videos on how to save seeds..

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Why it Matters to Buy Heirloom Plants and Seeds
by Annie B. Bond

http://www. care2. com/greenliving/why-buy-heirloom-plants-seeds. html

The loss of genetic seed diversity facing us today may lead to a catastrophe far beyond our imagining. The Irish potato famine, which led to the death or displacement of two and a half million people in the 1840s, is an example of what can happen when farmers rely on only a few plant species as crop cornerstones.

One blight wiped out the single potato type that came from deep in the Andes mountains; it did not have the necessary resistance. If the Irish had planted different varieties of potatoes, one type would have most likely resisted the blight.

We can help save heirloom seeds by learning how to buy and save these genetically diverse jewels ourselves.

ABOUT SEEDS
One kind of seed, called First generation hybrids (F1 hybrids), have been hand-pollinated, and are patented, often sterile, genetically identical within food types, and sold from multinational seed companies.

A second kind of seeds are genetically engineered. Bioengineered seeds are fast contaminating the global seed supply on a wholesale level, and threatening the purity of seeds everywhere. The DNA of the plant has been changed. A cold water fish gene could be spliced into a tomato to make the plant more resistant to frost, for example.

A third kind of seeds are called heirloom or open-pollinated, genetically diverse jewels that have been passed on from generation to generation.

With heirloom seeds there are 10,000 varieties of apples, compared to the very few F1 hyprid apple types.

The Mayan word “gene” means “spiral of life.” The genes in heirloom seeds give life to our future. Unless the 100 million backyard gardeners and organic farmers keep these seeds alive, they will disappear altogether. This is truly an instance where one person–a lone gardener in a backyard vegetable garden–can potentially make all the difference in the world.

Here are two sources for finding heirloom seeds from seed saving organizations. These organizations represent a movement of several thousand backyard gardeners who are searching the countryside for endangered vegetables, fruits and grains.

The Seed Savers Exchange
The Seed Savers Exchange (SSE), is a non-profit tax-exempt organization that is saving old-time food crops from extinction.

Kent and Diane Whealy founded SSE in 1975 after an elderly, terminally ill relative bestowed three kinds of garden seeds brought from Bavaria four generations earlier.

The Whealys began searching for other “heirloom varieties” (seeds passed down from generation to generation) and soon discovered a vast, little-known genetic treasure.

SSE’s members are maintaining thousands of heirloom varieties, traditional Indian crops, garden varieties of the Mennonite and Amish, vegetables dropped from all seed catalogs and outstanding foreign varieties. Each year hundreds of members use SSE’s publications to distribute such seeds to ensure their survival.

Each winter SSE publishes a 304-page Seed Savers Yearbook which contains names and addresses of 900 members and 6,000 listings of rare vegetable and fruit varieties that they are offering to other gardeners. Seeds are obtained by writing directly to the members who are listing those varieties.

The Seed Savers Exchange
http://www. seedsavers. org/

Native seeds/SEARCH
Native seeds/SEARCH (NS/S) is a non-profit seed conservation organization working to preserve the traditional native crops of the U.S. Southwest and Northwest Mexico. For centuries Native American farmers have grown corn, squash, beans and other crops under a variety of growing conditions.

NS/S encourages the continued use of these plants in their native habitats, and also distributes them widely to home gardeners, researchers and free of charge to Native American farmers. Wild relatives of crops–such as wild beans, chiles, gourds and cotton–are included in Native Seeds/SEARCH’s conservation efforts.

NS/S’s informative annual seed catalog lists more than 200 varieties for sale. Each crop listing includes seed saving information as well as culture and folklore.

Native seeds/SEARCH
http://www. nativeseeds. org/catalog/seedlist. html

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Eco-Train

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: E-PETITIONS & E-ACTIVISM COMMUNITY
Date: Jul 12, 2008 11:02 AM

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Squall
Date: 12 Jul 2008, 14:23

ECO-TRAIN REPOST: The link to the "JOIN NOW" blog is working... MySpace glitch resolved...

THE ECO-TRAIN

Whoooo... Whoooo... the ECO-TRAIN has left the station!

All riders are friends of the Earth looking to connect with like minded people

Want to meet them?

Just click and add!

..

Note: Don't add friends too fast... myspace may get confused and think you're a spammer!

Wanna Climb Aboard and Ride the ECO-TRAIN?

JOIN NOW

KEEP THE ECO-TRAIN CHUGGIN' DOWN THE TRACKS
IF YOU DON'T REPOST... YOU DERAIL IT
SO, DON'T BE A CHOO-CHOO-BLOCKA!
REPOST... REPOST... REPOST!

ADD FRANKoDELIC'S PROFILES

ADD RIDERS FROM
THE ECO-TRAIN HALL OF FAME

ECO-TRAIN: WEEKS 1 - 10

ADD THIS WEEKS RIDERS

WEEK 15

WEEK 14

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WEEK 12

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Wanna Climb Aboard and Ride the ECO-TRAIN?

JOIN NOW

Show All Bulletins Posted By frankOdelic........

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Sunday, July 6, 2008

"I'm a Veggie, I only eat chicken and fish"

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Make A Difference! New World = Work Together!
Date: Jul 6, 2008 3:03 PM

From: Vegan Biker Pilot (Your Needed, Get Active)

CHICKEN & FISH ARE VERY SMALL THUS MANY MORE MUST BE AB-USED FOR SO LITTLE FOOD.

Some facts about chickens:

Chickens are inquisitive, interesting animals who are as intelligent as mammals like cats, dogs, and even primates.1 They are very social and like to spend their days together, scratching for food, cleaning themselves in dust baths, roosting in trees, and lying in the sun....

http://goveg. com/
However, Chickens are arguably the most abused animal on the planet. Each year in the United States, 9 billion chickens are killed for their flesh, and 245 million hens are raised for their eggs. 7, 8 Ninety-nine percent of these animals spend their lives in total confinement— from the moment they hatch until the day they are killed.9 More chickens are raised and killed for food than every other farmed animal combined, yet not a single federal law protects chickens from abuse—even though two-thirds of Americans say that they would support such a law...

But the more than 9 billion chickens raised on factory farms each year in the U.S. never have the chance to do anything that is natural to them.4 They will never even meet their parents, let alone be raised by them. They will never take dust baths, feel the sun on their backs, breathe fresh air, roost in trees, or build nests...

Chickens raised for their flesh, called “broilers” by the chicken industry, spend their entire lives in filthy sheds with tens of thousands of other birds, where intense crowding and confinement lead to outbreaks of disease. They are bred and drugged to grow so large so quickly that their legs and organs can’t keep up, making heart attacks, organ failure, and crippling leg deformities common. Many become crippled under their own weight and eventually die because they can’t reach the water nozzles. When they are only 6 or 7 weeks old, they are crammed into cages and trucked to slaughter...

Birds exploited for their eggs, called “laying hens” by the industry, are crammed together in wire cages where they don’t even have enough room to spread a single wing. The cages are stacked on top of each other, and the excrement from chickens in the higher cages constantly falls on those below. The birds have part of their sensitive beaks cut off so that they won’t peck each other as a result of the frustration created by the unnatural confinement. After their bodies are exhausted and their production drops, they are shipped to slaughter, generally to be turned into chicken soup or cat or dog food because their flesh is too bruised and battered to be used for much else...

Chickens are also genetically manipulated and pumped full of drugs to make them grow faster and larger—the average breast of an 8-week-old chicken is seven times heavier today than it was 25 years ago.17 Because of this unnaturally accelerated weight gain, these very young birds frequently die from heart attacks and lung collapse, something that would never happen in nature. According to Feedstuffs, a meat industry magazine, “[b]roilers now grow so rapidly that the heart and lungs are not developed well enough to support the remainder of the body, resulting in congestive heart failure and tremendous death losses.”...

DO YOU REALY WANT TO BE A PART OF THIS?

WOULDN'T YOU RATHER BE PART OF THIS?

For more information on going Veg: http://veganhealth. org/

http://veganbodybuilding. com/

If you feel mock chickens are more expensive.. think about the price you pay for disease and DEATH! YOU cant put a price on health

CHICKEN & FISH ARE VERY SMALL THUS MANY MORE MUST BE AB-USED FOR SO LITTLE FOOD.

SO MANY THAT SAY NO BEEF/PORK YOUR NOT HELPING ANIMALS REALLY. ALSO, CHICKEN ARE DRUGGED UP WITH HORMONES, STERIODS & ANTIBIOTICS WHICH ALSO MAKES IT EVEN MORE UNHEALTHY! FISH SUFFICATE TO DEATH...Scuba dive and you may appreciate them more :)

Friday, March 7, 2008

Sea Shepherd captain, Steve Irwin, shot by Japanese whalers

I cut and pasted this from a MySpace bullitin.

I have since learned that MySpace messes with the links/ disables them.
Please do not click on the links.
I will not post these without correcting the links in the future.

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Fighting for Animal Liberation
Date: Mar 7, 2008 10:23 AM

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: ~A Voice For Those Who Cannot Speak~
Date: Mar 7, 2008 1:32 PM

From: Protect Animals
Date: 07 Mar 2008, 09:35 PM

Sea Shepherd captain 'shot by Japanese whalers'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/07/2183690.htm?section=justin

Posted 4 hours 26 minutes ago
Updated 2 hours 8 minutes ago

Paul Watson: Bullet found in vest. (File photo) (AAP Image: Raoul Wegat)

Audio: Japanese whalers fired at me: Sea Shepherd captain (PM)
http://mpegmedia. abc. net. au:80/news/audio/pm/200803/20080307pm01-shot-shepherd. mp3

Audio: Japan didn't fire at Sea Shepherd captain: Inwood (PM) http://mpegmedia. abc. net. au:80/news/audio/pm/200803/20080307pm02-shepherd-reax. mp3

Audio: Paul Watson describes the incident. (ABC News)
http://mpegmedia. abc. net. au:80/news/audio/audio/200803/20080307-paulwatson-news. mp3
The Captain of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling ship, the Steve Irwin, claims he has been shot by Japanese whalers during a confrontation in the Southern Ocean.

Paul Watson says members of his crew threw stink bombs aboard the whaling ship, the Nisshin Maru, and the Japanese responded by returning flash grenades.

He says one of his crew was hit by a grenade and received minor injuries.

Mr Watson says he then felt a thud in his chest and found a bullet lodged in his bullet-proof vest.

"... but it also came through and I have this badge and it hit the badge and bent that too so it just left a bruise really on my chest - so it could have - if I wasn't wearing the vest it could have been pretty serious," Mr Watson said.

He says even before shots were fired, the Japanese whalers were acting recklessly in their confrontation.

"We were doing what we usually do, which is putting stink bombs on deck," he said.

"We go out of our way to make sure we don't throw them near anybody, but they were throwing the flash grenades directly at us."

Mr Watson says there is no justification for the whalers opening fire.

"These people are criminals, they're down here killing whales illegally in a place they're not supposed to be."

"Why are there armed coast guard people attacking Australian citizens and other citizens in Australian Antarctic territory?"

Japan's Coast Guard Agency has told the ABC in Tokyo that it received a report earlier today from its officers on board the whaling fleet that the Sea Shepherd had been obstructing one of the Japanese ships.

The Coast Guard says it will release a statement shortly detailing the current situation.

The Federal Government says it has received assurances that crew members on the Japanese whaling ship fired warning balls at the protesters, not gunshots.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith says Japanese officials have told the Australian embassy in Tokyo that warning balls or flashbangs were fired at the ship.

The devices are designed to make a loud noise but not to injure

Japan has also advised the Australian Embassy that a crew member on board the Japanese whaling boat fired a warning shot in the air.

Mr Smith has repeated his call for all parties in the Southern Ocean to exercise restraint.

He says he absolutely condemns actions by crew members of any boat that could injure anyone on the high seas.

http://www. abc. net. au/news/stories/2008/03/07/2183690. htm?section=justin

Monday, March 3, 2008

How do You Eat Compared to Other Countries? Pics Say It

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Fox
Date: Mar 3, 2008 6:18 PM

RE: RE: How do You Eat Compared to Other Countries? Pics Say It All!

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: www.TeddsAdventure.com Welcomes You
Date: Mar 3, 2008 11:51 AM

lysistrata
food consumption of different countries

Take a Good Look at the Diet of Each Country

Italy: The Manzo family of Sicily

Food expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11

Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide

Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07

United States: The Revis family of North Carolina (I really hope most American
families eat more fresh fruits and vegetables and less junk food than this family.)

Food expenditure for one week $341.98

Mexico: The Casales family of Cuernavaca

Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09

Poland: The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna

Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27

Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo

Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53

Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo

Food expenditure for one week: $31.55

Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village

Food expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03

Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp

Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23

"Society comprises two classes: those who have more food than appetite, and those who have more appetite than food." ~ Sébastien-Roch Nicholas de Chamfort

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: www.TeddsAdventure.com Welcomes You
Date: Mar 3, 2008 11:51 AM

lysistrata
food consumption of different countries

Take a Good Look at the Diet of Each Country

Friday, February 22, 2008

Thousands of Hibernating Bats, Sick and Dead

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Why.
Date: Feb 23, 2008 12:11 AM

what else is new, eh. but the continued loss of bees coupled with more of this, particularly if it spreads around the country, surely will leave us without much in the crops department.

Researchers: Why are thousands of hibernating bats dying?

ROSENDALE, N.Y. (AP) - Bats in New York and Vermont are mysteriously dying off by the thousands, often with a white ring of fungus around their noses, and scientists in hazmat suits are crawling into dank caves to find out why.

"White nose syndrome," as the killer has been dubbed, is spreading at an alarming rate, with researchers calling it the gravest threat in memory to bats in the U.S.

.. BOXAD TABLE --> "This is definitely unprecedented," said Lori Pruitt, an endangered-species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Bloomington, Ind. "The hugest concern at this point is that we do not know what it is."

A significant loss of bats is chilling in itself to wildlife experts. But - like the mysterious mass die-offs around the country of bees that pollinate all sorts of vital fruits and vegetables - the bat deaths could have economic implications. Bats feed on insects that can damage dozens of crops, including wheat and apples.

"Without large populations of bats, there would certainly be an impact on agriculture," said Barbara French of Bat Conservation International of Austin, Texas.

White nose syndrome has afflicted at least four species of hibernating bats, spreading from a cluster of four caves near Albany last winter to more than a dozen caverns up to 130 miles away.

Alan Hicks, a wildlife biologist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, said he fears a catastrophic collapse of the region's bat population and is urgently enlisting experts around the country to find the cause.

It is not even clear if the fungus around the bats' noses - something scientists say they have never seen before - is a cause or a symptom. It may be a sign the bats are too sick to groom themselves, said Beth Buckles, a veterinary pathologist at Cornell University.

The die-offs could be caused by bacteria or a virus. Or the bats could be reacting to some toxin or other environmental factor. Whatever it is, afflicted bats are burning through their winter stores of fat before hibernation ends in the spring, and appear to be starving.

The Northeast has generally had mild winters in recent years. But Hicks said he doubts that is the culprit in some way, since there are no reports of large die-offs in warmer states.

Nor are there any known links between what is wiping out the bees and what is killing the bats. The cause of the bee deaths is still a mystery, though scientists are looking at pesticides, parasites and a virus not previously seen in the U.S.

Researchers said there is no evidence the mysterious killer is any threat to humans. Scientists venturing into the caves wear hazardous-materials suits and breathing masks primarily to protect the bats, not themselves.

Hicks said it is possible that a cave explorer introduced the problem in the Albany-area caves and that it spread from there. "It could have been some caver in Tanzania with a little mud on his boot and a week later he's in a cave in New York," he said.

New York officials are asking people to stay out of bat caves in case humans are unwittingly spreading the problem. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is asking people not to enter caves with gear or clothing used in any New York and Vermont cave within the past two years.

The first inkling of trouble came in January 2007, when a cave explorer spotted an unusual number of bat carcasses around the mouth of a cave in the hills west of Albany. Within a month, people in the area were calling in with reports of bats flying outside in the middle of the day.

"We didn't know anything other than bats were coming out and they were just dying on the landscape," Hicks said. "They were crashing into snow banks, crawling into wood piles and dying."

By winter's end, 8,000 to 11,000 bats were presumed dead in the four caves. The mystery affliction has spread much farther this winter.

Death counts are not in yet for this winter since afflicted bats die slowly. But Hicks said there are 200,000 or more bats hibernating in caves where white nose has been detected.

Hicks recently led a team of scientists into an abandoned mine in this Hudson Valley town about 80 miles north of New York City. He directed his headlamp on a cluster of seven brown bats, smaller than mice, hanging high on the limestone wall. Four had the telltale white flecks on their muzzles.

He tapped one of the afflicted bats with a long stick, and it fell, already dead. Another groggily spread its papery wings on Hicks' gloved hand. The sickly bat was put into a cardboard takeout-soup container to be put to death and studied, since it was doomed anyway.

A group of Indiana bats, a federally protected endangered species, was spotted hanging lower down in the mine for cooler air, a common strategy for sick bats.

Hicks whispered grimly: "These guys are toast."