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theexleynatureblog · 4 years

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Black Footed-Ferrets

Mustela nigripes is the official name of North America’s only native ferret species, and one of the world’s most endangered mammals.

Approximately over 5 million lived in the prairie-grassland region of the United State, from Southern Canada to northern Mexico, where they lived close to their main food source - prairie dogs.

Though the carnivores eat other stuff, the prairie dog makes up 90% of their voracious diet. Due to high metabolism, ferrets need to eat a lot. One individual may eat over 100 prairie dogs in a year! The rodents are also provided shelter. Ferrets will live in the very same tunnels that the prairie dogs dig.

Unfortunely, prairie dog’s tendency to dig make them a vermin for ranchers. Not only could groundhogs dig up fields, their holes became a hazard for horses and people who could break their leg or twist an ankle.

In the 1900′s, landowners practically went to war with the rodents, leading to a rapid population decline. Around this time, plague was also introduced into prairie dog colonies, worsening the problem. As the food went, so did the eaters.

Ferrets were listed as endangered in 1967, and thirteen years later - right after the Endangered Species Act was signed into action - the last captive individual died. They were thought to be extinct until a small relic population was discovered in Wyoming thanks to a ranch dog named Shep. Scientist rushed to study and map the colony, until a disease outbreak left only 18 ferrets alive. A captive breeding program rounded up the survivors and placed them in captivity, with the goal of releasing new populations at 19 different sights in the western prairie country. Since then, over 7,000 kits have been born and 3,000 released into the wild. Of the 24 different states released in, 4 of them have self-sustaining populations as of 2015.

The battle is not quite over yet. Limited genetic diversity and disease outbreaks are still a major problem. Lack of diversity on genes means that ferrets will be less likely to survive a major environmental disaster. For example: let’s say temperatures rise in the west to a point where ferrets are killed by heat exhaustion. If there was great genetic diversity, odds are, at least one of the ferrets would be less susceptible to the heat thanks to a different gene (maybe something that makes their coat thinner, or allows them to operate at a higher body temperature). That individual would then spread this helpful gene in reproduction, and the next generations would be able to live with the extreme environmental challenge. If everyone has a very similar genetic code, that means that everyone is equally susceptible to environmental changes or disease outbreaks. Similar genes also increases the risk of negative mutations showing up - stuff like deformed bones or loss of fertility.

Black-footed Ferrets in Preconditioning Pens! Photo Credit: Ryan Moehring / USFWS

Lack of genetic diversity is a tricky problem, and a common one in species reintroduced to the wild (American bison also have this problem). Its tricky because genetics is difficult to study, and it only started taking off relatively recently in the 1990′s. Public outcry that genetic experimentation is morally wrong as a means of ‘playing God’ (thanks Jurassic Park) also does not help. The only way to save genetic diversity in a small population is to create it manually. We need to figure out a safe way to do this by funding genetic research. Success means we could help the ferret population by giving individuals immunity to diseases like plague.

At first to combat plague, burrows were sprayed with flea-powder, as fleas were the ones spreading the disease from prairie dogs to ferrets. This was done by people manually going out, finding burrows, and spraying them. Even with only a hundred individuals out there, how many burrows do you suppose existed? Yeah. And every. Single. One. Had to be sprayed for this to be successful. Turns out, it was a failed attempt. Not every burrow could be found, and fleas eventually developed resistance to the pesticide.

The next step was vaccinations. How do you vaccinate wild prairie dogs? Peanut butter, of course!

A study found peanut butter was the favorite flavor, so researchers used it to cover oral vaccines. A blue dye was added to stain the prairie dogs whiskers and feces, to confirm they’d eaten the vaccine. Sometimes, airplanes are used to air-drop the treats!

To ensure captive animals could successfully survive in the wild, conservation groups also set up a ‘ferret school’ for kits. Once kits were old enough, they would be placed in an outdoor group to learn digging, hunting, and surviving the elements.

A kit learning how to catch their prey, one of the most important skills a ferret can learn! Photo Credit: Kimberly Fraser / USFWS

For more information about Black Footed Ferrets and their Conservation Programs, click the links below!

WWF

Smithsonian zoo

National Geographic

Biological Diversity

Defenders of Wildlife

Life Gone Wild

#wildlife #ferrets #cute #science #wildlife management #nature #conservation #history #animals

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vladynews · 4 years

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You are what you eat

You've certainly heard the expression many times, "You are what you consume." Have you ever actually considered what it implies? And also do you think about it when you're making food options?

Let's think about vegetarian lifestyle

In some ways, we do become what we consume, actually. Have you ever seen an example of your blood plasma after consuming a convenience food burger? What was previously a clear fluid becomes over cast with the fat as well as cholesterol that's soaked up from consuming a high-fat burger.

As well as when you think regarding it, we also become what we do not consume. When we switch over from eating meat to a vegetarian-based diet plan, we end up being less fat, much less susceptible to many kinds of cancers. When we're leaner and also eating fewer animal items, then several other wellness as well as physical fitness issues are lowered.

If you have a family history of high cholesterol or high blood pressure, after that it's particularly incumbent on you to revise your eating practices. Relocating towards a much more vegan diet plan has been revealed statistically to decrease the incidence of so many of the diseases of industrialized countries. Vegetarians are statistically healthier than omnivorous persons; they're leaner as well as live longer.

Isn't it time to think about what you want to be and to eat appropriately? Do you want to be sluggish and fat? Do you desire the risk that goes with consuming pet products, with their high fat material? Or do you want to resemble and be what vegetarians are? Leaner and fitter with a longer anticipated life-span. It's never ever far too late to transform what you're doing and also raise your chances for a much longer, fitter life.

Humans did not constantly consume meat

Do you ever before think of just how much we've drawn away from the course of our pre-historic forefathers and they're consuming patterns? Take into consideration how the earliest humans progressed, as well as what they ate. They were hunter-gatherers as well as did not develop with the characteristics of carnivores. People aren't made to tear pets apart as well as eat their flesh. When you check out carnivorous animals, such as wild felines, you can see their teeth are created to rip and tear, not eat.

Also our gastrointestinal systems are not specifically suited to consuming meat. Possibly earliest male observed predators consuming meat, and also if they could not locate any of the natural foods they were used to eating, such as vegetables, berries, nuts as well as grains, then they may have thought that eating meat would certainly at the very least sustain life.

We naturally would have foraged for our food, consuming roots and berries, fruits as well as nuts. We would certainly have watched the apes peeling bananas, or crushing nuts on stones to obtain at the meat of the nut.

Eating meat needs prep work as well as most importantly, fire. Until guy found fire, he was mostly vegan, living in what was the natural order of points. Vegetarian eating is a much more all-natural means of consuming, in addition to being healthier.

Why did people begin eating meat?

It should have felt abnormal at first, to eat pet flesh. After all, we're not so far removed from animals ourselves. Perhaps it also really felt cannibalistic. There could not have actually been that much intellectual distinction in between humans and other animals. When humans were pure vegetarians, they were staying in harmony with the planet as well as with the various other animals co-habiting the world with them. Their closest pet relatives, apes, were vegetarians. Consuming the items of the planet, like plants, grains and fruits that they might gather as well as consume would have seemed the all-natural order of points.

But necessity is the mom of creation. Primitive men that stayed in icy locations, or that stayed in a location that came to be ruined by fire, would certainly have consumed anything to survive. Just like the soccer players whose plane collapsed in the hills of Chile, and also were required to consume the flesh of various other gamers who died in the accident, earliest guy eventually had to make the option for survival, which might have consuming meat for the very first time as well as transforming human background-- and health and wellness-- forever.

We can think of that guys initially consumed meat that had actually been charred or prepared by virtue of being caught in an all-natural woodland fire. They might have ultimately consumed raw meat, if essential, but we can additionally think of that our earliest digestive systems rebelled versus eating raw meat.

Visualize having actually consumed raw foods as well as veggies for ages, and also all of an unexpected, including meat products into your system. You may have heard buddies who were vegetarians inform tales of attempting to consume meat and also coming to be violently unwell after that.

Biologists will inform you we're actually not developed to eat meat, yet we adjusted to it. In the timeline of human history, eating meat is a fairly recent transformative advancement.

Animal suffering

What are the reasons we consume food? That might seem like a silly concern, since we consume to feed our bodies, first off. Much of us also obtain an emotional gratification when we consume, and the majority of us are omnivores, indicating we eat whatever, consisting of meat and also chicken.

There are many compelling factors to relocate towards a vegetarian diet plan, most of them health-related. Many individuals decline to consume meat because of the savage therapy of the pets that are mass-produced to feed the populace. Animal farming on the range that it requires to be to satisfy U.S. usage is grotesquely harsh. When you eat meat, you're eating the flesh of an animal whose life has been unnaturally shortened by overfeeding it to obtain it to an abattoir earlier. They're kept in little pens and cages, where they sustain chronic tension. If they birth their young online, their children are taken from them, often a day after they're birthed. They're fed development hormonal agents and anti-biotics and avoided the natural habits and also actions that define the typical life expectancy. Pigs aren't enabled to root. Calf bones are kept stable. Poultries are kept in cages, their beaks scorched off with a burning hot knife to combat aggressive habits that are the outcome of unnatural confinement.

Do you actually think the flesh of the pet is different from its spirit as well as its energy? Is a pet so really different? We do not need meat or milk for survival.

Isn't it time most of us started assuming in different ways of what we eat to nurture our bodies? We're progressed from herbivores, as well as yet we've diverted off our very own transformative path. One can make an instance for hunting and also consuming meat when it's the only ways for survival. That's no much longer the case and also our alternatives are abundant. Do they have to include the flesh of enduring pets? How can that possibly be taken into consideration nourishment?

Different sorts of vegetarians

Many individuals consider vegetarians as one uniform group that just doesn't eat meat. Absolutely nothing could be additionally from the reality. There are different classifications of vegetarians as varied as the factors for going vegan to begin with.

A vegetarian is typically specified as a person who doesn't eat meat. A lacto ovo vegetarian does not eat meat, fish or chicken, but does take in eggs, milk or cheese.

A vegan is somebody that doesn't eat any type of animal product or by-product, including dairy products food. They consume just vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains and also vegetables. They also don't use pet products, such as natural leather. Vegans likewise don't use white sugar since it's frequently processed with a material derived from pet bones that lightens the sugar.

There are various other classifications within the vegan community. Fruitarians, for example, consume only fruit. Their rationale is that fruits, including fruits such as tomatoes, are self-perpetuating and also do not need to be grown to develop the food source. They consider it a way of consuming that's most in balance as well as consistency with the earth, the most all-natural.

Every one of the above will consume cooked vegetables, fruits and beans. There is likewise a growing activity in the direction of consuming only raw or living foods. This based upon the presumption that cooking food processes the majority of the nutrients out of it, as well as to get all the dietary worth, vitamins and also amino acids from food, it's finest taken in raw, or juiced. If cooked in all, it ought to only be prepared to a little over 100 degrees, so the nutrients are still kept.

The more limiting you come to be with your diet, nonetheless, the more enlightened you need to end up being to make sure you're getting all the required proteins as well as vitamins that you require to keep good health, especially muscle mass and also heart wellness.

Cleansing

When individuals speak about detoxing as well as cleansing the body of unsafe contaminants, it's often seen as an edge component of vegetarians. People actually do not like to think of unsafe toxins accumulating in their colons or in their arteries, but it's frequently a spin-off of a carnivorous diet. A diet plan that's high in fat and also refined foods has a tendency to reduce our gastrointestinal systems, as well as our removal procedures are additionally disturbed.

This can permit unsafe germs and contaminants to collect and also can produce a basic feeling of sluggishness, as well as a host of digestive system conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome or colitis. When we start consuming a more healthy vegan diet regimen, we begin to obtain even more nutritional fiber into our systems, as well as all of a sudden, our digestive system systems begin to work better,

When you get rid of high-fat meat and also refined foods from your diet plan, then much of your body's energy is freed from the extreme work of absorbing these foods. Every little thing comes to be clearer-- your blood, your body organs, your mind. You start to become extra familiar with the hazardous nature of the food you would certainly been consuming before.

Poisoning is of a lot greater problem in the twentieth century than ever before. There are lots of brand-new and stronger chemicals, air and water air pollution, radiation as well as nuclear power. We ingest new chemicals, utilize even more drugs of all kinds, eat more sugar and also refined foods, and also day-to-day misuse ourselves with various energizers and also sedatives. The occurrence of several toxicity illness has actually boosted also. Cancer and heart disease are two of the major ones. Arthritis, allergies, obesity, and also several skin problems are others. Additionally, a vast array of symptoms, such as migraines, tiredness, discomforts, coughs, intestinal issues, and problems from immune weakness, can all be connected to poisoning. When you begin a vegetarian consuming strategy, your body at some point cleanses itself of the unsafe impacts of these harmful foods.

Possibly earliest male observed carnivores consuming meat, as well as if they couldn't locate any of the natural foods they were used to consuming, such as veggies, berries, nuts as well as grains, after that they may have thought that consuming meat would certainly at least sustain life.

Many of us likewise acquire an emotional gratification when we consume, as well as most of us are omnivores, meaning we consume every little thing, including meat as well as chicken.

When you eat meat, you're eating the flesh of an animal whose life has actually been artificially shortened by overfeeding it to obtain it to a slaughterhouse earlier. Several people assume of vegetarians as one homogeneous group that just does not consume meat. A lacto ovo vegetarian doesn't eat meat, fish or chicken, however does consume eggs, milk or cheese.

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aeriseta · 6 years

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Some stuff I believe

I was talking with a friend recently about my ideas on God and spirituality. I've been wanting to share what I believe in for awhile, but have resisted the urge to because I didn't feel like I had a whole hell of a lot figured out and no accurate way to articulate what I believed. One of my favorite pass-times is discussing beliefs with friends because it's always interesting, and I always leave the conversation feeling like I've learned something! After all, friendly debate is a way to practice articulation and recall of information!

So what do I believe? I believe in a lot actually. My beliefs encompass my living, too! I recycle because I want to help save the planet. I want to help save the planet because if we don't, our resources will be depleted, natural disasters will keep gaining in magnitude and frequency until our Earth Mother (Yes, I kind of believe it's a real thing, like Eywa from Avatar.) brings things back into balance, so to speak. I believe that if the human race is to survive, we willhave to adopt real sustainability practices and refuse to deviate from them!

Part of being sustainable means being conscious of what foods you buy and what they are packaged in. Can that container be recycled or reused some how? If the answer is no, opt for something else where possible. "We vote with our dollars!" (Uncle Roy) That means what we buy is what companies will want to sell to us. I remember a time when it was difficult for me to buy organic food for my family but now you see organic food just about everywhere because more and more people have made it known that organic is what we want!

I still don't see much recycling in my opinion. I think there should be recycling bins EVERYWHERE, in gas stations, banks, malls, restaurants, bars, even. I also think there should not be a law against dumpster diving! I swear that is one of the dumbest laws I ever heard of! If something is in the trash, it should be free game and people shouldn't be prosecuted for grabbing something out of the dumpster that can still be used! I've found some pretty cool things scavenging out of dumpsters including a neon Bob Marley poster that glows brightly under my blacklight; a Brita water filter, still in the package(!) because someone tossed it for having a little knick in the top(!); and a coffee table and a shelf. Brad's neighbors put their table and chairs out on the side of the road last year and I grabbed them!lol There's almost always a way to donate, reuse, recycle, and reduce waste!

Now, back to food. I believe diet is everything! What we put into our bodies directly affects what our bodies manifest! Literally, we are what we eat! I believe that what our ancestors ate is probably what we should be eating! I'm talking about hunter/gatherer roots! Indian days! Oh, I mean, Native American days.lol Whatever you prefer. This land was supposed to be the land of the free and it used to be! To the Native Americans! The first peoples who were here before the Europeans, who stole the land and forced "civilization" onto the once peaceful landscape! I've been told I am part Indian/Native American before but I have yet to complete the ancestry thing due to lack of funds...

Now I'm thinking again of Pocahontas and why I started this whole post in the first place! lol You guys remember Grandmother Willow! (Side note: Did you know white willow bark was the precursor and is the natural alternative to aspirin?) Grandmother Willow is the perfect metaphor for something I believe in and that's that all living things are sentient in some way! I mean, think about it! Did you know that plants can scream? Did you know they release pheromones to communicate with other members of their own species?! I recently discovered this and it's really had me thinking! I've never gone vegan or vegetarian because they didn't make sense to me. Biologically speaking, our teeth were made like other omnivores' to bite meat and to chew vegetation. So this new bit of information about plants being sentient is not to say we are all wrong for eating other sentient beings. Not at all! I don't know who said it but "Life requires death." We must kill to eat to survive. That's why the Indians/Native Americans only killed what they absolutely needed to eat and used and ate every part of the animal! They also prayed to the animals spirit and thanked it for its nourishment! I wonder if they did that to the plants they used too? Maybe they just looked at Mother Earth as a sentient being (Avatar) and worshiped her. Maybe we should adopt some of those ideologies! We sure as hell wouldn't treat the planet so poorly! What we audaciously fail to realize as a species is that what we don't give back to the earth is what we will eventually be starved to receive! Oh, wait, that's happening right now!

I believe that there is a collective consciousness spread out and manifested in different forms and spirits are a part of this inconceivably interconnected life Force! And yes, just like in Star Wars, I believe there is a Dark Side and a Light Side. Let's get real here. There are definitely ghosts and other entities out there besides just us. (I believe in aliens too, cause how could there not be other lifeforms throughout the vast expanse of the universe?) Did you know that DMT or N, N-Dimethyltryptamine is a molecule that is found in potentially all living things? Did you know it's also illegal? There's another dumbass law. DMT, an entheogen (which is a plant, fungus, or even a secretion of a certain kind of amphibian with psychoactive properties that people have used for thousands of years in shamanic rituals) is known as the most powerful psychedelic substance on the planet, but our brains make it! Why? DMT has been dubbed the Spirit Molecule (actually there's a documentary on the subject by the same name DMT: The Spirit Molecule that's really worth watching if you're interested in this kind of stuff!). I think DMT is the physical molecular manifestation of our consciousness! It's produced when we are born, and when we die and it's been suggested that it affects dreamstates as well! And it's in all living things! It's a sort of theory of mine anyway. lol

Anyway, I'm actually pretty tired and am going to put a stop to this long-ass post now! haha Let me know what you guys think! Have questions?

Do you guys have any plans you'd like to share about the future? When I get around to it, I'll share my plans to eventually live out of a bus or two and travel the country!Good night and much peace and love to ya, fam!

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thecoroutfitters · 8 years

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Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

I generally agree with the premise that skills are far more important than stuff, and that knowledge weighs nothing. There are skills that benefit us, every single day and definitely in a disaster – on any scale. However, sometimes collecting knowledge can be a pricey and time-consuming prospect. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t learn, but we need to prioritize as with anything else. We also have to honestly assess our preparedness level, plan, and current lifestyle. Pat’s Preparedness Arc is perfect for this.

Exceptions & Assessments

There are exceptions to some of what I’ll suggest. If you’re a wilderness adventure enthusiast or work in extremes, you already know it. If you truly have lots of free time but zero money after lots of cutbacks, and you have materials/resources lying around and don’t have to buy anything, okay.

If somebody is just into history, a reenactor, a hobbyist, I’m also not talking about that. Mental health clause – you need an outlet. However, interests are just interests and don’t belong in the “but it’s useful/preparedness” category of our time and financial budgets. It belongs under our entertainment budgets.

Please remember those caveats as you read the list. I’m talking about somebody learning from scratch specifically as a survival/preparedness skill in lieu of practicing, buying, or learning something else.

I also hear the argument put forth that somebody’s going to learn a skill or trade because then they can barter it. That is absolutely true in some cases (medical, mechanics, midwives). In others …

We have to ask ourselves: How many people who are preparing or not preparing are actually going to be around and need that particular skill? How do we plan to find those souls who are unprepared to do it themselves, but are expected to have surpluses worth our time and labor to trade for us?

Below are a few things I regularly see pushed as a must-have skill. I’ll break down the pro’s and con’s, and cover alternatives.

Image: How sustainable is our water plan – and our bodies – compared to our need to make soap or learn primitive fire making methods, or learning an already fairly common trade?

Alternatives After Assessment

Would it be better to develop the knowledge of how to find water by recognizing terrain and land cover patterns, a map of streams and springs in the area, and the physical strength to carry and drag water-level weight through woods, on crappy roadsides and ditches, and repeatedly lift buckets and containers out of a downed well or deep cut with cord, or over the side of a pickup?

Could we instead spend time locating buckets, storage totes, and barrels, the used and wrecked pieces of furniture and equipment on Craigslist and Freecycle to turn them into water catchment, and the afternoon or afternoons it takes to assemble them, to limit the amount of time we even have to go out hunting water?

We have to ask ourselves how important primitive skills are instead of something like wrapping a sprain.

Water is always going to be a focus for me, but there are other skills, too.

Gather wood for the stove/grill and practice cooking and canning on it. Learn hauling and tying knots, and practice felling, branch removal, and topping on consecutively larger trees. Learn to change your own oil and bike chain. Figure out how to unclog a drain using supplies and tools you already have on hand. Walk on the ditch verges and wooded hills to strengthen ankles.

We have to ask ourselves how important primitive skills are instead of something like wrapping a sprain, turning off water and gas mains, producing and finding food, mending a fence, sharpening a blade, rescuing a drowning/choking infant or child, and backing a trailer.

Fire From Scratch

If you happen to have a battery and steel wool, more power to you. It was never in my pack for fire tools.

Let’s start off with a super controversial one – yay!

First, I’m not talking about finding dry tinder in wet woods or making a feather stick. If somebody’s out in the woods regularly, the potential of injury in a downpour makes them worthwhile in the crisis stance. As a through packer (I think they call it ultralight now, but my bag was never light) and multi-day paddler, those are things that saved me time and energy for my hot meal.

I’m talking about Survivorman fire starting, primitive fire starting. If you happen to have a battery and steel wool, more power to you. It was never in my pack for fire tools.

Second, if you’re a remote-creek kayaker, canoe trekker, or a hiker, get a few pill bottles to stuff with wet-weather or DIY-coated matches and a few cotton balls or some dryer lint, and start wearing one around your neck and carrying one in a pants pocket. Get a ferro rod and block or a windproof cigar lighter, and replace the chain with 550 cord to wear on your belt or pants button or the snap of your life vest or knife. Keep another set duct taped to the bottom of your water bottle or glasses case.

No belt or knife? No glasses? Don’t worry about fire from scratch then. It takes a long time to master starting a fire with a bow and starting it with a lens requires a lens. If you don’t have a knife to make shavings and the bow and start the notch, there’s a stick and another stick, and you’d be far better served spending the time making a cocoon-style debris hut.

Matches/Lighters versus Primitive Skills

People do get lost in the woods, and eventually we absolutely will run out of matches and lighters on a homestead.

We’ll run out of them faster if we’re using smaller fires for short periods and thus starting them regularly. They can break, leak, get wet and grody, and strike-anywhere are harder and harder to find so you have to figure on the striker strips getting worn totally smooth, especially if we buy the big bulk boxes.

Learning to find tinder in wet woods is time-consuming enough (and worth it for some/many).

If you’re only bugging-out to a BOL, not in an INCH situation, or if you’re a boater, fisherman, hunter, hiker, or outdoors enthusiast, throw in a cigar lighter so wind is less of a factor – they fit in a Gerber case inside bags or small plastic bottles with matches and other fire-starting materials pretty well.

For a homestead/bug-in situation, we can say three meals and a snack a day, plus morning coffee. Starting five fires is pretty generous and buys time for us to learn how to bank a fire for coals and keep one going.

Say it takes us a couple broken/burn-out matches to get one started, so we need three matches per fire. Using 15 a day for a year gives us a total of 5.5K matches.

Bricks of 100 small kitchen match boxes run $8-15 bucks each for 3.2K matches – two would cover our needs for $20-$30. My dollar store also carries match books cheaper (not my first choice).

Or we could buy one of those multi-pack bricks for $10-15, and hit Amazon for a 100-pack of disposable lighters for $20 and a set of three big boxes of 300 matches for $7-$10. That gives us 4K+ matches and 100 lighters for $37-45.

We can store them in our currently empty canning jars, or spend $5-6 at the dollar store to get candles or nail polish or lacquer to waterproof them and some baggies to keep them in. Strikers and blast matches, cigar lighters that work even in whipping Montana winds, run in the $4-$12 ranges.

Yes, it costs money. Yes, if you already have the knife, tromping into the woods to do it like Bear doesn’t.

Tromp into the woods learning to not make noise, recognize animal sign, and recognize landscape features that promise water instead.

There are multiple situations (and future practical, everyday skills) that benefit from that knowledge.

Soap – Making vs. Buying

Let’s start with the basics of soap. There’s a couple of modern recipes, and a link to the history. About halfway down, that one breaks soap making into three stages of lye, fats, and combination – which is where we’d be at a total pioneer homestead or “My Side Of The Mountain forever” INCH lifestyle.

http://www.diynatural.com/how-to-make-soap-2/ – cups conversion

https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/how-to-make-soap-with-milk/ – one of many for milk, still need oil

http://spadet.com/soap-making-history-and-techniques/ – from scratch

I’m going to discount any soap making as viably sustainable if it’s using a fat or oil that’s not locally produced. That’s including people who buy the glycerin soap blocks. (For soap making – no comment on other uses.)

That’s the whole argument about sustainable, colonial and primitive skills – they’re for when there is no store and we run out of things.

If you need palm oil, you’re storing something and you might as well store the finished product. (There are exceptions, like the many balms and other uses for various oils.)

Some basic soap-making starter kits are available for as little as $10-15. Better will run as high as you like. I couldn’t find one that already included a scale (soap making is one of those things that requires weights according to some experts, although others have converted recipes to volume).

$10-15 for a kit isn’t much, absolutely. However, soap requires those rendered animal fats or oils. Those aren’t in the kits, and some of the ones I’ve seen in recipes are pretty pricey.

Too, in a crisis, especially if we’re living off grass-fed livestock and wildlife and the diet food of garden produce, fats and oils are going to be precious to keep our bodies functioning.

There’s still tons of bar soaps available at the dollar store and <$1 at Walmart. Some are travel sized and singles in boxes. However, options are available in 2-packs and 3-packs of standard-sized bars. So for $10 I can get 18-27 bars of soap and still pay tax.

If I’m inclined, I can cut that down, get a bottle or two each of Dawn and pine cleaner for dishes and laundry, floors, and surfaces, and still get 14-18 bars of soap.

I once figured that between bathing and washing my hands and face, I run through a cake of soap a week, so I need more than $9-10 worth. I need more in the neighborhood of $20-$30, and about a shoebox of space. For laundry, surfaces and dishes for a year, and surface cleaning, depending on household, I need a couple of free liquor boxes and another $20-30 for liquid cleaners, even buying from the dollar store. (The dollar store is not the cheapest per ounce or most compact form, but they are incremental purchase and use sizes.)

Cost doesn’t apply for the folks who plan to have fatty pigs and cattle, and use their wood ash. For them, the comparison is strictly about time. For a lark, sure, jump one weekend. But weigh out what else could be learned, what other materials cost, and what family ties could be strengthened with a different activity.

Soap is compact. They are sensitive to dampness, so they need a Ziploc bag, lidded can, or plastic tub. There are environments where dry soaps melt, but most of North America could keep them in a shed. So will the ingredients for making soap, or finished homemade soaps.

Rendering suet for tallow

Some will still think it’s worthwhile. To each their own, but please refer back to the general premise and Pat’s arc to be sure it’s the best use of your resources and time as you stand now.

On the flip side, totally learn how to make suet and tallow if fatty animals and materials are present. They have a ton of uses, provide a storable sustainable fat source, and they fill very real needs in a self-sustainable lifestyle.

Treating Hides

Hides and making useful items from hides is 50-50 with me. On one hand, I know a woman who makes a bundle from it, and if you have rabbits or hunt deer, you have hides. On the other hand, should the world collapse to colonial and pioneer day levels if not the Dark Ages, lots of humanity will die fast enough for me to find underroos, sheets, work boots, and socks should I need to go out past my X date – they aren’t exactly the things being grabbed in today’s riots.

Photo from North American Bushcraft School

If it’s going to be a side business, sure, jump – after you do some market research. If it’s a niche market half-hobby, jump.

If it’s something on the to-do list because it seems like a great skill … maybe consider jumping on a maps website, finding farm fields and nearby specialty farms, making some non-nut cookies or muffins to carry, and sharing that you’re interested in breaking away from city life, would the nice farmer be willing to work out some kind of tag-along for labor deal so you can get a good idea of what’s involved.

Another option useful in disasters of all kinds is mapping power-line cuts to avoid traffic jams, snow and flood evacuation routes, and directions and A, B, C routes to and from kids’ schools and the school evac rally points.

Skills versus Stuff

Nine times out of ten, I would argue that knowing is better than having. However, there are exceptions – usually because of the time and-or resources they require, and sometimes because of the space.

There are lots of things that we should know just to be well-round humans, let alone homesteaders or – if inclined – nomads. However, sometimes we waste our precious resources learning something that only benefits most people during a very specific type of disaster, or a total breakdown and reversal that lasts for 5-10+ years.

Sadly, a lot of people who push and learn those lack the skills and supplies to survive long enough for some primitive skills to become valuable again. Some of those skills come at the cost of things that can benefit us, right now.

There are all kinds of things to do without spending more money or spending time on something with highly specialized skills and low-likelihood needs.

I figure I’ll get hate mail for the concept and for the specific few I listed. I just want people to weigh their to-do and to-learn lists so that they can prioritize based on where they already stand and where they want to go.

If there’s true need and potential – and sometimes there is – or it’s just a hobby, there’s nothing wrong with any of the primitive skills. I think most of us, though, have something we would be better served learning, practicing or building than the three listed.

If you liked this article, please rate it.

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The post Skills-Stuff: When Stuff Matters More appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

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lopezdorothy70-blog · 6 years

Text

Autophagy and Intermittent Fasting: Removing Waste from the Body and Cellular Regeneration for Better Health

by Paul Fassa Health Impact News

Autophagy, pronounced 'aw-taw-phu-gee,' is essentially an intra-cellular survival system of removing waste and malformed cellular components from the liquids within animal and human cells. This phenomenon was noticed a half-century ago in animals but soon forgotten.

Recently, Japanese cell biologist, Yoshinori Ohsumi, researched autophagy more thoroughly to discover its value for humans, leading to how it can be stimulated and controlled for weight loss and other even more important health considerations disclosed in this article.

Ohsumi was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2016 for his autophagy discoveries.

The word itself is derived from Greek and means self-eating. It's an enzymatic degradation process that serves to remove faulty cellular particles and reorganize them better for better health, immunity, metabolism, and anti-aging. According to a 2010 published review:

Thus, autophagy may be thought of as a cellular 'recycling factory' that also promotes energy efficiency through ATP [adenosine triphosphate] generation and mediates damage control by removing non-functional proteins and organelles. (Source)

Autophagy that's not interrupted or inhibited by poor dietary habits can induce better metabolism for greater overall energy, increase natural HGH (human growth hormone) production, resolve obesity, create insulin management, reverse pre-diabetes, and protect against cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Eric Berg explains autophagy concisely and clearly in this video.

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Moderate exercising and some dietary approaches contribute to autophagy. Before discussing the nutrients that stimulate autophagy, let's begin with the counter-intuitive, yet most effective, approach for stimulating autophagy – fasting.

The easiest fasting method for most of us is intermittent fasting.

Fasting Protocols That Stimulate Autophagy

The idea of fasting for many is terrifying. We've been programmed to eat large breakfasts. The word itself is a combination of bread and fast. While you sleep you're fasting. Then continue with two more meals with snacks in between and after. Most of us have become addicting to “grazing” all day!

Yet, if you consider the reality of human history and contemporary indigenous tribal groups, going without food for several days isn't unusual. It's our food industry nutritional guideline programming and constant TV fast food ads that offer eating solutions to our stressful lifestyles that have contributed to the rise of obesity and autoimmune diseases.

Only a few individuals can manage long-term fasting over five days. Some have managed to fast with only water for a month or more. Juicing for 10 days to a month or more without consuming solid foods has been very successful for some who wish to maintain nutritional intake and initiate autophagy.

India's ancient medicine, Ayurveda, which is still available and present in some USA locations, prescribes fasting with water only (purified of course) once a week. This could be considered intermittent fasting.

But recent discoveries provide an even more powerful method of intermittent fasting daily for extended periods until health goals are achieved. One method is simply eating one day then fasting the next with purified water only, alternating this eating protocol for several weeks.

Another method involves “block fasting”. That is, going around four days with water only then back to eating normally for the remainder of the month for several months until one's health goals are achieved.

The easiest for most of us, which has become popular lately, is daily intermittent fasting by reducing one's window for eating to six hours a day. For example, if you wake up at 7:00 AM and eat your last meal at around 7:00 PM, you shouldn't eat any solid foods until 1:00 PM. After your last meal, no snacking. The six-hour window is timed according to your lifestyle or work routines.

If this is too difficult or impractical at first, use an eight-hour window for starters, then work into the six-hour window, if possible.

Depending on one's toxic load and addiction to snacking throughout the day, there will be difficult times, especially with the potential of Herxheimer or healing crisis events from detoxing. This is why increased water consumption is recommended.

Most water or juicing-only fasts create healing crisis's within the first few days that will last for a few days. Intermittent fasting takes longer to “hit the wall” with reduced impact. But the discomfort can persist for several days as sort of a Herxheimer “sustained release” event.

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Weight Loss from Reduced Body Fat

Weight loss comes naturally from an autophagy process after some time. It may take longer than a crash diet, but the results are permanent. Essentially, fasting of any kind changes the body from being a sugar or carb energy-burner into a fat-burner, at least to a greater extent than before the fasting period.

One's liver function is a factor that determines the time it takes to become a fat-burner. The liver stores an easily-accessed energy reserve from unspent carbohydrate/glucose called glycogen. This is accessible for energy used before stored fats can be tapped for energy.

Triglyceride is reduced from fat cells with autophagy. But the fat cells remain and fill up with water at first. Then eventually the water goes out, along with the waistline and excess weight, with a reduced body mass index (BMI).

The primary purpose of autophagy is to restore health with hormonal homeostasis and turn different genes on or off to reduce disease or restore health. The latter genetic intervention that influences gene functions during one's lifetime is called epigenetics.

Some major hormones autophagy influences toward homeostasis or functional physiological balance are:

Insulin:

Chronic exposure to refined carbohydrates and simple sugars can cause elevated levels of insulin, which drives glucose levels down. This can result in hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). Over time, tissues may become less sensitive to insulin and as a result, glucose cannot enter the cells as easily. This means more glucose in the bloodstream and a greater tendency to convert it into fat instead of energy. Elevated insulin levels (hyperinsulinemia) cause the body to have difficulty breaking down fat also. (Source)

Insulin resistance is the main marker for metabolic syndrome, which is known as pre-diabetes. It's a precursor to diabetes 2.

Leptin:

This hormone tells you when you've had enough to eat to stop you from the obvious threat of overeating and creating more glucose than can be handled as an energy source and stored as fat. Autophagy encourages leptin production.

Human Growth Hormone (HGH):

HGH products are the Fountain of Youth and Holy Grail sought by anti-aging fanatics. HGH, normally produced by the pituitary gland, spurs growth but wanes as we age. It also helps to regulate body composition, body fluids, muscle and bone growth, sugar and fat metabolism, and possibly heart function

Celebrities pay dearly for HGH off-label pharmaceutical injections attempting to maintain a younger look. But this is a risky way to go about it because of potential side effects, including more hormonal imbalance.

Autophagy helps boost one's own body restore HGH production in the pituitary gland on its own without pharmaceutical HGH injections or supplements. It is an important aspect of internal and external tissue production.

All things considered, autophagy is an internal reset.

Some Autophagy Boosters

Many fasting-induced autophagy advocates endorse the high-fat ketogenic diet for non-fasting periods, regardless of which fasting method is used. That period could be six hours daily, every other day, or the rest of the month after a few days of fasting.

If one doesn't choose to go Keto, it's advised to almost or completely eliminate processed foods, especially those that are or contain refined carbs and sugars. Consume organic and grass-fed products. Regardless of one's dietary approach, artificial sweeteners are absolute no-nos, as are all GMO foods.

Because the ketogenic diet is heavy with natural wholesome fats, one's ability to feel satiated, not longing for snacks, is more easily maintained. Go here for more on ketogenic dieting. The following video explains the combination of keto dieting with intermittent fasting.

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Getting sufficient, uninterrupted, high-quality sleep is also part of the protocol. Sleep disruptions interfere with the autophagy process. A study that demonstrated this is available here.

Moderate, daily exercise is helpful. It doesn't mean you need to knock yourself out at the gym or become a marathon runner. Simple, gentle aerobics or brisking walking over a mile daily will do.

Coconut Oil is the best choice of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), which are transformed by the liver into ketones that can be utilized of energy completely without becoming glucose. Ketones don't need insulin to be transported into cells for energy.

Coconut oil's MCT conversion into ketones avoids storing fat in the body from glucose that's not converted into energy. See more on this here.

Coffee and/or Green Tea, moderately consumed without sugar or cream, is actually helpful for the autophagy process. Either should be organic.

Some autophagy advocates like to use black coffee with either butter or coconut oil, aka “bulletproof” coffee. Espresso, not latte or any other overly sweetened coffee drink, is convenient, especially if you have a relatively inexpensive home espresso machine.

High-quality green teas with comparatively low fluoride levels should be sought out. Green tea contains an antioxidant called epigallocatechin-3 gallate (EGCG), which in addition to helping treat a variety of diseases, also favorably influences autophagy. (Source study)

Melatonin supplements enable one to enjoy two autophagy boosters in one. Melatonin induces a deeper, less-interrupted sleep to enhance autophagy. And the melatonin molecule itself boosts the process. Don't take melatonin while engaged in an activity. Take it an hour or less before retiring.

Vitamin D has proven effective for encouraging autophagy. Considered more a pre-hormone than a vitamin, it has a direct effect on the body's hormone production and balance,

Consulting with a holistic or integrative medical practitioner who is aware of autophagy is recommended if possible. Otherwise, there are some Facebook fasting sites to look into to gain more familiarity or feedback for your questions or experiences with fasting for autophagy.

The video below contains a great lecture that explains how fasting works for autophagy by Dr. Jason Fung of Diet Doctor

youtube

Other references include:

What Does It Mean to Be Fat-Adapted?

What is Autophagy?

Long Fasts:Worth the Risk?

Autophagy: Research Behind the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Autophagy & Intermittent Fasting: Activate Garbage Recycling and Cellular Remodeling

0 notes

battybat-boss · 6 years

Text

Autophagy and Intermittent Fasting: Removing Waste from the Body and Cellular Regeneration for Better Health

by Paul Fassa Health Impact News

Ohsumi was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2016 for his autophagy discoveries.

youtube

The easiest fasting method for most of us is intermittent fasting.

Fasting Protocols That Stimulate Autophagy

If this is too difficult or impractical at first, use an eight-hour window for starters, then work into the six-hour window, if possible.

youtube

Weight Loss from Reduced Body Fat

Some major hormones autophagy influences toward homeostasis or functional physiological balance are:

Insulin:

Insulin resistance is the main marker for metabolic syndrome, which is known as pre-diabetes. It's a precursor to diabetes 2.

Leptin:

Human Growth Hormone (HGH):

All things considered, autophagy is an internal reset.

Some Autophagy Boosters

youtube

Getting sufficient, uninterrupted, high-quality sleep is also part of the protocol. Sleep disruptions interfere with the autophagy process. A study that demonstrated this is available here.

Moderate, daily exercise is helpful. It doesn't mean you need to knock yourself out at the gym or become a marathon runner. Simple, gentle aerobics or brisking walking over a mile daily will do.

Coconut oil's MCT conversion into ketones avoids storing fat in the body from glucose that's not converted into energy. See more on this here.

Coffee and/or Green Tea, moderately consumed without sugar or cream, is actually helpful for the autophagy process. Either should be organic.

Vitamin D has proven effective for encouraging autophagy. Considered more a pre-hormone than a vitamin, it has a direct effect on the body's hormone production and balance,

The video below contains a great lecture that explains how fasting works for autophagy by Dr. Jason Fung of Diet Doctor

youtube

Other references include:

What Does It Mean to Be Fat-Adapted?

What is Autophagy?

Long Fasts:Worth the Risk?

Autophagy: Research Behind the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Autophagy & Intermittent Fasting: Activate Garbage Recycling and Cellular Remodeling

0 notes

livingcorner · 3 years

Text

Making a Garden That Welcomes the Birds (Published 2020)@|how to get birds in your garden@|https://ift.tt/3E6smRi

IN THE GARDEN

Using native plant species helps, but there are two other things you can do to make birds feel at home — and they don’t involve any planting at all.

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A young rose-breasted grosbeak spent part of a summer afternoon on a leaf in the back garden.Credit…Margaret Roach

June 17, 2020

In this most isolated of springs, birds have kept me company. I’ve watched their mating games and turf wars, listened to their serenades and tagged along as they shopped for just the right piece of garden real estate (as long as I was very quiet; no kibitzing, Margaret). Some even let me meet their newborns when the big moment came.

All the things I cannot do with my people so much lately, we’ve been doing as usual; the birds remained in my bubble all along. I cannot imagine life without the 70 or so species that visit or reside in the garden each year. As I often say (and write): The birds taught me to garden — or at least to do it smarter.

When I first came as a weekender decades ago from New York City to the rural spot where I now live full time, there were unfamiliar voices and flashes of color in the surrounding shrubs and trees as I hacked through multiflora rose and wild blackberry to make vegetable and flower beds.

I got a field guide and learned their names: scarlet tanager, indigo bunting, American redstart, rose-breasted grosbeak. In the same way that my beginning-gardener self coveted every plant in her first garden catalogs, I imagined attracting every bird in that book.

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The characteristic nest of a red-eyed vireo, fashioned of twigs, plant fibers and birch bark and lined with pine needles, hangs in the fork of a branch of one of the winterberry hollies at the garden’s edge. Some vireo nests have wasp-nest paper, too.Credit…Margaret Roach

Like most beginners, I sought the answer in fancy feeders and every manner of well-designed birdhouse — designed from a human aesthetic, that is, although not necessarily meeting bird specifications. Eventually I came to visualize this place as their refuge: shelter and water within a giant, living bird feeder that offers appropriate sustenance for breeding season, to fuel migration’s big energy demands or to survive the coldest months for those who choose to spend them with me.

Studying my growing collection of field guides on the life histories and diets of birds that I’d see — the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds site and its online courses are good resources, as well — I reduced lawn areas to make room for native plants and to support more insects and, in turn, birds. Nearly every organism in the food web eats insects or eats someone who eats them — or benefits from the pollination services that insects provide.

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Two in-ground water gardens like the one in the foreground attract all manner of wildlife to my land — including many birds — year-round. Uphill, islands that were once lawn are now unmown, and native grasses and forbs like little bluestem, goldenrods and asters are gradually laying claim, sustaining insects and, therefore, birds.Credit…Margaret Roach

Thinking of plant choices not as just ornament but as ecological workhorses is not where I began. But it’s where I came to — to think in terms of habitat.

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Something I heard the ornithologist Pete Dunne say has stuck: “Birds are almost always where they are supposed to be.” Mr. Dunne, a longtime leader in New Jersey Audubon and the author of many books, was offering a tip about bird-watching: The habitat where you spot a bird is an important clue to its identification. But his insight is also key to setting realistic expectations and planning what to do to enhance your site.

Reality check: No matter what I do, waterfowl or grassland birds won’t favor my garden — although both pass time nearby. I am on a steep uphill site, surrounded by second-growth forest. Forest birds, including migrant songbirds looking for breeding ground, plus lots and lots of woodpeckers, think it looks just swell and are among those I need to think about.

In addition to mowing less, I have adopted two particular actions on behalf of the birds — on behalf of habitat — that involve no planting at all.

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A very old twin-trunk birch was losing large pieces of its crown and dying back. It was transformed into a snag, or wildlife tree, where it will continue to contribute to the habitat and food web for many years.Credit…Margaret Roach

No. 1: Leave Dying Trees Alone

These days, I never take down a dead or dying tree lower than the level required for safety.

A friend texted a photo recently of a declining, massive old oak in a prominent spot in her suburban backyard. She had consulted an arborist who suggested removal and grinding out the stump, standard practice in residential environments.

“I guess trees have a life, and unfortunately this beauty is at the end,” she wrote.

I begged to differ, and quickly shot back photos of an old birch that had been dropping big pieces of its canopy out back years ago, and a massive maple by the driveway that had been doing likewise recently. My arborist had helped me stabilize and transition them to wildlife trees, or snags — a critical part of habitat that we homeowners too often erase in the name of neatness.

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It didn’t take long for woodpeckers to begin to excavate the birch snag enthusiastically.Credit…Margaret Roach

As long as they pose no danger to people, power lines or structures, dead and dying trees have an afterlife as a place for wildlife to nest or den; a lookout perch for a raptor seeking dinner; a food source for insects (who, in turn, feed the masses). Lichen, fungi and mosses grow on them, providing food and shelter.

Removing their tons of biomass deprives the food web of all of that life-giving potential. According to the National Wildlife Federation, the removal of dead material from forests can mean a loss of habitat for up to a fifth of the animals in the ecosystem, and more than 1,000 species of wildlife nationwide use snags. That includes woodpeckers, whose excavating efforts in dead trees help not just their own species.

“More than 40 bird species in North America depend on woodpecker carpentry for their nest and roost cavities,” writes Stephen Shunk in “Peterson Reference Guide to Woodpeckers of North America.” These secondary nesters — among them, tree swallows, bluebirds, titmice, wrens, flycatchers and some owls and ducks — cannot create cavities, but quickly adopt abandoned holes.

“Having a more healthy woodpecker population buys you more than just woodpeckers,” John Marzluff, an ornithologist and urban ecologist at the University of Washington, told me in an interview a few years ago on the publication of “Welcome to Subirdia,” his book about rich habitat opportunities in developed areas. “But they need dead trees.”

Too-tidy landscapes offer no invitation to the woodpeckers, keystone species or facilitators others rely on. Besides nest cavities, some woodpeckers create sap wells where hummingbirds and butterflies, like the red-spotted purple, like to drink. Migrating ruby-throated hummingbirds follow yellow-bellied sapsuckers to ensure an early food source before many plants are providing nectar.

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I was able to salvage a candelabra-like arrangement of branch stubs in addition to the entire main trunk of the declining maple by my driveway, which is better from the wildlife point of view than merely topping the tree.Credit…Margaret Roach

The bigger the snag, the better for wildlife, but safety must be considered. The safe height in my open, rural garden exceeds what works elsewhere, which may be less than 10 feet (where my friend’s oak, rescued from destruction, now registers). Big pieces of the upper carcass of each of my snags lie near where they once stood, mimicking how they would fall and decompose in a forest — which, again, might not work in some yards.

Some twiggy parts could form an out-of-the-way brush pile, though, another wildlife attractor. Even a high stump can support a lot of life, compared to a ground-level cut or ground-out one.

Yes, there can be birdhouses — but not the models I started with. Choose them not for cuteness, but according to the specifications preferred by local cavity nesters. Cornell’s NestWatch site, with its All About Bird Houses section, will guide you to your area’s cavity-nesting species, ranked in order of urgency of need for more nest sites, with downloadable plans for boxes and nesting shelves. Build one or have it built, or use the dimensions to buy the right box.

Be a good landlord, siting the proper unit in the location that the instructions indicate. Secure the birdhouse against predators, by adding a stovepipe baffle on the pole mount, for instance, in the case of bluebird boxes. (More on bluebirds is at Sialis.org.) Clean nest boxes in late winter to offer a fresh start.

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No. 2: Provide a Water Supply

Maybe my biggest non-planting contribution of all: I provide water 12 months a year.

For entirely selfish reasons — to create the sound of running water — I dug two in-ground pools lined with thick rubber sheeting early in my weekender days. I had no idea the effect they would have on wildlife, particularly because I keep a hole in the ice all winter with an electric floating de-icer, a contraption adapted from cattle-tank defrosters used so livestock can have drinking water in winter. The smallest versions will keep a birdbath open for business.

I calculated the required device wattage with help from a water-garden specialty supply company, by considering the severity of the winter temperatures where I live, plus the total surface area of each pool, and installed weather-resistant GFCI outlets adjacent to each pool. (An important safety note: De-icers cannot run on extension cords.) The idea is not to heat the water or keep the entire surface open, but merely to keep a drinking hole open in the ice.

The warbler called Louisiana waterthrush is a regular customer, bobbing the back of its body up and down to some unheard dance beat as it forages for insects. One winter, the bigger pool (and the fruit of a group of crab apple trees just above) drew a flock of irruptive pine grosbeaks visiting from Canada, who spent some weeks there.

I can look up from my desk at any time of day, any time of year, and there is hardly a moment when someone — feathered, fur-bearing, amphibian or otherwise, including a diversity of summer dragonflies — is not partaking.

So much so that when people ask me what my favorite “bird plant” is, I often reply, “Water.” (The real answer: One of the many native flowering-then-fruiting winterberry holly shrubs massed around the perimeter, which bring in winter flocks of cedar waxwings and robins. Your most effective bird-supporting native plants can be found in a ZIP code-based search on the Audubon Society website.)

The only other place in the garden that competes with the little pools for such nonstop activity? The older snag, that birch, where even as I write this, a pileated woodpecker is having at it.

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A young robin finds itself in the backyard on a tentative first adventure out of the nest one spring.Credit…Margaret Roach

Bird Safety: A Few Tips

If you provide bird feeders, as I do in winter, when resident black bear are not active, keep them clean and consistently well stocked.

And mitigate the two most serious dangers to birds in our human environments: cats and window glass.

The American Bird Conservancy urges us to help reduce window strikes, which kill up to a billion birds a year in the United States. Exterior screens, netting and certain decals, and even retrofitting with new patterned glass, are among the recommended options.

To reduce the danger of high-speed impacts, place feeders and birdbaths closer than three feet to a window or farther than 30 feet away.

Domestic and feral cats kill some 2.4 billion birds annually in the United States, according to the American Bird Conservancy — “the largest human-caused mortality to birds.” There is only one solution: Keep pet cats indoors.

For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate.

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source https://livingcorner.com.au/making-a-garden-that-welcomes-the-birds-published-2020how-to-get-birds-in-your-gardenhttps-static01-nyt-com-images-2020-06-21-realestate-17garden-birds1-17garden-birds1-facebookjumbo-v2-j/

#livingcornernews

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thecoroutfitters · 6 years

Link

Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

Editors Note: Another article from R Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal, a supplement for her last post on the subject. with new information and a guide on how much and seed would be the minimum someone needs. As always, if you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and be entered into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies, then enter today!

“How much seed do I need?” It’s a simple question. And a common one, in the self-sufficiency and preparedness folds. It’s also a ridiculously simple answer.

It depends.

It depends on a lot of things. As with the perfect gun, the perfect dog, the perfect wedding dress, and even the perfect property size and location, it’s person specific.

There are about a dozen primary factors – all of which have subsets. You can pretty much apply that “it depends” and all those factors to the “how much land per person” question too. Deciding “how much” starts with weighing those factors, then crunching numbers and testing.

The first thing we have to do is determine our production goals. From there, we look at our yield averages – which is where “it depends” strikes hardest.

Then we check how hard something is to save seed from for a future yielding plant, and start dividing and multiplying.

It’s a huge topic, so it’s broken it into two parts. Here, we’ll run through the *ahem* short list of factors, and an example of how they intertwine to determine future-seed needs.

Another article http://www.theprepperjournal.com/2017/10/25/saga-seed-stockpiles-continued/ looks at some of the available planting guidelines suggested for families and briefly discusses how different plants and methods can affect how much seed we save and from where.

Variables in Yield

We can’t plan using others’ results. The upper chart here http://www.gardensofeden.org/04%20Crop%20Yield%20Verification.htm shows yield per acre for a small organic farm.

If you notice, it’s far removed from the Big Ag 120-bushel of corn per acre averages 20 years ago, and wouldn’t even be mediocre production for Big Ag’s current mid-160s to low-170s averages. Unless you plan for the same irrigation, testing, amendments, and equipment used by Big Ag, you’re unlikely to see Big Ag results. Their average yields do nothing for us.

See, when we start talking about “it depends”, it really does – on area, season, and growing style. That goes for both annuals and perennials.

Eventually we have to give it a shot ourselves, usually with small scale testing, to develop our averages.

Then we start to actually determine how much starter seed we need to meet our pantry goals, with a +/-margin for bumper crops and bust seasons and our desired seed saving. From those totals and our test plots, we start factoring how much land we need under cultivation to meet our goals.

To determine production goals, let’s develop what we’re going to call (charitably, and without snorting here) the “short list” of variable factors.

Primary Factors

– Are we only after a veggie-fruit garden to augment stored staples, or are we trying for true self-sustainability (calories, oils, and all required nutrients)?

– How many calories do we need?

– Fats and oils for cooking?

– Protein needs?

– Are perennials contributing to calories or fats? (Oaks, elms, nut trees)

– Are livestock or wildlife part of our food plan? (Fats, proteins, calories)

– Do we need livestock feed? Wildlife habitat?

– Are we also feeding animal helpers and defenders? (Short-term or sustainably?)

– Is irrigation needed? Is it possible? Probable? Hand or mechanical/electrical?

– Are we aiming for seed collection (which requires us to plant enough extra to stock as seed plus backup seed again), or a one-off planting (which opens up region-tailored hybrids)?

– Do we want/need “bad year” backups? (See http://www.theprepperjournal.com/2016/08/10/gardening-during-disasters/ for some garden-ag disaster scenarios; some “eek” regarding seeds are also found in the latter part of the http://www.theprepperjournal.com/2016/05/02/tracking-seperating-seeds-success/ seed-tracking article.)

– Growing method? (Plays into yields)

– What are our growing season & zone(s)? (How much growing time you have affects how much land you need to have planted during that season.)

Wheat.pw.usda.gov – Variety selection affects our max-potential yields. We’d need more seed (and land) for a low-yielding variety, than for a high-yielding variety. However, we might not need amendments, pest control, or irrigation.

Additional Factors

There are other aspects that come into play once we have some of our method, climate, and goal answers. Some affect picking what we’ll grow, and some affect what we’ll need for our crops.

– Do we have slake water soaks planned for a corn-based diet? (Starving with a full belly = bad.)

– Do we know what OUR yields are, per general type (a bush green bean) or by specific variety (Channel Seeds VT TriplePro corn, versus Hancock’s “Trucker’s Favorite” white dent corn)?

– What are our past & locally common pest/disease problems?

– Previous land use?

– Planned preservation methods?

– Labor factors; in prep, harvest, and post-harvest phases? (Manual or mechanical, man hours, physicality)

– Focus on space efficiency?

– Got chill hours? (pro: apple yields; con: apple diseases and pests)

– Hoop-hothouse to extend seed-starting and planting seasons?

– Long-term sustainability, or expected short term? – Duration of short term: 12-18 months, 2-3 years, 5-10 years, etc.?

Uhm…Say What Now?

Thank you, boredpanda.com, for my go-to “incredulous/befuddled” Pallas cat, who balks at my “short” list & its contents.

Some of the factors may be head scratchers, without immediately obvious reasons for how or why they’d affect our seed stockpile. Usually, there’s a long, complicated article’s worth of considerations for each.

For example, we ask, Why does the sustainability of a system matter?

Because over time, we’re repeatedly taking nutrients and biomass out of the growing space, and sticking them in our toilets or catholes. This removes them from the production system – even only for 6-18 months if we’re into humanure.

The same is true of pulling weeds and flinging them far, far away, or letting livestock munch them and later returning manure – which has nutrients, but does little for soil structure. Eventually, it takes a toll on the soil.

We’re also walking and-or driving around our plants (compacting soil), possibly removing helpers like firefly larvae (they hunt slugs), and we’re possibly growing the same groups year after year (inviting pests and disease to set up shop).

Image: Sustainablesmallholding.com – Wheat hand harvest

For some timescales, sustainability just doesn’t matter. For those with enough resources to just repeatedly convert crop areas to covers and-or low-pressure grazing in cycles, it gets partly to mostly mitigated. There are intensive growing methods and practices that eliminate some to all of the possible problems.

However, there are methods that exacerbate them.

It took a thousand years to turn the Fertile Crescent into a desert, and only about a hundred years to convert the Great Plains’ six-plus feet of topsoil to the Dust Bowl. We can see less-dramatic but still-serious soil changes in just a year or two, definitely inside 3-5.

Avoiding the negatives (creating sustainable production) affects our growing method choices. Our choices also depend on our capabilities – physical and mechanical. The different methods see differences in yield, and affect the type and need for cover crops, or to have differing seed bases for alternating years.

It all combines to determine the amount of seed and land we’d need for cultivation to avoid having predictable problems down the road.

northportfarmersmarket.com – See those people at booths? They can be excellent resources. They also validate “it depends”. That market opens in October. See, it’s South Florida. They just shake their heads at “normal” planting guides.

Getting Help

Happily, we don’t all have to learn from scratch – although, unless you’re very light on the supermarket and skip the amendment and pest control portions of Tractor Supply, chances are prac-ap is going to be eye-opening.

Your local and regional Master Gardeners, county extensions and co-ops, and any permaculturists and sustainable ag growers in your area are going to be valuable resources.

Due to the limitations and capabilities in each region such as temperature and rainfall, the balance of crop types and varieties – and thus the seeding rate and-or yield – will vary significantly. People who are already doing it – successfully – can help with averages and predictions on those fronts.

Ask specifically about heirloom and OP, dryland-farming varieties, and disease resistance. Those are some of the areas where the biggest differences occur between “us” and Big Ag. (Remember that experienced organic farm yield versus Big Ag averages?)

We need to find a different expectation baseline, from people who grow the way we want to. That makes the internet an invaluable resource.

One, there’s a fabulous fallback: Your state’s old Victory Garden guides and farm reports.

Check the handout-guides, but also hit the cached newspapers. Many include canning rates based on the less-productive “then” crops and garden calculators, which can give us starting points for what our less-productive crops will potentially yield.

Two, we’re surrounded by growers, and the internet can help us find them.

Somewhere near us is a small market grower or a homestead blogger or forum user. A permaculture forum might also net somebody in the neighborhood.

Smaller YouPick farms are a good resource for varieties, pests, and controls. Some CSAs have programs for learning or apprenticeships, and some are open to conversations or hands-on tours even without them.

Should all else fail, you can also just keep those resources in mind (and on maps). These are people you might turn to for help later if you do have to expand before you have good established baselines.

Other Factors in Production

Way back when, there was a set of articles about seeds. They might be worth checking out again. The article on procuring and testing seeds http://www.theprepperjournal.com/2016/04/26/how-to-procure-test-seeds/ takes a brief look at some of the seed kits offered specifically to preppers, and talks about different types of seeds applicable to the prepper world. It particularly applies here.

Other articles about planting style, sowing schemes, growing methods, and the use of perennials can help start detailing some of the variables involved with successful kitchen gardens and larger crop plots.

There are also TPJ articles about production for livestock. Some of the efficiency and site-planning articles introduce integrated, multi-function system concepts that affect yield-per-area. Articles with focuses on specific disasters can sometimes also be sources for garden materials and seed types that can affect our yields.

There are a ton of variables with growing. Even Big Ag does not have cut-and-paste yields across the board – which is why we see variables in region and state production, specialization by region, and still periodic crop failures.

We must get started if we expect to grow food at some point in the future. There are too many learning curves to leave those seed kit boxes and vaults on the shelf until a disaster. Knowing how much of what we need to plant – in a normal year – is only the tip of the iceberg.

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