Hello from South Carolina

Discussion in 'General chat' started by Benjy136, Jun 5, 2012.

  1. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    -15C-35C, 10cm rain/mo, clay, full sun, K-G Dfa=x=Dfb
    Benjy posted to another thread a bit ago, but nary a peep from him otherwise... i have no contact info for him to check in.

    i'm glad to hear your wife is recovering ok Brian. it is interesting how sensitive people can be to things. Ma here is very sensitive to laundry detergent smells and has taken up making her own lately. for a short while we were able to find non-smelly name brand detergents but not every store carried it and then if they did it was sold out. she's happy with the homemade version and it is about 1/2 - 1/3 of the cost of what she was buying before.

    silk worms! you'll be putting on an addition to the house soon at the rate things are going... :)

    it's busy time here outside, we need some rain and it is in the forecast for much of the week, but until it hits the ground i don't believe it as a lot of forecast rains go north or south of us here in the valley... i'll water some sprouts today even if the rain is forecast to start tonight. we've also had frost one night, hopefully a light one that won't affect the strawberries which are blooming and setting fruit. we're getting close to planting time and will be heading to the greenhouse to pick up the plants we'll need. no frosts forecast for a week at least. hope that is the end of them until fall... almost time to get some of those worms back into the gardens!

    as for rhubarb, it does have a challenging texture for some folks, i used to eat a lot of it and wasn't force fed it as a kid, but since the friends have passed away who were the main consumers of the rhubarb sauce i used to make i've not really felt like making it. also, i found out i was eating so much of it that it was making my feet sore, once i stopped my feet felt much better so i've been only having a little bit here or there. when i go out today i'll have to pull off some more of the flower stalks and give them a shot of water.

    ok, we're off and running today, our day starts with a 3 mile walk.
     
  2. briansworms

    briansworms Junior Member

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    Songbird the washing powder isn't causing any irritations lol I am just using more than I should apparently. Ended up with a late start but worked most of the day. Same deal tomorrow, just wait for a call to work.

    I mentioned the silkworms to my mate again and he moaned so much about it I thought that's it I wont try and help him again. Everything is just too hard for him. If it involves anything more than having to breath it is too hard. I have worked my butt off to get my worms and woodies were they are and if I had the same attitude I would have nothing. Lazy people are always too busy to try new things or help out. Just ask them how busy they are. My other friend with the woodies is having health issues again so I am not sure how long she can keep doing them. Looking after her health is more important than a few extra $$$$. I would love to give silkworms a go but time and space. I wish I could win lotto. Would have to buy a ticket first lol.

    I don't have time to go for a walk most days. Up at 4.15 am and usually out the door a 5.15 am. Not home till around 5 pm sometimes later. Then it is get dinner, feed the animals, eat dinner then usually somewhere in there go to the shops to pick up stuff. Then feed the woodies and or pack woodies/worms. Shower then bed. Sometimes a little computer time. Speaking of computer it is working well at the moment. Probably jinx myself now.

    We keep getting threatened with rain but it never seems to hit the ground here much either. When it does no work so I am between a rock and a hard place at times lol. Need the rain and the work.
    Take care all
     
  3. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    Awright, Awright already ! I'm not dead. Only sleeping. Nothing to write about and, yes, troubles with the puter. Glad the missus is doing better, Brian.

    Packo. I know the feeling. Not lately though. Watch out for the traveling Sunchokes. They will take over an area. I finally turned the pigs loose on them in Arkansas when they spread out past where I wanted them. They're fun to eat raw. crunchy in a salad, like waterchestnuts, or boiled like potatoes. They overwinter in the ground, growing sweeter. like Irish potatoes do when stored in the ground too long.

    We ran out of milk today and Willie wanted flapjacks. I found a recipe using powdered milk. It was too big and I cut it to one fifth. I got the amounts right, but it called for too much water and I had to add flour. I'm sure you guessed what happened when I added the dry flour and stirred it into the soupy stuff. Willie said I'd given a new meaning to "Flat as a pancake" And then added "flat as a vulcanized pancake". Think I'll go and get some milk today. Although I probably should refine the existing recipe for an emergency. We may need to patch a tire sometime lol'

    Love is the answer

    Uncle Ben and
    Auntie Willie
     
  4. briansworms

    briansworms Junior Member

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    Glad you are not dead lol. Songbird spoke too soon. The computer screen was dead again this morning.Back on my phone now.
     
  5. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    Occupation:
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    -15C-35C, 10cm rain/mo, clay, full sun, K-G Dfa=x=Dfb
    glad to hear from you and that you are doing ok Benjy! how is your garden and the chooks doing?

    i used to make flapjacks/pancakes a lot and liked using a lot of different flours to get different tastes. always wanted a little corn meal in them to give them some heft. powdered milk was ok. to get a fluffy pancake i either used baking soda with a bit of acid to ge the fizz or baking powder. stopped using eggs in them as i was reacting to eggs badly. still tasted good to me without the eggs. started trying different spices too... :)

    yesterday we had a bit of rain in a quick downpour. none of it ran off. i was hoping for more but the rain goddess did not need to tinkle again. more rain chances forecast for today through tomorrow morning and i hope we'll get more.

    we planted a few garden plants today and then started in on the tomatoes, cucumbers and squash. if the squash come through that would be great as it's a sizeable area that isn't used much normally for any sort of production in the past. if they want to go gonzo there we'll be happy.

    then tomorrow if the weather cooperates i can get more planting done with the onions, peppers and whatever else...

    Brian, intermittent problems are always the worst to fix as it seems that right when you get someone to finally come look at it the thing works perfectly again.
     
  6. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Speaking of weather...

    Jan. = Total Precipitation:2.64 inch (normal: 8.94 inch)

    Feb = Total Precipitation:8.45 inch (normal: 6.85 inch)

    March = Total Precipitation:4.99 inch (normal: 6.73 inch)

    April = Total Precipitation:3.5 inch (normal: 4.65 inch)

    May = Doesn't look good either


    So that makes actual 19.58" of rain vs normal 27.17" or I am down 7.59" of rain for the year so far. I am really grateful of my micro and macro-swales.
     
  7. briansworms

    briansworms Junior Member

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    Woke up this morning and the standby light on the screen was back on lol so I am in. Got called into work this afternoon for a few hours.

    Pak the day my wife slipped some parts where I live got over 1ft of rain in a few hours. It was once in 200 years event. We only got about 4 " here at home. That was some serious rain. We average over 3 ft of rain a year I think. My rain gauge has got up over 1 metre over a year..

    Ok have to go Take care all
     
  8. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    Occupation:
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    Climate:
    -15C-35C, 10cm rain/mo, clay, full sun, K-G Dfa=x=Dfb
    Pak, looks like your normals are two to three times ours (about three inches of rain a month). what you call microswales are probably what i call catchbasins. been very useful here too.

    4 inches of rain would likely be a bit of flash flooding, but if it is dry enough we can soak up a few inch downpour without any runoff. i keep adding more things to help slow and soak in the rains, but i've also seen 11 inches of rain in a few days, so sometimes you have to bend before the flow.

    we had some rain yesterday afternoon and all the plants we put out look like they are doing great.

    Brian, part-time is perfect as far as i'm concerned.

    Benjy, i forgot to mention crepes in writing about pancakes. :) when you mentioned runny that was the first thing that came to mind...
     
  9. briansworms

    briansworms Junior Member

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    Sunbird I have to admit I have been enjoying the days off. I am up to date with my jobs with the worms and woodies side of things. I do need to build some new shelving but I need to get the timber home first. It is too long for my car so need someone else to pick it up for me. Not really in a rush for it yet as I have empty woodie tubs so space isn't urgent just yet. Over the next few weeks I will have to get stuck into it. Then up my breeding tubs to about 5. Currently 2 with one more just starting to get a few breeders in it. That should give me about 5,000 breeders. That should take up about 2 tubs every 2 weeks for new babies. They will be crowded about 4 to 5 weeks later and need splitting into more tubs. Shouldn't be a problem as I am clearing out several tubs per week. Just have to find a balance lol.

    Ok bed is calling and an early start tomorrow.
    Take care all
     
  10. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    Just tagging up so as not to worry youse guys (Brooklynese).
    I saw a site about Permaculture that is over there in Oregon, Packo.It didn't appeal to me and I deleted it. There have been several offerings to become certified Permaculturists at around the $300 to $500 range with so-called discounts. If, at my age, I decide to take a course I'll give you a shout on it, Packo. At present I'm jut making sure I don't do anything to upset existing balances. No more tilling and, as always, no pesticides or synthetic amendments. I've had a problem, this season, with the potato beetle, but I've mostly let the birds and good bugs control them.
     
  11. briansworms

    briansworms Junior Member

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    Ben knowledge is a wonderful thing but how you use that knowledge is what counts. Some people are serial students as long as the government pays for it. A friend did a university course. She is a part time music teacher and her husband at the time was a school principal. As long as she didn't earn over $30,000 per year she doesn't have to pay the money back. Bullshit as far as I am concerned. They rort the system designed to help people get educated. Really pisses me off that they were earning so much money between them and they rip off the system.
     
  12. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    .0So true, Brian. Over here it is the same thing. Obummer must be taking notes from Oz. I really don't even want to go into the ways the "spoiled Brats" milk the system and most don't have any idea that there are people in this country working their butts off on two or more jobs with ever-increasing taxes to pay for those people's laziness. In a way, it's not their fault, as Obummer keeps putting that teat out there for them to suck on. I have no idea how much of our "contributions" are used just to advertise to people to "come and get it. It's free". If there was ever any doubt that our president and his wife want to bring this country to it's knees, that doubt has long been erased. With ISIS swearing to take us over and Iran chanting "Death to America", His Majesty is telling our graduates that Global Warming is our biggest threat!!
     
  13. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    Occupation:
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    -15C-35C, 10cm rain/mo, clay, full sun, K-G Dfa=x=Dfb
    Benjy, i don't think ISIS will be able to flood away much of the coastline no matter what else it does. if you don't think that will cost taxpayers money i dunno what else can be said. studies are not showing that it is getting better or that the ice is melting slower, instead it is going faster. as it is now, i suspect i will see large parts of southern FL under water in my lifetime. that is a geological change that if it happened before took thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, now it is happening much faster.

    aside from that the gardens here have had some rain and i have the peppers planted. only left to go are the onions and those will go in tomorrow or Monday. 120lbs of worms/worm castings went in the garden where the peppers are at. 36 green and red pepper plants. should be enough. :) strawberries and everything else coming along well, starting to see some pink berries so it won't be long before i'll have to start picking them. still much other planting to do, but first to get the onions done and get the rest of the worms/castings out to the gardens. having a rain day today is perfect because it lets me take a bit of time to restart the six buckets i took out. we cut up a watermelon yesterday and that's worm candy which will give them a nice start. :)
     
  14. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    If you are getting your figures from government agencies, Songbird, I trust no one attached to that lying, unreliable bunch of communists who are trying to destroy my country. And that includes NASA. They have every producer in this country following their stiff regulations while the rest of the world can go right on polluting to their heart's content. Then they tax the bejeebers out of the companies that haven't pulled up stakes and left for greener pastures. All the while pulling in ILLEGAL ALIENS to beef up their voting base and giving them the rights that hard-working LEGAL NATURALIZED citizens have EARNED. while our borders are remaining unsecured.

    I don't know about anyone else, but IF we were losing HALF our country through this so-called global warming (Have you noticed they are now calling it "Change", now) we wouldn't be having our freedoms taken away and our heads removed . Our Christianity is being attacked. Our babies are being slaughtered faster than our adult population, Our speech is being monitored and acted upon by immoral sects. Our Media have closed their eyes to rampant corruption of left-wing officials. Our so-called leader spent 20 years involved with the infamous Jeremiah Wright (Not God bless America........)

    I've read and heard both sides of the Climate change conflict, and learned that if I'm told that such and such will happen within a given time and that time passes....and passes....and passes...... several years down the line, the chances of me believing what I'm told by the "prophet" are slim to none.

    Overall this Winter was one of the COLDEST I've experienced since I moved here about forty years ago. Florida did not go underwater 6 years ago. Explorers have been trapped while attempting polar routes that, according to NASA, should have been open due to polar ice recession.

    There have been ideas I have held, things I was told as a youth that I held onto for years, but there came a time when the evidence was so overwhelming that I could no longer maintain my beliefs It was with great sorrow and reluctance that I had to stop writing to Santa.......and the tooth fairy.
     
  15. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    But Florida did start loosing land due to sea levels rising, do you really want it to be fast like a biblical flood?
     
  16. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    -15C-35C, 10cm rain/mo, clay, full sun, K-G Dfa=x=Dfb
    i don't need the government to tell me what appears before my eyes. 1ft up in 20 years. one more good storm and my Dad's place will likely be gone.

    i notice you mention that we have regulations and you complain that we're doing our part and the rest of the world isn't. well many years ago we had a chance to play with everyone else and we shit on them. so i consider that justice in some form.

    besides, we should be doing the right thing no matter what others are doing. leadership, good stewardship of the planet and consideration for other creature trumps about anything else. what will you do when the life support system starts to fail? it's already showing plenty of warning signs...
     
  17. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    I don't like to be this argumentative, but, there's a difference between losing land through erosion from storms, rising sea level and sinking land area due to several possibilities like pumping water or oil, or even a slight shift in plates. Fifty years ago when I was in the Houston area, I learned that the area was doing a slow drop, and it was predicted that Houston would, one day, be like Venice, which, by the by, until 1979, was sinking 5 mm per year. It seems, though, that until the government starts telling us the truth about anything, I'm just beating a dead Kangaroo.

    I see, Songbird, that your garden(s) are getting some of the more tender plants. Being that this is a Sabbath year for the land, I'm at a quandary, as I had most of it planted when I learned that the land must have its "day of rest", even though I give to the land as much as I take out, or more. At least, then, I can go ahead and remove any fruit that come on the trees I just planted to give the trees a better start. Outside of frozen or dried kiwis and some canned and frozen figs and some canned beans (remember the spaghetti sauce where I mistook the frozen figs for m,eatballs? ugh!) we haven't much garden stuff put up and those onions and garlic and potatoes and all the herbs look so good. Oh well. 2016 is another year.
     
  18. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    Surprise! That Kangaroo isn't quite dead yet.

    I spent a few hours on several sites, concerning changes in land elevation, and found there is a difference in the "rising sea level" at different locations along with several sinkholes and lowered elevation all over Texas as well as other locations due to water and oil being extracted . This would not be a problem if there were not homes and structures and highways above those deposits. There are also many underwater caves in the limestone layer under Florida's sandy surface that are causing sinkholes when they collapse. The whole Eastern coast is experiencing a gradual drop in elevation which, of course leads to the assumption by many that the oceans are rising. And, of course, these facts are ignored by Global Warming alarmists because they are "Inconvenient Truths" One might also be interested in the fact that Florid has been under sea level for a far longer time than above sea level and part of it is gradually moving to the West-North-West. according to NASA's satellites. People that wish to live by the ocean (I'd love to. Perhaps because I was born on Galveston Island) have always been in harm's way, as they usually are closest to the area hit hardest by the raging water in a storm. Then, when huge hotels and motels are pressing their weight upon the fragile shore and pumping water out of wells in the area, what can be expected is not what is taken into consideration.

    Our Government has not had a decent program that can be trusted because it has far too many pockets with their own axe to grind. "Global Warming AKA Climate Change is no exception.
     
  19. briansworms

    briansworms Junior Member

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    Waiting for the computer to come back to life agaiin.
     
  20. Cracko

    Cracko Junior Member

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    Hi Ben,

    I grew up in the city, but Dad had a wide family and we regularly spent summer holidays on farms of uncles and cousins. Beef raising in the Eastern Cape Province and maize farming in the old Western Transvaal. Very early on I was made aware of nature and its cycles and what to look for. How to know when and what to plant and so on. Looking at what the ants did and how and when specific trees and plants budded and bloomed.

    About ten years ago I noted that we did not get anymore what Dad jokingly called the Civil Servant's rain. On four o'clock when you set foot on the outside pavement the first thunder of the afternoon would clap with the clock. The clap and the light goes together, right here. By five the thunderstorm is over and gone and the day ends in brilliant sunset. Now we have really wet heavy showers lasting for two of more hours. Later I heard this is the result of more water vapour in the air. Our winters are not noted by Europeans to be very cold, but the Highveld where I stay was known for its severely bitter cold winters. Right now today I enjoyed a midday temperature of about nineteen degrees Celsius (about 66 Fahrenheit). Balmy, decidedly balmy in June when our winter should be here already. The seasons have moved on about a month as well. In August we used to have real unceasing wind for a whole month to bring the rains. My uncle with the maize farm joked that he now holds map and deed on his neighbour's farm. Now we have some similar kind of winds in September and even in October, but nowhere near those in intensity and duration.

    Country wide our rainfall has moved eastward in precipitation. Things certainly have changed all right. Certainly without the blessings of NASA et al.

    21:40
    I'm off to bed.

    Cracky.
     

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