Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
I spent the day repairing fence along a new cut from over the winter, pulling staples from cedar posts, re-stringing high tensile wire, that sort of thing. I can barely type right now because my fingers are so torn up. As I worked I kicked apart the cow patties from last fall, each one exploding into a shower of fine carbon and desiccated grasses. In the spot where the patties were, worms spun and twisted in the sunlight. Where the limbs and branches had been stacked there were large arcs of silvered wood chips spread out in a fan across the cleared land and everywhere the black loam was peppered with shoots of dark green vetch, clover and sorrel.
Do you know why people have lawns? They say that it is a mimicry of the stately commons from late feudal era, large open grounds where you had a good view of whoever happened to be sieging your castle and a clear line of fire for your archers and catapult operators. Lawns give you a safety zone and a clear demarcation of where people live and tend so no one gets the impression that it’s public land, but rather private. Personally I think it goes further back than that, I think it goes all the way back to when primates first came down out of the trees and ventured out on the savannahs. Having a clear line of sight so you had plenty of time to scurry back to the safety of the branches was probably crucial for an animal that had no natural defenses against fang and claw. I big, wide swath of open grass was the buffer and a clear advantage and so we mimic what made us feel safe so long ago that we’ve forgotten and we try to pretend that we’re just one castle shy of being a lord in our development.
All flesh is grass. The most important thing we raise on our farm is our family. I want them to be healthy, to grow strong, to be fertile and hale, so I feed them the food we produce using the seeds we collect and the animals we raise and all of it comes from the soil where we live. The rich dark earth is filled with countless living organisms. To intentionally poison the very foundation upon which all of our nourishment depends is symbolic, in a way, of our larger culture and it’s worship of all that is shallow, transitory, garish and without meaning- it is part of the worship of a death cult. A perfectly manicured lawn of a single grass type, maintained by the chemical application of toxins is the botanical equivalent of Mr/Ms Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair. It appears to be something that it is not. It mimics what it desires to be but can never be. It is a middle finger held to the face of God, immutable proof of mankind’s inability to accept its place in the natural order and to do whatever horrific and hateful act it can conceive of in order to clamber up the crenelated walls of Babel and proclaim itself Divine. It is, as the old saying goes, lipstick on a pig and it only fools those who wish to be fooled.
People who really love their lawns would be a thousand times happier if returned to the earth and saw to the cultivation of life for the sake of life itself.
Just sayin’.
I was over at my mom’s house a week ago and half of the neighborhood has let their yards revert to weeds. It’s a decent neighborhood, so what they’ve done probably isn’t out of sheer laziness, but rather some granola back-to-the-prairie bullshit, not that anyone could tell the difference. I guess the difference is that in the ‘hood the knee-high weeds are also strewn with garbage. In the PC granola neighborhoods, the knee-high weeds don’t have any garbage. But they still look like shit – to me, anyway. I’m all for people abjuring dumping poisons on their lawns (gets into the watershed), but they should at least cut their grass for fuck’s sake.
I don’t understand the current media war on roundup. Roundup is a great product. It is biodegradable. It doesn’t affect animals as it isn’t toxic the way most herbicides are. You don’t spray it indiscriminately over your lawn. Green lawns are wonderful. A properly kept yard is it’s own ecosystem, and a haven for birds and critters. To not tend to your yard, and leave it an eyesore, is just laziness, not some redeeming quality
Farmer-
You’ve made me feel so much better about my lawn. For about the last eight years, I have procrastinated about applying Scott’s Weed and Feed. (Now that Scott is joining up with Monsanto, I will not be purchasing any more of its fine chemicals anyway.) In a base of retreating Bermuda grass, my lawn is a jumble of uncountable species of other grass types as well as many thriving weeds. Since I water, everything stays green and the blossoms that want to display on some things are taken care of by weekly mowing. Mowed weeds don’t look all that bad. I have a fresh appreciation for my decidedly unmanicured lawn and its testimony to chemical deprivation.
Turf grass doesn’t seem to want to grow in this sand and red clay soil we have here with the wide swings of weather we get from Winter to Summer, at least not without serious work and annual re-seeding. So about 5 years ago I gave up fighting it. Places where the grass grows, I let it grow and keep It mowed. Places were it just won’t grow gets a covering of pine straw and or mulch. If only we could win acceptance and adoration of crabgrass, things would be a lot simpler.
Gayle, scotts lawn feeds are best in class. In florida, we have turfbuilder (summer) and bonus S (winter). What most people don’t realize about fertilizers is how lightly they can be used, if used regularly. I agree with you mowed weeds are still green. st.augustine grass, if kept healthy and cut, will choke out weeds on it’s own.
We seed our lawn, and aerate it, and if a problem arises that threatens life and limb may resort to commercial products, but we do not put annual chemical fertilizers or weed/bug killer on it.
I have been composting, seeding, spreading better topsoil (half my yard is a former road that the builders of the neighborhood to my north filled in when they built their planned community, they chose sand, which as a yard material sucks big ones. And constantly, and consistently adding composting to my landscaping beds.
This year, it has taken nine long years, there have been big, beautiful earth worms in all my beds and gardens!
Using the chemical poisons decimates the living animals that we need for the best healthiest plants with the most nutrients. Just like using chemical medications decimates our health and blocks the uptake of nutrients, thus harming us while making it appear to be a bright, green, lawn.
One thing you can say about the corporations that own this country, they sure have powerful and great marketing and propaganda, along with reams and reams of lawyers and politicians. So the vast majority believe their claims at face value.
@str, you make me so sad. Roundup most definitely lives on, it is now found in breast milk and infants. Along with thousands of other allegedly “safe” poisons.
Look around at the very sick, most physically and mentally, freakshow we have become and tell me again how safe all these freaking chemicals are?
We are playing God, and losing.
Thank you so much HSF, I applaud and admire your entire way of life.
@starfcker, Roundup isn’t toxic to animals directly, but it is toxic to the “good” bacteria that live in your gut, and you need those. Without them, your digestive system doesn’t work so well, and they’re also an important part of your immune system.
TE, not defending thousands of chemicals. Just one, glysophate. Their is no scientific evidence, zero, of glysophate absorbtion in breast milk or infants. Glysophate isn’t fat soluble, that would be impossible. Don’t believe everything some dumbass writes. People hate monsanto. I get that. That doesn’t change the science of roundup.
AP, wrong. Roundup only has an effect on meristem plant cells. Can’t affect bacteria in any way. i get the war on monsanto. They are evil. Roundup is a major profit center for them. But good science is good science. Don’t let hatred for an evil multinational impair your ability to sift through so called scientific claims. Lots of bullshit out there. Don’t be a sucker for either side
One of the things I amuse myself with is the running battle I have with some of the local audubon types. All government drones, and koolaid drinking libtards. I am a heretic to them, yet on my own dime, do more to preserve, improve and restore habitat than they ever will. I produce and sell hundreds of thousands of native plants and trees every year. When the parks need stuff, they come to me.
This seems to be a continuation of the Scotts Lawn Service=Monsanto thread…oh well.
Again, try milorganite vs. Scotts.
http://www.milorganite.com/Using-Milorganite/What-is-It
“Do you know why people have lawns? They say that it is a mimicry of the stately commons from late feudal era, large open grounds where you had a good view of whoever happened to be sieging your castle and a clear line of fire for your archers and catapult operators.”
Reminded me to get my scope sighted in on my Ruger Mini-14…
Star- Anything you can do to give back and build a better future is much appreciated, thank you. Unfortunately most are lost in exactly the degenerate take and leave nothing that HSF is bemoaning and Monsanto is purveying. Arguably no single company has done more to fuck this place up than they. Round up is the crown jewel in their coronet.
Weather you apply it judiciously or not matters little. I suspect many, many do not, utter saturation is the norm in commercial agriculture, hence the proliferation of Round Up ready crops: plant, saturate, saturate again, enjoy. On the prairie, this is the norm, its impossible for me to imagine the full extent of the damage to our soil and waterways from these modern practices, both herbicides like Round up and the pesticides.
Nothing is free and easy, there will be a price.
We can do better.
Otto, it destroys science when it becomes politics. Monsanto is evil not because of it’s science, but because of it’s monopolistic and abusive business practices. Big parts of my life are closer to HSFs than you might realize, I don’t expound on it here, I don’t have his gift of making it interesting to others. But I’ve been doing this a long time, and I notice everything
I have a cat that came down with a condition called feline hyperesthesia. It’s considered incurable. The advice I got from multiple vets was discouraging and would have been quite expensive. The alternative was to put the cat down. It is a poorly understood condition, linked to several other different conditions.
They consider it a condition that could be managed, but not cured. I cured it in 10 weeks. I spent a couple of months back and forth with the top researchers, they would not accept the malady they had studied for 20 years was so simple. They started with some bad premises, and built on those for 20 years, so of course they never figured it out. Me, with no dogma, and fresh eyes, eliminated all of the errors, and figured it out.
@starfcker: You seem to be a fucking cheerleading “expert” for Monstersanto, so explain this or you’re a fucking troll:
“Used in yards, farms and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.
The new findings intensify a debate about so-called “inerts” — the solvents, preservatives, surfactants and other substances that manufacturers add to pesticides. Nearly 4,000 inert ingredients are approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, is the most widely used herbicide in the United States. About 100 million pounds are applied to U.S. farms and lawns every year, according to the EPA.
Until now, most health studies have focused on the safety of glyphosate, rather than the mixture of ingredients found in Roundup. But in the new study, scientists found that Roundup’s inert ingredients amplified the toxic effect on human cells—even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns.
One specific inert ingredient, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, was more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than the herbicide itself – a finding the researchers call “astonishing.”
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/roundup-weed-killer-is-toxic-to-human-cells.-study-intensifies-debate-over-inert-ingredients
Lawns are one of my biggest peeves. It’s one thing in someplace like Georgia where they get regular rain but ridiculous in places like Denver, Phoenix, and presently California. Allowing people to xeriscape would save a huge amount of water for growing food and drinking, keep tons of excess fertilizer out of the Gulf of Mexico and oceans (the reason algae blooms happen and create oxygen free zones), and all the houses wouldn’t look the same for once, a look I don’t care for.
I have to say, I have read and reread what HSF is saying, and I do not get it. I do not care to get it – a manicured lawn maintained by “toxins” is a middle finger to the face of God? That is one long bow to draw. And it seems severely judgmental of folks who like … lawn. And just what are “toxins”?
I love grass (and vegetation, and wildlife). Perhaps I evolved from buffalo. I do not care why. I like the order that springs forth with neatly mowed grass. It reflects my ability to impact my surroundings, I suppose. God said for man “to fill the earth, and to subdue it.” I subdue it in order to provide a place where wildlife can thrive, where I can enjoy being around the wildlife, and can feel the joy of being amidst a green, somewhat orderly environment.
I love grass, neatly mowed. Not a formal lawn and yard, but one that invites in nature. For decades, my homes have been thus – perhaps three acres of nicely kept grass and trees, bushes, shrubs, etc indigenous to whatever area I am in. It is usually an acre and a half of grass, and about the same of misc. vegetation, placed such that there are islands, oasis if you will, of vegetation scattered among the swathes of grass, with access therein to water, be it a small artificial pond or something that can naturally capture water, and places for the wildlife to shelter and thrive and visit. Scattered throughout are places to sit quietly and watch nature.
It takes a few years, but gradually, inevitably, the creatures come. Birds and wildlife seek out the haven of the vegetation. The trees and bushes are selected carefully so as to provide cover and food for the wildlife indigenous to the area. Seed trees, or fruit trees or edible vegetation are provided. The wildlife is not disturbed, and it begins to understand that those humans that live their are not a threat. They become more and more and more visible.
Visitors marvel at what transpires. They see birds and wildlife that they have not seen, or have rarely seen, although they have lived in the area their entire lives.
My wife and I love animals and wildlife. We love to sit quietly, especially as dusk approaches, and watch, sharing a bottle of wine. We watch the parent birds forage and feed the young. We watch the squabbles of the birds, and listen to their song, and search for sight of them in the trees, and glimpse the small animals that might inhabit the area. We watch the rabbits play in the morning dew, scampering across the open areas.
Land does not have to be used exclusively for food. It has many purposes. It is sacred not just for food, but for its ability to support many types of life, and it can provide pleasure in many ways.
HSF cares for the land and uses it in his own way, and I admire that. But his is not the only way. I subdue the land, as God commanded, in what I consider a responsible way, so that it benefits wildlife, and so that my family and I can enjoy its pleasures.
And I object to the idea that I am giving God the finger by so doing.
To all you shit-throwing monkeys out there who love to hammer on me for just about anything, my “lawn” consists of several tons of gravel and mostly desert plants. Surprise!!!! I live in the Arizona desert and ACT like I live in the desert. Please forgive me for squirting Roundup on the weeds that pop up on my paver driveway and sidewalk. I have sinned.
I hate lawns out here (metro Phoenix is a huge offender), and I hate all the fucking private swimming pools. Our small, 48-home gated upper middle class neighborhood has a beautiful community pool complete with a nice bathroom, undercover area to barbeque, tables and chairs, and throw parties. Yet several homeowners elected to build pools in their tiny backyards when they have access to a beautiful pool that’s included in our modest HOA dues.
I just don’t understand this.
SSS – who wants to swim in a public pool? Seriously, that is unpleasant. Bet folks pee in it. Especially OLD incontinent folks.
I have a pool, and always will. It is set up among such that my family can laze away in it amidst the environment described above and watch the wildlife. They have always been sustained from captured water, and kept covered when not in use so as to eliminate 95% of the evaporation that occurs to those not covered.
Roundup is not a sin. I actually do not use “Roundup” – there are plentiful generic brands, so I do not use the Monsanto brand.
And BTW – pools used to be a pain in the ass to upkeep. But not so anymore, by and large. There are automatic filter and chlorinating and acid dosing systems, automatic fillers and drainers, and automatic in-pool cleaners, and automatic pool cover retractors, automatic solar pool heaters, etc. I probably spend a grand total of 5 hours per year on my pools anymore.
WC, cheerleader. That’s harsh. Let me quote myself above, “monsanto is evil because of their monopolistic and abusive business practices”. Or let me translate into californian, “GO TEAM!!”. If you insist. On the serious side, I read up to the point it was 35 bucks to keep going. I’m going to have to reread it a few times, it’s pretty dense. Get back to you.
llpoh says:
SSS – who wants to swim in a public pool? Seriously, that is unpleasant. Bet folks pee in it. Especially OLD incontinent folks.
____________________________
I like to lap swim, for which backyard pools are pretty worthless. I belong to a gym for that sole purpose.
Z – I have a lap pool. 🙂 Fuck swimming where I cannot control who is swimming there. I sit in on the steps of the pool mostly, wine glass in hand, and watch my beautiful mermaid swim laps.
Llpoh at the pool
Admin – I have asked and asked for that pic of me and my wife to be taken down, but the bastards will not do it. I am gonna have to sue.
Llpoh writes an eloquent defense of lawns and rightfully gets all thumbs up. I say the same thing a little less artfully – cut your fucking lawn you fucking fucks for fuck’s sake – and I get thumbs down. Fine. This seems to have started when I simply pointed out that the current pope is a fag.
Llpoh-
I wasn’t disparaging lawns, in fact I was trying to understand our (Western Civilization) fascination and fixation on them to the extent that people are willing to use additives like glyphosate on them regardless of the impact on the environment.
Let’s be clear about what glyphosate is- it is a man made compound formulated in a laboratory and manufactured exclusively for use as an herbicide. It serves NO other purpose than to KILL annual and perennial plants that have not been genetically modified to resist the application. The word toxic, as I used it, meant specifically- “that which kills life due to use or application”.
Here is a Monsanto funded study of the effects of glyphosate done by Cornell University.
http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/dienochlor-glyphosate/glyphosate-ext.html
It attempts to soft sell- at least in my opinion- the deleterious effects of this toxin on other forms of life, specifically human beings, lab rats, dogs and some fish species. If you read it carefully what it does NOT study are the living organisms it is most likely to impacts- specifically those microorganisms that make up the greater part of what we call “soil”.
Read this passage-
“Glyphosate is highly adsorbed on most soils especially those with high organic content. The compound is so strongly attracted to the soil that little is expected to leach from the applied area. Microbes are primarily responsible for the breakdown of the product. The time it takes for half of the product to break down ranges from 1 to 174 days. Because glyphosate is so tightly bound to the soil, little is transferred by rain or irrigation water. One estimate showed less than two percent of the applied chemical lost to runoff (4). The herbicide could move when attached to soil particles in erosion run-off. Photodecomposition plays only a minor role in environmental breakdown.”
People who use glyphosate are almost NEVER using it on soil with “high organic content”, i.e. lawns and Industrial Agricultural applications. Organic content is the result of regular applications of composts, manures and other carbonaceous materials in decay. The appearance of “weeds” are the RESULT of soils with poor organic content. People who are using methods that maximize production of a monoculture, like a bluegrass lawn or a corn and soybean producer, deplete soil of organic matter and as a result of their efforts they reap poor soils that are highly erosive, lack tilth, and are plagued by problems with opportunistic plants that thrive in those conditions, i.e.”weeds”.
You may do whatever you like, you may buy it by the barrel, you can add three olives to a big glass of Roundup and serve it poolside at your next shindig, but what you cannot do is profess ignorance of what it is that you are using and exactly why you have found it necessary to do so. There are causes and effects in life and there are healthy ways to deal with these and there are TOXIC ways.
Companies like Monsanto pay very good money to very smart people who know exactly what their benefactor wants to hear. You may think that something designed exclusively to kill plant life is “safe” for other life forms or you can err on the side of caution, what you cannot do is make one thing into its polar opposite. That was my comparison to our culture. Just because someone is celebrated for their “courage” in pretending that they are not at all what Nature created, but rather what they wish they were does not mean the rest of the population must accept their choice as healthy.
Oh, and BTW, I really like this clip-
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=monsanto+round+up+drink+offer&FORM=HDRSC3#view=detail&mid=8C91EE2A4D2A73F08E218C91EE2A4D2A73F08E21
You choose toxic, I choose life.
HSF – seriously, what crap to say I choose toxicity, you choose life.
I know you use all manner of things that are toxic. Internal combustion engines, manufactured products of many types, solar panels that will one day degrade and be a problem. The list goes on and on.
It is a matter of degree. You draw your line, others draw theirs. But your say your line is life, and theirs is, or mine is in particular, death. It is outrageous.
But fact is, when all is said and done, it will be a close run thing re who is overall less toxic. I have set up a very low-footprint doomstead. Water and energy independent, and heavily promoting of wildlife and indigenous flora.
When you stop using manufactured products, oil, metal, etc., let me know. Until then, you are passing judgement based on degree, and based on your own opinion.
First, congrats to SSS for living according to the dictates of his climate. If everyone in the desert southwest did the same, the area likely not be suffering a crippling drought, and wouldn’t need a quarter as many federal dams and reservoirs. The desert has spectacular beauty all its own- the colors are gorgeous, and the native vegetation is beautiful. It causes me pain to see snowbirds from St Louis and Chicago go out there and try to re-create Winnetka or Webster Groves.
As for toxic chemicals, I am halfway in between. My vintage condo building has very little “lawn”- just a small front garden, a side strip, and the parkway between the walk and the curb. At this time, I’m rebuilding the front garden, where there is NO “lawn”, but crawling ground-covers, and ornamental perennials. When I bought a couple of years ago, there were several shrubs that had been allowed to get totally out of control, and a maple tree growing much too close to the building- someone back there had obviously thought he killed it when he felled it, but it was still alive and sprouting new growth. Since it was growing right next to our foundation and was endangering our building, and had extensive roots, it could not be dug out safely, so the tree service I hired had to poison it. I don’t take the decision to use these poisons lightly, and use them as little as I can get by with, but in this case, it was necessary. The tree surgeons removed the other huge shrubs the conventional way, with no poisons, since they could safely be chopped down and dug out.
I use no poisons in the day to day maintenance of the gardens, but weed by hand. I noticed a steep reduction in their number since I pulled out a monster crop of them by the roots last summer. I’m winning without the use of poisons. However, if you MUST use poisons, there are many recipes for sure-fire solutions using things like vinegar and dish soap, such as that one friend of mine uses, that will do the trick for most common weeds without using really toxic stuff that will threaten every other living things.
Can add that, in the coming months, the remaining “lawn” here will go, to be replaced by more decorative, easy-care perennials with food items mixed in. Sneaking in some blueberry bushes.
It’s just plain more interesting to take care of flowers and food than it is to groom a damn lawn. I don’t mind getting down and dirty in a decorative garden, but I hate lawn-tending.
Llpoh, you keep missing the point where I say you should do whatever you like.
Putting a toxin on your soil with the result of a weed free lawn is like Bruce Jenner putting on a dress and make-up. It gives the appearance of something it is not at the expense of the underlying fundamentals of what makes a healthy eco-system. A decoy is not a duck.
You’re like the guy in the video telling the interviewer that it’s safe enough to drink, but when offered a glass he asks if the guy is crazy and walks out of the interview.
And you are correct when you say that I use toxins because I am living in an era where virtually everything manufactured results in some degree of damage to the environment no matter how hard you may try to avoid it, like using fuel in my tractor. The difference is like this- think of your business- you may do business to create a profit or you may do business simply to give the appearance of doing business but lose money, which are you engaged in?
When I use a gallon of diesel, the result of the energy expended is an IMPROVED environment that exceeds the DEGREDATION resulting from the fuel spent. The reason the shale oil fields are closing have to do with that equation- if it costs more to extract the fuel from the ground than it brings on the market, the producer simply ceases operations until such time as it becomes profitable again. If we deplete enough soils with enough toxins long enough the result will be the same as a business going bankrupt or an oil field being depleted.
Again, what I write is never about how anyone else should live, but about how we choose to live. It is an encouragement to some- I just got off the phone with a 20 something pregnant woman who moved up here with her husband to do the same thing my wife and I did and she was stoked to find us- and then you reply to what I write like I beat your kids. If you want to fill your swimming pool with Roundup have at it. As for me and mine, we’ll abstain.
I gotta go with Llpoh on this because he’s an Indian.
As has been demonstrated and acknowledged by almost all here, even if you feel compelled to use a commercial herbicide for whatever application, try and find an alternative to Monsanto’s, as this corporation is not worthy of our support, for a litany of destructive business practices. Fuck them.
Wow. HSF, you’re spiralling down to a pretty dark place here. You remind me of dwight yokum in the movie slingblade, spitting out nasty insults and following up with, just kidding. I don’t like to nitpick, but nitpick i must. Llpoh has covered your original post, so I’ll let that be. The idea that a nice yard like llpoh describes has some underlying sinister toxic flaw is nonsense. I get the same arguments all the time from the biologists I have to deal with.
If everything looks healthy, it probably is. Let’s take your word, monoculture. In your way of thinking, that’s bad. Dude, every farm field in the world is a monoculture. That’s how people get fed. 5 acres of mangos is a monoculture. But 100,000 mangos a year feeds a lot of people. I have family on both sides who have farmed the same land continually for over a hundred years, and the soil is far from depleted
I have cousin who plants 160 acres of strawberries every year. The guy puts strawberries on a lot of plates. And he’s small fry. My grass being green and lush is not like bruce jenner. Toxic? Tell that to the birds and critters that call it home. Like llpoh, they are far more numerous on my property. A bird doesn’t care if I gave a shot of fertilizer to a mulberry tree. It just needs an ample fruit set so it can feed it’s young
If you use diesel fuel, you’re saving the planet. If I use diesel, I’m an eco-terrorist? Did I get that right? If my yard looks like white people live there, it’s a middle finger to god? Go thump some bunny rabbits over the head, maybe you’ll feel better
HSF, one more thing, what made you interesting, and your writing style so admired, was the pure joy and attention to detail you were so able to capture. HSF the scold isn’t the same beast. Ask yourself, why can folks like starfcker and llpoh so enjoy my efforts and accomplishments when all I have is scorn for theirs. Ain’t pretty, my friend.
Another farmer here. My neighbor produces round hay bales for sale and uses Roundup a few weeks before he cuts and that is totally wrong. When you eat the cows that ate his hay, I believe you are making yourself sick. Besides, I use no herbicide and my pastures produce twice the grass his do. AS FOR YARD, blook
(a system FUBAR) As for yard grass, mine is Argentine Bahia cut with a Bush-hog and it couldn’t get any thicker or greener.
HSF – I did not miss any points.
I said, and have said, Ii admire what you do.
But you say I am free to do as I want, but then add “you choose toxins (which you defined essentially as death), and I choose life”, whoa, now there is some judgemental stuff right there.
Plus, I pointed out just some of the toxins you use, and you are all “but when I use them, they make things better”.
Uh huh. Right. Whatever you say. I make stuff, remember? And I know how things are made. What you use may or may not have been made responsibly.
As I said, it is a matter of degree. But here are some for instances:
You make maple syrup, by memory. A lot of heat goes into boiling down maple syrup. You provide that somehow. But no matter how, some folks are going to say “Bad HSF!” Not me, tho.
You live in a cold spot. Takes heat to live in a cold spot. Not me.
How do you heat hot water? Not as efficiently as me, as I do not live in a cold spot. I use a heat pump, that is mega-efficient. Generates several times more energy in heat than it consumes to run, and it is driven off the sun, even in winter, as I have VASTLY oversized the solar array just to be able to do that. Similarly, my house is cooled and heated via heat pump.
Also, my house is massively efficient. Hard to believe yours would come anywhere close, but I stand to be corrected.
It is so efficient, calcs are that I will need no cooling even in the highest temps of 110 degrees in the Aussie summer. My house is thermally massed, perfectly solar aligned to catch the mid-winter sun, and to reflect the summer sun. All walls and ceilings are super insulated, including internal walls, and all rooms are isolatable by internal doors and heatable individually by multi-head heat pump. Again, calcs indicate that heat may never be needed, due to the high efficiency of the house. How about yours?
I capture all of my water needs from rainfall, with bore as an additional option. My house is set up with a recirculation pump system that ensures not a drop of water is wasted waiting for hot water to come through the system. So not a drop of water is wasted there. And yours?
My entire house is LED lit. All appliances are low energy or water models.
The house is made from a lot of reclaimed timber.
Etc etc etc. the entire system was set up to “choose life”. I hired perhaps Australia’s foremost energy/low foot print designer to design my house, and the detail that went into making it a low-footprint house is incredible, and took months of work by specialist designers, and extends to the entire property.
And the overall design of the property is to promote native wildlife and fauna, and to allow enjoyment of them by humans.
But I choose toxins, and you choose life.
Unbelievable.
Star – thank you, you are very right on what you have said.
HSF – I admire what you do, but you are being judgmental, and as I have said, I suspect when the entirety of things is looked at, which of us is less toxic to our environments is not so clear as you seem to think.
Wow.
My communication skills are not very good lately.
Hey star f’er person. Perennial plants like mango trees and strawberry plants are part of a PERMACULTURE, not a MONOCULTURE. Monoculture is the repeated planting of annual plants (like corn and soybeans) on the same ground year after year. In order for monocultures to be successful there MUST be an attendant use of petrochemical additives to the soils which become depleted. Rotational planting is a much better alternative and requires far less amendments even at big Ag levels. Once more, do whatever you like.
Re: Roundup- I was talking about toxic chemicals-poisons being used in order to create the appearance of health and vigor where there is in fact depletion.
You can use whatever you like, it’s none of my business, but I know better than to think that outward appearance equates to inner fitness. The photograph of the Jenner person on the cover of Vanity Fair may look like an attractive female to some, but to others it looks like a mentally ill man. I’d be willing to bet that the percentage of people who think the former are probably big fans of the Monsanto approach to agriculture. Reality is secondary to the appearance.
That my point was so thoroughly missed reflects badly on my words rather than someone’s understanding of them, so I won’t attempt to try again.
“Also, my house is massively efficient. Hard to believe yours would come anywhere close, but I stand to be corrected.”
I live in one of the coldest zones in the lower 48, we heat entirely by solar thermal. The pumps use electric to move the water, but we generate more kilowatts than we use (net producers) from both photovoltaic and wind. We are insulated @ R58. We also maximize passive solar gain through our N/S orientation. In 2008 we were rated as the most energy efficient home in the Northeast, I haven’t followed up on any developments after that so we may no longer be up there. We have no air conditioning, we live on a hilltop surrounded by forest so it’s nice and cool in the Summer- for the most part. If we want it to chill a bit we hang a wet sheet near the door and use evaporation to cool the room. Or sleep nekkid.
I’m a big practice what I preacher. You may outdo me and bravo to you if you do, I wish you the best, sincerely.
Oh, and toxin, by definition, means that which results in death. Roundup is a toxin.
Now that we are all happy again, I want to talk about the energy stuuf some more.
HSF – you say you oriented your house N–S. Everything I have ever read/heard says E-W polar aligned is the way to go – ie ridgeline of house running east west. That way sun in winter hitsthe long face of house, and good design of angles prevents summer sun from getting in.
Mine runs east west to polar north exactly. Eaves and such have been designed such that winter sun will hit interior floor and heat up concrete thermal mass, the entire day, while summer sun in summer, being higher in sky, will be blocked by eave line.
Re R values, until we designed this house, had no clue of such things. US/Oz R values are different. Looking up conversions, best I can tell our new house is somewhere around 45 to 50 US equivalent. But our low temp is no more than say around 28F.
As a result, we are able to use heat pump technology year around, which would not be possible in NH, unless you buried thermal lines deep in the earth from which to draw the heat. Below around 15F heat pumps do not work. All of our heating/cooling is heat pump, but as mentioned the designers indicate very possibly no heat or cool should be required. Not yet convinced.
Hot water is heat pump, generated electricity in hottest point of any day to increase efficiency, solar electric, stored in large insulated tank.
Have approximately 20 kw of solar, so target average daily generation approx. 70kwh. That is FAR in excess of needs. However, it is set up so that during winter, on bad days, we should be able to eek by.
Re power storage – i presume you must store power or use a generator backup, or resort to the grid, – we have not finalized that. The new Tesla battery is supposed to come available early in 2016. We need approx. 10 kwh of back up. That is say 15 kwhs of Tesla battery, or a whopping 50 kwhs of lead battery.
The best would be the ancient Tesla Iron batteries that effectively have never been known to fail. They have some disadvantages – large, heavy, and do not hold a charge for very long.
We are also getting a solar pump or two. A bit costly. These pump water out of dams to holding tanks for use in irrigation. They are really incredible bits of tech. Virtually indestructible, and pump away when needed, and switch off when not. And can move lots of water. Don’t know if you need to do that, but they are very good.
The hot water circulator mentioned above is quite an interesting system. Places in drought – like CA – should perhaps use them in new houses. They save like 5000 gallons of water per year per household.
There are various varieties, but the one we have is linked to a sensor. When you walk into a room with a hot water tap, the sensor goes off and turns on the hot water circulation system. Valves prevent the flow of water until it is hot. But basically, depending on what you do, it takes around 15 seconds for hot water to flow. Without the system, that 15 seconds is used up with cold water flowing down the sink. Older designs recirculated the water non-stop, which burned energy and caused a lot of heat loss.
HSF- Thank you, for this, and thank you for passing it forward, all of it, but the information and the quiet leadership most of all.
Anonymous says:
Encouraging people to xeriscape would save a huge amount of water for growing food and drinking..
Fixed it for you, bb.
Llpoh, doesn’t the sun rise in the west down there?
1. I’ve heard that folks who grew up in Weedpatch, USA do not like the wilderness look anymore than folks who grew up in the ghetto like the color gray. LLPOH has some fine tastes, enviable because he can satisfy them, his description of his yard is only outdone by his description of the details in his old home. The guy earned it, I say let him eat cake.
2. Cutting a lawn that has been allowed to go to meadow is counter-productive. Nature determines its own arrangement. I read somewhere that when we remove a seashell from the beach, we upset the natural arrangement and the seashell loses its natural frame, like a weed, it is an object out of place.
3. What a pleasant read, there was a little tension for a while but in the end the gentlemanly nature prevailed. Kudos.
lpoh says:
Now that we are all happy again, I want to talk about the energy stuuf some more.
HSF – you say you oriented your house N–S. Everything I have ever read/heard says E-W polar aligned is the way to go – ie ridgeline of house running east west. That way sun in winter hitsthe long face of house, and good design of angles prevents summer sun from getting in.
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Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the originators of modern passive solar house design. If I recall correctly, when beginning to lay out a floor plan, he drew a 30 degree angle on an WNW/ESE axis. Most of his later designers were based on his axis, including of course his usonian houses.