DVD at Amazon
From Kurzweil AI comes a summary of a Physorg report that must be read completely about Turkish scientists creating a revolutionary glass spray that promises to “make cleaning obsolete” and even serve as a non-toxic barrier to pests for food crops.
“The liquid glass coating is breathable, which means it can be used on […]
Tagari.com
Sometimes you can be a prophet in your own land.
Permaculture founder Bill Mollison was recognized for his work educating millions throughout the world by leaders in his native Australia.
“Bill was awarded with the distinctive title of “Senior Australian of the Year 2010 – National Finalist” in a ceremony held in Hobart on November 23, […]
UrbanFarming.org
Little House on the Urban Prairie announced this exciting permaculture workshop (e. e. cummings style):
“urban ecology detroit presents a workshop with eric toensmeier - lessons learned from nuestras raices: permaculture for community and economic redevelopment, february 2nd from 10am to 2pm at the environmental interpretive center located on the campus of the university of michigan […]
This ABC 7 online article, “Urban Farming Gains Popularity in Bay Area,” features video of a small farm in Oakland, California and a store in Berkeley catering to increasing numbers of urban farmers in cities surrounding San Francisco.
In San Francisco itself, from the YouTube description posted July 30, 2009, a doctor at UCSF deals with […]
Conservation
Refugees
In a recent podcast of the San Francisco radio show An Organic Conversation, with host Helge Hellberg, Guernica magazine and former Mother Jones journalist and now “investigative historian,” Mark Dowie, talked about his career and plans for his own radio show.
I enjoyed the German, Hellberg’s personal account of his experience twenty years ago when the […]
The BBC online story “Hydro-electricity in Wales: Turning streams into cash” describes micro-hydro turbines gaining popularity among farmers. The small systems are generating the amount of power used in surrounding communities.
For those who have streams, but without a steep waterfall drop that makes existing turbines worthwhile, Boing Boing’s Mark Frauenfelder reports something new, “Technology to […]
A recent WorldChanging article, which came to my attention in this TreeHugger article, complains about the alleged “Dark Side of Transition Thinking,” and thus bashes a growing movement active throughout the world.
The author, Alex Steffen, wrote in “Transition Towns or Bright Green Cities?” that “All over the world, groups of people with graduate degrees, affluence, […]
Conscientious Projector is hosting a free showing of Dirt the Movie in Tustin, CA this weekend (Sun., Nov. 9, 5 pm), which I plan to attend.
Here’s the Soul at Home location website with the Tustin address if you’re nearby and want to see the film.
There will also be a showing Wed., Nov. 18, 2009 […]
I was surprised not to find Ruth Stout already here in a search of this blog.
Ruth lived from 1884 until 1980 and is famous for her planting method of essentially pressing seeds into the ground, which she prepared by covering with soft hay to protect from the sun, suppress weeds and keep the ground moist. […]
In the October, 2009 issue of Los Angeles Magazine, amongst the full page luxury car ads, guides to trendy clothing stores, restaurants, shopping in general, and Hollywood industry discussion, I was surprised to see “Homegrown” and “How to have a bumper crop right in your own backyard” on the cover.
The print edition has a section […]
From Australia comes a story, “Trend blossoms,” by Meg Sobey in the Moonee Valley Community News about neighbors doing an extreme makeover of a family’s backyard. (Thanks, Google Alerts).
“IT is difficult to imagine that Melanie Henkel’s kitchen once looked out over a grey courtyard. Her backyard now resembles a miniature farm, offering vegetables, fruit and […]
From Milkwood.net mostly
Permaculture Noosa describes a geodesic enhancement to the classic Linda Woodrow chook dome design.
Who thought Bucky Dome Climbers for kids had such a practical use? Too small for a human dome home (thanks PlanetGreenTV), but the perfect sized skeleton for an improved chicken tractor.
Now one person can lift the enclosure intact instead of […]
I was amazed when a grandmaster of Hollywood trivia attending a Libertarian supper club recently claimed not to have heard the term “permaculture” before.
It seems quite the trendy thing these days in political and cultural circles, but then I’m looking for it everywhere. Maybe folks will notice the release of the film “Food, Inc.” in […]
flickr - mtoz/659463004
The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia published the cheerful report, “Monsanto Runs Into Wall. Yes!!” in their “Why Permaculture/GMOs” website section.
Poor little Monsanto must be feeling the heat. They’ve got a Biotech-GMO cheerleading page online that essentially says organic customers and growers face no danger from them.
I’ve been listening to the Audible edition […]
ABC (Australia) Rural reports, “Group that started permaculture holds its last meeting“.
And here’s a couple of random Mound-day items. First, a Boing Boing post describing goat towers is worth reading and has cute photos. That goats are curious and like to climb on things was confirmed for me when I found goats on top of […]
As a fan of Paolo Bacigalupi’s 2006 Hugo Nominated novelette, “The Calorie Man” (read it free in PDF), I found it irresistable to watch this TED Talk on the TEDTalksDirector channel at YouTube about the Millennium Seed Bank.
“The Calorie Man” is a 1984 type of story about a future run by corporations owning all food […]
AlongsideNight.com
The headline says it all. Congressman Ron Paul, a recent U.S. Presidential candidate and popular leader of the Campaign For Liberty, just endorsed Neil’s agorist novel, Alongside Night. Says Neil, “We just received the following endorsement on Alongside Night via Ron Paul’s aide, Norman Singleton.”
“J. Neil Schulman’s Alongside Night may be even more relevant today […]
Antonio & Alexia Cardenas
“The Realtors In Motion”
With all due respect to certain realtors who may be able to squeeze buyers into properties they can afford (while said buyers still have business or job income), in general, real estate is down while gardening and old fashioned maritime piracy are up.
From a Mises Daily article by Doug […]
Controversial left libertarian author Kevin Carson takes on the cheerleaders for the “Green Revolution” in a magazine length article at C4SS, “The Green Revolution Saved Lives? A Killer Meme That Just Won’t Die.”
“Recently, in honor of Norman Borlaug’s 95th birthday, Ron Bailey of Reason Magazine posted a quote from his 2000 interview with Borlaug. For […]
ARS Technica had some rare good news about the state of the sea in an article titled Ocean conservation success stories.
“(Some) good news does exist, though, which is important for those working in the field, according to Dr Nancy Knowlton, one of the session’s moderators. As Knowlton put it, students aren’t interested in “writing ever-more […]
Another food contamination scare is in the news–this time it’s pistachio nuts. Wikipedia describes the heart health benefits of pistachios.
“One or two handfuls of the nuts can make a big enough difference to lower the risk of heart disease, say scientists. Volunteers who ate three ounces of pistachios a day for one month lowered their […]
You might expect Mound-Day items to appear on Monday, but who says I’m tied to your planet’s orbital idiosyncrasies, Earthling?
An excerpt from a Chicago Tribune story last week about Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden:
“Friday’s activities are the culmination of a campaign to turn the 16 acres of White House grounds into an ‘edible landscape’. ”
This kind […]
Daily Mail pic detail
A “permaculture” Google Alert brought me a link to this Design Thinking blog post with a transcript of a brief excerpt from a recent BBC2 show, Natural World: A Farm for the Future.
There’s also a link to the programme (UK only, maybe someday they’ll make the program available to the world).
I was […]
“Greenpa” over at Little Blog In The Woods has lived off-grid for over 30 years now. He posted news about his homestead, called the Little House, including the following update:
“. . .the Little House has been approached by Nick Rosen; author of How to Live Off-Grid, for us to be one of the families he’ll […]
Melonie Kennedy wrote this Prepared Family post, about how the online Flash interactive version of the Murray McMurray Hatchery catalog just made her crave getting the paper version even more. So much for the paperless society. She also confesses her wish that live chickens could be mailed. Don’t tell PETA. (Here’s the regular McMurray site […]
An Unreasonable.Org post links to an energetic rebuttal of a claim that permaculture is an impractical “hippy dippy, hunter gatherer” farming system.
Quoting permaculturist David Blume on his experience:
“My yields were often 8 times what the USDA claims are possible per square foot. My soil fertility increased dramatically each year so I was not achieving my […]
Following up the Coffee to Biodiesel story, it seems to me if you could grow your own coffee, as described at home coffee roasting supplier Sweet Maria’s, that would be great. Yeah.
Supposedly, a percentage of already processed (but not roasted) beans can become viable sprouts. After a couple of years a coffee tree can become […]
This Slashdot post links to an American Chemical Society article about a report by researchers here in Nevada, published in The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, about the impact of turning waste coffee grounds into biodiesel.
“The resulting coffee-based fuel — which actually smells like java — had a major advantage in being more stable […]
There are advocates of hemp for biofuel, just as there are for tobacco.
That’s my excuse for including this anti-drug-war item on a permaculture blog. I’m also sick of seeing COPS style reality shows which glorify the destruction of our freedom. The latest atrocity is a new show called Heimatschutzministerium, or to translate from the […]
It’s harvest time!
One of Boing Boing editor Mark Frauenfelder’s recent posts about organic home gardens, War Vegetable Gardening, starts with the following review of a classic book with the same title and continues with an excerpt from the book.
“Daniel Bowman Simon of The Who Farm sent me a link to this scanned book: War Vegetable […]
J. Kent Hastings
Record Your Own
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