Tempocalyspe Now [ liff/ ]
Fires raging on all sides. Not close enough to worry us... yet... but still too close for comfort. A forest fire to the north that started in (I hear) Kerkbos, raging out of control, fires down the Phantom Pass - two helicopters with water buckets working there. Fires out at Harkerville. Redlands fire fortunately under control. Seven fires out of control in the broader South Cape region; extra firefighters flown in from other parts of the country.And it's still a heatwave. Thankfully the wind has dropped.
Still no signs of rain. The drought rages on. Everything is terribly dry. The veggie garden is essentially dead. Dams are empty. What little vegetation was left in the veggie garden got eaten by a Bushbuck a few days ago. Bastard.
The local Baboon troop has been causing havoc, too, ripping into rubbish bins and refuse bags, taking fruit off the trees (and breaking branches in the process.) With help from friends we have found out that the behaviour we're seeing form the younger males is typical and role driven. So the usual dingbat ideas of "Shoot the buggers" or trying to scare them with (illegal) fireworks simply won't work. Why do people always fall back on the same stupid ideas that they know don't work? We consider ourselves the intelligent species, yet we're consistently outmanoeuvered by the Baboons.
If the blog stops abruptly it will be because we have to evacuate. We're already thinking about what essential possessions we would take. Passports, birth certificates, the computers (or at least their hard-drives), family photos, my seed collection,... I really don't think it will get that far (though it has for some of our neighbours down the Rheenendal Road) but it's best to be prepared - mentally at least.
Not a very happy situation, but we soldier on. It's really hard to imagine yourself being self-sufficient in the face of this drought. Be pessimistic about the future for the human species, given that we wont get out of the fucking Hummers and Prados.
Too many topics for one short blogpost, I know... it all jumbles together...
Braamekraal Webstuff Changes [ liff/ ]
Wiki URLS Have ChangedI've changed the way that URLs are handled in the wiki that handles the farm website content so that they're more human-readable. This means that some of you (and it seems that I have quite a few regular readers - Thank You!) may have bookmarks in the old style. From my testing these should still work fine, but if they don't, please re-bookmark. Drop me a line if you're stuck...
Blog Changes Soon
In similar vein I am planning to replace the blog software I've been using forever. The old system is just too clunky and ugly to continue using, so I'll be replacing it as soon as I can make time to hack up some nice templates for the new software. The big trouble is all my old content... (Indeed, the poor access to old content is one of thr motivating factors for moving to newer, better software!)
Moving the content from the old system to the new will take a whole lot of time, and I can't seem to find an easy way to automate it. So I may end up losing old comments, and it may take quite some time to move the older posts. In any event, my planbe blog link is highly likely to change...
Advertising? What Do You Think?
I've resisted running ads on the farm website and blog up to now. It is not a commercial site, and I hate the idea of cheapening it. Then, too, I strongly hold the stance that The Whole World Is Not Your Billboard. Not everything is for advertising. Not everything is for sale. (I've been known to remove random real-estate boards from fences in prominent public eye where they're clearly just taking a chance.)
But! Times are (very) tough and money is tight. I'm not sure that the site drives enough traffic to earn even a little bit of money from running ads, but the idea of some small revenue (however minor) is sounding increasingly attractive.
So: I'm asking you - my regular readers and friends - what you think. Please contact me directly or leave a comment. Is it worth risking the integrity of the site? Or am I blowing the risk aspect up too large in my mind? How do you feel about ads on the Braamekraal site and planbe blog?
[ liff/ ]
Optimism in a cup. Crabbiness in a can. Caffeine is widely available around here.Anne Herbert
Waking up grumpy is partly waking up in caffeine withdrawal. Then have a cup and speed off.
We'resort of zooming Earth life away with too much activity. Glaciers melting, deserts growing are not exatly caffeine hangover events, but not exactly not.
A bias for action around here is sometimes so slanted it becomes a precipitous cliff.
Abbreviated Update [ liff/ ]
A miscellany. Life has had too much happening to have blogged it all in detail. I may get around to telling some of it in more detail, but, like all other Good Intentions, don't hold your breath.Last week was a trip down to Cape Town to chat with all the microbreweries between here and there, gathering some basic data for a business idea I have. Along the way was a most interesting visit to the SA Barley Breeding Institute! Many thanks to the kind folk there who were so generous with their time!
CT was a bunch of hectic running around sourcing various materials for the brewery, culminating in a get-together with the SouthYeasters Brew Club on Wednesday evening. My good friend Franz kindly gave me several new yeast strains, including a couple of Belgian abbey strains, so I'm looking forward to brewing some Belgian Ales in a little while.
Cut the trip a little short and returned home on Thursday, as the OB Dog was obviously very seriously ill. And I am very glad we did. We spent a last few hours with her on the vet's lawn last Friday. That evening I had to take the very sad decision to let her go... she was suffering from an inoperable liver tumour that was causing her all sort of grievous problems. We're still very sad about losing her... tears come to my eyes at the oddest moments. I've had many special dogs in my life, but none as special as OB. She taught me things about what it is to be a wolf/dog, and also things about what it is to be a human. The truest friend anyone could have had, we were extremely fortunate to know OB -- most people will never experience that privilege!
This week has been a bunch of gardening, still trying to get beds cleared, Tomatoes transplanted, squashes in,... I've left the bloody Fennels too long in the seedtray... endless litany of weeding and clearing.
Culled a couple of roosters on Wednesday morning, only to have someone leave the chicken-house door unsecured that evening, whereupon the Ratel (or maybe a Gennet or a Lynx) got in that night. Rudely awakened at about 10.30 to the squawking and screeching of dying chickens... the bastard took out 2 roosters and 3 hens, which amounts to half the flock. So I got to spend Thursday morning plucking and cleaning Still More Chickens. Too late did I read Hedgewizard's Really Good Idea... Would have saved me a bunch of work, I can tell you! The only consolation is that I was planning to cull those two roosters anyway.
Also started on making another batch of malt. 2kg of Barley soaking, half of which I'll make into ordinary Crystal Malt, the other half will get roasted much longer in an attempt to make something like a Special B Malt in preparation for those Belgian Ales. I'm thinking of brewing a special Belgian style beer to be named for OB. (She was a Belgian Shepherd.)
And the drought goes on. It's even too hot to brew!
RIP OB PhD [ liff/ ]
OB 1999-2009
Notes to self... [ liff/ ]
Dry again, this month. 11mm to date. May is really too late to be planting things, but then earlier would just have been a waste of time and effort, this year.Gave-up on the Brassicas that were sitting in trays -- they'd been there too long. Instead I direct-sowed some CopenhagenMarketCabbage in GardenBed1 and it is just starting to come-up. Carrots still have made no showing. RedMustard sowed last week in GardenBed8 for seed, along with EarlyPurpleKohlrabi. Must still sow more Brassicas.
Have been struggling to buy (any) grain in small quantities for covering a bed or two (and to gain experience with grains.) Might just have to go with the Buckwheat I've got.
Transplanted the (few) Winter-experiment Chillies that have come-up into tubes; I must move them somewhere warmer for Winter. From memory: JalapeñoPurple, AjiDulce, AjiAmarillo, Tabasco, Tschanad and a single (green) Jalapeño.
http://mikro2nd.net/farm/Wiki.jsp?page=WinterSeason09
Software updates [ liff/ ]
Finally updated the software driving the Farm website, as well as a couple of others I've been wanting to change or get established for some while.Not a simple software upgrade, I tell you! No, not for me something simple and easy. Sometimes I swear that I go out my way to make things difficult for myself! This lot involved a whole bunch of custom template development, custom CSS and custom configuration to make all the sites run off a single instance of JSPWiki so as to minimise the memory use on the server.
At least its done, now. Hopefuly this makes it easier to update content and add more... the motivating reason for the upgrade was a bug in the earlier version, and/or a bug in my templates for that version that made editing content a real pain in the arse.
All I need, now, is the inspiration to actually write! ;-)
Update 28/2/09: Now, of course, I have to do something about the crap-looking blog!
"First" SA CSA: Nonsense in the Blogosphere [ liff/ ]
sa's first community supported agriculture (CSA) project reports the urban sprout blog.What nonsense! I've known of several CSAs run in places ranging from Knysna to the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town since as far back as the mid-90's. Hell, I've run one! (Was very small scale, but still...)
Of course I would have noted this as a comment on the urban sprout blog, but their comment form is broken -- one of those "answer the simple math problem" anti-spam measures that always reports "wrong answer" (though I'm reasonably sure that 2+2 adds up to 4, even in South Africa.) Trying to report the fault through their "contact" form also fails to work... the contact form reports a "validation error", so no way to even contact them.
Perhaps they're afraid of comments? Might there be some unfavourable comments that call bullshit on lies about the "first CSA in SA" or similar? ;-)
The Big Questions [ liff/ ]
(This post has nothing whatever to do with self-sufficiency or gardening or seed-saving or alternative energy or chickens. Maybe.)A few years ago a friend was going through some tough times in her life. No money. No marketable skills. No luck. I asked her the question,
If I handed you 30-million Rand in cash right now, what would you do with your time, with your life, when you wake up tomorrow?The amount is irrelevant (as is her answer.) I believe that most of us have a Magic Amount of money, more than which we figure we'd be "untouchable". I call it your Fuck You Value. I define it as that amount beyond which -- no matter who makes you an offer -- no matter how financially rewarding that offer might be -- no matter what the circumstances -- we have this lump of cash stashed under the bed (or whatever) that gives us the freedom to say Fuck You, I'm doing X.
Now multiply that amount by 10.
Imagine you actually have that 10 * F amount of money in cold cash, under the bed (or in a bank if you believe that's safer ;-)
I ask you, as I ask myself, "Under such a circumstance, when you wake up tomorrow, what will you spend your time doing?"
Maybe its just another way to discover (if you haven't already) your Passion.
So just today I tripped across/was reminded of another of these Big Huge Hairy Questions:
If a trusted friend could arrange a meeting between you and anyone of your choosing, who would you choose? Not for entertainment or curiosity or bragging rights. Who would you choose to meet?I confess that I don't have any answer. I can't think of a soul so important that I have to meet them. Including dead or mythical people. More than answering the question, I find the fact that I can't think of anybody I so want to meet to be the most thought-provoking thing.
That Good Ol' Inundation Time [ liff/ ]
That time of year. The Inundation -- not so much the water, though happily the dams and soil are looking much improved from the good rains we've had so far this month -- but the inundation of work in the garden. It's been keeping me pretty busy, I can tell you. I've managed to dig one new bed, bringing the total to 14, and with a little luck I may even get another one dug. Be aware that "digging a bed" for me means heavy composting and double-digging in a heavy clay soil to prepare a deep-bed, so it's a significant investment of energy. And then some people wonder when I am quite... pointed... about visitors to the veggie garden not treading on the beds, but sticking to the paths. There's also been a lot of rehab work on paths and existing beds, after their 9-month neglect while I worked on a programming contract.All the plants are terribly slow this year. Spring has been cold, windy and wet, and it's only really in the last week or two that most plants have shown real signs of waking-up. This year's Spring Disaster (isn't there always one?) has been seedling-mix. Usually I use my own compost for seed trays, but it tends to be a bit dense, retaining water a lot, and thus restricting oxygen to the plant roots and slowing plant development. So this year, feeling flush from the effects of the Sojourn In The Desert1, I splashed out on "professional" seedling mix. What a lot of rubbish. It fails to hold water in any adequate way. It forms a lovely cement-like crust over the top, and just generally is worse than my own compost. Chillis planted into it have still failed to show-up. Chillis planted a month later in my own mix are looking much better. Sadly I risked a number of varieties of Chillis, Tomatoes and Lettuces where my seed-stocks were at their end, and I've now lost those lines. Grrrrrrr... That'll be the last time I buy that rubbish. Rather focus on finding ways to lighten-up my own seed mix.
On the bright side, both the Globe Artichokes and the Jerusalem Artichokes are doing really well, as are a bunch of relocated Tomato volunteers. Squashes and Cukes not so good -- too much cold for them -- but we'll keep trying. Beans (for drying) are doing well, though I still lack a really good Pinto bean, and am struggling to source a decent (large-size) Butter Bean. I like Beans.
I've become a lot more focussed on trying to get real staple crops going, so there's been much more work on the simple stuff -- Beans, Potatoes. Leafy crops are all very tasty, vitaminicious and the like, but what we monkeys really want are Carbohydrates. (Bananas are filling the gap, but there's a limit...) As soon as I get all the right factors in the right place at the right time, I'll be burning the rank grass off the top fields and putting them under grains and oilcrops. Fire is frightening stuff, though, no matter how powerful a tool for clearing land! Between the money-world "disasters"2, the increasingly obvious climate changes, and the ever-pressing oil prices my thinking is that anybody who grows food is going to do OK over the next few years!
[1] The Programming Contract. It may only have been 9 months, but there were times when it felt like 40 years...
[2] I find it difficult to take that whole catastrophe too seriously. I mean, really, it's all too "We deluded ourselves into believing that Some Crap was a real value and... It all turned out to be Crap!" No sympathy, me. Of course its had the inevitable effect3 on our Developing Nation Crap Currency, which means that the veggie-breeding book I want (Carol Deppe's book) was R260, but is now R330!
[3] Of course we shouldn't neglect the effect of the Idiot Who Would Be King President and his fuckwit minions...4
[4] OK, OK! I know I made a promise to myself that this blog wouldn't cross into politics, but really... we're in for a Kakistocracy5 worse than the US'ians have suffered these last 8 years.
[5] The word "Kak" is a common South African term for "shit". It actually derives from the Greek word "kakistos", meaning "the worst".
Signal and Noise [ liff/ ]
Still barely alive.Thank goodness my (6 month, software development) contract is finished! I originally contracted to deliver 40 work-hours per month. It ended-up regularly going beyond 90. Utter chaos.
Imagine someone1 calling up a builder. "I want a wall built."
"OK!" says O'Reilly.2
"So can you have it done by Monday, then?" Notice that you have not given him any plans, nor even the slightest indication of where the wall should go, how high it should be or how long, what materials are wanted... But imagine further, that, when O'Reilly quite reasonably refuses to give an estimate, our Customer promptly throws their toys out of the cot in no small way. And a month further into the saga accuses O'Reilly of gross incompetence and/or being and out-and-out crook.
All this and more has been part of my life for the past 6 months. Oh, the money was nice to have for a change, but I'm not sure the cost was worth it. My health is still recovering -- bronchial infection as a direct result of stress... Still, it has been an interesting little sojourn back into Money World. At least we've mostly-cleared the debt piled-up by our son's (still-ongoing) Adventures at Rhodes University. All this is the reason there's been so little action on this blog: Nothing On-Topic to blog about, and I don't want to add to the stream of noise.
The only real self-sufficiency news of any note is the continuing shortage of rain. March and April both produced less than half the average rainfall (5-year average) and May saw us getting a mere 14mm. (Average for May is 71mm!) Dams are rapidly approaching Empty. I put some Carrots into the ground yesterday and cannot be sure I'll have enough water to get them established. I have the Usual Winter Suspects in seed-trays -- Cabbages, some Florence Fennel, lots of Onions and Leeks -- but they're terribly slow and late -- Slugs got into the "on-time" batch so the seed-trays are month-late desperation tries...
But still no rain! Household water supplies are fine. We are so conservative with our water that by the time our water tanks start running dry the entire region will be a disaster-area. But for the garden and fields things are looking pretty grim.
[1] I know that none of you, dear readers, would ever behave in such an unreasonable manner as this hypothetical customer. Take my word for it: They do exist!
[2] And Python fans will be shouting "Run Away!", won't they...
Plan Be Unplugged [ liff/ ]
Fit the FirstUnless you're living in South Africa, you're probably unaware that the country is in the midst of an Energy Crisis. Rolling blackouts are the order of the day; even the mines -- traditionally the mainstay of the economy[1] -- are having to deal with major power-cuts. Stories abound of commuter trains stranded, traffic snarl-ups due to non-funtioning traffic lights, hospital patients dependent on breathing machines having to be "breathed" by manual labour, telephones and network connections that stop working because the local telephone exchange exhausts its backup power. Nobody is untouched. Every one of us has a story of somebody we know being affected in a life- or income-threatening way.
My youngest brother, Richard, owns a factory that produces sugar sticks -- great lumps of crystalised sugar at the end of a stick, for stirring into coffee (or even -- ugh, gods forbid! -- tea!) Signpost to the pointymost peak of Peak Everything Civilisation, I suppose, but there it is. Trouble is, the process of producing a sugar stick takes 3 days. Three days of pernickity temperature differentials, maddeningly-critical evaporation rates and inexplicably unstable solution-flow rates. Three days. Unless the power fails. Then you get to throw away an entire batch -- 5 tonnes -- of sugar solution, and start again, hoping against hope that the power stays up long enough to make a living. It would be one thing if the business were a well-established one, with a stable, understanding and patient customer base, but it's not. They're still a startup. They produce the best quality sugar sticks in the world, at one third the price of their closest competitors, but they're The New Kids on the Block. They've signed some great customers. But those customers will evaporate if they can't deliver the goods. The fact of power-cuts every second day will produce sympathy from the individuals involved who understand the whys and wherefores; but the fact remains... the customers will go away.
The "current" energy problems are totally the responsibility of the government. Despite the public anger at Eskom, the state-owned-and-run electricity monopoly. More than ten years ago (in 1998, to be exact,) Eskom was warning government that, given government's economic growth targets, Eskom would need to build several more baseload power stations to meet the demand. Given that it takes about ten years to build a significant baseload power-station -- not to mention the getting through all the Environmental Impact Assessments and Community Consultation and Planning requirements. At the time, it was Not Politically Convenient to hear this message, so Mbeki's cabinet ignored it. So we sit with Economically Significant Power Cuts.
Recently some government schmuck tried to suggest that the power shortage was a result of Apartheid-Era Planning -- The Usual Scapegoat. Oh how we laugh! (I'll bet it was my "friend" Arshole Alec, the Arithmetically Challenged Minister Who Has Shot His Bolt. Whilst the apartheid regime certainly left us with lots of horrible legacy, this particular clusterfuck came about on the ANC's watch. The Old Nats (may they rot in hell) would never have permitted such sloppy planning! (whatever else they may have turned a blind-eye to...)
Premonition of the Great Unwinding. We South Africans are the Pathfinders. We are the first to glimpse the course of Energy Descent. Not with a bang, but with a whimper, we go.
Fit the Second
For the couple of years I've had DSL internet service, it has been great. In the face of country-wide complaints (verging on rioting, mayhem and life-threats to Telkom's management) about the Totally Fucking Useless National Telco I have been a lone voice in the wilderness saying what a great DSL service I get. Well
Fit the Future
So this is the face of the powerdown. Not in a cataclysmic implosion, does our civilization die, but little piece by little piece. Some things will undoubtedly get better even as other parts of the technological iceberg disintegrate. Not a single all-in-one unravelling of the Jersey of Warm Fuzziness, but one loose thread at a time.
Even as cellphone service improves and prices fall, fixed-line service goes down the toilet. Even as our air-force's latest toys scream by overhead, petrol prices are at an all-time high, and people are wondering why food prices seem to have skyrocketted, too. Can there really be such a disconnect in peoples' understanding?
'Tis the season for Growing Corn in Rheenendal, and never before have I seen as much acreage[2] dedicated to growing Maize. Most of it, I am guessing, contracted to American biofuel companies. Why do I not feel Warm and Fuzzy like this is a reasonable and sustainable way to provide the energy needs of 6 or 10 or 12 billion people striving to live a first-world lifestyle, driving their Hummers to collect the kids from school[4], annual holidays in another hemisphere and fresh Canadian Salmon for Summer Snacks?
The Unterste Schürer[5]
In a low-energy future -- and we're going to have one, whether we like it or not -- the planet cannot sustainably support so many of us. I realise that I risk the wrath of feminists everywhere (and The Pope[7]) but we face simple choice: reduce our numbers in a managed way, or have Gaia reduce them in an unmanaged way.
What's your choice?
----
[1] South Africa still produces something like 50% of the world's gold each year, not to mention a host of rare and obscure minerals that turn out to be totally essential to modern industry. Stuff like Cadmium and Tantalum, Vanadium, Ytterbium[3]. In recent years, though, tourism has generated more jobs and revenue to than even gold mining.
[2] Somehow "hectarage" just doesn't sound the same.
[3] http://www.privatehand.com/flash/elements.html
[4] I couldn't make it up if I tried. Not to mention that home and school are the daunting distance of some 800m apart! I sure that Little Darling's legs would break if they walked that far.
[5] Yiddish[6]. "The Bottom Line".
[6] Spelling optional.
[7] Not noted for his Feminist sympathies, I'll note[8].
[8] "A note? A-Flat[9], I'm sure. My Mother gave the gift of perfect pitch, you know!"
[9] ...or, given the state of the electrically-disconnected South African gold mines, A-Flat-Minor!
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- Recent ramblings...
- Tempocalyspe Now
- Braamekraal Webstuff Changes
- Abbreviated Update
- RIP OB PhD
- Notes to self...
- Software updates
- "First" SA CSA: Nonsense in the Blogosphere
- The Big Questions
- That Good Ol' Inundation Time
- Signal and Noise
- Plan Be Unplugged
- Listening to...
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