"On this day, in 1916, Ishi died"

I've been following The Suburban Bushwacker blog from across the pond. Tonight I saw a post there that I enjoyed, titled the same as this one (thus the quotation marks). At the end of this very readable post is a quote that I just love:

"Ishi felt Western society was essentially silly - the only things that impressed him were matches and glue"

Enjoy clarity reaching out through time to tap you on the forehead every once and a while,

Bp

[Original post here, photo via Wiki commons, quote via The Free Library]

The Pig and the Butcher

Here is a great short on Vimeo showing a butcher taking apart a pig with very little waste. Click the text link for more info on the film and the butcher.

It reminds me of a sentiment I got from Gary Snyder, from one of his books of essays -- simplistically paraphrased: If you want to learn about mastering something, hang out with masters of any sort. You can learn to be a master meditator by hanging out with a master mechanic.

Watch a master butcher.

The Pig & The Butcher from Quarter Productions on Vimeo.

Enjoy getting closer to your food sources,

Bp

[via my faithful Canukistani operative, "Yuri"]

Paul Krugman quote, on Climate Change

"Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the industries of the future don’t."

— Paul Krugman

Saturday Morning Awesome: Grey Fox caught in a camera trap

There is a wonderful blog I follow called Camera Trap Codger, and I saw this post today that really shows the best of the best one can get using a camera trap. Hit this link to see the rest of the pictures. Not only great shots of a photogenic animal, but with a possible storyline/narrative as well.

This, of course, makes me want to run out and get one and set it up. That's what I need -- really, a new hobby. Yeah, with all that time I have.

Enjoy folks following their passions and creating great content for you to enjoy on the intartubes,

Bp

[photo credit Camera Trap Codger blog]

Federal Employee Sacked for Reporting Illegal Cougar Kills

Here is an article from the journal Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) about an upcoming whistleblower case in Nevada. Gary Strader, a professional hunter for U.S. Wildlife Services, had is position "de-funded" after he reported his agency co-workers had killed up to 5 Cougars from government aircraft and then filed false paperwork to cover up the act. Only the heads of the animals were taken, apparently for trophies.

This will be a good sample case for how the Obama administration deals with whistleblowers in the government.

(nothing to enjoy here)

Bp

[article originally found through Truthout.org, photo credit and explanation also at Truthout]

The most probable Colony Collapse Disorder culprit yet

So that last post I made about a possible CCD agent is on pretty thin ice, it turns out. This pesticide, however (imidacloprid) looks very seriously like a possible cause. In this Salon.com article, they present some pretty compelling information.

Bayer CropScience, the producer of both imidacloprid and another suspect pesticide clothianidin, doesn't want you to think this, however. They've got big money on the association between CCD and their products just going away.

Although I can't say that case connecting these pesticides and CCD is waterproof, it sure deserves a WHOLE LOT of attention.

Enjoy possibly finding the solution to a problem with one of our most important agricultural animals,

Bp

[image credit in linked article]

Basking Sharks' hiding places found

The headline above, in a recent Discovery News article both excited me and bummed me out.

It's awesome that we know more about these animals (the 2nd largest fish in the sea) -- but holy hell the shark-finners know too. Or -- maybe they already knew and now the sharks can possibly be protected.

Most of the travel itinerary that the scientists discovered using tracking devices was quite a surprise:

"Tags came off in a wide range of locations, the scientists reported today in the journal Current Biology, from New England to the coast of Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere. Other locations included the Sargasso Sea, the Puerto Rico Trench, and the Guyana coast.

Five sharks traveled more than 2,400 kilometers (nearly 1,500 miles). One spent a month hanging out near the mouth of the Amazon River."

Enjoy learning more about some of the most impressive and vulnerable animals on the planet,

Bp

[photo credit in linked article]

200 New Amphibians discovered in Madagascar

I envy herpetologists sometimes. This article in Discovery news made me very jealous. What fun, finding new herps (especially frogs) in an exotic locale like Madagascar.

Here are pictures of some particularly handsome fellows:

Boophis aff elenae

Boophis ulftunni

Boophis aff miniatus Ranomafanakely

Enjoy portraits of awesome Little Dudes,

Bp

[Photo credits in linked article]

Urban Homesteading -- not just in the Portland Bubble

I was very pleased to see this New York Times article talking about the steadily gaining popularity of backyard livestock in urban and suburban areas of the East Coast and Midwest. Goat and bees were mentioned as well as the ubiquitous backyard chickens.

It seems that laws are being changed around the country to accommodate this lifestyle. As a natural extension of a home garden, a couple animals or backyard livestock only makes sense. Portlanders are all over this, with our coop tours and whatnot. I love it.

I'm often shocked when I start making assumptions about the rest of the country based on what I see in my home town. I'll see a push (albeit hard-fought) for public transportation, or bicycle access, for instance, and then travel elsewhere in the country and find these things utterly non-existent. Not that I think Portland is some paragon of how to do it right -- not by any means. But it is a progressive city as far as the U.S. goes, so it's nice to see one of our little citizen-led green movements actually getting a foothold in the rest of the country as well.

Thanks Nana Povi for sending me the article.

Enjoy knowing where your food came from,

Bp

[photo credit in linked article]

The Bee Photographer -- Eric Tourneret

Here is a link to Eric Tourneret's website The Bee Photographer. His "Bees in the World" series highlights the different ways in which humans interact with bees in different cultures -- from first-world beekeepers in France, to Boat-based bee keeping in Argentina, and of course the fantastic climbing honey harvesters of Nepal.

The website is fantastic, I'll only grab a few photos to show off, you should head to the source. Thanks to Dani the Canukistani for pointing this out to me.








Enjoy great representations of interesting subjects,

Bp

[photo credits in linked website]

A primer on Compact Flourescent bulbs -- you know less than you might expect, I bet.

It turns out I didn't know much about compact flourescent lamps (CFL's) -- despite being an electrician. For instance, I've long known that you shouldn't put compact CFL's in locations that switch on and off a lot, or aren't on for a long period of time -- but I had no specific guidelines. I had a vague notion that they had hazardous guts too, but didn't know specifics. I'll cover both these aspects of CFL's below, you may be surprised at what you learn. [here is the wiki on CFL's for you self-starter types]

First off, where to use them. In this Yahoo Green article, they make some recognizable guidelines.

Basically, if lights in a certain area aren't going to be on for at least 15 minutes at a stretch, don't use CLF's there. You can still use normal flourescent tubes or tungsten (normal) bulbs. Normal flourescents can be used in areas that are on for at least 5 minutes, and of course normal bulbs wherever you want a dimmer or have lights that aren't on much at all.



It's nit picky, but nit picky can be fun if you are geeky enough. Basically if you go outside these guidelines, the bulbs won't last as long or give you the stated energy efficiency -- in either case they won't payback the initial cost as well.

For more info on how and where to use CFL's, here is the Energystar site on them.

A note on the dark side of CLF's -- Mercury.

Overall, in the large scheme of things, CFL's appear to reduce mercury emissions and waste by humans -- but this is by no means absolutely certain. Less pollution is asserted because they reduce energy use (which, in turn, reduces all sorts of waste and pollution -- including Mercury), and they last longer (again, less landfill). This is not rock-solid fact, and is being debated wherever the assertion is made (like in the comments of this Popular Mechanics article).

I'll let you decide whether the jury is out on this one or not -- here is one graph, and another graph on the side of CFL's being a benefit in this regard -- you can see the numbers vary quite a bit.

CFL's do contain small amounts of mercury. Therefore, you have to treat them as a hazardous material when disposing of them, or dealing with a broken one in your home. There are some surprising precautions laid out in this fact sheet by energy star.

For Portland Oregon locals, PGE's suggestions for disposal are here -- basically, store them "safely" and when you have a good number stored up take them to the Haz Mat section of the waste transfer station. That's the same section you take old paints and thinners and whatnot.

Here are the EPA suggestions for CFL disposal and clean-up:

1. Before Clean-up: Air Out the Room
• Have people and pets leave the room, and don't let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out.
• Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
• Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

2. Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces
• Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
• Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass pieces and powder.
• Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place towels in the glass jar or plastic bag.
• Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

3. Clean-up Steps for Carpeting or Rug:
• Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
• Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
• If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.
• Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.

4. Clean-up Steps for Clothing, Bedding, etc.:
• If clothing or bedding materials come in direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from inside the bulb that may stick to the fabric, the clothing or bedding should be thrown away. Do not wash such clothing or bedding because mercury fragments in the clothing may contaminate the machine and/or pollute sewage.
• You can, however, wash clothing or other materials that have been exposed to the mercury vapor from a broken CFL, such as the clothing you are wearing when you cleaned up the broken CFL, as long as that clothing has not come into direct contact with the materials from the broken bulb.
• If shoes come into direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from the bulb, wipe them off with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place the towels or wipes in a glass jar or plastic bag for disposal.

5. Disposal of Clean-up Materials
• Immediately place all clean-up materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area for the next normal trash pickup.
• Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials.
• Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states do not allow such trash disposal. Instead, they require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center.

6. Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming
• The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window before vacuuming.
• Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.

After all the reading needed to write this post, I have to say I was surprised at how uninformed the public was of the hazardous aspects of this technology. And I was especially surprised at how rare it was to find the real information on how to property dispose of them. It's important information, and I hope it gets better disseminated.

Enjoy finding out more about products you are encouraged to be using all over your home, especially the poisonous bits,

Bp

[CFL image via Wikimedia commons, tungsten image credit in linked article]

Little Dudes: Noble's Pygmy Frog -- Noblella pygmaea

Discovered in the Andes, Noble's Pygmy Frog may be the world's smallest. For a great article on the frog with details, click here for the Discovery News article. For my part, lets see some pictures. It's all about the cute around here anyway lately.



Enjoy new discoveries, especially cute ones,

Bp

[photo credit in linked article]

Enzyme search hot as ever to solve food-to-fuel debacle

Biofuel needs to be produced on what is now considered "waste" for me to get excited about it. I've talked about this a few times before.

According to this Bloomberg.com article, there is promising research being done in this field.

The oily grail is a fungi (or lichen) that will efficiently convert organic cellulose into biofuel. More specifically, in this case, an enzyme produced by a fungi or lichen. If found, any source of cellulose would become fuel fodder -- agricultural waste of all sorts, waste wood, and waste paper.

Competition between two companies, Novozymes and Danisco, is pushing the research and development of this technology. It is encouraging to know that market forces are pushing innovation in the alternative energy sector finally. Money is showing up to bolster this work.

And with money comes the usual shenanigans, including a pretty righteous patent infringement settlement against Danisco.

If biofuel production can be based on simply cellulose (as opposed to the current need for plant sugars), then the options for what crops could provide good fodder for fuel production opens right up, as well. Fast-growing, high-cellulose crops like bamboo become viable at that point. Crops that do just fine in temperate environments.

Enjoy keeping your eye on the ball,

Bp

[via my ex-pat Canukistani Uncle, photo credit in linked article]

Nettle Time -- Part 3, freezing

Freezing is now my favorite way to store Nettles. The end product is versatile and super tasty.

Farmer Theo said that his frozen Nettles ended up weird, slimy and black. I was hoping that was due to over cooking, so my main goal was to parboil the nettles just long enough to make them edible, but not long enough to make the leaves break down. I succeeded.

This first picture is of my parboiling setup. I use a stainless steel stock pot with a pasta insert. I get the water (with a little salt added) to a roiling boil, full power, and dump the full pasta insert in with the nettles. I stir the nettles to make sure they're all exposed to the boiling water -- 30 seconds to 1 minute maximum. The closer to 30 seconds the better in my book.



Here is the finished parboiled product. Note the bright green stems and still-green leaves -- this is what you see when they are correctly boiled. None of the leaves are more than slightly wilted, and definitely none of them are a dark, blackish-green color. That is a sign of over-cooking.

At this point they are ready to eat, and we did eat plenty of them right out of the pot -- no salt, no butter no nothing. I really love the taste of these guys, it is like a flowery, mellow spinach flavor. Oh and here's something I learned the hard way -- don't store the newly-cooked greens in a big pile (say in a huge steel bowl) for very long, because they keep cooking and can over-cook. Spread them out to cool and get em bagged up as soon as you can.



For bagging up, I use a Food Saver Vacuum Machine. For the price it works dandy. You can see from the pictures that I leave a lot of empty space in the bags. That is because I re-use them if I've only stored vegtables in them. They are easy to clean (I throw them in the dishwasher -- mine doesn't have a heating unit in it to melt them) and the extra space keeps them a good useable size.

Anyway, there they are, labeled and dated and ready for the freezer. If vacuum sealed they should stay for 2+ years in the freezer. Having "only" picked 5 full grocery bags full of nettles (and drying 2 of them), we're almost out already. In my house at least, don't expect them to stay around too long.

In the 4th and final installment, I'll talk briefly about how I've used the fresh Nettles in cooking.



Enjoy storing up wild foods,

Bp

First confirmed Wolverine sighting in California in 80 years!

A male wolverine was still-photographed last year and video'd this year on Sierra Pacific timber land in Northern California. Genetic tests have shown that it is a male, and the same animal in both instances. The video footage was captured by a cameras set up at baits by SPI on their land.

The individual shares more genetic similarity with animals in the Northern Rockies around Idaho or Montana than those from California's past. For more details, check out this article at Redding.com.

Check out the handsome fellow below:



Enjoy seeing some of the rarer aspects of the ecosphere creep back into the lower 48,

Bp


[via Uncle Tom, source Redding.com]

Ford's solution to a zombie apocalypse

Here is Jalopnik's pick for the Post-Apocalyptic bests at the Chicago auto show. A hilarious concept for a blog post.

"Yuri," my faithful Canukistani operative, pointed out the New Scope Ford F-650 XUV as the car on the list which is of particular interest. Not only for it's Zombie-protection potentials (check out that front grill) but for the obvious fact that it is yet another example of Ford having its finger RIGHT on the pulse of the times.

Thank for Ford for creating a car with fuel economy in mind -- making this bulletproof would have set the gas mileage way too low to be useful in a Zombie apocalypse. Considering the 4wd F150 is getting 9/12 MPG, I'm betting this baby is squarely in the single digits, even on the freeway.

Solid,

Bp

Save a squirrel by eating one

I was pleasantly surprised by the sentiment of this programme in Britian -- making popular the eating of an invasive species to help preserve a native one. Yank grey squirrels are reaping havoc with the cute native red squirrels on the Isle, and the brits are doing something about it. Eating them.

I've talked about this regarding Nutria on this blog in the past (the state of Louisiana had the idea first). And, I think Starlings would make a great source of wild bird cat food, and intend to try it out.

It just makes sense, if an animal becomes popular to eat, or for fur, or medicine it tends to disappear pretty quickly. Why not use that to our advantage, instead of always to our disadvantage. It's a perfect win/win to develop markets and tastes for products derived from invasive species of all sorts.

I think there needs to be hunting of grey squirrels on Vancouver island too, and quickly. Apparently there is much the same situation going on up there but they aren't even allowed to hunt them in any regulated manner -- which makes no sense to me.

Here's to tasty invasive game vittles,

Bp

Generation We video

My Mom sent me this. Despite the rah rah, Pepsi-co kind of feel to it, it makes some very cogent points. For instance, this is the first generation that is inheriting a USA in decline on all fronts: economy, jobs, civil rights, education, and of course environment.

By 2016, they will be the largest voting block in the United States. That is an enormous amount of power, as we well know from the Boomer generation's stranglehold on politics for the last 25 years or so. As that one generation changed, so did the face of politics in America, right along with them. As the "We" generation comes of age, there will be another change.

I'm not sure I'm quite willing to sign on with the rah rah optimism depicted in this video, but it does give me fodder for thought. Might for you too.



Enjoy the barest twinkle of possibility in some of these thoughts,

Bp

Wake up, freak out, then get a grip

There is some straightforward, rational explanations of positive-feedback loops within the "climate change" arguments in this video. For that alone, it's worth watching. But it has a nice feel about it as well -- not hysterical, not doomsday, not too pedantic. It presents what is known and at least a beginning picture of how to digest and act on the information.

I normally shy away from climate change stuff, but this one made it through my defenses and may be a change from what you've seen as well.


Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

Enjoy learning in a less-fundamentalist way about our current world state,

Bp

[via Nessa]

Why so serious about Sarah?

The Chumslick is one of my favorite blogs. The guy is irreverent, and even crass, but for all the right reasons. When he's onto his pro-shark (even pro shark-bite) stance, he's both hilarious and heart-breaking. He often says the things that I was thinking but hadn't gotten the guts up to post myself.

Here is his post about Sarah Palin and her stance on wildlife and wildlife protections. He links to some great posts and articles and videos in the blog, but let me give you an excerpt of the author's own words that I especially appreciate:

She stands for the thing we might despise most: the hurbristic belief in mankind's divinely-sanctioned exploitative dominance over nature and wildlife--an extension of Manifest Destiny.

These people are quick to say that the Bible sanctions man's dominance over the world and all things in it, but then they forget that for every Bible passage that asserts man's dominance, there are 20 that condemn greed and waste.

I'll let his post stand on its own, it's worth your read.

And here is a cartoon that slams the general idea home:


Enjoy folks who are on your side, and really put it out there,

Bp