Category: Musings

why austerity should work, but doesn’t – from an organic grower’s perspective

Austerity is not a novel tactic.  Micawber recommended, though failed to implement it when he proclaimed in David Copperfield: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.". With an austere regimen, including food discipline and exercise, the overweight human gone to seed can be restored his former efficient self.  And it can also work for struggling Read more [...]

rampant nostalgia

I have heard of misty nostalgia when we revisit scenes from the past, often with selective vision ignoring what was bad.  I am now seized with rampant nostalgia. A couple weeks ago the NYT Sunday magazine featured an interview with the author John Le Carre'.  I had tried his books several times the past 30 years and never got past the first 30 pages.  I was out of tune with his writing.  With T.S. Eliot it had been different.  I was aware that Eliot was a top poet (though he held several Read more [...]

Is not impermanence the very fragrance of our days?

I have a 50 minute drive to my property.  And NPR informs and entertains.  Except during the 2 week fund raising campaign.  Then I have to improvise and, since I have a basic truck which does not have a connection for mp3, I burn podcasts on CD's and listen, intently, since you cannot rewind a missed phrase but must go b ack to the beginning of the track. A review by Paul Wheaton on the self sufficiency and sustainability practices of the Japanese during the Edo period (book "Just Enough" by Read more [...]

Down Under takes a stand – almost

Hurricane Sandy late last year hammered the northeast.  I read the articles and listened carefully to NPR for a consensus from the scientific community attributing the cause of the hurricane to global warming (I use "global warming" and "climate change" interchangeably). There was no consensus nor did I hear a scientific expert unequivocally say that global warming caused Hurricane Sandy.  No shortage of laypeople expressing their views, including Mayor Bloomberg, but it seemed the scientific community Read more [...]

a silver lining to faltering memory, also BMSB and IPM

I find that my memory does not work as well as in the past.  As a student I could easily memorize hundreds of law cases, now the labels I read one day are gone the next.  So where is the silver lining consolation? I believe we have different skill sets and we compensate for those we lack.  The kid who can analytically unravel and reassemble complicated concepts  tends to be independent and does not require and consequently does not develop, good social skills.  The ambitious kid, who does Read more [...]

5 steps to conversion and organized skepticism

The nice thing about engaging in politics while running is you work out your anger quickly and without upset.  If you engage too loudly or passionately, your companion/opponent may edge away or pick up speed or become distracted by the passing natural attractions.  In the event, no harm is done, and you both feel better for the exercise and the ridded emotions. On the topic of global warming, Bob has made some progress over the past 5 years and is now at level three of the five step climb which Read more [...]

wood ash and the van Helmont experiment

On cold nights I burn wood in the hearth.  Really inefficient with most of the heat going up the chimney and I am resolved to install, some time, a good wood stove.  However, what puzzles me as I stare at the burning embers is why there is so little residue from the logs.  The amount of ash remaining depends on several factors such as type of wood, moisture content and heat of combustion.  Seasoned wood has a moisture content of say 20% (water represents 20% of the total weight).  The ash remaining Read more [...]

harvesting an oak tree and growth rings

I really am not into cutting down trees gratuitously, especially not an oak tree, which is one of my favorite trees.  When I made a road through the woods I selected a path which would require the fewest and smallest trees to be removed.  But this week I needed wood posts.  I did not wish to purchase the treated 4" by 4" posts because they are loaded with preservatives which will leach and be absorbed by the roots of my fruit trees, vines etc.  Composite posts deform and are expensive.  Even Read more [...]

why, in a forest, are the leaves of a small oak tree larger than a big oak tree?

Yesterday, while walking through the woods, I noticed a very large oak tree leaf.  Automatically, I looked up and around for the parent and saw just large pines and then, on the side, a smallish 14 ft oak tree.  Could this small tree have produced such a large leaf, I wondered.  It still retained some leaves and indeed they were very large. Now I know that oak trees will wait patiently in shrub form for an opening in the canopy above and then they spring to life.  I have found 1ft high Read more [...]

why metamorphosis?

If we accept that the living world around us did not just happen, but is the result of millions of years of adaptation and improvement the question rises for me - why do so many insects (and frogs etc.) go through metamorphosis?  I am referring to whole-change or complete metamorphosis where the juvenile form (called a larva) looks very different from the adult form.  Think of butterfly and moth caterpillars (larvae) which change into flying adults.  Or mosquito larvae which live and feed in freshwater Read more [...]