Turkey Tracks: March 7, 2015
My mind has been imagining the daffodils I planted last fall.
I can’t wait to see them.
Meanwhile, New York blog friend Judith Brill sent me this tantalizing video: “Dance of the Flowers.”
Each flower is filmed for days and the film is collated for seven minutes to produce the “dance.”
Enjoy!
The Life of flowers (Жизнь цветов) from VOROBYOFF PRODUCTION on Vimeo.
She also sent this cartoon, which amused me to no end.
Turkey Tracks: March 6, 2015
I stopped on the way into the driveway to check for mail and thought you might get a kick out of seeing the “problem” of snow plows and mailboxes in Maine in deep snow.
Here you can see how thoroughly shorn my mailbox is from its post.
Most folks do exactly what I did: stick the mailbox into the snow bank as best as one can until the snow season is over and the snow bank is gone.
Here’s a picture that shows you how vulnerable the mailbox is to the plows when they are dealing with a lot of snow on the side of the road:
You can see how far out into what is left of the road the mailbox would be. I put up several reflective markers, but with all the snow we’ve had, the plow drivers are tired and often are coming down a very steep, curving hill with a load of snow in front.
Stephen Pennoyer tells me “come spring” we’re going to replace this box with one that will swing to the side with the plow’s movement.
Turkey Tracks: March 2, 2015
I was coming back from Rockland the other day and saw this house caved in.
At first I thought it was fire damage.
But, no, the weight of snow on the roof caved in the roof.
I have no idea how sturdy the building was to begin with, but, the picture makes a good metaphor of the damage inflicted on this part of the country this winter of 2015.
March 2, 2015
I spent a chunk of this morning slowing down enough to watch this documentary.
It’s excellent.
I wish I had watched and posted sooner as the free viewing is coming to an end.
As an American citizen, you owe it to yourself and to your country to watch this movie. What it is mostly about is the loss of our Democracy–through the power industry has acquired to control us. Part of this control is done through the control of information, through the misuse and abuse of science, through the colonization of our government and our legal system, through advertising campaigns meant to influence us, through the loss of our media as any meaningful entity that informs us, through the creation of mob hysteria around false issues…
We are now losing the ability to control our own bodies and what goes into them. The individual control of a person’s body is the most basic cornerstone of freedom. Our bodies have been “bought” to an astonishing degree–and industry is using its full power now to use the courts to enslave us further. Industry is now using our laws and court systems to get what it wants–which is more and more money.
We have to “wake up” now. We have to do it for ourselves and for our children. We have to start asking questions and to insist that those we trust with our well being start asking questions too.
We have to get the money out of the system…
Interesting Information: March 1, 2015
According to NOAA and NASA, 2014 was Earth’s warmest year since the government started keeping statistics back in 1880.
Here in Camden, Maine, we’ve had bitter, bitter cold (way below zero, especially at night) for most of February and seven feet plus feet of snow out where I live. There’s a good three or more feet still on my roof–with more coming in tonight. (I was actually a little shocked when I went into town the other day and saw how little roof snow most people had. I know some had snow removed, but everybody didn’t. I am a little west of Camden and in a higher elevation than Camden town.) We’ve had snow every few days for the past six weeks–until these past three days.
Why, with global warming, is there so much cold and snow? Why is this February 2015 the coldest in Maine’s history since they started keeping records?
The snow part is easy. Melting polar caps and warming oceans have put much more moisture into the weather system. We’ve been getting the equivalent of this winter’s snow in rain in the summer and fall for the past 2 years. The potato crop has failed for several years now at Hope’s Edge, my CSA. It’s just been too cold and too rainy. Last summer, which was very cool, I could not grow warm weather crops like cucumbers, zucchini, and big tomatoes. (Tom at Hope’s Edge has a bumper crop of tomatoes grown in his hoop houses.)
But why is Maine getting this moisture while other parts of the United States are experiencing drought conditions? And what about the cold?
I got my answer with this little video from Earth Now, which I watched after cousin Marcia Davenport put up a video on Facebook that pitted “the senator with the snowball” (Oklahoma) with “the senator with the facts” (Rhode Island I think) who referenced Earth Now. It’s pretty hard to argue with a satellite photo of the Arctic polar cap in 1980 versus photos of what remains now. The shrinking in the ice caps has caused the jet stream to perform differently, which is driving the very cold air down into New England for extended periods. It’s called “artic amplification.”
(And, yes, I’m aware that the Antarctic ice cap has once again expanded, but a crew of scientists from Australia just returned from measuring it, and that ice is very thin. There are and will be fluctuations in the effects of global warming.)
Here’s the url to EarthNow…it’s a fabulous site. Explore and take a look at some of the excellent short videos.
And, here’s a local piece in this week’s Free Press by Melissa Waterman, “Oh No, The Snow!”
http://www.freepressonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=50&SubSectionID=72&ArticleID=37335
These levels of snow have been destructive and extraordinarily expensive. You will be shocked at what my bills for plowing/shoveling/roof snow removal/and driveway grit are going to be. And I will have increased heating bills on top of that. Friends have lost farm buildings and hoop houses. And most friends have had to have snow taken off their roofs–which is dangerous and expensive. Many cannot afford the plowing/shoveling costs. At least one house I know has burned to the ground because the absentee owners didn’t plow out the driveway, and the fire trucks could not get to it. And not a night goes by that we don’t have pictures on the local news about roofs caving in.
Here’s the url to the Senate floor discussion of climate warming if you missed it:
Interesting Information: February 27, 2015
Thanks to John Nixon for alerting me to the fact that the new 2015 Food Guide (put out by the government) will reverse it’s stand on cholesterol–in that they are saying that DIETARY CHOLESTEROL is not related to heart disease.
Scientists have known the truth of the falseness of the connection between dictates against eating foods rich in dietary cholesterol (a crucial ingredient in the proper functioning of our bodies actually) and heart disease for many decades now. There never was any science behind this false assumption. But, belief systems are hard to take down some times–especially when everyone is on a kool-aid bandwagon and just keeps repeating the bad information and refuses to slow down and investigate–even a tiny bit.
Here are two sites for extra reading: a CNN story that cites a Washington Post article, and a Mercola post.
And, here’s a quote from the Mercola post:
Steve Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, told USA Today:5 “It’s the right decision. We got the dietary guidelines wrong. They’ve been wrong for decades.” This message was echoed in Time Magazine, which recently reported that:
“[I]n the latest review6 of studies that investigated the link between dietary fat and causes of death, researchers say the guidelines got it all wrong. In fact, recommendations to reduce the amount of fat we eat every day should never have been made.”
Low-fat diets saw a real upswing in 1977, but according to research published in the Open Heart journal,7 led by Zoe Harcombe, PhD, there was no scientific basis for the recommendations to cut fat from our diet in the first place.
What’s worse, the processed food industry replaced fat with large amounts of sugar, While Dr. Harcombe shies away from making any recommendation about how much dietary fat might be ideal, she suggests that the take-home message here is to simply “eat real food.”
So, today my wish for you is access to REAL FOOD.
Cholesterol in food not a concern, new report says – CNN.com.
New Dietary Guidelines Reverse Recommendations on Cholesterol.
Turkey Tracks/Quilting: February 25, 2015
And, for now, it has stopped, after about five hours or so…
Here’s the view from my kitchen doors and through the windows of the lots and lots of snow we have–higher than my window, higher than my height:
Through the open door–you can get some perspective on all that white by looking at in relation to the top of the door the snow shovel, which is more than two feet off the ground:
The paths leading off the deck–I can’t see the hot tub anymore. The stakes on the hill (you can see their tops) are five feet plus tall.
Meanwhile, I’ve been quilting, quilting. It’s always fun to pull a quilt off the long arm and see how the quilting is working over the whole quilt for the first time:
For this very traditional quilt, I used a traditional clam shell quilting pattern done with groovy boards:
The soft green blends with the backing, which is not shown here.
These three scrappy quilts I’ve made recently are brightening up the downstairs sitting room so much.
I’m sewing down the binding on the streak of lightening quilt at night now–but am so drawn to the hand sewing project with the octagons. Those scraps are on the yellow table. And here’s what it’s looking like now. I put in some side triangles last night:
I think I’ll applique this piece when it’s done–to a set of borders–so this will be the center. But, who knows?
I think I’d like the octagons better if they were SMALLER. But, you know I love small pieces for the most part in a quilt…
Interesting Information/Vaccines: February 25, 2015
A recent study has concluded that neither genetics nor an HPV infection causes cervical cancer.
That’s HUGE news.
Let’s hold our breath and see how long it takes to replicate this study (a standard practice in science) AND how long the mainstream media takes to pick up on this news.
Here’s a quote from the article:
The title of a paper recently published by McCormack et al in Molecular Cytogenetics says it all, “Individual karyotypes at the origins of cervical carcinomas.” If the findings in this paper are true, a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV) is extremely unlikely to protect against cervical cancer.
According to this paper neither genetic predisposition nor HPV infections are necessary for the development of cervical cancer. All cervical cancer cells investigated during the course of this study contained new abnormal karyotypes. The clonality (genetic makeup) of these new abnormal karyotypes indicates the cervical cancers originated with these karyotypes – NOT from a virus.
At issue, of course, is the use of the UNTESTED and FAST-TRACKED vaccine Gardasil–which industry wants to inject into EVERY teenager in this country–females and males.
You can read more in the whole article: What If HPV Does Not Cause Cervical Cancer? | GreenMedInfo.
Interesting Information: February 23, 2015
I brought home the latest Free Press today and saw there was another article by a local doctor promoting vaccines. Said doctor acknowledged that the current flu shot (which is full of mercury) was not at all effective, but promoted it anyway, especially for children. There was a touching story of a school nurse who sponsored a vaccine clinic that vaccinated lots and lots of children in her school. The information that followed was totally anecdotal information, a repeating of the idea of herd immunity, and so forth. There was not one mention of the fact that everyone in power (government, courts) has had to admit that vaccines are NOT safe for all people. Or, effective for all people.
Most Americans today have this blind trust that what’s being said about the efficacy and safety of vaccines is true. That trust is being built by people like this local doctor, whose article contains emotion, but no science.
I wrote to this doctor several months back and begged him to watch THE GREATER GOOD, to dig deeper into the vaccine “evidence,” to acknowledge the potential danger. Clearly he has not done any homework at all, or he could never have written the article I just read. Clearly he’s just going to go right along contributing to this growing problem of the chronic illnesses so many of our children today have–a problem he cites in what he wrote. His solution: Let’s just give them more and more vaccines.
My academic background is the study of how the market and culture relate, of systems of cultural power. This whole vaccine thing is a poster child for the market effects that derive from the highjacking of science, from the endless repetition of lies that work to sell products (profit at any cost), from the people we should be able to trust repeating these lies over and over without ever investigating them at the most basic levels (and many of these people are also profiting from vaccines), and from the creation of lots and lots of fear at multiple levels. The vaccine situation represents for me a massive breakdown of human sanity. That so many people, people who love their children, could fall into such mob hysteria is certainly not a new thing in history. But it is super sad, nevertheless…
Here’s a nice little infograph that came in over the email.
Maybe it will help people start to look deeper–and that’s all I care about really. I believe that if they start to look deeper, they’ll see the problems for themselves. I hope that happens before one of their children gets hurt.
Health Freedom Alliance – Vaccines Don’t Work. Here Are The Facts..
Interesting Information/Books: February 23, 2015
Michael Pollan, in COOKED…
…explains that “commercial yeast is a purified monoculture of S. cerevisiae, raised on a diet of molasses, then washed, dried, and powdered. Like any monoculture, it does one thing predictably and well: Feed it enough sugars and it will promptly cough up large quantities of carbon dioxide” (218-219).
Commercial yeast is an INDUSTRIAL product and bears no resemblance to traditional sourdough cultures.
So, what’s wrong with that?
Nutritionally, commercial yeast is very limiting. Combine it with white flour, which is mostly just dead starches, and you’re eating something that fills you up, but provides very little in the way of nutrition.
Whole grains are much more biologically active and complex–think living cells–and much harder to control in an industrial setting (220-221).
A sourdough culture is a whole ecosystem, containing “at least twenty types of yeast and fifty different bacteria” (221).
Basically, baking with whole grains and a sourdough culture is all about “managing fermentation”–which can be tricky depending on the weather, the temperature, the strength and point of development of the sourdough culture, and when and how one feeds the sourdough culture. It’s a process that can only be done by a dedicated, skilled baker. The communities that are created in the traditional bread processes cannot be reduced to the “efficiency” that occurs in a factory.
Traditional whole grain sourdough bread can supply a lot of nutrition. It’s too bad that there is so little of it available to most of us today. It’s too bad that we’ve lost the taste of it in favor of the “white felt” we have instead.
Seek it out. Bake it yourself. Find substitutes for the factory bread as it’s not doing you any good at all.
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