Looking out of the windows this morning and wondering what will happen to all those green fields stretching forever to the Moors and wondering what will happen to the fields and the farmers if they stop meat production. Cant imagine a view without that patchwork of green.Â
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.Â
I suppose there's always a positive to be taken from bad situations. I went to bed early last night hoping to catch up on some sleep and while sat up trying to settle my son off for the 2nd time at 1am I realised that I hadn't put my new lobelia plugs in the greenhouse and it was probably getting close to a frost outside. Maybe he was just waking me up to let me know...
Speaking of. We went into town yesterday to go to the only bank that exists in the area now and walking past Wilko I saw the lobelia plugs on offer. Normally I'm all for supporting the local nursery but we were there and they were good plants and cheap Annoyingly I went to the nursery afterwards to get compost to pot them up and they had similar plugs, better quality, better colour choice, similar price. I bought more obviously but lesson learned It's not a nursery I've been going to for long so I didn't know they'd have such good plants in fairness.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Canadian scientists have discovered that if you add seaweed to cattle feed it radically reduces methane missions in beef and dairy cattle. Irish farmers - whose land is often only fit for pasture or tree - are now adding seaweed to their cattle's diet. Why can't everyone else do that too? Â
At the risk of TMI, I followed the Atkins diet for a few months a few years ago and found the lack of carbohydrates reduced my own methane missions considerably.
Harvesting seaweed has its own environmental problems but it's an interesting idea. I haven't seen the paper but it's probably just as efficient to reduce the amount of meat and dairy we eat, such as not following faddy, protein heavy diet programs
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
I didn't go protein heavy as much as high veg and no cereal carbs.  There are ways to farm seaweed and Ireland and Wales now have such seaweed production in certified clear waters.
I suspect it would take massive supplies of seaweed to supress methane production by cattle. That could have a very damaging effect on sea life if too much was taken. There's rarely a simple answer to a complex problem.
It has to be a special red seaweed - Asparagopsis - and, apparently, a firm in Massachusetts is working on farming it for commercial use. Depending n the dose given it can reduce bovine methane emissions by 50+ %.
I thought they were working on breeding a cow who had low methane emissions anyway. It said in the paper today that humans produced a fair amount of daily methane emissions, perhaps the environmentalists would prefer us all to disappear.
Speaking of which we went to our first 'natural burial' today. A very dear friend who was 99 who had invited us to lunch a week or so, suddenly and shockingly died a few days later. The burial was in a hillside meadow overlooking a beautiful pastoral view just outside Bath. No clergy, no hymns, no music, just a background of her life read by her two children. All her grandchildren and great grandchildren there. Very moving but I'm extremely sad. She was a lovely lady who lit up everybody's life.Â
They are Lizzie,  we have only been on the earth for 5 minutes on the earth clock. We shouldn’t be here, freak of nature. If there ever comes a time when no one eats meat we will all die off. vegetables and fruit grown on commercial scales need a hell of a lot of water, where’s that coming from?  Everyone’s complaining about no rain now!Â
Those humanist funerals are very nice, Â bio degradable coffins, no cremation burners, seem more family orientated, you can do the whole lot yourself, no extortionate undertakers fees.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.Â
Posts
Cant imagine a view without that patchwork of green.Â
At the risk of TMI, I followed the Atkins diet for a few months a few years ago and found the lack of carbohydrates reduced my own methane missions considerably.
Speaking of which we went to our first 'natural burial' today. A very dear friend who was 99 who had invited us to lunch a week or so, suddenly and shockingly died a few days later. The burial was in a hillside meadow overlooking a beautiful pastoral view just outside Bath. No clergy, no hymns, no music, just a background of her life read by her two children. All her grandchildren and great grandchildren there. Very moving but I'm extremely sad. She was a lovely lady who lit up everybody's life.Â
If there ever comes a time when no one eats meat we will all die off.
vegetables and fruit grown on commercial scales need a hell of a lot of water, where’s that coming from?  Everyone’s complaining about no rain now!Â
Those humanist funerals are very nice, Â bio degradable coffins, no cremation burners, seem more family orientated, you can do the whole lot yourself, no extortionate undertakers fees.