Wetlands D'Amour

The long-term plan at Myrtle’s place is to receive as much of our dietary protein as possible from catfish raised in our backyard pond.  However, while waiting for the July and August dead period when our pond (presently 3’ deep) is completely dry, so we can dredge to our eventual planned 10’ depth, we have spent our few free hours simply enjoying the emerging ecosphere which would not have existed had we not picked up our shovels.

There are tiny frogs galore; we have a turtle (newly christened “Yertle” – ask a toddler if you don’t know why); mockingbirds, blue jays, robins and a few other species of birds we haven’t yet been able to identify all bathe there; dragonflies of every imagineable shape and size flit and float.  It is, in short, a very pleasant place to just sit and watch.

Which brings us to a grand suggestion made by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS):  If you don’t have the space or time to make a full-fledged pond, you can still create an ecological oasis of sorts by creating a backyard wetland.

The advantages to you and your environment make it an excellent idea:

• A mini-wetland can replace the important natural functions of wetlands that may have been lost when your community was developed.
• A wetland in your backyard will temporarily store, filter, and clean runoff water from your roof and lawn.
• It will provide habitat for many interesting creatures--from butterflies and bees to salamanders, toads, frogs, and birds.
• Most wetland plants do not require standing water to grow successfully, and will survive even in an area that appears dry during most of the growing season.
• Even if you do not have a naturally wet spot, you can establish an area in your yard to grow many of the beautiful plants associated with wetlands.

Building a wetland area is really pretty simple; just dig a wide hole in the ground where water will collect when it rains, and stay there most of the time.  If it’s completely dry a few months a year, it’s no big deal – that’s true for most wild wetlands, too.  Many, many interesting plant and animal species depend on this type of environment, which is why you have to spend so much of your time tracking down your kids and telling them to get out of the drainage ditches where they are foraging for fascinating critters they saw hopping across the road.

The one big detriment most folk see to the idea of the backyard wetland, apart from their nosy homeowner’s association, is mosquitoes.  Even here, though, there are some significant advantages to putting in a wetland, and there are some fairly effective countermeasures you can take to protect yourself and your family.

For starters, ask at your hardware store for something called a “dunk”.  This is a product which will come either as a floating ring or as a sinking “torpedo”.  It puts a bacteria, bacillus thuringeinsus, in the water, where it then feeds on mosquito and fly larvae.  Numerous studies show that BT is a highly specific pathogen, and does not have any impact on useful vectors; in particular, we were concerned with whether it affected honeybees, and the answer is an emphatic ‘No’.

Obviously, everyone is better off when live and healthy mosquitoes choose to lay their eggs in water where those eggs are doomed from the start due to BT treatment; since there is no way to control water in the wild (creeks, etc.), it is better to have mosquitoes laying their eggs in backyard wetlands which have been treated.

Next, to guard against the inevitable attacks from the current generation of mosquitoes, we recommend a layered defense consisting of a series of highly scented herbs.  Mosquitoes are famously averse to the Citronella plant, but there are a host of other plants whose aromatic qualities overwhelm their ability to sense sweat, which is their big clue that a large, tasty mammal is present.  Try planting groupings of the following plants between your wetland and your outside activity areas:

• Catnip
• Basil (particularly the varieties smelling strongly of anise, such as Thai or African Basil)
• Mint (especially Peppermint)
• Rosemary
• Lavender
• Dill

If you live in a warm enough zone, having planters with citrus trees like lemon and lime would also be helpful.

The trick is to cluster large groupings of these strongly scented plants around and about so that there is always at least a hint of the smell no matter where you go in the yard; this ensures that the little varmints are always at least a little confused.  Mosquitoes are very much like human beings in that they crave convenience.  They would much rather pick on your neighbor whose yard is comprised of nothing but St. Augustine grass and one of those silly little citronella candles; they avoid the point source of irritation and make a beeline for your neighbor’s carotid artery, while you comfortably sit in the confusing maze of unfamiliar and irritating (to the bug) odors comprising your more sprawling landscape.

Speaking of what to plant, depending on the amount of shade and the pH of the soil, you have a huge selection of plants you can place in your new wetland, potentially satisfying even your pesky homeowner’s association, if need be.  A partial list from the NRCS:

Native Trees Tolerant of Wet Soils

• Red and silver maple (Acer rubrum, A. saccarinum)
• River birch (Betula nigra)
• Catalpa spp.
• Ash (Fraxinus spp.)
• Cottonwood (Populus deltoides)
• Swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor)
• Sycamores (Platanus spp.)

Native Shrubs Tolerant of Wet Soils

• Red osier dogwood (Cornus sericea)
• Leatherwood (Dirca palustris)
• Winterberry (Ilex verticillata)
• Inkberry (Ilex glabra)
• Pussy willow (Salix discolor)
• Shrubby cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa)

Native Herbaceous and Flowering Plants for Sunny Moist or Boggy Conditions

• Cattails (Typhus spp.)
• Joe-Pye weed (Eupatorium maculatum)
• Great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica)
• Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis)
• Blue flag iris (Iris versicolor)
• Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum)
• Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis)
• Goldenrods (Solidago spp.)
• Marsh marigold (Caltha palustris)
• Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
• Gentian spp.

Native Herbaceous and Flowering Plants for Shady Moist or Boggy Conditions

• Bee balm (Monarda didyma)
• Arrowhead (Sagittaris latifolia)
• False hellebore (Veratrum viride)
• Turtlehead (Chelone spp.)
• Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus)
• Royal fern (Osmunda regalis)
• Netted chain fern (Woodwardia areolata)
• Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)
• Cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamonmea)
• Shield ferns (Dropteris spp.)
• Lady ferns (Athyrium spp.)

True Bog Plants Requiring Low pH and Sun

• Sundews (Drosera spp.)
• Butterworts (Pinguicula spp.)
• Pitcher plants (Sarracenia spp.) 

You don't have to go as rustic as Myrtle's place, of course.  Pictured here is the sort of fancy backyard wetland that would make the folks at Better Homes and Gardens proud.  Myrtle just finds it a little non-chicken-friendly, is all.

There is a wetland for every taste, however, and we highly recommend picking up a shovel and having at it.

Happy digging, and...

Happy farming!

Wherein Myrtle is Full of Pith (and Vinegar!)

Herbicides in our drinking water have caused Myrtle Maintenance Personnel no shortage of conniption fits; we either write about them or reference them seemingly incessantly.  “So, Mssr’s Smartypants, what is the alternative?”  Until very recently, the only documented alternative herbicide a dedicated organic gardener had to dreaded chemical herbicides was a garden hoe and a strong back.

We’re afraid you are still going to have to keep the hoe handy, as well as the strong back, but help is on the way.

The USDA has made note of a strong body of anecdotal evidence and has, within the past half-decade or so, begun some intensive studies of a potentially effective and surprisingly cheap organic alternative to commercial herbicides.  More than likely, you even have a diluted version of this wonder substance in your kitchen right now.  A 20% acetic acid concentration of plain ol’ vinegar has been proven in several clinical trials to be quite effective as a weed killer.

There are several caveats, of course.  For one thing, vinegar affects some weed species more adversely than others.  An application of between 80 and 160 gallons per acre proved to have 96% overall effectiveness in killing weeds, but the solution proved more effective against broadleaf weeds than against grasses.  For overall effectiveness including against grassy weeds, the concentration has to be high enough (in the 80 to 160 gallons per acre range) that broadcast applications during the growing season are contraindicated.

Lower concentrations, as little as 20 gallons per acre, would still be effective against broadleaf weeds, but not against grassy weeds.  In short, if you have crops in the ground, and you don’t want to use a nasty, disgusting, not-enough-reviled herbicide, your only alternative for removing weeds is still to get down on your hands and knees and yank the things out by the roots.

As you may recall, too, at Myrtle’s place we have all along been less concerned with weeds than have other gardeners.  We call weeds “hay” because they are as good as cash when it comes to the production of healthy chickens.  However, the fact remains that weeds in your fruit and vegetable garden reduce the yield of produce.  The chief advantage of vinegar is that it is a very targeted herbicide which can be applied with pinpoint accuracy and without damaging, or even altering, the pH or any other characteristic of the surrounding topsoil. 

By nature, if it runs off, it will be more dilute and therefore less impactful.  It is a natural substance which you can find (especially in our yard) wherever there are naturally occuring sources of decay.  Wild grapes, for example, are an excellent source of naturally occuring vinegar, and sure enough, if you look beneath a tree which hosts a mustang grape vine, you will find fewer weeds if you search through the purplish muck where the wild birds have feasted on fallen grapes.

A couple of other interesting notes from the studies (there have been several, and more are on the way):

• Adjuvants have been studied, and there are several which agricultural scientists thought were likely to be helpful, but the most promising additive is orange oil.
  
• No studies have yet been done with lower concentration vinegars such as one might find in your local grocery store; most are in the 5% acetic acid concentration range.  Simple math suggests that using four times as much vinegar at this lower concentration would be the equivalent of using 20% concentration vinegar; however, proceed at your own caution because they do studies for a reason.  Sometimes unpredictable things happen.
  
• Application to weeds on top of an active onion crop proved successful at weed control, but at higher concentrations of vinegar, crop damage and loss was significant.
  
• Crop yield studies are still underway; the most promising scenario so far seems to be the use of cover crops for winter weed management followed by vinegar application prior to spring planting with a “dead period” prior to seeding in order to allow the concentration to be naturally mitigated.

We at Myrtle’s will soon be undertaking our own trials, though we will be limited by several factors.  For starters our measurements will be undertaken with several limitations, not the least of which will be having to take the manufacturer’s word for it on acidity levels – we’ll report on usage with what’s on the bottle.  We could go out and buy some litmus paper, we suppose, but hey, we’re cheap.

We are going to start with an application to the weeds growing in our gravel driveway.   We will report on the approximate coverage of this space by weeds, give a rough breakdown of types, and an analysis of how thoroughly and how quickly they are reduced by the application of ordinary household vinegar.

Once we have dismantled the raised beds where this spring’s crops were planted, we will dig a wide-row/furrow system in our back yard, with a raised clay berm demarcating the border where our fence will eventually go.  This is the ever-exciting Phase I of a multi-phase project we will tell you more about as we get into it; the important thing to note here is that much of the space is currently covered by both grassy and broadleafed weeds, and this area will require a much more significant application of vinegar in order to kill off the existing foliage before fall planting, which starts in about three weeks.

Since this fall’s planting will be heavy on seeded rather than transplanted crops, the potency of the application will be a fascinating concern – are we dooming ourselves from the start this fall, or are we guaranteeing success?

Only time will tell.  Either way, we’re so excited we could pinch ourselves!

Happy farming!

Mano a Mano (a Mano a Mano a Mano a Mano) with Solenopsis

The existence of fire ants stands as a cruel counterpoint to any degree of optimism a person may be able to muster.  A simple diagnostic test for psychosis could consist of a person’s response to the premise that “fire ants suck.”  Agreement does not necessarily indicate mental health, but disagreement is a sure sign that a person is a stranger to reason.

However, while there is near universal agreement among all those who have ever encountered these diminutive demons that their eradication, nay extinction, would be cause for celebration rather than lamentation, they appear to be laughing in the face of all control measures humanity can contrive.

There are some fairly simple reasons for this, almost all of which may be reduced to the most common of all factors involved in Man vs. Nature stories, wherein Nature, if not exactly winning, is at least being a pain in Man’s woozle.

For starters, most people seriously misunderstand the foe they are fighting; not to belabor the point, but people who don’t believe in evolution are at a major disadvantage when combating an evolving enemy.  It should not really come as a surprise to anyone that one of the most counterproductive pest control stories in history comes from Dixie, where the states are red, and so are the fire ants.

The conventional wisdom – the story you will most often hear when asking where fire ants came from – is that they are an invasive species from South America, having arrived in Alabama via shipping from Brazil.  This particular nugget of conventional wisdom is unusual in that it is actually partly true.  There is a species of fire ant which is an alien and invasive species, introduced from South America.  Solenopsis invicta is the “Red Imported Fire Ant”, and it becomes the dominant ant wherever it is encountered.

However, this is only one of four varieties of fire ant likely to be encountered in the area ranging over the whole of the southeastern United States and westward into Texas.  Solenopsis richteri, the “Black Imported Fire Ant”, is thought by many entomologists to be technically a race of invicta rather than a separate species, because hybrids of the two varieties produce viable offspring.  However, its behavior is significantly different from its red brethren, so even if they are not racially distinct, they need to be monitored separately.

In addition to the two invasives, there are two widespread native fire ants:  Solenopsis xyloni, the “Southern Fire Ant”, occurs from North Carolina south to northern Florida, along the Gulf Coast, and all the way westward to California.  Solenopsis geminata, or “Fire Ant”, occurs in South Carolina and Florida, ranging westward to Texas.

“Big deal,” you may be thinking.  “Who cares how many kinds there are, I just want them dead!”  Admirable sentiments, to be sure, but without understanding what we are dealing with, we often just make things worse.

A perfect example comes from a fairly ubiquitous advertisement that has played every spring that we at Myrtle’s can remember for the last couple of decades, bragging about a particular chemical bait treatment which notes that the ants take the bait back to the mound and share it with all the other ants, with the ultimate result that it “Kills even the queen.  Dead!”

Which sounds good, so far as it goes.  Except that some varieties of fire ant only have one queen, but many mounds have multiple queens; some actually have as many as a hundred queens.  This should raise some alarm bells when our goal is to kill them all; what, for example, happens when we have killed off some, but not all, of the queens in a multi-queen colony?  Each queen can lay up to 1,500 eggs per day.

One day, you think you’ve killed the mound.  Two weeks later, you’re right back where you started, only with chemicals lacing your yard, in your groundwater supply, in your vegetable garden, and of dubious use against your new ants who have a higher resistance to this particular treatment due to some evolutionary assistance you provided.  Natural selection at its finest – those ants least affected by your poison are the very ants who show up immediately after you have applied it.

Pretty slick, Bubba.

And what of the lucky strike you make against a single-queen mound?  Great!  You’ve killed the mound!  What happens next?  A quick review of exactly how mounds spread might make you think twice about celebrating.

From the National Park Service Integrated Pest Management Manual:  Fire Ants:

“Fire ants are very typical of ants in general.  In addition to workers and a queen, mature colonies contain males and females capable of flight and reproduction.  These individuals are generally called ‘reproductives.’  On a warm day, usually one or two days following a rain, the workers open holes in the nest through which the reproductives exit for a mating flight.  Mating takes place 300’ to 800’ in the air.  Mated females descend to the ground, break off their wings, and search for a place to dig the founding nest, a vertical tunnel 2” to 5” deep.  They seal themselves off in this founding nest to lay eggs and to rear their first brood of workers.  During this period they do not feed, instead utilizing reserves stored in their bodies.  The first worker brood takes about a month to develop; these are the smallest individuals in the entire colony cycle.  They open the nest, begin to forage for food, rear more workers, and care for the queens.  Hereafter, the queen or queens essentially become egg-laying machines, each able to lay up to 1,500 eggs per day.”

“Multiple queen colonies are fairly common.  A single colony may have 10 to 100 or more queens, each reproducing.  Multiple queen colonies can mean up to 10 times more mounds per acre.  The queens generally mate several times and may live for several years.”

To make the implications plain, we won’t give hints or beat around the bush:  if you kill off a single-queen mound, you open the door to a multi-queen colony, even giving them a pre-dug tunnel for their first brood.  Congratulations!  You’ve taken one mound in the corner of your yard and turned it into a colony that consumes your and your neighbors’ property!

Our disdain for pesticides is well known.  We think it is a bad idea to broadcast chemicals in your yard, particularly when the purpose of those chemicals is to kill.  No level of assurance from product testers takes away the fundamental fact that these are toxins you are dispersing.  “No effect on humans” is a great slogan, but it doesn’t give any consolation to your loved ones twenty years later when you are lying in an oncology ward.

So, if poisons are out, how do you get rid of fire ants?

There are a couple of fairly effective methods, one somewhat labor intensive, the other somewhat expensive.  Neither causes cancer, though, so there are no negative components to the return on investment (ROI) calculation.

The application of boiling water to fire ant mounds is time consuming, but extremely gratifying.  Field tests have shown that the application of 3 gallons of hot water to each mound eliminates approximately 60% of the mounds treated.  Surviving mounds will then need to be retreated.  Some creative inventors have devised ways to apply steam to the mounds with a direct-injection system, which also works exceedingly well.  In our experience, a crab-pot full of boiling water does just fine.

Once you’ve poured boiling water, come back 24 hours later.  More than likely there will be a pile of ant carcasses where the mound used to be.  Find a sufficiently long stick and poke the mound.  If you see movement, apply boiling water again.  Repeat this treatment until you no longer see movement 24 hours after pouring water.

The chief advantages of this treatment include its relative inexpensiveness – you are paying for water and for the energy to heat it – and also its cleanliness.  There are a few disadvantages; as noted, this method is time consuming.  Also, if the ants have infested the roots of a plant, as is common for the native species (Solenopsis xyloni and Solenopsis geminata), you may lose that plant when you pour boiling water on it.  Additionally, killing mounds in this fashion is a long-term project.  Even after having eradicated all the mounds on your property, the following warm season you are likely to get another infestation you will have to remove.

On the whole, though, this is the method we prefer.

There is another promising alternative which holds promise, in addition to being a kind of wicked insect karma:  fire ant parasites.  In trial applications of the nematode Neoaplectana carpocapsae, about 80% of the mounds infected with this tiny parasite were completely inactive within 90 days.  Another scourge of fire ants is the straw itch mite, Pyemotes tritici, which after about a two week interval proved to be 70% effective.

We have not yet tried either of these biological controls at Myrtle’s place, but we are almost definitely not going to use the mites; as it turns out, they like biting people and small animals, too, not just ants.  The nematodes, though, sound promising.  However, we need more information, particularly vis-à-vis their effects on the rest of the environment into which they are introduced, before we consider spending the considerable sums of money required to apply them on a widespread basis.  The big advantage to the nematodes, though, would be that they have the potential to prevent re-infestation of the property.

We are heading into the hottest, driest part of the year, which is the time of year when the only comfortable critters you may encounter are fire ants.  Myrtle Maintenance Personnel are doing our part to afflict the comfortable; if you have any helpful hints, please share.  If we don’t all chip in, our garden paradises may all turn into The Empire of the Ants.  Granted, it’s always satisfying to see Joan Collins get mauled in a B-movie, but wouldn’t you rather be sitting comfortably in a lawn chair sipping lemonade?

Happy hunting! and…

Happy farming!

Little Italy in the Sticks

Research at Indiana University in Bloomington, reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, confirms what many foodies have believed for years – a Mediterranean-style diet is not only tastier, it is also healthier.

A diet characterized by low saturated fats and high consumption of fish, fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts, olive oil, whole-grain cereals, and moderate alcohol consumption reduces the risk of developing heart disease.

An intensive study of identical and fraternal male twins, the key findings showed that the Mediterranean diet is strongly correlated to a higher heart rate variability (HRV), which is a key measure of the health of autonomic system control of heart function.

As luck would have it, many of the foods eaten throughout the Mediterranean region are relatively easy to grow in the Brazos Valley.  We don’t have anchovies or sardines locally, but we do have ready access to most of the same fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts, and olive oil as our counterparts from Gibraltar and points East.

We have even painted our little homestead in a Morrocan style, so as to heighten the similarities.  While culturally, Bryan/College Station often seems like the sociological equivalent of mayonnaise, there are plenty of reasons to think of it agriculturally as “Little Sicily”.  We at Myrtle’s place would like to play up some of these similarities in hopes that this meme is infectious.

For starters, if you can’t grow Mediterranean herbs in Brazos County, you are hopeless as a gardener.  We have six different kinds of basil, some of which is gone to seed and growing willy-nilly wherever it chooses.  Our rosemary is equally prolific, and provides year-round greenery everywhere it is planted.  Oregano, thyme, lavender, mint, coriander and chamomile round out the essential Old World herbs in our garden; everything necessary for the spices of Spain and Portugal, Morrocco and Algeria, Italy and Greece, Turkey and the Levant, they all grow here, though some require a little more care than others.  We would bore you with our English herbs, but they are, frankly, as boring as English food.

Fruit trees are a little trickier, but we still have plenty of variety to choose from.  Pomegranates will grow anywhere you could grow yaupon; since yaupon grows like a weed in almost all of South/East Texas, that means pomegranates can also grow like a weed around here.  Several species of plum tree do quite well here, and we have noticed some successful peach plantings around town, although we typically think of peaches as a Hill Country fruit.  Pears are not quite so successful, and apples, although they will grow here, are nowhere near as tasty as one would like.

Dwarf citrus specimens do extremely well here, too, although you really have to plant the dwarf variety and keep them in pots, because even though we don’t get below freezing on a regular basis, we do occasionally get well below freezing, making it absolutely essential to get citrus trees indoors.

Grapes perhaps demonstrate the greatest similarity between our climate and that of the mediterranean.  There are several species of wild grape in the Americas, and all of them are native Texas plants.  In addition, several domesticated varieties of wine grape do well here.  In fact, the Messina Hof winery produces some of the best wines, particularly dessert wines, that we have ever tasted.  It is no accident that the Texas Reds festival held in downtown Bryan every year is a fast-growing event.  Global warming is putting California wines on the endangered species list; this is certainly a shame, but it appears that California’s loss will be the Brazos Valley’s gain, because the area’s climate is hospitable to vintners already, and is likely to only become more so over the next several decades.

Most Mediterranean vintners would cringe at the suggestion, but we will be making wine with other berries, as well.  We have written before about our bounteous blackberries; this year, we will be adding raspberries to the mix.  Throw in honey from our own bees, and we will be producing organic wines soon with very, very few ingredients not produced on our own property.  It will be less Bordeaux and more paisan, of course, but we don’t really mind; it’s the peasants in the Mediterranean who cook the most interesting food, so we will be more than happy to drink the same wine, too.

As for vegetables, if it grows in Sicily, it will grow here.  The smaller varieties of tomato do best – Roma, cherry, grape.  You can grow bigger tomatoes if you so choose, but for spring plantings, the quality will not be quite what you desire, and the quantity will be exceedingly limited.  In the fall garden it is possible to get away with a little more ambition, because the limiting factor for tomatoes is the heat – they do not set fruit well when temperatures are over 90°.

Eggplant, squash, spinach, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, these are the “low hanging fruit” of vegetable crops for Brazos Valley gardeners.  We also do melons quite well.  Again, if you can picture it being eaten by a large family on a beautiful rustic table set up on a terra cotta paved veranda overlooking an azure sea, and being washed down by a sweet red wine with anisette or lavender overtones, accompanied by fresh-baked bread and maybe a little goat cheese, then you can grow it in southeast Texas.

Olives, too, grow here.  At Myrtle’s place we were rather excited this year to get our olive trees in the ground; that puts us a good four years out from actual production, but that’s closer than we were this time last year.  Patience is a virtue, particularly when the payoff is so incredibly delicious.  For those who can’t wait that long, there are several olive groves in Texas which have started olive oil production, and the critical reviews thus far are stellar.  We suspect that this will soon become a staple crop for the state, limited only by the imaginations of potential growers.  Our own grove will probably top out somewhere around 12-15 trees, so we will not be considered “major” producers by any stretch, but that is more than enough to press our own oil and still have enough fruit left over for table servings.

The bad news in all of this Mediterranean-mania is that pigging out on foods drenched in alfredo sauces and smothered with shredded romano and chased by tiramisu, cheesecake, and pannetone continues to be unhealthy, regardless of any study praising other Mediterranean foods.

But if you’re going to have to exercise moderation, shouldn’t you couple that exercise with a touch of decadent taste?  Eating healthy, let us be frank, sucks.  Eating tasty, on the other hand, absolutely rocks, in spite of the fact that in the case of Mediterranean foods, it is also healthy.

Myrtle is willing to ignore the manipulative qualities of such word games if it means she gets fresh eggplant parmegian and a nice salad with a raspberry-pomegranate vinagrette followed by a plum parfait.

Agricoltura felice!

The Next Great Thing to Kill Us All

We are both repulsed and fascinated by survivalists.  In Texas, we usually just call them "neighbor" but we do occasionally have to stop and shake our heads at some of the things they come up with.  We suspect the ascendancy of the survivalist meme has something to do with the geography, the lack of funding for public education, and the popularity of bad beer.  And let's face it, no news story can end well if it includes the phrase "just outside of Waco."

Those who follow Myrtle's musings are aware that we are fully willing to write about issues which lend themselves to apocalyptic thinking.  Things like oil spills, mass extinction, poisonous public water supplies, global warming, regressive educational policy, and so on.  On occasion this leads some persons to misconstrue our perspective; we are often asked, in response to the news that we are seeking to be self-sufficient, whether this is in preparation for "End Times".

We wish to unequivocally, once and for all time, put this to rest:  we are not delusional paranoiacs prone to magical thinking.  John of Patmos is credited with authoring the Book of Revelations; we believe co-credit should be given to an unknown ergot alkaloid.  And Nostradamus is a great name for a cat, but as a rule and measure for how to live one's life, we suggest looking forward, not backwards.  We raise chickens, grow our own herbs and vegetables, and are digging a fish pond not because we are trying to survive the final days of humanity, but because we wish to be healthier, and we don't believe mainstream commercial agriculture can be a part of that equation.  Crazy conspiracy theories or dreams of global disaster have nothing to do with it.

That having been said, we wish to now muse upon "The next great thing that's going to kill us all!"

The words "Carrington Event" will be percolating their way into the mainstream media over the course of the next two or three years, and accompanying those words will be the singsong cries of hysteria from the Tribulation crowd.

In 1859, English astronomer Richard Carrington observed the largest solar flare ever witnessed.  His astonishment was matched the following morning when aurora borealis, typically observed only in far northern reaches, were seen as far south as Cuba and Hawaii.  Most observers were merely astonished, or perhaps annoyed -- lights blaring like the noon-day sun waking you up well before dawn could be considered annoying regardless of how pretty or divine the poets may find them.

However, a footnote to the event has given modern observers pause -- the impact of Carrington's solar flare on the telegraph system was remarkable.  The recording paper in several stations caught fire; the lines were hypercharged by the energy pelting the Earth; even after the battery power to the telegraph machines was removed, they continued to operate.

What would happen in modern times if such an event were to occur?  By some estimates, the damage to electronic equipment could reach $2,000,000,000,000.  That's 2 trillion dollars, for those who lost track of the zeroes.  Roughly 20 times as much damage as was done by Hurricane Katrina.

There are others who argue that the damage would be far worse; the most recent NASA estimate quotes a fairly optimistic recovery timeline of several months to about a decade.  Others argue that there would be no recovery.

Why?  What kind of damage are we talking about here?

Actually, the apocalyptic thinkers have a point here.  One of the most vulnerable pieces of equipment in a Carrington Event would be the transformers you see up on power lines all throughout your local version of "the grid".  These boxes are fairly difficult to install, but on a planned basis, electrical engineers are able to keep up with demand.  In a Carrington Event, however, they would all have to be replaced.  All of them.  And there is just no quick way to do that.

Which means most people would be without power for several months at the very least.

Think about how many things we take for granted which rely on electricity.  Wow.

How likely is that, really?  Not very.  But... as recently as 1972, there was a solar flare event which knocked out communications worldwide for about 10 minutes.  The only major grid failure reported was in Quebec, Canada.  But that was in 1972.  Far fewer forms of communication existed then, and they were of less vulnerable kinds.  Land line phones, though they seem archaic now, were much less susceptible to the influence of solar weather.

Were the 1972 event to be repeated today?

In that 10 minutes, would you want to be on an airplane making an approach to a busy and crowded airport?  Would you want to be on an operating table having open heart surgery?  Would you want to be on a ship, or on the dock, during the docking operation of a multi-ton cargo vessel?

Neither would we.

And a Carrington Event would be much bigger.  On the plus side, solar activity is cyclical, and the Carrington Event seems to have been a once-in-a-millenium event.  However, there is tremendous uncertainty in the cycles; we are coming out of the "solar minimum", which has lasted now far longer than astrophysicists had predicted when it began earlier this decade.  The consensus seems to be that by May, 2013, we should be out of it again.

We haven't even discussed the impact of Space Weather on climate change, or how the global warming denialists step all over themselves trying to find new ways to contradict their own a priori presumptions; perhaps another time.  What we at Myrtle's place wish to do now is let you know that the world is not going to end any time soon -- to paraphrase our favorite Michael Crighton line, "The world is going to be perfectly fine.  We're the ones in trouble!"

So, what can we do as individuals about the coming solar apocalypse?

As it turns out, quite a lot.

The theories which suggest that solar interference with all-things-electrical will lead to the collapse of society depend on a couple of related propositions.  First, people are connected solely by electrical and electronic equipment, or things dependent upon such equipment, and second, people are incapable of working together in the absence of such equipment.  There are several layers of independence which, ironically, would function to unite our communities were they to be more widely adopted.

Food independence.  We have written before about the need to start shopping locally, in addition to growing as much of your own food as possible.  There are a variety of reasons for this; the most important relate to health, as local food is more likely to be organic food, and thus free of poisonous pesticides and herbicides.  However, at present, the average comestible travels over 1,000 miles before it gets to your plate.

That needs to change now.  If you can garden, do so.  If you can't, buy or barter with those who can.  Even in the Solar Armageddon, if you have a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) agreement, you are far more likely to get help from a friendly farmer than are those who depend solely on the goodwill of national chain grocery stores.

Also, get some chickens.  There's nothing like fresh eggs from happy chickens, anyway, so even if the disaster never happens, you'll be glad you got the birds.

In addition, we suggest you look into a Mormon Pantry.  Yes, yes, we know, the Latter Day Saints don't exactly fit the description of non-apocalyptic thinkers, but remember, we said such thinkers both revulse and intrigue us.  We don't agree with them on much, but preparedness is one area where we are in accord.  A two year supply of dry goods in your pantry does not strike us as a bad idea, although you probably want to exercise some discretion.  Pumpkin pie mix and lima beans would be as unappealing at the End of Days as they are on a typical Saturday evening.

Water independence.  Given how many times Myrtle has pontficated about pollutants in our drinking water, it should come as no surprise to you that we recommend doing everything in your power not to be dependent upon others for clean potables.  Rainwater collection is step one; after you are sure that you will have sufficient water on hand, step two is some method of purification.  Provided you have the power, we recommend distilling the water; this not only gets rid of microbial infestations, it also removes chemical pollutants, which will be just as big a problem if the grid goes down as they are now.

Energy independence.  In the absence of electricity from the grid, where can you get electrical power?  For those who do not generate their own electricity, there is the obvious alternative--a generator.  However, what would happen if you were not on the grid when it went down?  There is reason to believe that not all home solar panel installations would be as adversely affected as others -- you would need to take proper precautions when installing your system, but it is highly possible that given enough lead time for a warning, you could protect your home solar installation from the total blowout the city power is likely to experience.

If enough homes were independently solar by the time the Carrington Event took place, there would be a hub in every city in America of completely unaffected neighborhoods.  We aren't sure how many it would take to make a tipping point, but just one out of every ten households would be more than enough to power distillers for clean water for everyone.

Getting enough people off the grid before catastrophe strikes would also enable a quicker recovery for the energy utilities; fewer users would mean fewer blown transformers, etc.  Which would mean a quicker overall recovery time.

Social interdependence.  Here is the biggest place in which we diverge from the survivalists.  While they would have you watch your neighbors suspicously and arm yourselves with Kalashnikovs and tear gas, we would have you take them poundcake, and invite them over for lemonade and fried catfish.

Get to know your neighbors; this is ultimately the best defense against any catastrophe.  The powers of paranoia revel in gated communities with huge St. Augustine lawns, but this is madness.  Our species is a social species; we only survived against saber toothed tigers because we banded together.  A bunch of puny, weak, bipedal apes threw dirt clods at our much bigger predators until they went away.  And now, even the most steroidally enhanced of us is still puny when compared to the forces of nature against which we find ourselves aligned.  If we are to have any chance at all, whether facing hurricanes, or oil spills, or solar flares, it is by caring about what goes on in each other's lives.  And not as a nosy means of self-promotion, but as a genuine expression of interest. 

So, next Saturday afternoon, when you had been planning on hand-washing all your camo long johns, why don't you instead trow a block party and learn the name of all those people you have so studiously ignored all these years?

The likelihood of a Carrington Event in our lifetimes is extremely remote; there will soon be a lot of sound and fury which we predict will signify nothing.  But that doesn't change the fact that in the face of potential disaster, humanity really only has two choices:  we can be delusional fanatics who run around like chickens with our heads cut off, or else we can roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Happy Apocalypse!  And....

Happy farming!

Scientia, Pietas, Fides

"If you look at U.S. performance on various international metrics, depending on which one you use, we come out something like 24th or 25th in the world. A lot of people might argue: “Well, who cares? It’s just science.” The only problem with that theory is we’re moving into a time in the development of the world economy when innovation and the formation of novel approaches will clearly come from countries best situated to create a population that can innovate in science and technology."  --Dr. James S. Gates, University of Maryland

 The proprietors of Big Myrtle's place never in a million years pictured ourselves as the type of people who would abandon the public school system in favor of a private institution.  Yet here we are -- next year, our daughter will attend St. Michael's Episcopal School, an expensive-ish institution of classical learning that can be described as anything but typical of contemporary American public education.
 

Our experiences this past school year finally convinced us that this country, and the state of Texas in particular, are just not serious about providing a high quality educational experience.  The World Bank's 2009 report on rank of nations in terms of expenditures on public education makes plain where this nation's priorities lay -- or rather, don't lay.  The United States spends less per child on education than 47 other countries, including Tunisia, Barbados, Cyprus, Estonia, Slovenia, India etc. etc. etc.

Depending on which survey you believe, the United States ranks somewhere around 25th in terms of science and math technology, in spite of having a larger literate population than practically every other country in the survey.  We are sending our children to school more than anyone else, but what they are doing there is a mystery.  They certainly aren't learning to think.

In Texas, in particular, Myrtle has made comment before on the utter insipidity of the curriculum.  The Texas Board of Education recently voted to gut the history textbooks of commentary on the Civil Rights movement, among other things.  This we find egregious.  However, we find it outright crippling that the Theory of Evolution, though it is perfectly demonstrable in a classroom -- few things are easier to demonstrate, in fact -- is not taught as a validated scientific theory, it is taught (if at all) as a sideshow myth that needs to be hushed because it might contradict someone's religious beliefs.

The straw that broke the camel's back this year came when our daughter informed us that her science teacher (and we use the term loosely) argued with her students about whether an orangutan is a monkey or an ape.  She insisted it was a monkey.  And would not entertain the idea that homo sapiens sapiens was a fellow primate to the orangutans, monkeys, et al.  She also denied global warming, which might be excusable in a Fox News editor's meeting, but not in a science classroom.  The Argo Float data alone provides all the evidence of warming you need -- the oceans are warmer than they were ten years ago; they contain 30,000 more times heat-retention ability than the atmosphere; the Earth is warming, QED.  This is hardly a proof, it's almost a tautology -- the ocean is warmer, therefore the Earth is warmer.

Enter friend of Myrtle, Dr. Kathryn Lucchese.   At Myrtle's place, we usually just call her "Kate So Great".  She has been a tremendous friend of our family for the past few years, and is one of the most interesting people we have met.  In addition to being a geographer and a classicist, she writes a pretty fascinating travel blog.  She also makes some wicked-good cinnamon popcorn, but that's a story for another time.

Kate was, for many years, a Latin teacher at St. Michael's, and this past winter, when the position of Head of School came open, decided almost instantly to apply.  We were strongly in her corner, hoping she would get the post, because, frankly, she is the most like Albus Dumbledore or Minerva McGonnigal of anyone we have ever met.  She seems like she was born to be a Head of School.  So when she got the job, we were thrilled for her.  We still, however, had no intention of enrolling our children -- public school had always been the great equalizer, the pathway to social justice, the place where everyone starts on an equal plane.

Then Kate invited us to her first open house ("Domus Aperta" quoth the fliers), and we went, merely to support her in her new role, and she casually suggested we ought to fill out an application.  For no particular reason, naturally.

We start in August.  Our reasons are pretty simple:

• Our 6th grader will be learning Latin and Physics this year.  Most public schools don't offer Latin; few offer Physics; none are trustworthy, given the state of the textbooks and the anti-science attitude of those who vote for the State Board of Education
• St. Michael's as a private school does not have to use the State of Texas mandated textbooks; they shop around for the best available textbooks for the subjects in question.  At the open house, we made note of the fact that they have something on the order of a dozen different Calculus texts on hand ("We still haven't found one that's quite up to snuff," says the new Head of School, "but we're trying.")
• There is no TAKS testing in private schools; what standardized testing they do really is limited to purely metrical testing (do students improve in a given area over the course of the year, did they learn core concepts).  In public school, half the year is given over to teaching to the test, and the tests are, let's be honest, incredibly stupid.
• Science classes do include subjects like evolution ("Of course we teach evolution.  We're teaching science, aren't we?")
• Climate change is subject to the same critical scrutiny as any other scientific theory.  The fact that the evidence shows climate change is occurring will not be ignored for political convenience.  ("We're teaching science, aren't we?")
• Literature and science start from early grade levels
• Math is taught at the student's level (high or low)
• French and Spanish are taught from Pre-K through 12th grade
• 100% of the most recent graduating class were accepted to their first choice of universities

We find it particularly curious that in an age when fundamentalist christians are having their way with the public school curriculum, we are sending our child to a private Episcopal school, replete with daily chapel meetings, to get her away from the dark side of religious bigotry.  Ignorance is not bliss; maybe by the time our youngest is ready for school the Texas education system will remember that.  But we aren't holding our breath.

Go Saints!  And...

Happy farming!

Of Ghost Towns and Dinosaurs and Oil Spills, oh sigh...

The cliff dwellings and kivas of the Anasazi indians in the American desert southwest were abandoned virtually overnight.  The same is true of the villages and temples of the Maya in the Yucatan and throughout Central America. 

There are several other examples of seemingly instantaneous mass exodus throughout human history, but most modern people pay little attention to these stories.  “It can’t happen here,” you see.   That’s the sort of thing that happens to ancient pagan societies that don’t have cars, and toasters, and digital watches.

Life on Earth is not going to end any time soon, we want to start with that caveat.  But life as we have known it is soon going to be a distant memory; we are witnessing a mass extinction event, but no one in an official capacity has yet caught on to that fact.

There is now strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that the geyser of oil spewing from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico cannot be capped.  There are multiple leaks below the floor of the ocean, and stopping the flow where we currently see it would only cause more oil to flow from the places we can’t see.  British Petroleum has shifted their long-term strategic thinking to capturing as much of the oil as they can, rather than attempting to stop the flow.  Their efforts to stop the flow now appear to be token efforts designed to show the world that “Hey, yeah, we’re doing all we can!”

As an example, the relief wells which BP says they hope to complete drilling sometime later this summer are expected to have a roughly 1 in 6 chance each of working.  So you would expect them to drill at least 6 such relief wells, right?  Guess again.  They are drilling two.  There are only a handful of possible explanations, none of which are very encouraging. 

The most likely scenario is that the entire reservoir tapped by this well is going to find its way into the ocean; some percentage of it – probably a relatively small percentage of it – will be captured by BP.

The outpouring of anger at both BP and the U.S. government, however, is misdirected.  Yes, BP engaged in irresponsible and probably even criminal behavior, and yes, the federal government did not immediately take an active role in disaster mitigation, but there are several reasons why anger at this point is an exercise in self-delusion:

• There is nothing either BP or the federal government can do to prevent catastrophic, wide-spread damage.  Boons and barriers which Gulf Coast residents say should have been put in place months ago are, to be blunt, a stupid idea.  The amount of coastline to be covered, to start with, is impossibly large; stemming the tide of oil with any kind of manmade structure is very much akin to the little boy sticking his finger in the dike; it won’t work.  Going to the moon was child’s play in comparison.
  
  
• Further, protecting the shoreline misses the real danger, anyway.  Damage to marshes and tidal flats will be bad, but not appreciably worse than what was already happening due to low-level toxicity which occurs in highly drilled areas even without a spill.  James Carville may be under the deluded impression that wetlands improvements would be a reasonable response, but even though they are necessary, they cannot repair the damage done by this oil spill. 
  
  
• The real damage caused by the BP well leak is below the surface of the Gulf, not on the shoreline.  Coral reefs will die, whole colonies of whales will die, several species of turtles face near-certain extinction, numerous migratory fish populations will be dramatically excised, shellfish and shrimp will be eradicated.  The majority of the species on our planet do not live on shore; they live in the ocean. 
  
  Not on the ocean, in it.  Below the surface, which Joe NASCAR fan in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama does not seem to care about.  Yet.  They will learn their folly soon enough.  The usual response to oil spills is the spread of "boon", devices which trap the surface level oil and allow it to be collected and burned; when the spill is a mile below the surface, surface level oil is almost entirely irrelevant; the species who are in trouble are being poisoned long before the oil reaches -or doesn't reach- the beach.  The death of these species we never see in our daily lives will reshape the world we live in, and for some of us, it will not be pretty.
  
  
• The time to be angry was not after the oil started spewing from the Gulf floor.  The time to be angry was when offshore drilling was first approved.  The only reason no one was angry was because our nation is addicted to oil.  This is not the government’s fault, nor is it BP’s fault.  It is the fault of the American consumer.  We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.  The glorification of the internal combustion engine (see earlier NASCAR reference) is directly related to the current mess, and while our government has, so far, not done anything to intervene, the responsibility for our disgraceful continuation of self-destructive behavior lies on our own shoulders.

Talk about what the government or BP should do to clean up the mess is beside the point – the mess was inevitable, just as for a drug or alcohol addict, the disintegration of their personal relationships is inevitable.  There is no “fixing” the relationships without getting off the addictive substances.  There is no “fixing” the Gulf without ending all consumption of oil.  There may not be any “fixing” of the Gulf anyway, but certainly it won’t be fixed so long as there is a single drilling platform there.

Our government’s coziness with big oil is a direct result of our public coziness with big oil.  Democratic and Republican administrations alike have been beholden to corporate petrochemical interests for the better part of a century now; why did anyone think this was going to change overnight?  Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has sold his soul to oil; why single him out, though?   He is only the most recent in a very, very long line of politicians who came to power funded by the pusher-class.  Oil executives are powerful precisely because the American public has wanted them to be powerful for as long as anyone can remember.

So how bad is this event likely to be, long term, really?  Isn’t “extinction level event” a bunch of hyperbole?

No, it is not hyperbole.  There are 28 different species of marine mammals known to occur in the Gulf of Mexico. 

All 28 are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), and six are also listed as endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (Sperm, Sei, Fin, Blue Humpback and North Atlantic Right Whales).  There is a resident population of female sperm whales in the Gulf of Mexico, and whales with calves are sighted frequently.

In addition, there is a long list of threatened and endangered reptiles and fish:  Kemp’s Ridley, Hawksbill, Green, Loggerhead and Leatherback sea turtles, Gulf Sturgeon, and Smalltooth Sawfish.  And then there are the “Species of Concern” who will also face potential extinction:  Alabama Shad, Dusky Shark, Key silverside, Largetooth Sawfish, Mangrove Rivulus, Nassau Grouper, Night Shark, Opossum Pipefish, Saltmarsh Topminnow, Speckled Hind, Sand Tiger Shark, Warsaw Grouper, and White Marlin.

All of that is not even mentioning the supposedly healthy populations which we will later discover were not so healthy after all.  Fish like the Blufin Tuna, which is a migratory fish, or several varieties of gulf shrimp, shellfish, and crab and lobster.

“But just because there’s oil doesn’t mean they’ll go extinct, right?”  Wrong.  Small changes to habitat can lead to catastrophic changes in species populations.  Why would a catastrophic change to habitat not have a catastrophic change in population?  If you don’t yet understand the scope of what is happening, Myrtle asks that you pull your head out, por favor.

So what happens to an ocean which has lost its native flora and fauna?  Maybe the listed species won’t return, but something will live there, right?  Not necessarily, and probably not in our lifetimes.  There will unquestionably be massive algal blooms and large populations of bacteria colonies due to the high hydrocarbon content of the water; oil companies even utilize oil-munching bacteria as part of their supposed “clean up” repertoire.

But algae and bacteria don’t just consume oil; they also consume oxygen.  And fish, turtles, and whales all need to swim in oxygenated water.  No oxygen at sea equals a “dead zone”.  As its name implies, nothing lives in a dead zone.  And dead zones don’t become live zones for a very, very long time, not until changes in chemistry and ocean currents cause oxygen to no longer be sucked out of the water before it can be used by aerobic organisms.

Which brings us back to the Anasazi and the Maya.  If you have never been to Mesa Verde in Colorado, let us recommend it.  This is a beautifully maintained national park, and the ruins of the cliff dwellings are quite lovely in addition to being fascinating.  The main thing, though, is to notice how quiet they are.  We don’t think of them as “ancient ruins”, we think of them as ghost towns.

There may soon be a whole host of new ghost towns, from the Yucatan in Mexico, to Port Isabell in Texas, to Pensacola and Tampa Bay in Florida.  Any of the communities in-between who depend on fishing or tourism may soon be abandoned, and it may happen so quickly that future archaeologists will say it happened “virtually overnight”.  It will be unfathomable to many that they have to leave towns they have lived in for generations; that won’t change the facts, however.  If you can’t make a living there, you can’t live there.  QED.

Life will go on, but not as we know it.  If we want to prevent future disasters, don’t go looking for “safer drilling methods”, and ask the government to take giant centrifuges and trash bags to the beach.  It’s too late to save the Gulf.  But if we stop oil consumption cold-turkey, we may just be able to save ourselves.

Happy farming!

Of Herbs, and Science, and the Space-Time Continuum

There is no simple explanation for the measurable and demonstrable fact that space and time are the same thing; either you take enough science classes in college to finally stumble across the one teacher who can explain this to you sufficiently well for you to understand it… or you’ll never understand it.

This bizarre factoid crystallized for Myrtle Maintenance Personnel when space and time were graphically compared to electricity and magnetism  -- viewed on one three-dimensional wafer, a particular wave is electric, on a perpendicular wafer it is magnetic -- but we have tried this same reference point in explaining space-time to other people with no success.

Everyone, it seems, is hardwired to handle universal truths in different ways.  The world can be divided into two categories:   those who are comfortable with this reality – that “how things really are” looks different to everyone – and those who are incapable of emotionally inculcating this wild uncertainty into their points of view.  Whole religious paradigms are built on this difference.

We are not going to discuss theology here, however.  We are going to discuss herbology, a field of inquiry in which seemingly all sides have been eager to sow the seeds of confusion. 

The medicinal value of certain plants in treating certain diseases and conditions is unquestionable, or at least, should be.  The only real question medical science can have regarding the use of herbal medicines relates to specific species and their application for specific uses; the quantitative and qualitative questions related to hypothesizing about, testing for, measuring and evaluating the effect of, etc., as pertains to particular plants and natural substances used in particular circumstances.

In other words, does naturally occurring substance ‘A’ (vitamin C in citrus fruits, for example) have any effect on pathogen ‘B’ (say, a particular influenza virus) when introduced to mammalian host ‘C’ (let’s call him “Fred” for convenience and personability)?  And if so, how large an effect at what levels, and what consequent side effects may be observed?

For those who really want to get into the scientific nitty-gritty, of course, there are millions and millions of variables and questions to be posited in any such study, and the general public will quickly grow tired and bored reading about them.  We recently saw a study regarding the effect of phytoestrogens in Pomegranate pulp on the rotavirus – at least, that’s what we think it was about.  Translating from the very precise language of the study was a large task in and of itself.  We will, however, be using our pomegranate leftovers in our compost and perhaps even in our pond in an effort to mitigate naturally occurring breeding grounds for this ever present noxious microbe.

Which brings us to the flip side of the equation – for those who wish to be more practical and less pie-in-the-sky “pure science” oriented, the possibility of endlessly studying the effectiveness of substances found in nature is not exciting; actually using substances found in nature is what it’s all about.

This tension reflects a very real problem of the ethics of natural medicine:  “natural” remedies are big business, and the promise held out by homeopathic cures appeals to the common sense sensibility of people burned out on the pathologically technophilic 21st century research machine which, after all, is responsible for horrors like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Agent Orange, Chernobyl and BP Deepwater Horizon alongside of accomplishments like polio vaccine, test-tube babies, iPods and blue ketchup.  People are naturally skeptical about promises held out by scientists who have too often sold out for profit, but this has left them vulnerable to pseudo-scientists who didn’t just sell out, they were charlatan wolves in tie-dyed sheep’s clothing to start with.

It is some comfort that herbal medicines have labels reading some variation of “Claims made by this product have not been evaluated by the FDA, the USDA, or, in fact, anyone with a 9th grade science education” but it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem, which is that some of the claims made by herbal medicines are true and valid, and some are not, and Jane and John Consumer don’t have a reliable tool for determining which are which. 

It doesn’t help that Big Pharma, which stands to lose a considerable chunk of its profit margin if people start growing their own medicine in their own yards, has helped write and enforce most of the regulations affecting this particular niche market.

Nor does it help that medicinal herbs for which there are thousands of years of historical anecdotes providing clues for investigators end up on the invasive weeds database.  One of the most popular diagnoses of the last ten years is Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).  Another is Metabolic Disorder.  And the same medicine is typically prescribed for each – Metformin.  The chief active ingredient in Metformin is galegine, a functional cognate of guanidine, which happens to be naturally occurring in an “invasive weed” called Goat’s Rue.  Midwives have used this medication dating back to Roman times to encourage lactation in new mothers.  Its very name comes from the fact that this Rue, when fed to goats, causes them to produce more milk.  But, the U.S. Forestry Service wants you to eradicate this plant when you see it.

It would appear to us, based on the long history of anecdotal evidence supporting the use of this herb for a wide variety of conditions related to endocrine system abnormalities and malfunctions, that it would be a very good thing for a medical school with a strong specialization in endocrine systems to study the effectiveness of home-remedies created with organically produced Goat’s Rue.  But who’s going to pay for that study?  The makers of Metformin?  Not likely.  We are planting large stands of Goat’s Rue this fall; we’ll let you know what we discover, though we are not equipped to give you any kind of titration charts or other specific data.  Barring an unexpected visit from the National Science Foundation for a grant we haven’t applied for, you’ll have to settle for anecdotal evidence.

There are other plants going in at Myrtle’s place this fall for similar reasons.  With children running about the place, we would be irresponsible not to have a large bed of Aloe Vera for sunburns and wasp stings.  Garlic and Leeks have long been known to be powerful anti-viral agents.  Red Clover and Goldenseal have, among other uses, cancer-fighting properties which hold promise.  Goldenseal can be used as an infection-fighter; it also makes a good companion planting for Raspberry, whose leaves are another favorite among midwives and nature-oriented gynecologists. 

And all of these plants are attractive groundcover for hardwood forests; since grass wouldn’t grow under our oaks even if we wanted it to – and we really don’t want it to – we have been looking for just the right things to grow on the shady side of our house. 

We aren’t alone; the economics of home-grown herbs are getting more favorable by the day.  From The USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Plant Guide for Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis L.):

“Previously available only in specialty health and natural foods stores, goldenseal and other medicinal herbs became part of the general marketplace during the 1990s, and since then the demand has been increasing dramatically. Between 1991 and 1996, the wholesale value of goldenseal in the U.S. increased by as much as 600%. Since 1994 goldenseal has been one of the top six best-selling medicinal herbs in the U.S., and remains so today. Between 1995 and 1997, the medicinal plant market as a whole, as well as demand for goldenseal, experienced in excess of a 30% growth rate. Goldenseal is also available in numerous drug products and in a wide array of herbal products on international markets, e.g., in France, Australia, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, and other European countries. Since demand has increased greatly, and supplies have declined, the price of goldenseal has increased dramatically. In the early 1990s, the price of goldenseal ranged from $18 to $24 per kg. In 1999, the price ranged from $66 to $110 per kg. In 2000, the price of goldenseal was over $110 per kg, with some companies charging over $220 per kg. The current goldenseal shortage and the large increase in its demand appear to highlight the need for cultivated supplies to satisfy a growing domestic and international market.”

What little science there is on the subject also suggests that we are probably on the right track.  If you have an interest in natural remedies, the solution is not to buy more packaged products; the solution is to grow your own natural remedies, or if that is not possible, buy directly from someone who grows the herbs you need.

In fact, the biggest complaint regulators make about the natural remedy market is that there are no quality controls regarding the manufacture of homeopathic remedies, and to us at Myrtle’s place this sounds like a legitimate complaint – if you buy capsules purporting to contain red raspberry leaf extract, shouldn’t those capsules contain red raspberry leaf extract?  Since there is no way to guarantee they do, wouldn’t it be better to simply grow red raspberries, and make your own infused red raspberry leaf tea?  In addition to being fresher, which is usually better, it would actually be what it says it is.

And whether you’re talking about herbs or about the space-time continuum, things actually being what you think they are can only come as a relief.

Happy farming!

Small Counterpuncher Sloop vs. Lumbering Brawler Frigate? Take the Sloop!

Maritime history holds numerous lessons for families navigating the treacherous waters of a modern economy.  The story of warfare at sea is the story of a conflict between those who attempt to package the most power on a single platform and those who take a more precise approach, attempting to deliver a discrete amount of power on a smaller, more maneuverable platform.

Basically, frigates vs. sloops.

There are other examples, of course, besides these storied sailing vessels, but the frigate and the sloop are the best exemplars.  And the story we are slowly plodding towards is the story of the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada.

The Spanish, of course, had the ships-of-the-line, the galleons, huge ships with hundreds of large guns.  The English had a lot of little ships – sloops – with far fewer and far lighter weapons, but with a tremendous advantage in being able to tack into the wind and to change direction far more quickly.

Thanks to tricky weather, the sloops had almost insurmountable advantages in that battle, in spite of the conventional wisdom which held that the Armada was nigh invincible.  Conventional Wisdom, much like Common Sense, is wrong far more often than it is right.  Like Horatio Hornblower, the intrepid fictional adventurer of another age of British sea power, proves time and again, a simple calculation of facts and angles is far more reliable than is the related “wisdom” of what “everyone knows”.

So it is at Myrtle’s place.  We strive to be more of a sloop and less of a frigate.  This will prove more important as time goes by; economic uncertainty coupled with a changing climate mean our family will have to adapt in ways that quite simply cannot be predicted.  So, we need to lighten the gun decks and increase our sail-to-beam cross-functionality.

One of the first ways in which we are attempting to accomplish this goal is to completely re-evaluate how we consume energy.  According to the Energy Star website the average home spends about $2,200 on energy bills every year.  This makes energy consumption a low-hanging fruit in terms of where we can save money and streamline our family operation.  How can we cut this number and make our family more adaptable?

First and foremost, we had to evaluate what, exactly, goes into our consumption habits:

• Air Conditioning and Heating
• Water Heating
• Clothes Washing and Drying
• Food Storage
• Food Preparation
• Dishwashing
• Computer
• Entertainment (television, radio)
• Lighting

Some of these areas are more readily downsized than others, but each provides ample opportunities for sloopification.

Air Conditioning and Heating:  Really, given that this is Texas, heating is not a concern.  We don’t even turn on the central heat each winter; we do sometimes put a space heater on in the chicken coop.  We have not yet thought of a more energy efficient way to heat the birds when temperatures go sub-freezing, but since that only happens a few times each winter, this is not a high priority item.

A/C, on the other hand, is a major concern.  When a “cool” week is one in which we don’t get over 95° more than twice, we obviously need to keep the air conditioner running more often than not.  How to keep it from bankrupting us in less than a month is, therefore, a major concern.

There are several steps we have taken to reduce cooling expenses.  First and foremost, of course, we bought a smaller house (900 square feet) on the theory that the less house there is to cool, the less expensive it will be.  Next, we have a relatively new unit – less than five years old.

Then there are the not-so-easy steps.  We blew insulation into our attic a few weeks ago; for the money, this is one of the easiest investments most people can make.  Very few homes have so much insulation already that they would not benefit from more.  While we went with the blow-in cellulose, there are numerous innovations in the insulation market which it would be well worth your time to investigate.

Our roof, thankfully, is galvanized aluminum, which has reflective properties far superior to those of practically any tile materials available today.  However, as an older roof, it had begun to wear and rust; the solution to extending the lifetime of the aluminum, it turns out, also aids our quest for lower utility bills – there are a variety of products on the market which make claims to “heat reflective” properties, and anecdotally we can confirm that some of these claims actually have merit. 

Perhaps the most important “heat reflective” property, of course, is color.  White paint does not absorb heat, it reflects it.  Once again, consult your elementary school science text book.  Well, maybe not if you live in Texas… In any event, where we had not yet painted, we have the heat blisters to prove what happens when skin comes in contact with galvanized aluminum exposed to the sun.  Once the paint was applied, we were able to sit comfortably on the white metal roof while painting other sections.  The difference between the untreated and the treated metal is somewhere on the order of 50° cooler temperatures, which, obviously, makes cooling the house much, much easier.

Add tinted windows, additional weatherstripping for our doorways (if you live in the Brazos Valley, your foundation has shifted, is shifting, or will shift soon), and paint on the interior and exterior walls with a ceramic micro-tile additive, and we’ve done everything we can to minimize the expense of surviving the interminable Texas summer.

Water Heating/Clothes Washing and Drying:  Water heating expense is inextricably entertwined with clothes cleaning.  Given how hot it is in Texas, hot baths are not really a huge expense for us – there are times, of course, when this luxury is necessary, but warm is plenty hot enough, usually.

Clothes, on the other hand, don’t really require hot water at all.  Again from the Energy Star web site, “Hot water heating accounts for about 90 percent of the energy your machine uses to wash clothes - only 10 percent goes to electricity used by the washer motor.”  Given that most of the cleaning done in a washing machine is done via solvent qualities of soap and friction from clothes rubbing against each other, coupled with scrubbing agents like baking soda, most wash can be done in entirely cold water.  “Switching to cold water can save the average household more than $40 annually (with an electric water heater) and more than $30 annually (with a gas water heater).”  Sounds like free money to us.  If it weren’t so blasted humid here most of the time, we would also take advantage of Passive Solar Textile Dehydration technology more often, too.  (That’d be a “clothesline” for you pre-21st century thinkers.)

Food Storage:  Of the numerous advantages of eating fresh produce, one of the easiest to overlook is the energy saving possibilities.  The supersized refrigerator is an essentially American phenomenon.  It is, sadly, starting to become more popular throughout the world, but we are hoping that this trend desists, particularly as fresh foods make a comeback.

When you visit European households, one of the first differences you notice between the American way of doing things and the European style of living is that mealtime is much more deliberate.  There are no huge refrigerators full of weeks and weeks worth of food.  You make a trip to the market – and markets are smaller and closer for this very reason – and pick up fresh produce for the specific meal you are about to prepare and then eat.

There are several ramifications to this way of doing things.  For one thing, portion sizes are much more reasonable.  You don’t buy three times as much as you need.  Also, there is much less waste.  You eat what you have prepared; it doesn’t sit in the refrigerator where you will then a week later say “I meant to eat this before now, but since it’s moldy, I’ll just throw it away.”

And the refrigerator in which it is not sitting getting moldy?  It’s a much smaller fridge.  It typically looks more like what American families buy for their kids’ college dormitory rooms.

We at Myrtle’s place have such a fridge.  A miniature fridge, by most people’s way of thinking.  It goes where our dishwasher used to be.  It consumes much less electricity on an annual basis than the typical refrigerator, and it makes us much more deliberate in our food choices – we don’t do “leftovers” very often.  If “leftover” food does not fit in our tiffins for lunch at work or school the next day, then it is fed to the chickens.  The refrigerator is for storing dairy, butter, and condiments.  “Leftover” is a four-letter word.

Food Preparation:  We probably have some room for improvement on this score.  We use an electric stove/oven, which is in and of itself less efficient than would be a gas cooking station, but we just plain prefer not to have gas lines in our home.  Maybe we’re just superstitious.  However, there are several tips on the Energy Star web site for reducing energy usage in food preparation.

1. Use the right sized pot on stove burners. A 6" pot on an 8" burner wastes over 40 percent of the burner's heat.  Using the right sized pot on stove burners can save about $36 annually for an electric range, or $18 for gas.
2. Covering pots and pans also helps you cook more efficiently and keeps your kitchen cooler.
3. Have a gas range? Keep the burners clean to ensure maximum efficiency. Blue flames mean good combustion; yellow flames mean service may be needed to ensure the gas is burning efficiently.

We don’t use a microwave, nor do we use a lot of other countertop gadgets.  In fact, something we do purely for taste has the added advantage of costing us less, too -- we use a french press for our coffee instead of using an electric drip coffee maker.  We boil water on the stove, and then pour that water over the coffee grounds in our french press, and let it steep.  This makes for the best tasting coffee in the world, at a fraction of the energy costs associated with the typical countertop coffee machines.


Dishwashing:  It’s easy to understand why dishwashers became popular, particularly when listening to our daughter complaining that washing dishes is “the single most disgusting thing anyone has ever been asked to do, anywhere”.  However, this is an expense we simply cannot abide, particularly given that dishwashers are among the worst culprits at outgassing in the home.  Formaldehyde and chlorine droplets in the air are telltale giveaways that the dishwasher has been in use.  This, more than anything else, is why one of the first things we did when we bought our house was to tear out the dishwasher and replace it with a mini-fridge. 

It’s a better use of space, and it doesn’t cost us anything in additional electricity.  The water was going to get heated anyway, as it is when we wash by hand.

Computer/Entertainment:  We are extremely fortunate to be a family of bookworms.  We spend too much time on the computer, no doubt, but at least our usage of other forms of electronic brain composting are extremely limited.  This, no doubt, helps with our energy expenditures.

Lighting:  Rheostat, rheostat, rheostat!  It’s on the to-do list, we promise!  In addition to turning off lights in rooms where you are not using them, going with fluorescent wherever possible, using solar powered lights for all exterior fixtures, etc., using dimmer switches for all overhead lighting fixtures is one of the best possible ways to trim energy use.  A rheostat allows you to only access as much energy for a given lighting job as is actually required in order to give you only the light you need, no more.  Installing a dimmer is a relatively painless task; just make sure you turn of the proper breaker before messing with the wall switch.

We are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the crème de la crème of conservationists on the home energy front yet.  We have a very, very long way to go before we are satisfied on this score.

But to return to the sailing metaphor, if you picture going from the supersized frigate mentality which has driven American lifestyles for more than half a century to a leaner, meaner, sleeker sloop mentality, there are two elements to consider.  First is forming a reduced size hull capable of handling both shallow and deep water without getting swamped; next comes fitting that base with rigging – sails capable of maximizing speed and agility to allow for lightning maneuverability regardless of weather.

Getting off the grid by going to solar energy and home small-turbine wind are examples of setting up powerful rigging.  Getting rid of energy consumption hogs like an oversized refrigerator or a dishwasher, those are examples of downsizing the hull.  We’re halfway there.  Myrtle’s place is doing everything we can to get ship-shape; we hope you join us in this quest.

Happy sailing!