Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Here's a few items I wrote on the old site that I believe should be copied and pasted here:

I am upset that we live in a world where "making money" is more important than "the greater good" or "doing the right thing."

This means that problems which could be solved; i.e. climate change, pollution, human health, some diseases, etc. are either ignored, avoided, or the existence of the problem is denied, especially if someone will lose money.. or not make money... by solving the problem.

There is a thread about "chickens in winter" which turned into a thread about drinking water, wells, cisterns, and water pollution.

I thought about a radio documentary on CBC where they talked about good design, and I forget the specific details, but the architect (an older lady) had built a new building on the University of BC campus. It had city water but not city sewer, the outlet water went to a garden of water plants and then to other uses. The plants were chosen from NASA studies for space travel and plants that clean water. The city inspector gave a conditional approval for the system based on water tests to be conducted a month after the building was in use. The water tests were sent, the city inspector called back all angry and demanded more water tests. The "sewer" water outlet on the far side of the garden was cleaner than the city water being piped in to the building.

ozone layer:: we used to use R-22 as a refrigerant for a/c units and freezers etc. but it did damage to the ozone layer when released to the atmosphere. Companies fought that they couldn't change as replacements would be more expensive. When they did the research and
changed to other refrigerants such as R-410a or R-407c, it was cheaper than the old system and saved money!
Energy consumption: in the first energy crisis of the early 1970's the Canadian Gov't agency CMHC commisioned a house  with south facing windows, two feet roof overhang (so the sun was off the house in the summer but in the windows in winter), triple glazed windows, and very thick walls with high insulation. It was called the Saskatchewan house. To heat in winter and cool in summer cost almost nothing: a great success in energy efficiency. Being Canada, we wrote a report and forgot about it (instead of incorporating the ideas into all construction). In the 1980's some Germans "rediscovered it" and built new versions, calling it the "Passiv Haus".  Today there are 40,000 "passiv" buildings in Germany, with many new materials and designs, world leaders in energy efficient designs.

At least Mike Holmes has picked up the ball with new housing projects, many on native reserves, at a cost similiar to "conventional" house designs.

This is one answer to climate change, buildings that don't "consume" energy (elctricity, oil, gas etc) but actually produce electricity and help clean water and clean the air (green roofs).

Buildings are a source of 20% of co2 greenhouse gas.
If the Scandinavians (Sweden) take the heat from creamatoriums to heat other houses and buildings, why can't we do that here? Or heat from kitchens (pizza places!) or bakeries (commercial bakeries like Mr Christies in Etobicoke are huge)...

If the main prison in Rawanda can harvest gas from human sewage to cook food, instead of cutting down trees for charcoal, why can't we do something like that here?
Windmills: i think with some effort on energy efficiency we can do without them, big and ugly messing up the landscape, and two years ago a guy in Scandinavia (as reported on Dwelle or dw-world.de ) won an award for an invention that reduces 90% of the noise and vibration and a lot of drag on the windmill blades. At the wingtip a blade that juts off at an odd angle. As seen on many jet planes where there is a small blade that goes up and back at the end of the wing.
i haven't seen one yet on a windmill.
Economics: there's a great one. If we can't measure it it has no value. To quote Raplh Nader, the best thing for the economy is a car accident. The tow trucks, police, ambulance attendants, hospitals, physiotherapists, all get work to do. not to mention the mechanics or better yet two new cars! wait... there's something missing in that calculation???

What's the economic value of clean water or clean air? what's the medical cost of cancers, asthma, and the days of work lost?

Our tax system is based on consumable items. how much tax does our government get from bottled water or sugar water(soda, cola etc.) compared to tap water?
what if someone designed a car that consumed half the gas of current vehicles.. a small car that burned 3L per 100km's instead of 6 or 7 (50mpg).. the 1995 Honda Civic Vx (non-hybrid) did that. or the 2002 VW Polo diesel, Transport Canada had one for testing, the testers loved it! (yes VW is in deep crap, no reason they couldn't install urea tanks for emissions as GM (Opel) and BMW and Mercedes do.)
Or a half-ton truck with a small v6 like the 1995 Chev a friend had (until soneone hit him and it was written off)

conspiracy theory? I have a Car and Driver magazine where they talk about the evaporator carburator from the 1970's on v8 cars of that era that got 100 mpg. I know of many stories of backyard mechanics doing the same. Or the full size RV in a "secret" testing facility that gets 35mpg where current available RV's get 5 or 10.

Or the diesel engine that mixes exhaust with fresh air to double fuel mileage (patent owned by an oil company)

not to mention the cars that run on water like Stan Meyer's water car (on youtube). too bad he was poisioned and his equipment disappeared.

basic truth: we only harvest 25% of the energy potential of the fuel we burn, so in theory we could quadruple fuel mileage

Baron!! Love your writings. Josh and I are talking about the car stuff right now :)

Good to see you here BR.

Silvoculture (or silviculture) is the practice of running grazing animals under trees. Current studies show less heat stress on grazing animals than open pastures (more milk & meat), fallen leaves (especially black locust) fertilize the grass, the trees when thinned bring in cash, and fruits from trees are another cash source. Trees raise the water table and purify groundwater, not to mention air quality.

An article from the Ottawa Citizen got me thinking years ago. Port au Prince is the capital of Haiti and is a hill town. At the top of the hill is a walled in estate of four acres. It once was a private luxury property, then was given to a university for research. It contains a forest with 400 year old cypress trees. The trees raise the water table and purify groundwater not to mention the cool temps in the shade. The city wells have water because of these trees. it is severely threatened due to the earthquake and gunmen who moved in and are cutting the trees for quick cash.

Then I visited Atlanta Georgia in July. 5 million people, NO SMOG! the city is a forest of pines and cypress. From a rotating restaurant on the top floor of a downtown building, you can't see the ground, only trees. and a state park 50 miles away, not a mountain but a high plateau of red rock and forest. it was hot and sticky, but the air was clear.

Since then I have been paying attention to trees.

I've got lots of reading material and websites and blogs to check. I put a thread under "workshops and Seminars" with events happening in the near future.
I just took over the family "hobby" farm. 62 acres of farm, 138 forest. 15 acres hay fields, the rest pasture with rolling hills and two creeks, running a dozen cattle. The pastures were burnt in the summer of 2012, causing permant damage to the grasses between the heat and lack of rain... except under the trees. My plan is to plant trees in all the pastures: Korean white pines for windbreaks (pine nuts are $50 per pound retail), a few fruit trees for cider, and nut trees to sell the nuts; hazelnuts (if they grow in zone 4) and heartnuts look promising. Geese are my first choice for grazing as I've always kept poultry and have enjoyed them more than our cattle. plus they are well suited to trees as they don't girdle the bark as sheep and goats do. Plus they eat fallen fruit, cleaning up the mess.

http://www.permaculture.co.uk/news/13111...lvoculture
To grow trees quick give them mulch, bark, chips, mowed grass, straw etc. it doubles the growth rate. if you fertilize artificially, the tree could grow too quick and the bark splits open letting in bugs and disease.

I planted spruce seedlings 20 years ago in our "sandfield". They grew 1 foot in the first ten years. I spread a truckload of old hay around the trees ( bales come apart in flakes three inches or so thick), they grew five feet over the next 4 years and a foot per year since.

Hey anybody know where I can find an Alpricot? Its an apricot with an edible nut that's sweet like an almond. It's popular in asia where it's too hot for almonds, and I know it was listed at grimo nursery a decade ago (I found an old article), I'll have to ask Ernie Grimo when I see him at the SONG (society Ontario nut growers) meeting in March.

Cashews are not nuts, but the flower remnants (like you see on zucchini) from a fruit that's similar to a red pepper. Cashews are very hardy and are used to reforest damaged landscapes (old mines, clearcut forests that have been badly eroded, etc.) That's why they are expensive, you cannot harvest by machine.

then there's the Green Belt Movement, from east Africa and Kenya, the founder Professor Wangari Maathai won a nobel prize for her work fighting for women's rights and organizing women and planting millions of trees.

If you really want to blow your mind, watch the TED talk by Alan Savory, that the solution to climate change and desertification is more cows (!) and sheep or goats intensively grazing in large numbers then moved to new pasture.

Wow ...

Check out hardyfruittrees.ca if you want fruit and nut trees suitable for Canadian climate. We're also in zone four and these people specialize in fruit and nut trees for our climate and colder.....we just put 3 apple and 5 pear trees in the ground from them.

The NASA plant study you mention really got my attention....do you have a link to the specifics for that? I'd love to know what plants they used for the BC building project.

from the radio show CBC Ideas, landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia_Oberlander
the UBC building was the CK Choi Building https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._K._Choi_Building

as per the wiki entry, the building exceeds the current LEEDS standard for environmental sustainability but the sewage system does not meet current water quaility standards

I do not listen to c.b.c as it is a far left radio station and I never will...

well Cliff, I learned that there's a lot of good arguments on both sides and a lot of drivel as well. To make a good decision you must let the information in. A mind is like a parachute, it only works when its open.

As the saying goes, "don't throw the baby out with the bath water".