Category Archives: nature

Oh beautiful…

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…for spacious skies…

It was a wonderful summer morning for a bike ride here in Hoosierville…

Peaceful….not too many cars.

Several SUV’s pass me with canoes attached. …every single one of them was in a hurry to go….canoeing.  Something of an oxymoron, isn’t it?  I mean, canoeing is about the most peaceful, slow-paced thing you can do, and here they were speeding around this bicyclist to get where they can take a lazy ride on the wonderful river….(if you have never been canoeing, I highly recommend it.  It will blow you away.)

Biologists say that if you see many different species within a certain area, it’s an indication of the health of that area–the more diverse, the better the ability to sustain life.  For instance, I’ve seen many cranes flying overhead, in addition to the usual Blue Jays, Robins, Turtle Doves, Redwing Blackbirds, buzzards, deer, ground hogs, coyotes, etc.  Today, I got to see two beautiful birds that must be related by their similar black wings…but they had different colored bellies–one had a striking yellow, and the other had a striking blue.  They flew the same, too, with quick flutters.  They reminded me of finches, but when I tried to find them, the stupid search engine was showing blue birds from the search words of “yellow bellied birds”.  (Um, yeah, computer geeks, your search engine sucks.)

I got to see an old spot that I loved when here last—a quiet spot over the river, with a small country bridge spanning  it.  I hopped off my bike and just stood there, watching the river flow quietly.  I see a leaf from a tree slowly follow the river currants.   Birds sing in the overhanging trees.

After awhile, I switch to the other side of the bridge, and there a huge tree has fallen from the bank and hangs there on an improvised mini-island where mud and branches and leaves have gathered.  I noticed something on the mini-island….is it a snake?  Yes, it is, coiled up to get warm in the sun.    I think this may be it–hard to tell since I was twenty feet above, but it looks very similar.   I continue to survey the island and see two more snakes close by, sunning themselves.  As my eyes follow the fallen tree, I notice it has become a host for renewal, as plants have begun to sprout from its decaying trunk….out of death, comes life….I looked more closely at the plants and see yet another snake hidden among the greenery.  I look back at the first snake, and…it’s gone.  I keep looking in the area, thinking I missed it….but no snake.  It had silently slipped into the water…

As I ride along the country road, I see where three poor baby frogs have met their demise.  Gees–o-pete, they have deer crossing signs, and duck crossing signs….why not frog crossing signs?  Yeah, I know, people aren’t likely to slow down for them, either….but at least you can see deer coming at you….froggies…eh, not so much.

Continuing the nice ride, I go past houses that have been torn down.  I wonder what happened to the former owners.  One is just a crawl space…..a shell of what once was.  Another is a platform that formerly housed a mobile home.  A hibiscus still stands as a testament of someone whom once lived there that loved flowers.

Dogs bark, but fortunately are tethered….well, except a pair of huge hounds that barked at me and started to come towards me as I peddled past, but stopped at the property line.

I figured I was safe….must have one of those electric fences.

Ha.

When I turned around to go past again, this time I had two things against me—I was getting tired and I had to pedal up a small hill to get past the dogs.

First rule of bike riding–never get so tired that you can’t out pedal a fast dog.

So….I’m only slightly apprehensive as I’m beginning to pedal faster to get up the hill and not antagonize the dogs.

They were waiting for me on the porch this time….

And, yeah, they weren’t as restrained…as one came out of the yard and barked and got right next to my exposed leg….I’m waiting for it to try to take a bite…

Fortunately, today wasn’t my day to see how good their homeowners insurance was…:p

He got right up to me, but didn’t take that fateful bite.

Whew.

The nice thing about being on a bike versus walking or jogging past is that you can reasonably pedal fast enough to get away.  I did this with a white german shepherd once, too.  Talk about your heart in your throat….

Wonderful morning.  I feel closer to the Great One when I’m out riding bikes or just walking…connecting to something bigger than me…

Hope you’re all having a good day, too.

Sally Lightfoot Crab

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…is the endangered species of the month of July.    (there weren’t any last month, in case anyone is wondering…they just had a serene pic of a beach…nice)

While searching the web, I found this excellent site that has a couple of videos on how climate change is affecting the Galapagos.  He has a clear, non jargon manner that is refreshing.  I wish that the mainstream media would put him on the air to explain Climate Change.  Whenever they mention Climate Change (IF they mention climate change) they don’t do a good job explaining it or to note changes already happening…gah, I wonder if the many commercials for BP and other oil companies has anything to do with it…?  (said with dripping sarcasm) (with the exception last night of CBS–they asked if all the wild fires going on now are a result of climate change and if the fire fighters believed in it.  The fire fighter interviewed said they would not find any fire fighter that has seen the incredible heat and intensity of these fires deny climate change.)

I saw on some sites that people were taking these crabs home for their aquariums.  Please don’t do this.  Enjoy the moment, and then leave them be.

Goliath is winning…

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….this is not good….we have third generation bee farmers who are giving up because of the genocide of bees. (buzz-a-cide?)

From the Chicago Tribune link:

Die-offs of bee populations have accelerated over the last few years to a rate the U.S. government calls unsustainable. Honeybees pollinate plants that produce roughly 25 percent of the foods Americans consume, including apples, almonds, watermelons and beans, according to government reports.

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I’m afraid that they will wake up too, too late….and it won’t be until the crops have died and the fields are empty.  God help us then.

Deer infected with neurological disease

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CMD also reports of a neurological disease in Wisconsin deer that is like mad-cow disease.    The DNR reports that there have not been any documented cases where the disease has been transferred to humans….but they’re not exactly testing for it, either, according to this report.  I did a quick check of Indiana’s DNR website, and they have not reported the disease in the state.  Yet.  But the report is from 2008, so they may be stricken in the last five years.

It just blows my mind that they are so lackadaisical about it.  They’d much rather deny your eating raw milk (that has beneficial enzymes) than deny you venison.

Just think about the recent reports of horse meat being served as beef in restaurants…yeah, you get the picture.  And we have poor folks who are probably harvesting road kill in order to eat.  Not saying that I have actual knowledge of this, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn this has been going on.  Poor people without health insurance are not going to go to the doctor.  They would end up in emergency rooms —who would know to look for the disease?

The biggest question of all–why are they now becoming so sick?  It seems that since 2006, it has rapidly climbed.  Why?

I know you all are going to groan, but with the gut affecting the neurological function, I have to think it’s related to the gut….and there might be a connection between GMO’s and the deer now suffering so much neurologically.  Deer love corn.  Corn is now all GMO (unless specifically grown organically, but as we have explored before, GMO corn is pollinating organic and non-GMO corn–from this excellent blog on how serious genetic manipulation is:

Another concern is the natural cross-breeding of crops in adjacent fields, resulting in the transfer of transgenes into organic and conventional (non-genetically-engineered) crops.

Sadly, farmers who become the victim of natural crop cross over are often subject to lawsuits: Monsanto has repeatedly filed patent infringement lawsuits against farmers who may have inadvertently harvested GM crops mixed into their non-GM crops. Farmers insist these crops are the result of cross-pollination from GM crops planted a field or two away; Monsanto claims the farmers obtained Monsanto-licensed GM seeds from an unknown source, and mixed them into their seed sources without paying royalties to Monsanto.

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Another recent blog on GMO.

So…think they’ll test these diseased deer for a) Celiac-like gut inflammation; and b) GMO infected gut flora?  Nah.  That would make too much sense.

Moyers on ALEC

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Center for Media and Democracy has this up on Bill Moyers covering the dirty dealings of American Legislative Exchange Council.  It states that this was all over the nation on PBS stations this weekend.  If it was on my local station, I saw no advertisement of it, so I missed it.  (Boy, do I miss FW, which has such a kick butt public radio station, and three PBS stations, as well. )

Luckily, there is a link here to watch the show online. Also, there is a link for finding out which of your own state’s representatives belong to ALEC.  I found a couple of surprises, there, such as Win Moses, who was the former mayor of Fort Wayne, and John Gregg, the guy who just ran for governor.  Mike Pence was not listed, but yeah, he seems to be doing their bidding:

mikepence.com/newsletter/pence-hires-atkins-policy-director

See…this exposure of ALEC is a double-edged sword–you’re getting the word out and people are paying attention, but they (ALEC)  will find ways around it by people who are off in the wings, such as Atkins.

Top Chef Colicchio on GMO’s

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“…spraying Agent Orange on our food….”  A pretty stunning statement…glad to see Melissa Harris-Perry allowing him to speak out.

Green Pasture has this up on Dr. Huber’s speech on glyphosate.  (Purdue is pooh-poohing his assertions.  I found a web page from Purdue that says that Dr. Huber was exaggerating the implications.  Um-hmmm….a Purdue scientist with many, many years of experience is now suddenly incompetent?  I don’t think so.   There might be some reasons $$$ why…Purdue and other universities speak against Dr. Huber.)

From the article:

Huber spoke about a range of key factors involved in plant growth, including sunlight, water, temperature, genetics, and nutrients taken up from the soil. “Any change in any of these factors impacts all the factors,” he said. “No one element acts alone, but all are part of a system…When you change one thing,” he said, “everything else in the web of life changes in relationship.”

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Word.

Anybody who has grown a garden can attest to all the factors named above that impact your garden’s productiveness.  Like I said, it truly is a miracle how a plant can grow from a tiny seed.  The wonder of it all never ceases to amaze me.   And it also never ceases to amaze me how scientists feel they know better than nature.

 

As Dr. Huber asserts–if a plant is in a weakened state, it will not be able to fight off disease (or pests).  Everybody thinks that you *have to* spray bug killer and you *have to* use fertilizers to have a healthy plant, when it is a healthy soil (through composting) that creates the healthy plant and subsequently, the ability to fight off disease and pests.

More:

Huber reported on what he described as a newly discovered pathogen. While the pathogen is not new to the environment, Huber said, it is new to science. This pathogen apparently increases in soil treated with glyphosate, he said, and is then taken up by plants, later transmitted to animals via their feed, and onward to human beings by the plants and meat they consume.

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He said laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of the organism in pigs, cattle and other livestock fed these crops, and that they have experienced sterility, spontaneous abortions, and infertility.

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Pretty sobering, eh?

Here’s the Rodale report on organic versus conventional farms.  This is one of the best reports I’ve ever seen.  I used this report back in 1999 (?) to counteract a Hudson Institute toadie’s assertion that organic farms did much worse than conventional—if I recall correctly, it was Dennis Avery who made the assertion.

He actually said in the article that he read in Organic Gardening that they had problems with low yields and bugs.  I happened to subscribe to it at the time, and there was no such thing in that article!  It reported the opposite:  that yields were good, and only a few plants were affected by bugs….and the best part was that with composting, the organic fields were able to retain moisture much better than the conventional soil, therefore, the organic field’s plants weathered a drought better than the conventional field.

 

 

 

GM Wheat found in Oregon

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In case you didn’t click on the link for yet another farm crop contaminated with GMO’s….

I just want to know how many times Monsanto can get away with this before somebody finally lays down the law?

What’s to say that they aren’t doing this in other countries…allegedly releasing GMO seed via unsuspecting farmers who plant the seed, not knowing it’s GMO, and by the time the discovery is made…well, too late…it’s already been released into the environment??

Bopping around on the web, I found this article about products that were thought to be GMO free, but alas…Sweden was, by other articles I read, proactive and was against GMO’s.  So….where did this come from?  I can’t say that I know enough about the timeline with Sweden, but is certainly raises questions.  What is worrisome is how Monsanto has worn down the resistance to GMO’s, if this is any indication.

Here’s a good article on what countries have banned GMO’s.  Note that even though Japan banned GMO products, it *still* got contamination…by importing Canadian GM canola….stunning…absolutely stunning.  Alarms should be going off all over at this news.  Also, the article mentions the India farmers’ suicides…and the water thing.  Why doesn’t anyone bring up that the cotton plants were much more thirsty than the heirloom cotton?  That seems to escape everyone’s notice–we can’t afford to use more of our precious water resources for frankencrops that require more water to survive.

Note also the refusal of a tuna shipment to Greece when it was tested positive for GM.  It had  been packed in genetically modified soybean oil!  So, evidently, one doesn’t have to consume GMO’s to be altered by it–one only has to touch it.  Which brings more worries about breathing in GM corn pollen.  As I have said in previous blogs, my allergies during the summer always get worse after corn pollen has started to enter the atmosphere.  And with my previous post on how GM enters the DNA of gut flora….just scares the crap out of me–even carefully trying to avoid GM food, I could still end up more contaminated.  I say more contaminated because I ate GM food before I was aware of it–as most Americans who are unaware of eating GM food.

Monsanto wins court case

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This is just mind numbing…do courts ever do their own research about stuff they rule on?  Or do they just accept what is force-fed them by agricultural bullies like Monsanto??

Well, with the ruling, I think we have the answer to that.  Anyone who does their homework and looks up genetically modified organisms will have had all the evidence against its continued use.  How many crops does this monster have to damage and destroy before courts and politicians wake up?!

Monsanto promises not to sue farmers….seriously?

Senators who voted against GMO labeling

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(**edited to add tryptophan link.)

organic consumers has a post up on pressuring ten senators who voted against the Sanders’ amendment to allow states the right to label GMO food.

All we’re asking for is the right to know what is in our food!  We’re not asking them to ban GMO’s…although that’s certainly a dream of ours…we’re just asking for the right to refuse to eat food that is bad for us.

This is especially an issue for Celiacs, who can be seriously affected by genetically modified food that we cannot digest properly, and will only add to the leaky gut syndrome, possibly causing an emergency situation caused by gut inflammation. 

A debate (sort of) here.  The increase in gut inflammation since the 30s can easily be attributed to our increased use of wheat flour and undiagnosed Celiac / gluten intolerance.  I personally think it has been there, but now is becoming worse because of the GMO’s.  It just makes sense to me.

Here’s a trailer to the video by Dr. Smith : Genetic Roulette.  Glad to see Dr. Huber of Purdue University featured.  He has spoken out about the changes to the bee population.  I’m also glad to see other M.D.’s on board with this.

And then there’s this.  Holy crap, it’s worse than I thought…!  So, even if you stop eating GMO foods, you’re still subjected to this monster via your gut flora.  Holy crap.

The above page had a link to the Japan tryptophan disaster, but the link was dead.  I found it here.

It’s interesting that tryptohpan, which is a natural amino acid, was banned in supplement form…but it’s quite all right for GMO’s to go without scrutiny or restraint.  Many in the natural supplements industry felt that tryptophan was targeted because it was a natural supplement, that competed with Big Pharma.  This just adds more credibility to that claim.  If you’re Big Pharma or Monsanto, you can get away with it.

Here’s another page on GMO which mentions the Showa Denko incident.