Week... (hang on a second, I'll check the calendar)..... Week 12 - Fetch the Frontline; The Dog Is Itching

Once again sorry about the lack of posts through May, I wouldn't make a very good fence would I? I'm back on the Pony now though so look out!

So here we go, I think that I'm about to have a bit of a rant!

Our modern western way of producing food is parasitic. 

If you consider that the land we live on is an organism, and then consider how we grow and harvest the food that grows as part of this organism's life, it is plain to see that we are in a parasitic relationship. 

"Wha? A parasite?" I hear you ask, "Like a tick? A flea? A nit? Like a vampire or tapeworm or on of children? Surely not! This is an affront to our status as the top shelf mammal on this planet!" you snort indiganantly.

And well may you be indignant wealthy westerner. You work hard. You're no sponge. But perhaps you'll consider the following definition:

Parasite: Noun.  An organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense.

Sound familiar? I think that the key word here is nutrient. We can't keep drawing nutrient for our own requirements i.e. filling our own bellies, without depelting our host i.e. the earth (or sea for that matter) from which we get our food.The pastoralists and farmers among us may object by saying that we add nutrients back to the soil while we crop. Haven't I heard of Urea? Dynamic Lifter? Super Phosphate? All of these are bought at great expense and added broadscale to the land to ensure next years crop is a success.

Well yes, but I propose that these chemicals are not much more than the equivalent of giving a couple of cans of "Red Bull" to a tired toddler. They are guaranteed to get a response, to keep things moving, but are they sustainable? Long term, are we going to wear the little tike out?

"Sure," you might say, "That's the same old, boring, predictably green, sustainability pushing, farmer bashing argument. Steady on with the emotive "We're all poisoning the children" metaphor eh Dave?" 

Yes you're right, it's not our child, she's our mother.

Maybe you have a problem with the concept of the earth being an organism in itself, especially your mother! But think of it: Just like we are made up of a gazzilion of our own individual cells, as well as ten times as many bacteria and other greeblies living in, on and around us, the earth too is a collection of different organisms, energy cycles and mineral structures working together in what could be seen as a functionaing whole. Whether or not it has a personilty, or a wardrobe as charming as your mother's is a matter of debate of course.

There was, or still is I'm pretty sure, a scientist type guy named James Lovelock who proposed that the whole earth is a being in itself. He didn't postulate a consciousness to go with this being, but definitely that it was an entity of its own. Incidentally, he considered humans  as the reproductive organs of this being he called Gaia, in that we are moving towards colonising other planets, taking part of our biosphere with us. If you want to know more on the Gaia Hypothesis, here is the the link to the delphic like Wikipedia that has an article and lots of links to further information.

But back to my outrageous claims of a parasitic humanity. As you might expect, I feel that this is not an accurate description of what I'm up too with my "Showing Rib" project. What I am aiming for with this lifestyle is a symbiotic relationship. Perhaps if you consider the following definition:

symbiosis  

1. Biology A close, prolonged association between two or more different organisms of different species that may, but does not necessarily, benefit each member.

which doesn't illustrate my point as well as 

2. A relationship of mutual benefit or dependence.

That's right. Lofty Meadows is like my own little pony that I am riding into the sunset. I feed him and he carries me. Symbiosis. It is important to keep my steed healthy and happy so she can carry me onward. But how to do this? How to keep a healthy horse trotting along?

"Um..." you loudly think, "Er...". You look away in an embarassed attempt at avoiding eye contact "He is ranting, isn't he?"

It's all about inputs and outputs really. As I said  earlier, you can't keep pulling stuff out of a closed system, like "Lofty Meadows" and expect it to keep supporting you. So even though Nessie and I aren't buying in any nutrient from our local IGA for ourselves (excepting some garlic salt, soy sauce and Olive oil), there arer still inputs coming in to our "closed" system.

Of course the first and foremost input is the Sun, as it is everywhere. The second common input which is the raw material for all of the starches and sugars that we eat is often totally overlooked, mostly because it is invisible - Carbon Dioxide. It is responsible for all of the cellulose that we feed to ourselves and back to the chooks, compost and worms, making humus to literally feed the microorganisms in the soil and to act as a sponge for any moisture.

What other more obvious inputs are there? There is a petrol input to cut the lawn clippings to feed to the chooks who mix it with their poo. Wwoofer energy also from the food from the garden and IGA. There is cow and horse poo input when we build a compost heap. Last of all there is chook food. The big idea is that we try to catch as much of this energy input and keep it inside the closed loop that is Lofty Meadows. I'd like to focus on the last one: Chook food .

Once the energy from the chook food has been turned into eggs, poo and chicken, we try to keep it here on the meadow by eating their eggs, putting their poo into the garden via the compost heap and the chicken into our bellies. Well, the roosters anyway. As the fowl are going about their chickeny business they also use the energy from the chook food to physically turn the weeds over, effectively composting them. Once their poo is on the weeds in their pen we gather them up and compost them and they are returned to the garden around the plants. So you can see that the chook food has been turned into eggs, chicken meat, a compost tumbler, and plant food. 


The vegetables and fruit we grow are eaten by us but are also returned to the chooks in the form of scraps. This is a saving grace because it would be very difficult to watch most of Toby's delicious leftover lasagna slide off his plate into the bin! If is going back into the chooks I can resist the urge to scarf it myself, in the interests of preventing wastage of course.


From the garden we also feedback to the chooks worms, weeds or even specially grown chook crops such as sunflowers or amaranth. Each of these smaller "vegetable loops" in the whole "Lofty Meadows" cycle, beefs up the substance of the meadow as it pulls energy and CO2 from the atmosphere. 


It is important to see that there is a great deal of work to be done on our behalf to provide this relationship of mutual benefit or dependence. We have to feed the soil if it is to feed us. This is done primarily through harnesssing the two most prevalent and cheap inputs - sunlight and CO2.

So what do we pull out of the ground? Well the obvious one is chook and Duck eggs, as well as their meat on occasion. The other is vegetable matter such as fruit and vegetables and perhaps wood for the barbie.


We are lucky that our main output, our excreta, that would otherwise go out to sea to sleep with the fishes, stays onsite. The solids settle out in a tank while most of the nutrient rich water coming out of our Aqua Nova is distributed onto our banana patch and fruit trees, which of course we end up eating.


This reminds me of a very clever cryptic joke that one of my students made up.


Sit on it, but don't stand in it. (Five letters)


First correct answer receives a signed copy of the Inaugural Compendium of Lofty Meadows Cuisine. Stay tuned for even more new exciting recipes!


O.K. I think I've finished ranting. Thanks for indulging me. I'll try something lighthearted next week.


Check the scales! I need more input!

Toodles,

Showing Rib