Fáilte, Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome!

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Fàilte, 欢迎

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!
Fremde, étranger, stranger.
Gluklich zu sehen, je suis enchanté,
Happy to see you, bleibe, reste, stay.


Updates progress: From July 2004 to August 2005 complete

Last update: Mr. PoBoys New Orleans Radio Station – Jambalaya Jam

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‘You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind.’ #2

before
after

Planted:

Castanea sativa (Sweet chestnut)

Apple trees:

Egremont (M111) – Dessert
Greensleeves (M106) – Dessert
Martin’s Seedling (M111) – Culinary
Ecklinville (M106) – Culinary
Uncle John’s Cooker (M106) – Culinary

Soft Fruit:

x2 Gooseberries – Hinnonmaki Red
x1 Gooseberry – Invicta
x6 Raspberry (Rubus idaeus)
x4 Blackcurrant (Ben Sarek)
x2 Redcurrant (Ribes rubrum)

Constructed:

  1. Windbreak netting
  2. Composting bin

Numbeo

Numbeo is a collaborative online database which enables users to share and compare information about the cost of living between countries and cities.
It also includes data on:

  • property prices,
  • crime,
  • health care,
  • pollution,
  • traffic,
  • travel,
  • quality of life
Quality of life comparison (March 2020)

Turf cutting in Co Roscommon in 1881

Turf cutting in Co Roscommon in 1881, from the Illustrated London News, February 26th, 1881

Cut turf stacked for drying, Lissananny, Co. Roscommon, August 2019

To sit beside the board and drink good wine

And watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire

And feel content and wisdom in your heart,

This is the best of life;

William Butler Yates

Cutting turf to heat homes has been a tradition for millennia, but the EU has ruled that it must stop.

February 2020

Low Tech Magazine

What is Low-tech Magazine?

Founded in November 2007, Low-tech Magazine questions the blind belief in technological progress, and talks about the potential of past and often forgotten knowledge and technologies when it comes to designing a sustainable society. Interesting possibilities arise when you combine old technology with new knowledge and new materials, or when you apply old concepts and traditional knowledge to modern technology.

My personal favourite articles:

Reinventing the Greenhouse –

Research shows that it’s possible to grow warmth-loving crops all year round with solar energy alone, even if it’s freezing outside. The solar greenhouse is especially successful in China, where many thousands of these structures have been built during the last decades.

How to Downsize a Transport Network: The Chinese Wheelbarrow

For being such a seemingly ordinary vehicle, the wheelbarrow has a surprisingly exciting history. 

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com

Timperley early

Make a raised bed

take an old door…
disassemble it
cut to size
Assemble the frame
Place the frame

Prepare the soil

Double dig the soil and remove stones, roots and weeds
Get two wheelbarrow loads of sand and grit for drainage
Rhubarb likes well drained soil so mix in the sand thoroughly
Add 150 litres of multi-purpose compost
Plant the rhubarb crowns so the tips are just above the soil
Mulch with wood chips and bark

Rhubarb prefers a sunny site and should not be harvested in the first year. Three crowns should be enough to feed a family. Once mature the crowns can be split to provide new healthy plants.


Update: April 2nd 2020

‘Timperley Early’ is one of the earliest varieties to mature, producing pink-red stems streaked with green. It’s ideal for forcing to provide tender pink stems as early as February. If left to grow naturally, ‘Temperley Early’ is ready to harvest from March.

Riparian ownership: Responsibilities of a riparian owner

“A riparian owner is the person, or people, with watercourses on, next to or under their property.”

What are my responsibilities as a riparian owner?

  • To pass on water flow without obstruction, pollution or diversion that would affect the rights of others.
  • To maintain the banks and bed of the watercourse (including any trees and shrubs growing on the banks) and any flood defences that exist on it.
  • To maintain any approved structures on their stretch of the watercourse and keep them free of debris. These may include trash screens, culverts, weirs and mill gates.
  • Riparian Owners must not build new structures (for example a culvert, bridge or board walk) that encroach upon the watercourse, or alter the flow of water or prevent the free passage of fish

How do I maintain the watercourse?

a) Keep growth of vegetation (trees, weeds, reeds, grass etc) under control 

b) Keep watercourses free of debris (e.g. litter, grass cuttings, and fallen trees and branches) 

c) Remove excess silt 

Here are some good URLs:

http://www.sussexotters.org/pdf/Advice%  20on%20Wildlife%20Friendly%20Weed%20Clearance%20  and%20Veg%20Management%20in%20Watercourses.pdf

https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/104184/Good-Practice-for-Watercourse-Maintenance-.pdf

http://www.theriverstrust.org/media/2017/04/Pinpoint-21.0-Soil-Management-Managing-ditches.pdf

Futility Closet – a collection of entertaining curiosities 

About Futility Closet

Futility Closet is a collection of entertaining curiosities in history, literature, language, art, philosophy, and mathematics, designed to help you waste time as enjoyably as possible.

The database contains more than 10,000 items, and more are added each day.

You can read Futility Closet on the web, subscribe by RSS, or sign up to receive a daily email.

CATEGORIES:
Art
Crime
Death
Entertainment
History
Hoaxes
Humor
Language
Literature
Oddities
Podcast
Poems
Puzzles
Quotations
Religion
Science & Math
Society
Technology
Trivia

https://www.futilitycloset.com

Xanadu: Fragments

In Xanadu…
…did Kubla Khan
A stately Pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
Kubla Khan (2002) Pandaemonium, Julien Temple

Kubla Khan

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
   Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
   The shadow of the dome of pleasure
   Floated midway on the waves;
   Where was heard the mingled measure
   From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

   A damsel with a dulcimer
   In a vision once I saw:
   It was an Abyssinian maid
   And on her dulcimer she played,
   Singing of Mount Abora.
   Could I revive within me
   Her symphony and song,
   To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Keep the home fires burning (now with added Physics)

Stove fans are used to improve the circulation of heat which in turn reduces hot and cold spots throughout the home.

It doesn’t have any batteries so how does it work?

The stove fan is powered by the Peltier effect. This effect is due to a temperature difference by transferring heat between two electrical junctions.

The thermoelectric circuit is generated since it is composed of materials with different Seebeck coefficients. This is due to the junctions being made of doped* semiconductors.

In a Peltier fan the configuration is that of a  thermoelectric generator

*Doping is the intentional introduction of impurities to modulate electrical properties

RED Gardens – New page

These photos were taken in July 2019 in Cloughjordan Ecovillage, Co. Tipperary, Ireland

RED Gardens Project, (Research Education and Development) consists of 6 family scale gardens each one 100m2 (1000sqf) and following a different methodology, or approach to growing vegetables. There is also a larger Black Plot, of about 1000m2 (1/4 acre) which is exploring issues and possibilities of an intermediate scale growing space.

Bruce Darrell manages all of the gardens and related research projects, as well as scripting, filming, illustrating, and editing the videos on this youtube channel:

Welcome to Craggy Island

Inisheer Island (Inis Oirr), Aran Islands, Co. Galway
More about the wreck of The Plassey: https://www.doolin2aranferries.com/blog/plassey-famous-shipwreck-inis-oirr/
The islands supports arcticMediterranean and alpine plants side-by-side, due to the unusual environment. Like the Burren, the Aran islands are renowned for their remarkable assemblage of plants and animals.
The grikes (crevices) provide moist shelter, thus supporting a wide range of plants including dwarf shrubs. 

Homemade blackcurrant jam

Blackcurrants (Ribes nigrum) can be harvested from late June to early July
Simmer 300g of blackcurrants with 250ml of water for about 20 minutes.
Add 300g of sugar and the juice of one lemon. Heat vigorously until temperature reaches 105ºC.
Pour the jam into warm sterilised jars close the lid and allow to cool. Tastes excellent on hot buttered toast with a nice cup of tea.