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jack two
nominate your own title
The new improved Jack Holloway v.2
New Age Sound9 Apr '08 10:10 pm
I'm going to spend the rest of the week (after reading Moosey's journal) wondering what dehydrating bananas sound like... are they happy to be losing weight or sad to be shrivelling? A very New Age concept.
Bananas are local for me (well they grow in masses 30 km away down the mountain), but would I still be a locavore if I ate them dehydrated? After all, think of all the energy needed to dehydrate them. And that in a country that has just woken up to the fact that you can't give free electricity to 5 million households that never had it before without (a) running out of electricity to give and (b) running up a deficit. So now we have six years of LOAD-SHEDDING ahead of us - that's being without electricity for hopefully predictable set periods so that there is enough to go round. During that time they will build new power stations funded by increases to those who do pay for electricity, whether they get it or not. SO: dare I dehydrate my bananas?
Daughter-of-Moosey, come to the rescue! PC is so difficult to comprehend when there are so many factors that negate one's good intentions...
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poodles
valued helper
queensland australia
dehydrated food12 Apr '08 2:40 pm
hi jack you probably know that you can dehydrate most food as for the bananas you can carry it in your pocket without the mess  and you have fruit all the time
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moosey
head gardener
16 Apr '08 2:26 pm
Dear Jack,
Hee hee - very funny! In New Zealand slang we would say you are a 'real dag'. My goodness - you've opened a can of worms. Not that I've ever bought a can of worms, or even wondered whether it's an efficient and environmental way to package worms...
Oops. The dehydrated bananas were supposed to be kept for D of M's 14 day kayaking trip around Stewart Island, not for munching by Mother of D of M whenever the said mother felt like it. But there's more! D of M has just spent two days dehydrating what she calls 'bean slop' in the oven, with the oven door vaguely open at all times of the day and night. Now this cannot be energy efficient - can it?
Cheers - but serious worries in your power needs. Nuclear/coal-powered/hydro - all pretty scary in their own ways. Is there much move towards solar and wind power? Here, on this windy island, there is huge moaning and groaning whenever anyone tries to erect wind generators on distant inaccessible ridgelines. Suddenly these things become unaesthetic and noisy (but no-one moans about traffic noise). It's a worry.
Hope your cough has moved on out - and won't lurk all autumn. Cheers.
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Mark
Home gardener & plant fetishist
Berkeley, California, USA
20 Apr '08 3:24 am
There is a lot of wind energy harvesting going on in passes not too far from the bay area. The generators are all over some hills with nothing but grazing cattle and freeways below to complain about the noise.
The downside here has been in enormous numbers of raptors killed. Golden eagles, hawks and other birds are chopped up in large numbers. Apparently the natural population of rodents on these hills is a real draw to these birds. Too bad we can't train these birds to navigate around the blades.
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moosey
head gardener
20 Apr '08 8:15 am
Mark, that's a terrible 'by-product' of wind farms, one that I'd never considered. It's like types of indiscriminate fishing that used to happen here where endangered Hector's dolphins were caught in nets and killed.
We only have a few types of hawks in NZ. There's a native one who 'hangs out' in the skies near my hen house. I reckon he's waiting to see if I'm ever foolish enough to allow a hen to have any chickens. Yum!
My goodness, we humans aren't all that good at co-existing with nature sometimes! Cheers.
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Mark
Home gardener & plant fetishist
Berkeley, California, USA
20 Apr '08 9:15 am
Moosie, your hawk and henhouse story reminds me of when I used to keep finches in outdoor aviaries. GeorgeAnne who has worked with Lia in the studio for years told me years ago about just such a hawk-encounter. She was eating her lunch out on the upper deck when she saw a movement and then heard a loud noise. She looked up to see a hawk right itself atop one of my aviariew. Apparently it had dived after one of my birds and didn't see the chicken wire. After that I put up some plastic corigated roofing.
I think I may have already told you my other hawk story. Once I was coming out the back door to work in the garden when directly infront of me there was an explosion of feathers. A hawk had just slammed into a mourning dove. After tumbling to a stop it flew off with its meal.
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cajunangi
distinguished helper
South Louisiana
My hawk story...since we are in that vein28 Apr '08 1:53 pm
I was dropping off Mikel at school and happened to see a hawk veering around the side of a tree and didn't think anything of it. Hawks are pretty run of the mill fare in Louisiana...they have plenty of little skittery things to eat there. When I came out of the driveway I looked to where I had seen the hawk go around the tree and he was still there munching on an unfortunate squirrel...just as calm as can be. I drove by not 12 feet away and could see his beautiful feathers he was fantastic! We also have Bald Eagles there...
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poodles
valued helper
queensland australia
cajungi hawk16 May '08 8:22 pm
just tuned in and saw your beautiful hawk .Off the queensland coast our osprey looks the same ,they eat fish and the nest is used year after year they are something
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Faith S
Perpetually learning gardener
Alabama, USA
Hawks and Eagles17 May '08 1:19 am
Hi all. Cajunangie, your "hawk" is actually a Bald Eagle, our national bird. You are very fortunate to have witnessed one in the wild doing what eagles do. We do have some populations in Alabama, but I have never seen one in the wild. I'll bet that was really exciting to witness.
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