MADAGASCAR: WHAT IS HAPPENING?

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Research has conformed that Ringtail lemurs living amongst limestone spires sleep in caves.

From the limited information I have tracked down, the Election still seems to be undecieded, I will try and find out more.

LEARNING ABOUT TIMBER AND TREES

RED OAK

Everywhere I look these days I see "Red oak" mentioned. The large number of U.S.Asian blogs and pages I look at and of course "The Woodrights Shop" may go some way to explain this, but I have recently found this timber at the masters warehouse store near Canberra airport.
 Being  me I wondered what it was, where it came from, how useful it is to me and of course is it being produced sustainably?

Here is what I have found out:

Red Oak
 Quercus Rubra  Family FAGACEAE

Red Oak

    Scientific name: Quercus rubra L.
    Common name(s): red oak, northern red oak
    Synonym(s): Quercus borealis F.Michx.
    Conservation status: Least Concern (LC) according to IUCN Red List criteria.
    Habitat: Valley floors to mid-slopes of hills and mountains Quercus rubra is native to south-eastern Canada and north-central and eastern USA.
  
Red oak is hard timber from a rapidly growing tree, which naturally make it a good plantation tree.   It is straight grained with with large open pores. Apparently the grain is so open   that smoke can be blown all the way through a flat-sawn board.
 

Red Oak

How does it compare to Quercus robur?  (European/English oak)

  Density:

• Q. rubra :770 kg/m³
• Q. robur: 670-720 kg/m³ 

 Shrinkage:  

•  Q. rubra:  Radial: 4.0%, Tangential: 8.6%, Volumetric: 13.7%, T/R Ratio: 2.2
• Q. robur: Shrinkage:Radial: 4.7%, Tangential: 8.4%, Volumetric: 13.0%, T/R Ratio: 1.8

Average dry weight:

•  Q. rubra:  44 lbs/ft³ (700 kg/m³)
• Q. robur: 42 lbs/ft3 (675 kg/m3)  

  It would appear from these statistics that the two timbers are very similar in all but colour.

References:

•  The Wood Database.
•  Kew Gardens
• Trend Timber 
• Wood Solutions 
• Britton Timbers 
• Hardwood Silviculture Cooperative College of Forestry, Oregon State University 
•  

The Beets go on

A Profile of the Beets

 

Modern scientific: Beta vulgaris

Family CHENOPODIACEAE

Common names: Silver beet, Beetroot, Beet, chard, Swiss chard, spinach.

Origins

To most Auatralians the term beet, or at least beet root conjures up images of think red slices lurking in tins.  But far from being a recent introduction to our tables the Beet, it's root and its leaves have formed an important part of the human diet. Beets have their origin in the wild sea beet Beta vulgaris subspecies maritima a native of the European coast from Norway down to the eastern Mediterranean (Facciola 1998). From their seaside roots beets have been selected into two broad forms:

-Leaf Beets Beta vulgaris Cicla group, known as, Swiss chard, Chard, spinach beet, and probably even more names (Facciola 1998). These "spinaches" were in use long before true spinach arrived in britain.

-Root Beets Beta vulgaris Crassa group, containing Beetroot, sugar beets and a variety of beets called Mangel wurzels which are generally used for stockfeed (Facciola 1998).

  



A Woman collecting the leaves of beets. The illustrations are from late 14th Century northern Italian manuscripts published in The Medieval Health Handbook: tacuinum sanitatis (NY: George Braziller, 1976).  Image sourced from http://www.buttery.org/marian/14th_c_ital_baskets_2.html

Uses

Originally use may have been limited to medicinal uses, especially in the case of the root, however by the 3^rd Century AD this had apparently changed and beetroot is mentioned as a wholesome food by Apicius (Hedrick 1919).

A recipe from Apicius .

Aliter betas elixas (Beets another way)

Cook the beets with mustard seed and serve them well pickled in a little oil and vinegar.

In Le Managier de Paris  we find Black beets served  with: "Beef pies and rissoles, black beet, lampreys in cold sage soup, a German meat soup, a white sauce of fish, and the coarse meat of beef and mutton."
In addition there are several mentions of white beets and of dishes containing the leaves of beets.:

"BEET SOUPS. There are three kinds of beet-leaf soups according to cooks who speak of them, white, green, and black."

The Archaeological record.

 In the British Archaeological record beet seeds are relatively common and while differentiating root and leaf beets from the seeds is not readily done, the presence of seeds away from the coast immediately indicates that they are cultivates as the wild sea beet is only found naturally on the coast (Greig 1995).

Beta vulgaris sub-species appear frequently in archaeological finds in Britainfrom the 15^th to 16^th centuries, Alexander Neckham and several other literary sources dating from around the 13^th and 14^thcenturies also mention beets (Greig 1995).

 

A slection of sources which mention varieties of Beta Vulgaris.

 

 

 

The Varieties,
Black, red and white Beets are metioned. I would suggest that we can use this as an indicator of these colourations being available as beet leaves, if only by virtue of the leaves from root beets also being edible. I cannot say that other colours were not know but feel that I need to look into this further .
I am having trouble finding references to identifiable varieties (beyond colour) further than the 18th century. So far we have "Early blood turnip beet" known in America in 1774 a close relative of the variety "Bulls blood" which I have seen for sale as seed.

References

·         Facciola 1998 Cornucopia II: A Source Book of Edible Plants, Kampong Publications ISBN-10: 0962808725

·         Greig J 1995 “Archaeobotanical and historical records compared- a new look at the taphonomy of edible and other useful plants from the 11^th to the 18^th centuries A.D.” Circaea, the Journal of the Association for Environmental Archaeology 12 (2) pp211-247

• http://www.kew.org/plants-fungi/Beta-vulgaris.htm
   

·         Oyen, L.P.A., 2004. Beta vulgaris L. [Internet] Record from Protabase. Grubben, G.J.H. & Denton, O.A. (Editors). PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa / Resources végétales de l’Afrique tropicale), Wageningen, Netherlands. < http://database.prota.org/search.htm>. Accessed 8 January 2009.

 ·         Hedrick, U.P. editor. 1919. Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants. Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919 II. Albany, J.B Lyon Company, State Printers. [References Available]FOOD RESOURCE
COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

• http://food.oregonstate.edu
• http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/heirloom-beet-varieties-chard-zewz1303zsch.aspx#axzz2fJjiVZMH

Stools and Bowls

 I will have all of the tools I need for upcoming projects within the next week, so It's time to get busy! 

I wish it wasn't raining, I would be able to split some timber for bowls and maybe stools. Half of the Billets I brought back for legs developed splits.

My 1st attempt at a an English horse

In other news, I think it is time to revisit the English Horse.

Shaving horse Canberra wood show

Together with my Dumb-head Horse, I think this will give me a versatile workspace and allow me to have helpers, coworkers and students.

And Just because I can here is the sequence of work in making the stools!

A slightly rambling post mainly about the "Green Revolution"

This part of me began one Sunday in church. There was no Sunday school for the kids during the sermon so we sat through the whole thing. Usually I concentrated on making the votive candles blur into stars by squinting. But on this day  my ears perked up when farms were mentioned.   I don't remember the exact context of the sermon, but the image of a poor farmer using poisons so his crop would flourish then having to eat them, despite the risks didn't just stick in my mind, it influenced my beliefs profoundly.
This was in the early 1980's and the green revolution was in full swing, proclaiming an imminent end to world hunger.

  Why was there a perceived need for a new way of doing things?
In the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan increases in yield were historically associated with increases in the amount of land under cultivation (Murgai et al 2001).. Naturally this pattern of continued growth is unsustainable and undesirable. In order to increase yields there are 3 other areas which can be turned to, irrigation,  new plant varieties and irrigation projects.

   And that is just what was done in these regions, irrigation schemes were established, fertilisers were applied and  "improved" or higher yielding varieties of crops were planted.
The result unsurprisingly was an increase in the yield from these regions. 
  But that is not the end of the story at all.
 The situation can be summarised  as follows.....
  In 2001 In the Indian sate of Haryana

• 82% of the geographic area already under cultivation 

•  Fertiliser requirements have increased

• 60% of the geographical area faces soil degradation

•  Since 1985, the water table has risen more than 1m annually, and patches of salinity have started to appear at the farm level.

(Singh 2000).
 To increase yields most of the land that could be farmed was being farmed,  fertility, soil structure and water quality have all being negatively impacted and in order to keep yields high or to increase them further investment has being required. The marginal return has diminished reducing the resilience of the system.
 And that is when you start needing to run to stay in the same spot, constantly coming up with new farming methods, plant varieties and finding ways of reducing costs.
What is more the situation must be reversed if yields are not to decrease and that, takes money.

Australia has had similar experience with salinity and water quality in the wheat belts and in cropping areas such as the Lockyer valley.  Salinity resulting from irrigation practises in Australia affects about 16% of the agricultural area, and up tot 67% of the agricultural area has a potential for ‘transient salinity’ which involves temporary build ups of salts within soils.(Rengasamy 2006)
  Essentially our current methods of farming are not sustainable and ultimately reduce the ability of agricultural land to produce sufficient food to feed the world.

  Currently I'm reading up on this and sometime soon will write up a post about this. Be warned this post is also likely to be edited a lot.

References

• Murgai R, Ali M,Byerlee   2001 Productivity Growth and sustainability in post Green Revolution Agriculture: The case of the Indian and Pakistani Punjabs, The world Bank research observer vol 16  no 2  pp199-218.

• Singh R B 2000 Environmental consequences of agricultural development: a case study from the Green Revolution state of Haryana, India,Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 82 (2000) 97–103

•  Rengasamy P 2006 World salinization with emphasis on Australia Journal of Experimental Botany Volume 57, Issue 5 Pp. 1017-1023.