Climate Change conference

I wasn't sure what to write before the conference so I decided to wait so that I could write only one post instead of two. The keynote speaker was interesting and I really enjoyed that he had met Rick Mercer. His speech was informative but I thought like with all the sessions that it was a little too short. My first session was with Marc Lee I didn't like that he was from the same company as Seth Klein, it felt like only one side of the argument, when a bunch of different agencies present their side it is easier to believe. After that we went to system change not climate change with Harjap Grewal, I really liked him, he made his workshop interesting and informative. We had time to have a discussion and he actually taught me things I hadn't previously known. Lastly I went to the Mining workshop, it was interesting and really sad but we watched a half hour long movie that was all in Spanish and it was hard to read the subtitles because they went by really fast. Overall the speakers were good but I felt like they didn't have enough time to do everything that they wanted to do. I think that I would really have liked to meet Ben West the Tankers and Pipelines speaker because he does film and poetry two things that I also enjoy. It would also have been nice to go to the Fossil Fuel Extraction in BC workshop because I had no clue what fracking was and I had to look it up, but even that did not really clear it up for me. I would have liked to have heard what she said.I found the lunch strange but when I spoke the my mother she said that raisins in rice was something she grew up with. After lunch we took a tour of the garden which was amazing, they are so inspirational at windomere and I would really love to try some of the things that they do there, like the compost bins in the hallways and the aquaponics system. After the conference I was talking about it for days with my parents, eventually it got on their nerves but I would really like to try the worm compost though my mom would never let it tin the house. On a side note I went to the Library recently and found two books, one was called Urban Agriculture and the other one was a book about bee's that David Suzuki put on his book club list. Of course I had to take them out, even though I haven't had the time yet to read them.

Big Organic

This article was hard to read because it was sideways and I couldn't figure out how to turn it right side up. I find it ridiculous that people can want labels that give a story. I want to know the facts about the food not how the animal lived. I think that a big part of organic is people saying what they think that people want to hear and not necessarily what they believe in. I want to really know where my food is coming from. I don't want the story book version I want to go to a local farm and see how they do it first hand. I think that organic is to overpriced and that a lot of it is not really what we think of as organic. I think that there are a few farmers that are doing it the "right" way and a whole bunch of others who are just pretending that they are. Organic farming is better for the animals but by how much as Michael Pollen says, is there life really any better than those of normally farmed chickens. I find it hard to believe that organic is greater in any large way.

Elixirs of Death

I did not know that insects were lab rats in WWII to see if chemicals were deadly to humans. That is a sobering thought because if the pesticides we use kill insects what do they do to us? Arsenic is deadly to humans but still arsenic spays are used to kill bugs. This seems a little counter intuitive. If we are spraying our food with poison to keep it alive are we really saving it? There is so much propaganda surrounding the DDTs that no one can really know all the facts. There have bee lies spread from the very beginning. Chemicals are very harmful things but because you grow up with them around all the time they seem less deadly. You know you don't want chemicals but when you do have them on your food they don' seem to have any effect. This is because a lot of chemicals are stored in the fats and are passed on , they have few if any obvious signs. There are so many harmful chemicals out there that a lot of people have never heard of but that have serious effects. The chemical Endrin can cause vomiting, convulsions and brain damage. Many of these chemicals are seriously harmful but few people know about them. I was shocked to learn that there were so many types of pesticides and I didn't recognize most of them, I was also not aware of the effects that they could have.

DDT

I think that DDTs are bad and should not be used. It is not a black and white case though. It does kill mosquitoes which carry the malaria virus which is of course a good thing. But it also has a negative effect on the environment and other organisms that have been affected by DDTs. Such as birds who lay eggs with softer shells. I think that it is possible to make another pesticide that does not have a negative harm on the environment. Humans are not the most important organism in the world we have to consider all other living things before we make such radical decisions. If we were to cure malaria instead of getting rid of the mosquitoes we would not hurt anyone and we would no longer have an epidemic. If DDTs live in the mothers milk it is passed down from generation to generation. It accumulates in the species instead of dissipating. It will take a very long time if it ever leaves the system of a species. It might be helpful in Africa where they could use malaria prevention, but it would hurt the species in Africa as much as it would help the humans. DDTs are not necessarily bad but they are not all good either. The risks need to be weighed before anyone takes any action.

Raw Milk :History

Raw milk is a scary thing, and I'm glad that I have only ever had pasteurized milk. But I do not think that raw milk is evil. My Oupa liked on a farm and he used to drink milk from a cow the way that we drink water from a hose. I think that it all depends on how we do it. I can't believe that there is a link between TB and raw milk. That is not something I would have guessed before reading this article. My mother is a strong believer that people should not drink cows milk, that it is wrong on a fundamental level. It is scary that so many diseases came from raw milk. I also believe that in the past thinks were more sanitary, but progress happens for a reason.It is probably better that milk is pasteurized even if some people would like to drink raw milk. I did not know about the links to diseases like TB and I would like to know exactly how that works, what is it that causes TB in patients who drink raw milk.

Raw Milk : Legal Battle

I think that it is ridiculous that people are not allowed to transport raw milk. You are allowed to buy it you just can't bring it home. I am upset at how rigid our system is in Canada. I think that you should let people do what they want if they are not hurting anybody. Who cares if people transport raw milk. I would like to follow up on this man and see if he ever gets to meet with Premier McGuinty. I think that there should be farms where they produce raw milk. If they do it by hand a lot of the diseases that are transmitted by machinery with not be applicable. I think that raw milk need to be seriously tested and there needs to be measures put on it so that children do not become sick, but if adults know the risks I think that they should be allowed to buy raw milk.

Myths about Organic Produce

I was really upset that organic uses pesticides. That is one of the major reasons to buy organic. I am happy that there is produce that does not use pesticides but I think that organic should all be pesticide free. It is really important to make sure that all organic products are as healthy as they can be, that's what people pay for. I don't like that all that matters is where the pesticide comes from. That has no effect on if it is toxic or not. What is the point of buying organic food if it is not healthier, besides environmental gains. How does it benefit me to eat organic food. It is more expensive but it is no healthier. Also it is not all that much better for the environment. I believe that the article said that organic farming is not using GMO's and I don't want that I don't think that you can modify somethings DNA and have be perfectly healthy. I think that its a good idea to not use GMO's and I am fully in support of that practice. I think that it might still be a good idea to buy organic because they are probably a little better than regular produce but I can't imagine that it would be by much. I'm not sure that it is worth the extra cost just yet. When the practices become more "organic" I think that it will become a better choice, but right now it is about even, though leaning toward the organic side.

Neonicitinoids

The worlds food supply is in serious danger. It is disgusting that the pesticides live in the seed. It travels and effects all part of the plant. Therefore it effects all animals that eat the plants. The EPA decided that they would release the pesticides even though they knew that it was toxic to honey bees. Because they did not do field studies, it was not confirmed and therefore it was not known that it would hurt bees. It was scary to learn that the pesticide company's so their own studies and the present it to the EPA instead of the EPA doing the study. The company's are making the studies lean in their favor no matter what happens to the bee because they want to make money. It is sad that the EPA accepts that the studies that they do are real. It is also not open to review so other people can not redo the tests and see if they get the same results. It is sad that the EPA feels that need to cover up the effects of the pesticides. Its scary that the pesticides stay in the soil, and may have long term effects. The EPA knew about the possibility of CCD but they are saying that they are not sure so it doesn't matter. In England they think that it does matter so they are doing further studies. The EPA decided that a label is good enough. It says not to use it around bees. But that doesn't really work because they stay in the soil and the plants and it gets pollinated throughout the food chain.

Vanishing of the Bees

I was not able to find the movie in time though I would still like to watch it at a later date, I watched the trailer and I did a little research so that I would at least have something to talk about in my blog post. I already knew that bees were essential to life because they pollinate our plant. It is a scary thought that the bees are disappearing. I would like to know what is really killing our honey bees though I suspect that we will not know for sure for many more years. A colony of bees was wiped out in three hours, the implications of that are staggering. They are simply vanishing.
Usually bees will take over a hive that is empty but these hives are sitting empty and other bees wont even look at the hive. This probably means that there is something wrong with the hive or they are afraid of what will happen to them is they take over the hive. Colony collapse is happening all over the world. There are many theories of why this is happening, including cell towers, pesticides and varroa mites. None of these have been proven, actually most of the theories have bee dis-proven.It is a scary idea that the bees can disappear and we don't know why.
I will update this post after I have seen the movie.

Nosema Disease

We did this lab in class, though we didn't find any Nosema, it was really interesting to see the bees up close. And seeing the stingers was also really interesting though the smell of the smashed up bee was really gross. Earlier I read what Nosema was and I am interested to see is this article has anymore information that was not stated in the other article. An interesting fact that I learned was that it only affects adult bees. I would like to know why that is.I would also like to know why workers are more susceptible. Is it because it really is like the stomach flu and it is received more easily outside the home, like at school? This disease is very gross and it sounds painful. Because this article was more of a lab format it lacked in some information and it had unnecessary information, like how to use the microscope. It is fairly easy to see if your hive is infected because there will be diarrhea outside the hive. There are cures for this disease but they ruin your honey supply, but then of course so does diarrhea and dead bees.

Varroa Mite Detection

You need to detect the varroa mites early because much like cancer the best defense is detection and it spreads rapidly.It is preferable to check for mites about twice a year. To check for mites you can sample the brood, this seems like hard work if you don't have a lab. This article doesn't really tell you how you go about detecting the mites when you do sample the brood.The detection boards seem like a good idea but I am not sure that I would rely only on them. I really like the alcohol wash method, i is easy and reliable and can be done in just one visit. I also really like the icing sugar method because it implies that not all the bees are killed. It is also easy and fairly accurate. If there are only a few mites you can wait until after the honey is harvested but if there are more than a hundred you need to treat right away even if some honey is lost. And if there are more than a thousand mites the collapse is imminent and must be treated immediately. I am not sure if I just missed it but I did not read any where how to actually treat the infestation, only how to tell how many mites there were. This article was a little helpful but it did not give me the full story and it had some ambiguous words throughout that clouded the meaning.

Common bee diseases

Many of these diseases are obvious and very disgusting. I appreciate the pictures so I know exactly what to look for but they were really gross. The American foul brood is caused by poor bee keeping practices but I would like to know exactly what those practices are? Apparently this disease can only be stopped by fire, I would like to know if there are any easier treatments? I believe that we have talked about chalk brood in class. It says that it is fount throughout the united states but is it found elsewhere? It would be nice if people worked harder at making cures for bee diseases, it would be to bad is your hive collapsed because you had no cure. We did a lab on Nosema, which is like a bee stomach flu. This is a particularly gross disease thankfully this disease has a cure, antibiotic Fumagillin sold as Fumidil-B mixed with sugar syrup. Most of the other diseases in the chart are insects or mites so I wont go through that in detail but the treatment is generally some sort of chemical. Other pests include squirrels, bears and racoons, the best way to get rid of them is either to kill them or prevent them from entering the hive. This is a good page to have bookmarked but I don't think that it is really something that needs to be memorized.

High School Garden

This is amazingly cool. I hope that in a few years we at least have the start to such a great garden. I would love our school to have an orchard, that would be really cool to grow apples trees and possibly sell the fruit or donate it. This is an awesome concept and I really hope that we adopt some of their ideas and use them in bettering out school. I think i would be great to have a place where students could compost the food scraps left over form their lunches.I think that we have enough students interested to start some new programs that will get us closer to that of Windermere secondary.

Worm Compost

I love worms and I have always known that they were good for compost so this idea intrigues me. I like that it can be done indoors so that in the winter you don't have to freeze outside when you do your composting. I love how this works though I'm not sure that my mom will let me keep worms in the house. Its nice that you can use any type of container, that way you don't feel the need to go out and buy a specialized compost container. Drilling holes in the bottom may be a problem for me but I think that I would be able to convince my dad to do it for me. All the bedding supplies I could get fairly easily (seaweed, sawdust, sand, straw, and other dead plants). The hardest material to get would be the worms , though it would be fun to search for worms though it will probably not take place with my friends as they are all squeamish. I always guessed but never knew that worms could drown when it gets to wet. This is my favourite composting technique. I will have to ask my parents for permission to start a worm composting bin.

Bokashi

Bokashi means fermented organic matter, this is a Japanese composting system. I know nothing about Bokashi so it was interesting to learn another way to compost than what I had grown up learning, kitchen scraps and lawn clippings and more recently, leaf mold. I like the idea that this is relatively odour free because if you are composting in an urban area you want to be conscientious of your neighbors. I also like that all kitchen waste can be reused including meat, this has always upset me, that somethings still have to be thrown out.The only real downside that I could see is that even after it is done it isn't, it still needs to be aged in soil before it can be used. You need a Bokashi bucket too start but this doesn't really upset me because you need a compost bin to compost. A strange part is that you need Bokashi mix, this is mostly wheat bran. I want to know how this aid composting. This seems like a good alternative to compost, but it also seems like a little more work, and I'm not quite sure how it works.

Compost

It works because of a bacteria, all we need to do is make sure they can do their job.I didn't know that it was bacteria doing the composting, I also didn't know that green materials are high in nitrogen and brown materials are high in carbon. Interestingly paper is considered brown material and can be used in compost. At Loutet farm I learned that thin layers are best and you want to air out your compost occasionally, and this was also mentioned in the video. Very wet and very dry compost are not preferable, you need the level of moisture to be about that of a damp sponge. The video had good information, and facts that I had not been aware of previously but the lady doing the talking kinda creeped me out.

Leaf Mold

This is nice to know, though I knew part of it before I watched the video because we are doing this in class. I didn't know that it took a year to make leaf mold though I did know that it took a very long time. To make leaf mold you need a wire cage,a rake, clap hands (though I would just use my hands), a wheel barrow (though we got on just fine with bags),a garden fork (though I'm not sure its necessary),and possible bone meal. The best leaves are from deciduous trees because they break down faster than glossy leaves. Pine needles need to be separated because they are too acidic for most plants. Damp leaves are the best because they decay faster. After you rake the leaves put them in the wire cage or in a pile in a damp shady corner to aid circulation.Bone meal should be added to aid in nitrogen levels.After you wait a year to decompose (turned occasionally throughout the year. This was a good video because it was short and to the point, and easy to understand. I like the idea of using leaves to make fertilizer, I'm not big on waste and if I can use natures garbage to help plant I am all for it, it helps that its relatively easy to do.

Winter Crops

I know nothing about planting a winter harvest so everything I learned was completely new.I learned that you should plant your winter harvest in August. Wind needs to protected against so it is preferable that your plant beds are raised. And that they will provide extra drainage. I loved the use of pictures in the guide, it really helped me understand what they were talking about. I got a good visual of what I was supposed to do. The chart that was provided was really easy to follow. I found this guide very helpful.

"http://www.westcoastseeds.com/admin/files/2011_winter_brochure.pdf">

Growing Garlic

This article didn't interest me as much as some if the others. My family eats a lot of garlic so the idea to grow my own appeals to me but the house we live in doesn't have a lot of garden space and what space there is already has flowers so I would like to continue with more flowers. I learned that garlic needs cold weather to from side buds, which later grow into cloves.I also learned that garlic is very strong, it can survive freezes and snowfalls and still survive in the spring. I had no clue but it seems like garlic would be good to grow in our climate. I find it interesting that garlic needs really specific nutrients and special care, there are several manures and composts suggested, when it is strong enough to survive winter. I love some of the names of the garlic and i would love to try some of the more exotic types.

DIRT

I really liked this article, even though it was a little long. I love dirt. I love gardening with my hands, that's why I never wear gloves even if it is a pain to wash my hands later. I found it interesting that people care so much about the dirt under our feet. I love the idea that without dirt we wouldn't be able to survive because all the water would run off into the ocean. That's such an amazing idea, that without dirt we wouldn't survive. Another amazing idea is that dirt is a living organ, almost like the skin of the planet. Something I didn't know before is that healthy soil is one half air. One tablespoon has more life within than all the humans on earth. That's ridiculous but amazing. I love the feel of rich soil and the smell is amazing,I also love that it houses so many creatures. Its so fun to see the earth worms come out in the rain even if its sad that so many get stepped on. I knew that trees stored carbon but I did not know that the dirt also stored carbon. Dirt is so important to our way of life that when we overwork it our civilizations fail. That's some pretty heavy stuff. It asks the question, what will we do when we have no good soil left? Soil erosion is a big problem, we are causing about 80% of erosion and it takes at least 200 years for it to come back. Our top layer of soil is being wiped away, and this is our most important layer. This erosion is also causing water pollution, because pesticides get into the water. We are causing this erosion when we build houses, urban erosion is not watched by any federal system, people are getting away with this. Because farms are now specializing on only one product the soil is now becoming infertile. Or use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers is not helping matters either.I liked this article though it was a little lengthy and I'm not sure that I liked their solutions to these problems, "urbanization needs to be better managed,...poverty,war and desperation need to be addressed". I thought they were all to vague and unlikely to happen anytime soon. The only concrete thing that I picked up was to buy organic, I felt that they could have come up with far better solutions.

Wheat Board Stance

I think that if more than fifty percent of wheat farmers want to keep the wheat board. Lemieux said that if farmers can decide who to sell to and how much to sell for it could be beneficial to farmers. This is not necessarily true, the smaller scale farmers might not be able to sell their wheat and farmers might have to sell their wheat at a lower price than they would have when they were part of the wheat board. Without the assurance of someone buying their wheat many farmers might be in trouble in the coming years.I think that its awful that the government is deciding what freedoms the wheat farmers want and need when they are going against what the farmers themselves are saying. Its ridiculous that the government would be so inflexible when a majority wants to keep the board the way it is. What I want to know is what are the farmers options if down the road they still want to reinstate the wheat board.

Loutet Farm

Today was really exciting, our class was able to go to Loutet Farm and help out a little bit as well as learn a few things. I learned some more about two types of plants being planted together to aid each other. One great example of this is "the three sisters", this is beans corn and squash growing together while helping each other grow. I started off the session by weeding, this was fun even with the rain, but I would really have preferred that it didn't rain, we took out the red alders and the carrots among other things. After we finished a couple of rows we stepped into the housed area where they grow tomatoes and basil, the inside was covered in a fishing net so that the tomatoes have something to grow on, they also use string so that they can grow tall enough to use the net. An interesting thing that I learned today was that you can grow zucchini in the same way, all you have to do is make a sling so that the vegetable does not break the vine. Afterwards it was back into the rain to help with the compost. Somethings I learned include that when stacking the compost it is better to start with a square and then build on top of it like a pyramid,and you have to turn it over about once a month.I filled wheelbarrows with compost so that the others could spread it to create soil. It was hard lifting but at least it had stopped raining. The last thing we did was sample the carrots that we had pulled they were tiny and a little dirty but they tasted really good.

Bee Foraging Behaviour

I really liked this video and even if it went a little fast it was full of information. I learned that bees go up to half a mile away from the hive looking for food. That forager bees look randomly for food and that to give directions they do a dance that tells the other bees direction and distance. I was shocked by how smart bees seem to bee, they can count and they have an internal clock so they know what time it is at all times. I was also surprised to learn that they leave with only enough honey for the trip so it is really important that the forager bees gauge the distance correctly and that the others don't get lost.What I want to know is how long it takes the bees to gain experience.

Other Hive designs

I learned that this is a hot topic among bee keepers and that there is really not correct answer to which hive is better. I also learned that the Langstroth has a better chimney effect. That the top bar hive was Greek and first made in 1682. Finally the TBH makes less honey and it is harder for first time bee keepers but that it is cheaper and easy to make. What I want to know is why does the Top Bar Hive take less smoke.

Hive Design

I learned that the bees store the honey above the eggs at the top of the hive. The bottom of the deep is a screen so that dead bees don't fall out onto the ground. I also learned that the cover is metal. What I want to know is why is it important that the bees exit through the front of the hive.

Bee Yard Safety

I learned a lot about bees. I learned that bees dislike carbon dioxide, they prepare for evacuation ( in case of fire ) and that they don't like the smell of bananas, leather, or perfume. I had one question though how does the smoke work in calming the bees down.

Bee Lifecycle

I really enjoyed this document it was the most interesting information that I read. I learned that the larva are sealed into their cells, that the egg moves, vertically then bends over then lays on its side before it hatches, and lastly the larva sheds its skin five times between hatching and emerging. The only question I have is how can the pupa grow when it is sealed into the cell, because it doesn't eat.