flintknapping

2 days ago I went to the archeology day event in a small historical town called Norskedalen and I learned about flintknapping a way to turn stone into tool by chipping small pieces of stone off (called flakes) so that it is serrated. Tools such as arrowheads and knives are made this way. Flintknapping is said to be over a million years old starting with early hominids such as homo erectus.

spring and death

Sorry I haven’t updated my blog in awhile, I have been outside farming. Today I’m going to talk about spring and its glory: COMPOSTING ANIMALS!!! If you city folk ever find a dead robin on the sidewalk, which I have seen many times, go to the sheriffs horse stables, get a bucket of horse poop, put the robin in your back yard and pour the horsecrap on top of it. In 2 weeks, look underneath the poop and you will find clean bones and nothing else.
 The connection between composting dead animals and springtime is that its really hard to compost in the winter because the animals are frozen, and most animals die in the wintertime, in summer, it is really smelly and gross and fall is acceptable because it is just like spring though there aren’t a plethora of dead animals like there would be in the spring… Most farmers have to deal with dead animals, and they have to spend their money on a big truck that comes by and scoops up dead animals it can be very expensive. A good solution to this issue is composting. In Sweden they are composting humans instead of cremation because it is more ecologically sound.
 All animals die, us included, good and humane farmers have to deal with this just as bad and abusive ones do, just maybe not on such a grand scale.

The MOSES convention.

Hello I'm sorry I haven't updated my blog in a long time. Today I'm going to talk about my visit to the MOSES conference. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about MOSES stands for Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service.  The workshop I went to was about sustainable organic apple farming. The first part was about organically killing or getting rid of pests the second part was about pruning. If you have a lot of a lot of apple trees the lecturer suggested you use "CHAINSAWS!" here is a drawing of a picture from his instructional picture slideshow: 

Winona's story.

Wild rice was what brought Winona La Duke into activism, it all began when genetic patenting was created and a man wanted to patent a particular gene in wild rice for calorie reduction and she fought this very hard, later she went and fought coal mines and patenting of maize therefore going further into activism then one day her father said "you cant free sacred crops without ever growing maize." so she went back to her reservation (white earth) and started the land recovery project. I talked to her after her speech and she told me when she was running for vice president ten years ago her son who then was a baby kept on barfing on her shirt and having to nurse. It was fun at the Maple Lag resort (where the conference was held) I played with Winona's nephew, there was great food, it was a beautiful place and the people were wonderful two of them were Bill Gartner who is a funny scientist and Joy a beekeeper/wine maker.

White earth land recovery project /native harvest indigenous farming conference.

Today I’m going to the white earth reservations indigenous farming conference in Callaway, Minnesota this is in the northwest section of the state.
White earth is an Ojibwa reservation.
I am going because I want to learn about indigenous agriculture because I am interested in rare seeds and ancient forms of agriculture and nutrition.
I will give a full report when I am back.

Mandrake,thistle and elderberry.

In mandrakes both the fruit and the roots were used as ingredients in "flying ointments," psychedelic preparations allegedly used by fifteenth-century witches to enable them to fly on their brooms in astral projection.
Mandrake is called mandrake because the root looks somewhat like a human. Also mandrakes were used as intense sedative so early physicians could amputate a limb.

Milk thistle seed extracts have been used for over 2000 years in treating liver diseases, and modern research has confirmed their value. Milk thistle is well known in Europe, but not to the same degree in North America.

Seed extracts have been used for treating Amanita mushroom poisoning, and many other liver problems.

Various parts of the plant have also been regarded as edible and eaten as a vegetable.

Elderberry is a killer of the flue virus, it is an immune system builder, and a syrup from the berries is good for your lungs thank you good bye.

Hello I have grave news for you Legs is dead. Legs is my profile picture, the funny long legged chicken, he's a dead modern game bantam, sometimes he'd attack someone and then ask for cuddles. but this is part of the process of life, he will become soil and plants will grow from that spot, worms are a big part in this process they,ll eat the dead body and then poop him out to make beautiful soil for plants to grow in.

HOME AQUARIUMS

Hello this is Thurman, I am here to tell you about home aquariums. Here is a picture of my fish tank, followed by a grid that will tell you what kinds of animals and plants i have in my fish tank. When you clean out your fish tank into a bucket, the water is filled with fish poop and it is good for your houseplants. My fish tank is like a miniature farm. There are many systems that need to be observed and balanced such as fish, snails, shrimp, plants, bacteria, temperature and ph. This is like permaculture; looking at the big picture.

Hello this is Thurman I'm here to tell you about aquaponics (although I have never done this I have done a considerable amount of research on it). Aquaponics is mostly about feeding your plants with fish waste turning ammonia into nitrates and then into nitrogen which then is given to your plants through tubes.