MLK Quote

MLK Quote

Nature's Inspiration Movie

http://www.flickspire.com/m/HealthierL433/NaturesInspiration -- Nature's Inspiration Movie: The photographs in this short video are from award-winning photographer, Ken Jenkins, and they are breathtaking. However, this video is much more than beautiful photographs! Peggy Anderson has compiled beautiful quotations from the likes of Emerson, Thoreau, and many others that truly capture the beauty of nature and solitude. Absolute must watch for nature lovers.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Earth Abides

The title of my post is actually the name of a book, a famous one which is considered as some kind of iconic/cult book, classic literature. It's author is George R. Stewart and was first published in 1949. It is a futuristic story of a world ravaged by plague. The plague has decimated the whole human population; only a handful are surviving here and there. The collapse of the world, destruction of human monuments, civilization and its symbols, struggle of the few survivors, and the emergence of a new civilization from the chaos is the theme of the story.

Now if you are wondering why I am referring to a book which has no connection to gardening, it is because I am feeling like our human civilization can seriously get wiped out not because of plague but because of the way we treat nature. Every time I go to Home Depot or Lowes (for those outside of the US, these are gigantic chain stores that deal with anything one needs to build houses, offices, yards and gardens, from tiniest nut&bolts to bulky wood-planks), I see people buying big cans of all sorts of pesticides, chemicals and Roundup. When all the world is proposing to ban or limit toxic chemicals and pesticides like glyphosate, EPA (Environmental Protection Agency of the US) is proposing to raise allowable concentrations of it in the food-crop (a pesticide which has been proved to cause every sorts of ailments in humans); then there is the Monsanto Protection Act that got passed by the government; senate is proposing to introduce an Ag-Gag bill through which it will become a criminal act to secretly tape abuse and torture of farm animals; anybody caught video-taping such acts will be prosecuted and their names will be entered in the terrorist-list (how much more ridiculous it can become??)!!!

All these are perhaps resulting is an acute scarcity of bees and butterflies in my garden this year. My garden could be an isolated incident, so I went to many of the nearby woodland preserve, park, nature trails, and everywhere I noticed their absences. Weather has been warm for quite a while now; though it is raining now and then, but there are many days of heat and bright sunshine. My garden is waiting with all sorts of blooms, and many more to come, but the buzzing-bees and the elegant-butterflies are not here. This is the first time that I have to pollinate my squash and pumpkin plants. The flowers of any squash and pumpkin plants are bee-magnets. Other years I would be scared to go near such plants to pick up the vegetables as so many bees will be buzzing around them. This year - NADA!!


The valley of silly-lily; lamb's ear and coreopsis; yarrow


Sedum-flowers; a potato flower. The color of the flower is telling us that we will have white potatoes. The pumpkin flower


A squash flower; a gourd-flower; a small bush of roses


White Astilbe flower; lavender-flower going to bloom soon; sweet-clover flower (people consider these as weeds in their lawns; but bees love them)


Some kind of wild flower, but grows in our yards; the flower grows on long stalks, and the plant is quite lanky, about 1.5 to 2 feet; close-up of some lily flowers

I was watching the Vanishing Bee documentary yesterday. According to the documentary: 1 out of every 3 food that we eat are pollinated by bees; bees are responsible for producing food-crops that are worth more than some billions of dollars; bee population is rapidly declining in the US with more than 60% of all its native and non-native bee population gone; THAT'S WHY THE USA HAS TO BRING IN BEES ALL THE WAY FROM AUSTRALIA (JUST THINK ABOUT THE CARBON FOOT-PRINT), POLLINATE THE FRUITS, NUTS AND VEGETABLE PLANTS, AND THEN AGAIN SEND THEM BACK TO AUSTRALIA (DO YOU NOW UNDERSTAND WHY FOOD-PRICES ARE SKY-ROCKETING HERE?)!!!! 35% of all the food that the US consumes are brought from outside the US; it is predicted that within the next 10 years, 90% OF ALL THE FOOD THAT WE WILL CONSUME WILL BE BROUGHT FROM OUTSIDE THE US (talk about out-sourcing!!!); more than 80% of all the food that are grown in the US are sprayed with various chemicals resulting in more than 1 BILLION TONS OF CHEMICALS BEING DUMPED IN THE US SOIL AND AIR EVERY YEAR!!! (am I using too much exclamations?? Well, this whole post should have been written with exclamations) -- this is just what the farmers are spraying. Now think about all the chemicals that are dumped in the soil, water and air by all the home-owners in the country!!!scientists and bee-keepers are noticing that bee-colonies collapse whenever the bees are borrowed and used by farmers who spray toxic chemicals.

Among all these tragedies lies the cheerful one -- ten years back France noticed that all the bee colonies are collapsing. Research lead to the cause of using gauchy and other insecticides produced by Bayer. French people being French people (love them, especially their language; need to learn it), they at once took out protests in the streets, resulting in government banning the use of any such insecticides. Within one year of the ban, bee-population revived and became healthy again. So, even if our government is not doing anything, we can take small steps to ensure that bees stay here. Without them we will not be able to produce any food; everything needs to be imported; food will become a scarce commodity, people will die of hunger and perhaps the book Earth Abides will become a reality. Here are the small steps, according to Honey Bee Conservancy: 1. Plant native flowers. 2. Reduce lawn-area and create gardens. 3. Stop the use of any chemicals around your house. 4. Skip the hybridized plants and select single flower-tops so that the bees have easy access to the pollen. 4. Bees love and easily find flowers of bright white, yellow, blue and UV colors. 5. Create bee-baths and build bee-houses. 6. Plant for blooms season-round. Happy Pollinator Week Everybody.

Here is something funny, the Daily-Show blows whistles on Ag-Gag: read and watch the video here

25 comments:

  1. Hm. Sorry to hear you have an absence of pollinators where you are.

    There were not many bees around earlier in the year when it was cold and wet and rainy, but now that it has gotten hot (~90F) and sunny here, the bees are back! In particular, there are LOTS of bumble bees this year - on gaura, crape myrtle, Vitex, ornamental sage (May Night and Blue Hill) and Hypericum frondosum. There are smaller bees (some of which may be honey bees) on the just-opening sunflowers, cosmos and zinnias. And tiny bees or wasps on plants like Alyssum, Love-in-a-Mist and Blue Star Creeper. (Though I'm ripping up much of that last one because I'm concerned it's growing too invasively.)

    But you're right - haven't noticed many butterflies yet. I felt sure the zinnias would draw them in, but they're nowhere to be seen. :(

    On the bright side, I did spot quite a few green lacewings in the garden yesterday. And they're a very beneficial insect indeed! http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef148.asp

    I seem to recall from the past two years (this is my 3rd year gardening) that the butterflies may really come out in force later in the year here. So perhaps they will yet arrive...

    Hope that the bees and flutterbyes will find your garden and its beautiful blooms soon too!

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    1. Aaron, great news that at least you guys have bees there. They have not got vanished from the earth yet and they can still be revived. Awesome news :-). I love lacewings :-).

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  2. This was a good news -- Israeli scientists discovering a treatment for Colony Collapse Disorder in Bees -- until I came to the part where it says that the company responsible for doing that discovery and promoting the treatment was bought by Monsanto for 120 million dollar: http://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-scientist-discovers-treatment-to-save-sick-bee-colonies/

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  3. I recommend everyone read that book - it's a treasure between my uncle and I. It was written as she said in 1949...1949, presaging the hippie movement, and even the environmental movement. It's more relevant now than back then. I happened to read it, after it sat for months in my shelf, by flashlight as i passed away the days at my parents' house during Hurricane Sandy. Now that was a sublime experience - no power, food spoiling, and that feeling of the fragility of our proud, i daresay overly proud civilization.

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    1. I agree with you Joolz, and the book should actually become some kind of text book, I think. It's not only an wonderful read, but it is a book about philosophy, anthropology, all combined together.

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  4. There are definitely fewer insects in the garden this year. I agree with you that we have to stop being so short sighted (and this country seems to be worse than most of the developed world) about the environment, or our future will be bleak.

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    1. Jason, thank you :-). One thing for sure -- can't trust any politician to do anything for us after Obama Administration passing Monsanto Protection Act. So, it's all upon us -- the ordinary people.

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  5. I need to read that book. The documentary about the bees was fabulous. It should be shown in school!

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    1. Holley, thank you :-). I agree that it should be shown in school; or at least a portion of it before every movie in every movie theater.

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  6. Hi KL, thanks for dropping by my site. Am sorry not being able to read the long prose, am in a hurry today. But i love the pics here. I replied to your comment in my post. But what do you mean by "math field", do you mean the area of specialization? I am not, as i am poor in math although our courses have lots of Math subjects including Calculus. I am in plant sciences.

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    1. Kalntikan, it's awesome that you are in plant science. Wow! you have so much knowledge, and I wish I had them :-). Thanks for dropping by amidst such a busy schedule.

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  7. Sooo interesting! What a great post! I've noticed that a lot of gardeners are remarking upon less butterflies this year. I've noticed it in my own garden and we don't use chemicals. At least we have no shortage of bees.
    Your flowers are beautiful and you have obviously planted some butterfly magnets. I hope that you see more soon!

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    1. Anstasia, thank you :-). It's great news that your garden has bees; if you can create a 4 acre heaven for them, that will be just awesome..

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  8. I so love your passion and your quest to make many more aware! You are not alone in the situation re lack of insects, bees and other pollinators. I will say though that I've seen more butterflies this year than I have in the last 4 combined.
    That Ag Gag bill sounds utterly ridiculous - I'm sure your government is worse than ours!!
    Pretty blooms and I hope you hear plenty of buzzing soon!

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    1. Angie, the whole US government is run by money; all the politicians (except few) are bought by all the companies -- whoever can provide money, they/she/he can buy a politician here. Very sad situation :-(...but the good thing is public force is strong here, and public are aware of all the topics that interest them.

      So, I think all our pollinators are now in Scotland....hmm..what are you doing? Playing music for them :-P?

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  9. I hope the bees return to your garden soon, they are here in my garden already and I have butterflies too. Last year was a bad year for butterflies but that was probably because of the really cold weather we had and all the rain here in Britain.

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    1. Helene, thank you :-). I hope they also return to your garden. Did London legalize the keeping of bees within the city limit?

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    2. I don't think there has ever been a question of being legal to have bees in London, not as far as I know. People have had honey bees in London for centuries, and still have, even on roof top gardens :-)

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  10. Thank you for making a plea...it is so disgusting that we continue to do these insane things. That unknown plant is a tall clover...we have had lots of insects especially dragonflies and bees...all kinds too, but not many butterflies...sad but I hope they come now that the milkweed is open and it is warm. Wishing you more pollinators.

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    1. Donna, thanks for that clover information. I was also suspecting that it's related to clover as the flowers looked similar. I was in Glen Spey town in NY this Sunday -- hardly saw any pollinators.

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  11. I would really like to try my hand in bee-keeping... have been looking for someone to teach me but no success so far...

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    1. Ironglim..me too, but I think our garden is too small for that and the city might not allow it.

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  12. Your lilium is stunning.
    I am trying to mix flower and veggies too as I like collecting my own seeds.
    But I had trouble with having the seed pods to form especially the brassica compare to my previous old garden.
    I suspect not much pollinators here. So I let my basil to flower and they did attract a lot of bees around them.

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    1. Malay, thank you :-). It is scary to think that there are not enough pollinators in a tropical country like Malaysia :-(.

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  13. Every effort counts, KL! You are doing a good job for the environment... give yourself a pad on the shoulder :-D Over here, the other day, I saw a patch of squash vines growing healthily and later I didn't see any flower pollinated and later the vines shrivelled and died. Sad...

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