In article ,
"Ms Leebee" wrote:

Whenever I think i'm over being shocked by the behaviours of others,
somthing else shocks me, and I think "Am I that naiive ?".

OT to gardens, but the recent Victorian Schoolboy DVD furore of late has had
me wishing to slit my wrists in despair.

I can think of better uses for the knife...

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

Farm1 wrote:

The Syney basin IS important for agriculture (one of my Grandfathers
was a market gardener at Botany so I DO know of the importance of this
area).

what name?
I suspect my direct lot had moved to Leeton, and were heading to Matcham
by then



Those stereotypically slow to accept change country people you think
so little of, first noticed such issues as salinity about a century
ago and they noticed dryland salinity in the mid 1920s.

The real problem for farmers were the various dept of agriculture which
advised governments of the day and compelled some farmers to grow
certain crops in bad area.

"Terryc" wrote in message
Farm1 wrote:

The Syney basin IS important for agriculture (one of my
Grandfathers
was a market gardener at Botany so I DO know of the importance of
this
area).

what name?

William (Bill) Mortimer aka "The Cabbage King".

I suspect my direct lot had moved to Leeton, and were heading to
Matcham
by then

Those stereotypically slow to accept change country people you
think
so little of, first noticed such issues as salinity about a
century
ago and they noticed dryland salinity in the mid 1920s.

The real problem for farmers were the various dept of agriculture
which
advised governments of the day and compelled some farmers to grow
certain crops in bad area.

And bad advice from Govt agencies and Consultants about high stocking
rates and increasing production by flogging the land was still going
on well into the 80s. Sad.

Farm1 wrote:



William (Bill) Mortimer aka "The Cabbage King".

Umm, must be more than your Grandfather if it is the one that built the
Cabbage Hotel whch was after the time of Simeon Lord. well, that is the
only cabbage king that i know of.

"Terryc" wrote in message
Farm1 wrote:

William (Bill) Mortimer aka "The Cabbage King".

Umm, must be more than your Grandfather if it is the one that built
the
Cabbage Hotel whch was after the time of Simeon Lord. well, that is
the
only cabbage king that i know of.

He had nothing to do with any hotel. He was known as the Cabbage King
because he planted so many cabbages by hand each year. This was in
the days before tractors but with horse and plough.

In article ,
"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote:

Frankly, you don't either. Talk to a Sudanese refugee some time.
It's all a matter of degree.

Well of course it's a matter of degree! However, I dare say I have a
much better idea about drought than some Sydney dweller who only has
to turn on a tap to get water.

And we aren't talking about Sudan. We are talking about Australia.
Sydney people should try living under the regimes in say Goulburn or
Byrock where the residents recently went for 4 and a half days without
water. They don't kick up a fuss because their water is taken from
hundreds of miles away to feed their gawping needs.

I don't see why Sydney people wouldn't be able to put up with that, if
necessary. Of course we have 4 million people here, and some of them are
dills -- we've had people like the OP protesting to the newspapers about not
watering their lawns, but they get bucketed (no pun intended!). And of course
our decision-makers are often dills (don't get me started on Sartor or
desalination!) so they're the ones who start talking about pinching the water
from Tallowa etc.

My letter on a related subject was published today. I am now awaiting the
backlash from the anti-germ brigade. (Near the bottom of the page...)

http://www.smh.com.au/letters/index....e#contentSwap2

Again, not in my experience. They lack the sort of curiosity and
solution orientation of country people. They have everything
handed to them on a platter and so don't have to come up with
innovative or real life solutions or have to spend time thinking
about things that country people do.

Sydney is not Cranbrook. Nor does it consist entirely of the North Shore.

Truth be told, there are probably too many people in Sydney who don't 'think
about things' because they are trying to keep their heads above (metaphorical)
water of some kind. I work in TAFE and I see these people.

Contry people being well-known for the speed with which they embrace
change...

:-))) Nice job of stereotyping.

Yours too ;-)

Farmers were talking about Global warming and climate change
long before the bulk of the population. Only the real lunatic city
fringe were talking about those things when I knew of dead
boring and very conservative farmers who'd noticed the impact on
their land.

When?

I bought my copy of Blueprint for a Green Planet in 1987, the year I
did my HSC (in a middle-class suburb), and it has a page on the
greenhouse effect.

Really 1987! Bit slow off the mark.

I was 17, you geriatric! Couldn't afford to buy books before I turned 16 and
became eligible for Austudy.

Those stereotypically slow to accept change country people you think
so little of, first noticed such issues as salinity about a century
ago and they noticed dryland salinity in the mid 1920s. And farmers
in the WA SW first noticed and started commenting on the start of the
change to rainfall patterns in the 1970s. My own family also started
to talk of the decline in rainfall on their farm in NSW about the same
time and they live in a high rainfall area on the same farm which was
first settled by my GGGfather in 1862.

The question is: what did they DO about it? For example, farmers were still
*clearing* the WA wheat area in the 1920s. The plantings/earthworks I saw
were, I would estimate, ten years old. Bit of a gap there.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

In article
,
Terryc wrote:

'³Agricultural land around Sydney is critically important, particularly
when
you consider that 90 per cent of the perishable vegetables eaten in Sydney
and
40 per cent of NSW¹s eggs are produced right here,² Parker says.

Egg production isn't agriculture in my books. It is a highy
industrialised process and utilises a highly processed feed stock. If
you remove the electricity supply, chickens start dieing real fast.

Well, you and I don't control the definition of 'agriculture'.

Unfortunately, the boxes of goods at the market do not reflect this 90%.
I suspect that the good old prof has drawn a very fine line as to what
are "perishable vegetables" and is probably thinking things like some
chinese veges, etc.

I think so -- herbs, lettuce, bok choy etc -- not things like spuds and
carrots.

Parker says that the farm gate value of agriculture in the Sydney basin is
worth $1 billion.'

Over what period? A year? Works out to be $1.40 per person per day,
which is not much.

shrug
What are you comparing it to?

And what do they define as agriculture?
Does this "agriculture" include nurseries for example?

Quite possibly -- and I believe it includes cut flowers too.

There are still plenty of orchards on the fringes of Sydney, though not as
many as there used to be. I remember going up to Bilpin to get fresh
peaches when I was a kid. Yum...

Lol, you want to watch what you buy at those places. Often they bring it
in from outside.

I was amused by this once. Apple boxes saying not 'Bilpin' but 'Batlow'! No,
the peaches I remember were softball size and probably too ripe to send to
Sydney, being sold by a family at the edge of their property. They were
heavenly.

Lol, children. Permaculture was a product of the work of david Holmgren
in the 70s and includes the work of Yeomans, including one book from 1958.

And Bill Mollison, but he and Holmgren don't seem to be seen together any
more. Anyone know the goss?

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

"Chookie" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"0tterbot" wrote:

since i got here (the country) i've really noticed what a gap there is
between city people & country people. sadly, it's the majority (city
people)
who just haven't got the first idea about anything! but the onus is on
country people to stop whingeing & educate them. the two lots are
entirely
interdependent, but you wouldn't know that from observing them.

What differences have you seen?

not a difference in "type", but a difference in interests/focus/etc & that
sort of thing.

I'm asking because I've had a couple of
country people tell me I'm more like a country person than a city person,
and it seems to be a compliment ;-)

perhaps they mean you talk really fast but with your mouth almost entirely
closed? g
i don't know what people might mean by that. ime city peeps are just as
friendly as country peeps & i'm unsure where the idea comes from that cities
are "unfriendly" (if it's about "friendliness" & that sort of thing). most
country peeps seem much less inclined toward one-upmanship &
jones-keeping-upping & mad consumerism & all that stuff. i suppose they mean
you seem genuine or something!

What do you think the new ddrought assistance package will do? Will it
prolong unsustainable farming, or is it OK?

i don't know enough about it all to comment, really. in theory i'm in favour
of that sort of thing so i hope it pans out well.

personally, i don't think there's such a thing as "unviable" land in & of
itself - it's more a question of what a viable use for an area would be; &
so by me, that makes drought assistance with the aid of business plans a
good thing. one would assume that by nature, people are disinclined to keep
doing something they know just is not foreseeably ever going to work out (&
would by preference do somehting different - at least eventually!!!). i'm
not sure to what degree this sort of assistance encourages or discourages
that, or has any effect really - i think people are more inclined to
experiment with different uses for their land for maximum good outcomes
because they just tend to do that, not because it's tied to or provoked by
an assistance package. but what do i know.
kylie

"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message
...
.. i mean, sydney people (and those
in
other places) have been experiencing the reality of water shortages
for 5
years, haven't they?

Oh come on! Sydney people wouldn't know a water shortage if it bit
them on the arse. They only think they do.

dude, they know. they don't "know" in the sense of "being deeply affected by
economically", but they, obviously, know. it's ludicrous to suggest
otherwise when it's been a hot topic for many years now, & i was living
there when it first all blew up. again, just because most of them don't rely
on rainfall to make a living does not make the awareness any less acute.
(snip)

I suggest you do two things. Do some reading up on P.A. Yeomans. He
was a farmer whose published material goes back to the mid 1950s. The
second thing is to look at the 2006-07 copy of the ABCs "Open Garden
Scheme", page 22 on Lyndfield Park. That farmer started work on his
farm in 1982 and even then what he was doing was not unique. All that
knowledge was around even then.

frankly i'm a bit amazed at how combative your response is, and the way you
feel it's all right to generalise about witless cityfolk where it's not all
right for people to make statements they acknowledge are general(?)

i'm not sure where you might have got the idea that i'm painting country
people as dimwits when i'm _obviously_ not.
kylie

"Chookie" wrote in message
...
Lol, children. Permaculture was a product of the work of david Holmgren
in the 70s and includes the work of Yeomans, including one book from
1958.

And Bill Mollison, but he and Holmgren don't seem to be seen together any
more. Anyone know the goss?

never mind the goss - i've read 3 permaculture books so far & i'm just not
GETTING IT. what's the goss on that? :-)

afaict, it's all about slopes and windbreaks & planting stuff irrelevent to
soil type etc, & the remainder is what i'd call "the bleeding obvious". who
the hell needs a fire mandala? what am i missing??
kylie

"Chookie" wrote in message
"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote:

Frankly, you don't either. Talk to a Sudanese refugee some
time.
It's all a matter of degree.

Well of course it's a matter of degree! However, I dare say I
have a
much better idea about drought than some Sydney dweller who only
has
to turn on a tap to get water.

And we aren't talking about Sudan. We are talking about
Australia.
Sydney people should try living under the regimes in say Goulburn
or
Byrock where the residents recently went for 4 and a half days
without
water. They don't kick up a fuss because their water is taken
from
hundreds of miles away to feed their gawping needs.

I don't see why Sydney people wouldn't be able to put up with that,
if
necessary.

Well they may not have much choice so they would have to put up with
it or do something about it to sort out their own problems - not easy
if they live in as unit or flat though.

My letter on a related subject was published today. I am now
awaiting the
backlash from the anti-germ brigade. (Near the bottom of the
page...)

http://www.smh.com.au/letters/index....e#contentSwap2

Again, not in my experience. They lack the sort of curiosity
and
solution orientation of country people. They have everything
handed to them on a platter and so don't have to come up with
innovative or real life solutions or have to spend time
thinking
about things that country people do.

Sydney is not Cranbrook. Nor does it consist entirely of the North
Shore.

Truth be told, there are probably too many people in Sydney who
don't 'think
about things' because they are trying to keep their heads above
(metaphorical)
water of some kind. I work in TAFE and I see these people.

You mean you have such things as TAFEs within easy access?

Of course all of Sydney is not posh but at least it has such things as
hospitals and schools and police stations and all sorts of other
services. On a platter.

Contry people being well-known for the speed with which they
embrace
change...

:-))) Nice job of stereotyping.

Yours too ;-)

Yes I did realise that which is precisely why I wrote what I did.

However, I have reached the stage and age where I have seen and heard
so much shit come out of the city brain and mouth that I'm not very
tolerant anymore. The city people are very busy and talk lots (and
that is even the ones I know and love) but they really don't observe
too well. Too many fleeting glimpses or thoughts and not enough
cogitation before saying or half thinking about soemthing before
heading off to the next social engagement or need for busyness.

Farmers were talking about Global warming and climate
change
long before the bulk of the population. Only the real
lunatic city
fringe were talking about those things when I knew of dead
boring and very conservative farmers who'd noticed the
impact on
their land.

When?

I bought my copy of Blueprint for a Green Planet in 1987, the
year I
did my HSC (in a middle-class suburb), and it has a page on the
greenhouse effect.

Really 1987! Bit slow off the mark.

I was 17, you geriatric! Couldn't afford to buy books before I
turned 16 and
became eligible for Austudy.

Not You! The book was slow off the mark, you silly young thinglet!

Those stereotypically slow to accept change country people you
think
so little of, first noticed such issues as salinity about a
century
ago and they noticed dryland salinity in the mid 1920s. And
farmers
in the WA SW first noticed and started commenting on the start of
the
change to rainfall patterns in the 1970s. My own family also
started
to talk of the decline in rainfall on their farm in NSW about the
same
time and they live in a high rainfall area on the same farm which
was
first settled by my GGGfather in 1862.

The question is: what did they DO about it? For example, farmers
were still
*clearing* the WA wheat area in the 1920s. The plantings/earthworks
I saw
were, I would estimate, ten years old. Bit of a gap there.

Yes, I agree. But to solve dryland salinity and all sorts of other
land related problems is not one where a quick solution or rushing in
and doing anything and/or everything will always work. It was many
years before it was found that the way to treat erosion was to treat
the head of the erosion and not the body of the erosion.

"Chookie" wrote in message
My letter on a related subject was published today. I am now
awaiting the
backlash from the anti-germ brigade. (Near the bottom of the
page...)

http://www.smh.com.au/letters/index....e#contentSwap2

I went to this site and couldn't find any letter relating to water or
drought. Was I a day too late?

"Chookie" wrote in message
Terryc wrote:

Lol, children. Permaculture was a product of the work of david
Holmgren
in the 70s and includes the work of Yeomans, including one book
from 1958.

And Bill Mollison, but he and Holmgren don't seem to be seen
together any
more. Anyone know the goss?

I actually think it was origianlly Holmgren's work and Bill hitched
along later. I had heard that Bill is sick and he's now also quite
elderly.

"0tterbot" wrote in message
"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message
. i mean, sydney people (and those
in
other places) have been experiencing the reality of water
shortages
for 5
years, haven't they?

Oh come on! Sydney people wouldn't know a water shortage if it
bit
them on the arse. They only think they do.

dude, they know. they don't "know" in the sense of "being deeply
affected by
economically", but they, obviously, know. it's ludicrous to suggest
otherwise when it's been a hot topic for many years now, & i was
living
there when it first all blew up. again, just because most of them
don't rely
on rainfall to make a living does not make the awareness any less
acute.
(snip)

Well they know is a very, very limited sense. And that sense is that
they are now talking of the need to get MORE water for Sydney. And
taking it from further and further way, like the Shoalhaven River.
The bloody Shoalhaven for God's sake!

If they had any clues of the impact of their gawping needs they should
(but not likely since they don[t really have nay clues) all be up in
arms about taking water in to Sydeny from as far away as Kangaroo
Valley (which is happening now) but no, they want more and from even
further away!

I suggest you do two things. Do some reading up on P.A. Yeomans.
He
was a farmer whose published material goes back to the mid 1950s.
The
second thing is to look at the 2006-07 copy of the ABCs "Open
Garden
Scheme", page 22 on Lyndfield Park. That farmer started work on
his
farm in 1982 and even then what he was doing was not unique. All
that
knowledge was around even then.

frankly i'm a bit amazed at how combative your response is, and the
way you
feel it's all right to generalise about witless cityfolk where it's
not all
right for people to make statements they acknowledge are general(?)

And frankly I'm equally amazed at your inability to take on board refe
rences given to enable you to do some research and that may challenge
your generalisations (you can even access then online so don't even
have to inconvenience yourself by going outside) .

i'm not sure where you might have got the idea that i'm painting
country
people as dimwits when i'm _obviously_ not.

Really? I particulalry enjoyed the one about:
"city peeps are generally better-educated and have a much broader view
of the
world, their world is just bigger than ours is"

Such a generalisation really surprised me. I know I get to the Opera
House more often than my city rels do now that the ballet dancer has
ended her career (and they only went to see her anyway, not a range of
things) and I am always amazed at how busy my city friend and rels are
but how little they actually use the benefits of the city. The
routine of daily living for them is much more restrictive on their
lifestyle than it is for the country people I know. They go to more
restaurants and movies but not to do anything useful in a cultural or
educative sense - just much more social. Lots of talk but no meat.

And when it comes to education, my (country born and bred and working)
Mechanic has 2 degrees and he's not the only country person I know who
has such surprising qualifications behind his rough exterior. I also
get a particular kick out of the very traditonal sheep farmer I know
who looks like a total hay seed and lives in the deep deep country but
who has a PhD (thesis was on sheep).

"0tterbot" wrote in message
"Chookie" wrote in message

Lol, children. Permaculture was a product of the work of david
Holmgren
in the 70s and includes the work of Yeomans, including one book
from
1958.

And Bill Mollison, but he and Holmgren don't seem to be seen
together any
more. Anyone know the goss?

never mind the goss - i've read 3 permaculture books so far & i'm
just not
GETTING IT. what's the goss on that? :-)

Which books have you read and what is it about them that you aren't
getting?

afaict, it's all about slopes and windbreaks & planting stuff
irrelevent to
soil type etc, & the remainder is what i'd call "the bleeding
obvious". who
the hell needs a fire mandala? what am i missing??

What don't you understand about slopes and windbreaks? Which book
mentions a fire mandala? Most of the physical Permaculature
principles ARE bleeding obvious (or it is to most country people who
have some experience of the land [sorry, but I couldn't resist that
dig given your previous comments about the better education and bigger
world of city people]}