finally. Opened this up again after having just begun, last week. And not being able to put it down. I was not expecting this. I had said a while back that maybe i'd read a little at a time and then write about it here. But that's impossible. Every sentence builds upon another and to take any of them out of context is just that...taking out of context and it's CONTEXT that it's all about. But this one small thing:
"The world under our feet, the dark kingdom of which we're astoundingly unaware; the down under that may account for up to 95% of our planet's species diversity. This is the world of soil microorganisms. Dig up a teaspoon of healthy soil from your garden or from a city park or from the weedy strip along side a highway, and you're looking at something like 1 billion to 7 billion organisms, depending on the health of the soil. Scientists guess that as many as 75,000 species of bacteria could be in that teaspoon, along with 25,000 species of fungi, 1,000 species of protozoa, and 100 species of tiny worms called nematodes...and the count of microorganisms keeps rising, as scientists figure out better and better ways to look for them."
It's a truly WONDER FULL book, extremely readable Science with many many leads to follow up in the real world of farming around the planet. So i read. and inbetween, stitched more on the Cloth. More microbes. a nematode or two. And i looked and looked at how it was important when i placed it, that the Soul's "toes" touched this earth. Then, things Out Side....
the Woad. Going to seed. How each cluster has the one single "seed?" that looks like a feather...
hollyhocks. lots, LOTS of pollen
first tomato
a Chatalpa. Cross between a Catalpa and Desert Willow. Don't know why, but the hummingbirds like it very much.
Native Olive. Burgeoning with fruits this year. For birds and small seed eating beings.
and this grass, a clump grass, as is all the Native Grasses that i love and depict on cloths...i don't know what this is. There are two clumps. Near where i empty the bucks water bowls. I need to find out. There is a grass that is Foxtail that looks like this that is very dangerous to livestock. i hope it's not this. It's incredibly beautiful in the wind.
and one more thought about the above. The reason that i am so hopeful about the possibility of the Soil Saving us is...that it has already begun to be accepted by even the larger more willfully ignorant world of Agriculture as we know it. There is interest. There is interest because more and more thousands of acres of farmland are dead and dying due to really, almost innocent misunderstanding about How Things Go. More mainstream farmers are turning to no till farming, turning to "organic" farming which means no pesticides, no chemical fertilizers, no herbacides, only because they can no longer afford them because their land is DEAD and they have no money. It takes about 5 years of the no till to begin to see great and unmistakable HEALTH and production of crops. Livlihood. 5 years to see the return to Livlihood. and this is Documented by farmers like Gabe Brown in North Dakota. They are TALKING and being invited to TALK. and 5 years....we have 5 years. Maybe the vast majority of citizens of the planet won't be able to take to heart what needs to be done. But Farmers. Farmers fill our grocery stores with food. Farmers and Ranchers are a HUGE and POWERFUL lobby with polititians who have no personal will. Food is a bottom line. maybe...............
