Borislav Iliev

Great thread!
I think everyone has a philosophy of some sort, it is based on what you know about reality, the logic that connects everything and the ethics that follows, choosing what is the right thing to do.

The first two parts determine what you believe in, and the last depends also on your capacity to have the strength to follow the right path.

As long as I can remeber I have deep curiosity toward reality and the questions of meaning and purpose were alway with me.

Somehow I was not satisfied with the notion that these most important questions in life have no objectively true answer.
It is somehow complicated to put in words what exactly I believe in.
First I know death will be the end of the existence of my consciousness, I accept the given opportunity for existence as something sacred and very precious. I try to find myself as a tiny part of the puzzle of life in general, and I try to be worthy enough for the given opportunity.
I try to understand nature, and I think finding my place in it and being a positive element in it is the most real thing there is.

I kind of have a harsh view about the truth of my existence given the fact I have tried to eradicate any wishful thinking I possess.
I accept myself as just the random experiment nature is conducting in order to find something that works. I have no other choice but to give the best I can in that test life is.

Not long ago i have stumbled across the philosophy of stoicism which really make a great sense to me and I try to follow it. It really can help you finding your inner strenght, dignity and developing every positive human quality there is.
It has that notion "living according to nature", which means you need to make use of your most fine qualities nature provided you with - reason, intelligence, temperance etc.
It has bunch of great stuff in it, the only downside being it doesnt provide you with the answer what exactly is the goal in which you need to make use of your potential.

Using logic I never managed to find something more important than existence itself, everything life is and all qualities and characteristics of life leads to existence itself.
So the objective goal of life is the fight for a stable and secure existence, here comes the connection with permaculture and how I found it. I was searching for soil fertility, what that is, and how it works. Building society around perennial plants and having respect for the cycle of nutrients is a very big part of the meaning a human life can have, also science is another important element.

Living your life trying to develop any part of the puzzle which build a more stable existence for the future generations(it is all that will continue to exist and what matters) is a life worth living, it is how you pay for the great gift your own existence is. Having the strength to follow the right path is what will make you feel good about yourself and will give you the sense of worth.

I am not sure how good I managed to explain what I believe in, but without that type of reason I will be totally lost, and will waste all nature gave me.

I have a small pond, the first year it was terrible, the water looked all green despite I used liner and it didnt had contact with soil, then I was thinking how it is possible for the small natural ponds here to have so clean water?
I think I got it right at the end, I took all sorts of the vegetation in the pond and around the pond, also I took clams, few of the plants have survived, but these that managed it are thriving, and the water now is very clear!
I think in your case planting lots of vegetation around the pond is the answer(there are many plant species that will manage to tap to the water and will grow really good!), what you describe sounds to me like erosion, after rain first soil will find its way into the pond and then the sun will convert that into green water.
Also clams and other water plants will help alot too, it worth trying.

I see it this way, if we are to compare the human body or any other organism with nature the common thing is that both should work efficiently. The cancer is an element in your body that is too selfish and try to grow and use resources without the consideration that this is not sustainable in a long run, and that this selfishness will put an end to the existence of the organism and the cancer too eventually. Sounds familiar?
Actually selfishness is not something bad, every organism is fighting for its existence and reproduction, but in human body cells should compromise because they are part of a system which can only continue to exist if cells are following the instructions right.
With nature things are not exactly the same, and are much more complicated, but again everything is part of a cycle and has its place, so if something is really detrimental to that cycle it just wont be able to withstand the test of time, and the system will substitute the defective parts with other players that do things more efficiently.
In that way if humans dont find a way to preserve the fertility of the soil they use, after some time whatever humans do and whatever tricks they apply they wont be able to cheat the test of time, and they will have to stop doing whatever they are doing.
So in general the time itself will deal with everything that is not sustainable in a long run.
The sad part is just why humans should waste all that time going in the wrong direction, just to find the dead end.
To my understanding investing in something and going on that road with no future has no meaning and is a waste of the potential we posses.
Humans should know much better, and should act in a way that will be beneficial for the future generations, that is how you manage the test of time, if you fail that then nothing now has any meaning, the important things now are the things that will continue to exist in the future, everything else is pointless waste of potential.
Sure nothing is perfect, but that is the great thing about nature, it purifies and develop things over time, and we wont run out of time anytime soon, for what I know.

Maybe having a white cat which you can spray with some fancy colours even(like red or pink), also may save few birds, raising the little kitty with small birds can also help with training it not to kill and eat birds.
Very often people blame the animal or the plant etc. for the bad results they get, just because it is much easier this way.
On the other hand I dont think chickens or dogs are able to cope with mice at all.(it is exactly what breeds mice at least my exp.)
But experimenting with a pet owl have some potential for closed spaces imo. I am not sure how that would work outside though...

Here people use it as food, it has a spinach like taste, but it is better to be cooked.

I like it for several reasons, it has really deep tap root, I cant find information how deep it is, but once I was digging for a pond and I got at 1,5m and the root of that plant was still going down(I am pretty sure it was going down much deeper), and it belonged to a plant that was not that big at all.

During summer(we have really dry summer here), it is one of the few plants that continue to look green and happy even after 2-3 months without any rain, the only similar plants that manage this I can think of now is the alfalfa and the horseradish. For a climate with a similar type of summer I cant think of any better plant that gives you green leafs.

It tolerates shading, and will thrive in clay soil, you can cut it several times during the year and it still keep showing again and again, if you let it to develop seeds and the seeds mature it will calm down eventually.







^ I see it really often here on places where other plants just cant manage to grow good, maybe thats why I like it so much, that plant is a really good fighter.



How people prepare it sometimes:

The vulturine guineafowl appears bigger and less vocal, also the sounds are not that sharp though they resemble the sound of the domesticated species.
I am pretty sure they will be able to crossbreed and will have fertile offspring. One can select bigger birds, that are not that loud and that will retain the beneficial qualities of the domesticated ones.
I have tried to find info about such experiments, but it appears people are really into crossbreeding everything with a chicken for some reason. It seems such cross(with a chicken) is possible but not fertile.
The vulturine fowl looks really great also.

Several things you can try:
- get as many varieties as you can, the difference between different varieties is really big
- find wild blackberries in your area, plant some and try to crossbreed.
- water them good in the summer heat(at least here providing water during the summer have profound effect on their ability to cope with a disease that is affecting their stems).
- provide shade for their roots and the base of their stems, they suffer from the direct sunlight there.(plant them behind some short but bushy plant which will create shade, the blackberry will be fast at growing above it)
- try to train some stems to grow low and then put straw on them during winter, you can try to insulate them even without them being low but it is more work.
-observe the cane and see if it is affected by some parasites or insects and take measures about it if possible.
- try to improve the soil a little bit, they dont like clay soil

Sometimes I catch myself following after some idealism theory of mine, which goes against the practical way in which things work.
I guess people should try to judge better what exactly stands behind their values and how important that is.
What is wrong or right is really subjective and complicated story, I often try to find solid objective ground(if that is even posslible), for my position and decision making.
I think humans have a great capacity and we occupy important niche in nature, we have the capacity to aid the survival of some system and to help the ecosystem in a way no other creature can.(that is the positive potential humans posses, I wont mention the negative sides because it will be too long list, and the point is to focus on the right for humans way).
Two great things about humans is that we can stop the erosion and to provide water for a given place better than what nature can do without human intervention.
The bad thing is our cultivated species are too spoiled and we dont manage to create integrated systems of plants so that we can accumulate the fertility of the soil.
My point is if you can manage to create a system with many niches as in nature, and you manage to capture more Sun energy than the wild place, and you manage to accumulate the fertility of the soil, then you managed to pay off for your existence in nature as a positive force, and you are not a cancer to this Planet.
From this point of thinking in order to manage this, you need plants with good virility and good use, you can much better do this if you use plants from all over the place. One can argue such systems will be doomed and it cant have the balance, but thats where humans come to maintain and manage it, it all comes down to efficiency and managing to create enough useful stuff for humans from that system.
This is the only way in which you can improve the situation we observe today - monocrop deserts that cant manage the fertility of the soil, and capture too little Sun energy, the only way to fix things is to create system that integrate the selfish interests of humans and also the working force of many species that will create fertility and will capture more Sun energy. That is what the evolution of the ecosystem is all about, having many species that are in a symbiotic relationship, humans need to be part of that, or you simply wont be able to create a solution for the destructive force humans are.
We evolved on this Planet and there is no going back, and as I see it you can try to integrate as many useful species around us(in a very productive way as in nature), or we can keep on separating thing, having poor spots on the best soil and all the problems that creates, and wild places that are no really useful.

The creation of working symbiotic relationships take lots of time, humans managed this not in the best way there is violating many rules, any such attempt for such relationship we have now should be used and appreciated, any species that has a potential for such relationship should be developed, its all up to humans to provide the right management.

And there is really good objective ground that can measure all that- how much energy you managed to capture, how much fertility the soil has, how many species there are in the system, and how many humans manage to have their existence in that spot, these are the important things.

To stop the worsening of your teeth is both simple and not.
I havent visited a dentist for more than a dacade, and as a kid I was a regular visitor. What I did was pretty radical for some, I just brush my teeth after every meal(I eat 3 times per day), and I dont eat anything in between.
If you follow this you will be accustomed to feeling your mout very clean and brushing after a meal will be a relief and not a torture.
Also you should floss, use a soft brush and brush in a right way, its what worked for me.
The hygiene of your mouth is the most important type of hygiene there is.

Their intelligence compared with other such birds is not that low, at least my experience, if it was not for the noise they are one of the finest animals I had the pleasure to own, if someone invent a silent breed I will take some again for sure. I am pretty sure they wont jump into the water, or even if they do so it wont be a problem for them.
They are in between being wild and domesticated, an animal only becomes dumb if domesticated for too long, it will lose some instinct to cope in real conditions, the guineas are some of the best fowls to have in real wild conditions, they are very agile and fast, they fly pretty good, and are really a badass animal. I love all about them even their noise, but my neighbors had really hard time with that.

They may look a little bit insane, but thats how you manage to survive in Africa, with so many predators.