Burra Maluca

r ransom wrote:All the books say to tune the ukulele, all we need to know is "my dog has fleas".

Eh?

This might help - even I can get my poor tone-deaf head around this!

Mine is measured straight out of the tub into the cooking pot. One cup rice, one cup lentils, one two-cup portion of frozen stock (if I've been organised this will have been put in the pot and left to thaw out overnight), two and a bit cups of water. Boil it up for a minute while I go and open the haybox up then shove it in and leave it for a couple of hours.

My energy comes in small doses and putting the rice on to cook takes a whole spoon's worth so I'm not going to risk running out of energy before I've got the pot in the haybox by spending extra time on my feet washing the rice and generating more stuff to wash up afterwards.

Nancy Reading wrote:The only thing I would add is that work can cause waste - in energy used (for example driving a car) shoe wear, time used that you never get back....

Remember this?

Nancy Reading wrote:Can anyone explain what he means there? Or is it mistranscibed, or a bit missing? It seems that waste is the product of 'not working' in the example he gives.

I think there's a bit missing, and also it's two examples - "when you look at a whole system there are two things that are very undesirable - one is work and the other is pollution"

If you look at the first example - "Work is a result of not supplying every component in your system with its needs. Now lets put that in another way...If you didn't put a tank on your chicken house you got to carry the water to the chickens. So you incur work." It's about designing things so that work is reduced.

Then the second example - "Now if you didn't collect the eggs from the chicken house, that's pollution. Pollution is an unused resource." This is about teaching you to value all the products of a system because if any aren't put to use they can become pollution.

The bit that doesn't make sense to me is the bit he puts in before the two examples - "Pollution is a product of work.". Either I'm missing something or he mis-spoke. Maybe pollution is a product of not doing the work you should, like collecting the eggs? Or maybe he means that if you do some work, like putting the chickens in a chicken house, but don't finish the work, like collecting the eggs, then that is what creates pollution.

Here's an article with more information...

China's Xinjiang reintroduces rare horse subspecies to the wild in Inner Mongolia

Sometimes trees aren't enough to re-green the desert.

Most domestic livestock graze by pulling at the grass which destroys roots. Horses, however, nip it off and leave the roots behind so grasses re-stablish more easily.

Join us as we take a fascinating journey into China’s ambitious conservation effort to reintroduce extinct wild horses back into their natural desert habitat. Five years after their return, the landscape, ecosystem, and the horses themselves have undergone remarkable changes.

Please ignore the ridiculous AI thumbnail - the actual info in the video is much better

I would have thought that 1200 calories would be too low for most people to maintain weight on.  Maybe a small, sedentary woman but most women would need 1600 calories as a bare minimum. Which would mean 40 grams of protein minimum. And most men would need over 2000 calories, so at least 50 grams of protein using that 10% thing.

I'm curious why anyone would need to know the minimum amount of protein for long-term survival though. Are you planning a survival stash of food? I would have thought if you were planning anything it would make more sense to plan for more protein than bare survival. And if you're caught out without plans then you eat what you can get!

I treated myself to an old one off facebook marketplace.



It's a handmade Arraiolos rug from central Portugal and cost less than a similar sized new rug from a chinese shop.

The best part was that when I went to fetch it from the seller, he took one look at me and recognised me as a customer from the bank he used to work at twenty years prior then told me the history of the rug. It had originally been made by his great grandparents, who would sit opposite each other and work from one end of the rug until they met in the middle. I think the base fabric is linen and the embroidery is pure wool.

Here's a close up...



And a view of the back, showing the fringe which has matted up with age...



Here's a Brazilian video showing some of the techniques used, including some modern ones that aren't used here in Portugal.

Three 5 cent coins have been procured and testing is happening!

We put the coins in place and positioned the funnel on them so that air can easily pass under the funnel, heat up, and then rise. Within a minute or two it was obvious that heat was being sent up, though Austin didn't burn his hand like he did when he tested it above the gas flame.

Photos and write up to follow when the results are in.

Judith Pi wrote:The oven works on a convection principle, and should work on the solid stove top if the hot air is allowed to rise and circulate. Try placing three coins or washers under the funnel part. I've read that it works with the Hajka camping oven.

Ah now THAT is the kind of tip I was hoping for. Thankyou!

I smell another experiment in the making...