skepchar McCoy

paul wheaton wrote:
This is fiction.

I made it up.

Mr. Rogers said it was okay to do this.

My fiction starts with fact.  In 1608 a boat comes to the shores of what is now known as the United States of America.  Then comes my fiction.  Rather than things working out the way we now know, things go a bit ... different.  Pocahontas turns out to be a bit of a warrior genius and next thing you know, the Europeans decide to not stick any more flags in this soil. 

Continuing my fiction, the centuries pass and the borders for "The United States of Pocahontas" just so happen to be the exact same borders that we now know as the USA. 

There is trade between the USP and other countries.  And the USP has values that are a bit different than other countries.  Especially when it comes to agriculture.  Before Pocahontas, agriculture was practiced.  And permaculture is a lot like that.  And when folks outside the USP said "hey, this plowing thing is awesome, you should try it" the folks in the USP said "that seems like a practice that is disrespectful to mother earth - we choose to not do that."  Similar sorts of things happened with petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides. 

The culture within the USP evolved a lot, but these values about respect for the earth remained.

In my imagination,  the amount of food produced per acre is far more than what other countries can accomplish.  Plus, the lifespan and overall health exceeds all other nations.  The #1 industry in the USP is a sort of health tourism - when people come here, their ills tend to just fade away.

I am curious to know what their practices are.  Since this is all in my imagination, I am the only one that can possibly paint this picture.  Oh sure, other people can take this idea and paint their own pictures, or send ideas my way about what I might wanna put in my picture.  But overall, I am trying to express something that is in my head. 

For the last six or seven months I've been thinking a lot about the USP and agriculture/horticulture that happens there.  And how we might accelerate our learning about permaculture to end up some where way beyond permaculture. 

I've decided to make up a new word.  "Husp."  This is actually an acronym for "Horticulture of the United States of Pocahontas."  I choose that this word is all lower case (as opposed to an all caps sort of thing).  I feel I need this word to talk about other stuff.  I am okay with other people using this word, but in order for me to talk about other things, I need to make sure other people do not attempt to redefine this word.  So:  my word.  Mine.  If you want something different, go make up your own words! 

alright, well i had just written out a long response about this but then i foolishly hit the back key and now its all gone, </3, and i am far to lazy to type that all out again, but in a shortened version, i think the same way often but in the context of several hundred years in the future, rather than today, because i think that perma culture and food forest ideas are being spread and the inevitable result is world wide thinking on this issue, i think after several hundred years of everyone realizing and understanding that we must all produce certain things we need (and not more) while living harmoniously with the earth, the result would be an entire world covered in the most produced food forests, providing everything we need, not only food but clothing, fuels, building materials, etc. this world of food forests would not need to be very "maintained" other than by happenstance when people go out to get food or anything, because being entire eco systems designed by humanity they would support them selves and only become more productive. i do not think that at that point in society people would be worried by our modern ideals of buying land from some authority figure who owns it ("owns" it because they have an army.... *the government*) and then cultivating that specific spot of land, and then moving the produce of that land around to feed all the other people too busy to produce food themselves. i think at that point in thinking hopefully ideas will have progressed to the point that people can understand this system in unnecessary and simply slows things down, once people understand that they will simply plant everywhere, making the world in to a food forest, constantly producing, keeping the earth healthy, and producing for essentially ever

maikeru wrote:
That's not true, IMO. We have a limited ability to synthesize many vital nutrients such as omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin C, vitamin B12, etc. and must obtain them from both animal and plant sources. Furthermore, how does killing and eating plants have any mercy or respect in it? Is it because plants can't run, scream, or bleed? :/

yes... its because they (the plant kingdom) don't have nervous systems to experience pain and terror and death... also as for omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin c and vitamin b12 we can get all of these from different plant sources such as nuts for fatty acids or allege extracts for omega 3, vitamin b12 is produced not by plants or animals but by bacteria, and as such can be easily obtained by bacteria culture, this is where we get all the vegan and vegetarian supplements. and well vitamin C, come on that ones easy, there's approximately 70 mg of vitamin C in your average orange, and thats already above the recommended daily amount.

Sepp has an amazing mind for design. I wonder, does anyone know of a material that could be used in placed of the tarp (or lake sealer or what ever it is) between the logs and the dirt, that isn't made from oil? or is the water protecting layer even necessary? i'm not sure but it seems to me people must have been building root cellars with nothing but dirt walls for ages, also, wow those are huge rocks! i guess rocks like that are easier to find where hes from, here that many rocks that size and moving them in would be quite the expensive job

hügel wrote:
Paul, you mentioned in Podcast 025 that you wanted to set up this thread, so I thought I'd go ahead,
because I was reminded of a video from Austria that shows a different approach to the one you describe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-y7vHNyhVc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-y7vHNyhVc

as other comments have stated this is not a chicken "trance" but is simply a manipulation of the chickens instincts, it is still terrified, and what ever you do to it, how ever you butcher it, you are still taking its life when it is unnecessary. it should certainly be obvious to those on this forum that all the food needed to sustain our lives can easily be derived from plant life, also the human digestive system is not even made to eat a meat based diet. killing an animal when it is unnecessary can never be done "respectfully"