October 1
Food Preservation and Storage (17). Natural strategies requiring freezing (high level natural cooling) * Seasonal storage outdoors in animal-proof containment, where feasible.
Do not underestimate the power of bears or intelligence of raccons or
just how small insects can be when designing your 'animal-proof'
containment.)
October 1st
I owe you one. Spent the day picking up parts for the electric tractors. Had to buy gasoline
to complete the trip. On the plus side, it's the first time I have bought gasoline since December 11
last year, and the parts mean our zero-emissions electric tractors will be available to do more work.
October 2nd
I owe you another one. Spent the day today chipping ice and doing an upgrade on one of the electric tractors.
October 3rd
Contributions will be lighter this month, as I'm writing a couple of papers to present at
CIRSIP at the end of May.
October 4th
October 5th
October 6th
October 7th
October 8th
October 9th
October 4th
October 5th
October 6th
October 7th
October 8th
October 9th
October 10th
October 11th
October 12th
October 13th
October 14th
Today, I planted my garden - sort of. For those of you living in tropical climes, that may not seem very impressive.
However, here there is about a metre of snow on the ground, 2 metres on the snowbanks. That would give a new meaning
to iceberg lettuce. However, yesterday I received a new
Aerogarden. So, I have planted 3 heirloom cherry tomato plants and 3 of 6 herbs which came with the unit.
Set-up was easy. No soil required, and importantly for me - no window access required either. Grow lighting
is supplied by an array of LEDs, the growing system is essentially hydroponic (with a minor hybrid tweak for the
plant cones. Anyway, all seems to work as advertised. And now we wait for germination.
October 15th
October 16th
October 17th
October 18th
I got a little busy, and have not had a look at the Aerogarden since I set it up. Lo, and behold - 2 of the 3
tomato plant pods have sprouted. Water topped up. Now, I'm off to ignore it again for a few days.
October 19th
Yesterday, the Canadian federal government delivered their budget for the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
At 464 pages, it's a bit of a slog. However, there are a few items that might be worth considering.
There are about 11 pages related to climate change initiatives, but they're a bit on the fluffy side,
do there's not a lot of meat in this area. Still, they have hit a few high profile items, some of
which mark dramatic turns in past federal policy and action (more accurately, lack thereof). I'll
cover those in a bit more detail in the next few days as some items require some additional
fleshing out. It's always a concern when a major financial document uses the phrase: "Program details to follow."
But the math says they're looking to boost sales of "zero-emission vehicles" (battery-electric or hydrogen
fuel cell - plug-in hybrids and hydrogen combustion are not mentioned) by about 20,000 units a year for three years,
starting sometime after October 1 2019. Let's be charitable and colour that as not overly ambitious.
If you want to get a head start, open
https://www.budget.gc.ca/2019/docs/plan/budget-2019-en.pdf and head for page 81 (internal numbering -
pg 83 of the PDF document).
October 20th
October 21th
October 22th
October 23th
All the plants in the Aerogarden have now sprouted and are doing well. Had to cut back the
foliage on the tomato plants a little bit.
October 24th
October 25th
Took the chance today to rake up some leaves. Discoverered some are still embedded in ice.
Spring may be a few more days before showing up to melt the remaining ice. But given the amount
of snow we had this year, gradual warming is desirable.
October 26th
I'm taking a few days off here because a lot of people are dealing with flooding, one of the early
consequences of climate change.
October 27th
If you are not dealing with flooding issues personally, or pitching in to help, take the next few
days to contemplate how you would deal with flooding where you live.
October 28th
If you are truly in a situation immune to flooding, contemplate one of the other climate emergency
issues you could be facing, and how you would deal with that.
October 29th
October 30th
October 31st