Here’s to the bees of spring

I have about quit watching the news, it’s all bad, really stupid stuff, and apparently Congress is afraid that Trump’s tweets will ruin their careers if they say anything about the security breaches (dinner public briefing over N Korean missile launch), poorly thought out plans Bannon and Putin pulling strings while Trump bluffs and puffs out his chest and tries to intimidate everyone.

The Dakota Access pipeline is being built despite lawsuits from the Dakota Sioux, and there are U.S. Veterans standing with native Americans hoping to stop it. I am lighting a candle for peaceful best solution.  The Earth takes the long view. I hope in the long run most species survive. Not sure mine will manage it.

Not sure what spring will bring. If the zika mosquitoes come here, aerial spraying may well wipe my bees and all native pollinators out. Even if what really causes birth defects turns out to be a larvacide in the affected areas of South and Central America.  I read a report from some doctors in that region that said zika had been around forever but small head birth defects showed up with the larvacide. Who knows who is telling the truth?  I don’t.

I have 2 hives in diesel tanks sitting on the old truck on the back lot, will start trapping them out into hives as soon as weather permits.  It has been bone dry here, but a lot of rain is due to arrive all at once tonight and tomorrow.  I have outyards in rural areas waiting for bees, if I can get enough hives established to move them out. I can’t move, right now anyway, but maybe I can get the bees out.

That is more than I can do for our country.  Or maybe that is all that I can do for our country.

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Getting ready for rain

Rain has been scarce this year, coming to my little corner of North Texas every couple of months, but when it rains it rains hard and an inch or two can fall very quickly.  I’m using migratory covers with a drilled hole for feed jars on my beehives, so when rain is due I need to either put a poncho on the jars or put an extra box with telescoping cover over the whole feed jar. Since we are also expecting a cold front, I put a medium super on each lid and a telescoping cover on top. I am feeding 2:1 syrup. The goldenrod did get started after our last rain event, but it has been so dry they are getting more pollen than nectar.  The hives are light. I won’t make fondant yet, but I will when the hard cold sets in.

The greenhouse is not quite ready for the tomatoes, my solar pool blanket should come tomorrow, and that will help some inadvertent venting stop venting. The tilapia are in the tank, thermometer in place, glass lids on top of tilapia tank and owens corning pink held on the outside with contractors trashbags and duct tape. It is holding heat very well. Which is good because I’m still trying to find the heater I use in it.

I have picked up expanded shale for the plant trays but haven’t built the supports to position them over the stock tank.  Only so much time, I had to go to work.Wanted to mow the lawn but never managed to get the mower out. The chickens are fed and tucked in. All will wait til tomorrow.

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One last thought for 2010….

I caught a train coming home last night. Meaning the road was blocked by a long freight train. Many of the cars were full of coal, used to generate electricity in Texas. 35% of Texas electricity comes from coal, and our state is probably last in the Union at enforcing any EPA air quality regulations on big business.

If mountain tops are being blown off in the Appalachians to provide the coal, trains are hauling it cross country, and the smoke from said coal then making the air filthier than the alternative gasoline would, what good does it do to drive an electric car?

It is true, that hydrogen from water is not cost-effective, it takes as much electricity to separate the hydrogen out as is produced by burning the hydrogen.
But hydrogen from urine is cost effective. The initial tests were done on cow urine, and the urine from one cow was sufficient to power 17 homes. Write me if you want a link to the article.
Urine can generate a huge amount of electricity in proportion to the cost of separating the hydrogen atoms out.
Every large city in America has a waste water treatment plant. I do not have the knowledge it would take to devise the system, but someone out there does.

I don’t have all the answers. I think a good question should be spark enough.

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Maybe it’s time to let the roof fall in.

The FDA has added so many regulations to pamper the pharmaceutical companies it is not funny.  Quinine Sulfate was over the counter for 30 years, but when big pharma came out with a new drug for Restless Leg Syndrome, Quinine Sulfate became prescription only. Gee….   Unfortunately I need it for another species of the animal kingdom, and I’m having issues laying hands on it. 38 people were harmed by quinine sulfate, and 2 died, of kidney or  blood-related disorders between April 2005 and October 2008, prompting this change.

I watched a pharmaceutical rep drop off Celebrex samples in a doctor’s office 2 weeks ago. How many people have died of Celebrex? Since Celebrex is still on the market, that number seems to be suppressed. I found 10 deaths in Canada, from an online Canadian paper, but no searching produced a U.S. number.

The FDA Estimates Vioxx Caused 27,785 Deaths … The estimate is based on the number of prescriptions…

I expect 2011 to bring irradiated eggs to market. More homeophatic and organic remedies will disappear. Some people will die for lack of insurance and access to supplements, vitamins and those organic remedies. Some will fork over the cash and spend hundreds each month either on insurance, or the prescription cost of new patented drugs, many with harmful side effects, to keep the pharmaceutical boat afloat.

At the same time, our economy will be taking its second dip into recession.  The cost of the Deepwater Horizon is already on gas pumps, and prices will continue to climb in an effort to force the U.S. government to allow offshore drilling again. Will BP pay for the spill – they may hand over some cash, but we will all, in Louisiana or out of it, be paying BP and the rest of the industry back. Just in case you thought they were taking responsibility.

Nothing is about responsibility. Everything is about profit.

I watched PBS last night, “Secrets Beneath the Ice”. The image of  our globe if Antarctica melts is radically different. Fortunately I live very far inland. Those oil magnates busy disputing global warming, well let’s just say I hope they own beach front property. We have only to look at Greenland, and the loss of the Larsen Ice Shelf in January 2002, to see how this is going to play out.  Massive population reduction if we can’t turn it around.

But then, we can’t reduce Earth’s population any other way, can we?  If we talk about birth control and limiting population growth, the American conservative movement would have a field day saying we’re talking about state-mandated abortion, or death panels.

So I say, make more babies, burn more oil, and drill baby drill.  We should lose 5 or 6 million people in the first wave, and boating could become fashionable in some previously dry parts of the world.  I give up.

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