Growing Season

Over the past week we've been setting up our herbs and tomato plants for growing!

Crafty Green Boyfriend's mother gave us six tomato plants

and three little plugs of herb seeds in growing substrate. These look disturbingly like small chocolate muffins! I'll pot them up soon!

Last year we had excellent harvests of tomatoes, basil and coriander. Hopefully it will be the same this year (though we have dill (see photo) instead of coriander. The coriander plant I had earlier this year failed, sadly. I should get another as it is my favourite herb).

Sacred Cows and Golden Geese

I was delighted to win, in the Ecologist magazine,  a copy of Sacred Cows and Golden Geese by C Ray Greek and Jean Swingle Greek.

This book is a cogent exploration of how animal testing in medicine is not just ethically wrong but doesn't work.

A lot of people turn round to animal rights activists and say "but think of all the advances medical science has made because of animal testing, it has to be worth it for it's value for human health!" This book argues that no, it isn't worth it, because it's not effective.

The book looks at the history of animal testing and then explores specific human conditions (such as cancer, heart disease and AIDS) and their relationship with animal testing. Time after time they prove that advances have been made through clinical trials on humans and other alternatives that do not use animals.

It's a well researched and thorough book, though it only begins to examine the issue of how medicine is tied in with pharmaceutical companies. Also I was disappointed that although the authors were quick to list all the downsides of any drug mentioned that had been tested on animals they were oddly blind to the downsides of  drugs that they claim haven't been tested on animals. They mentioned for example Prozac and statins as being fabulous drugs despite the fact that both are well documented to cause serious side effects for a large number of people who take them.

The book was written in 2003, so will be out of date on many details, but is still well worth reading. I was a bit surprised though that such an out of date book (where some of the information no longer applies) was being offered as a prize.

Sacred Cows and Golden Geese by C Ray Greek and Jean Swingle Greek with a Foreword by Jane Goodall, published by Continuum. 

The Greeks work for the Americans for Medical Advancement which campaigns for medical practice and research that is not dependent on the use of animals.

I reviewed this book for Brighton Blogger's Reading Challenge 2012


As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other websites where you can find out more. 

Poppies, snails and raindrops

After a few days of hot sunny weather, it rained again this morning. It had stopped by the time I went out along the Water of Leith but there were still plenty of raindrops around as these photos show!

 I was struck by the lovely patterns on this snail's shell

 this snail seems to have something wrong with its shell

 left-over raindrops on lime (linden) leaves

these yellow poppies seem to have come into bloom really quickly

I was trying to map Giant Hogweed and Japanese Knotweed along 'my' stretch of the river so that Edinburgh Council can then come along and control these two invasive species. It's a difficult job, much though I can read a map, I find the world looks different from along the river and I sometimes find it difficult to work out exactly where I am on the map so I can plot the invasive plants.

I still managed to enjoy all the birds though. I got excellent views of dippers (more so than usual as I went right down to the river close to where I know a pair are nesting  (co-incidentally next to a stand of Japanese Knotweed) and one of the birds was right there!). I also had close views of two tree-creepers and saw a number of youngsters of various species being fed by their parents.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other pages where you can find out more.

Monday Bunday

This delightful young rabbit was sitting in the shade of the banner on the hill by the hotel next to Edinburgh Zoo last time we walked past. Crafty Green Boyfriend took several photos.

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My latest post on Books and environmental issues is now up on Brighton Blogger's Book after Book Blog. You can read it here (and catch up with the earlier posts if you haven't already read them!).

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There's still time to book a place on my Creative Writing Inspired by Nature course, you can find out more and book here.

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And if you're in the UK, the Better Transport Campaign are looking for your stories about public transport, cycling and walking (and there are prizes on offer!). Find out more here. 

Italian Rabbits

Although I don't like to hoard in general, I have found myself with a lot of used train tickets, thinking I'd one day use them in crafting. Well recently I've been experimenting and have covered some train tickets with paper from old Italian magazines and then drew rabbits (what else?) on them.

Here are a couple of the results. I'll maybe use them as publicity cards for the Crafty Green Poet Etsy Shop and similar uses.

Even the Rain

Even the Rain is a powerful and moving film that is essentially a study of colonialism in Latin America but that is also an engrossing, multi-layered story featuring believable characters facing real human dilemmas.

Idealistic Spanish film director Sebastian (Gael García Bernal) and his cynical producer Costa (Luis Tosar) are making an epic about the conquest of Latin America. They're making it in Bolivia because that's where they can do it cheapest. Things become complicated when Daniel (Carlos Aduviri), a local cast as a 16th century native in the film within a film, turns out to be one of the leaders of his community’s protests against water privatisation.

The film explores colonialism in three scenarios - the original colonialism of Columbus and his men, the colonialism of the multinational companies taking over the Bolivian water supplies and the colonialism implicit in a Spanish film crew telling the history of Latin America (and using the wrong country as the setting).

This could all be too heavy and well meaning, but instead it is engaging and compelling, largely because the politics come from believable situations and the characters reactions are entirely believable for people in their situations.

You can find out more about the global water crisis on the Water.org website.

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other websites where you can find out more.

Birds in the Haar

There was a slight haar (sea mist) when I got to Musselburgh this morning. Rather than lifting as it normally would mid morning, it just got thicker and thicker. In the photo below you can see it rolling off the Musselburgh Lagoons.

Despite the haar, though I saw some excellent birds today. Unfortunately the Lagoons were more or less empty as they often are when the tide is out (the high tide pushes the birds up the shore and onto the lagoons).

Away from the lagoons, though I had my best ever views of three birds that I don't see very often.

Three male reed buntings were singing in the grassy area near the lagoons. They're very handsome birds and they have a funny little song that I don't think I've ever heard before today. 

A pair of wheatears was dancing along the John Muir Walkway.

A few rock pipits were flying about, one of which kept stopping in front of me as I walked back into Musselburgh.

It was also lovely to hear several skylarks singing. Such a wonderful sound!

When I got back to the River Esk, I saw this happy family of Canada Geese. The goslings were just adorable!