Sunday 22 April 2018

Quick Update: Another video




I enjoyed making that video yesterday, so I thought I'd sit down and make another one.  This one is shorter and hopefully more coherent, trying to concentrate specifically on the issue of lactase persistence in human evolution.  Here it is:



I hope to get a bit better at making videos as I go along.  Again this is just screen caps and me talking, no editing after the fact.  Need to learn to smack my lips less and stop saying "erm".  Anyway, enjoy.

There's a link at the bottom of this post for my YouTube channel if you'd like to subscribe by the way.  If you can't see it, you can get there by clicking here.




Related posts

Thinking Out Loud #1: Veganism and Human Evolution


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Saturday 21 April 2018

Thinking Out Loud #1: Veganism and Human Evolution




You may know that I've been trying on and off for some time now to write a book, provisionally titled, The Vegan Imperative: Animals, Humans and the Future of Life.  Concentration and self-discipline aren't exactly my strong suits, but I've had a good few bursts the last week or so of exploring the subjects that really interest me, and I've honed in on one particular matter that I think might be key: the evolution of lactase persistence and its possible effects on human development.

Trying to get a handle on this sort of thing, not being scientifically literate, is quite hard work, and I often find talking to myself is a good way of really understanding things.  So I thought, maybe I'll start making some videos where I just ramble, because you know, that's what people like to do these days.  At the same time it was an opportunity to test some free screen capturing software.  So anyway, here is the first of what I hope I can make into a regular series, which should become more coherent over time.  It lasts for about fifteen minutes and is mostly just me talking while flicking through web pages.  Not much to look at, but I hope you find it stimulating.  I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this.  Thanks.






Related posts

Book

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Friday 20 April 2018

April on the Allotment #2





Great day on the allotment on Wednesday.  The forecast proved correct, and the temperature rose as ambitiously as the price of Bitcoin to a solid 20 degrees plus.  The edibles are loving it.  I made a support for the beans from chicken wire and a couple of stakes:






I promised to wait until the first potatoes I planted showed any green before sowing any more, and sure enough:




So in go the next lot:




As for spinach:







The spare chicken wire I’ve had to use to protect it from the local cat-bastard who, apparently not deterred to the extent I would like by my newly planted coleus canina (aka the “scaredy cat plant”) having given up shitting in the onions, has moved only meters into from the spinach.  Not acceptable, so more extreme measures had to be taken.


It occurred to me you could perhaps lace your beds with chicken wire just below the surface of the soil, to stop cats digging holes in any of it, but that’s an experiment for another time.  My mood undimmed, I indulged in a quick selfie in the shed.

So is your face.

Onions are poking up, too.  I even harvested some juicy chives.  It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes them to grow back in this kind of weather.  In my experience chives grow very quickly when you chop their heads off.
Onion

Chives, decapitated and heady.


Here’s the blackcurrant bush:






Here’s a tulip:







Even the rhubarb, which I was convinced I had destroyed forever, has returned:


 
Yeah yeah, sod off.


One solitary kale seedling survived the great greenhouse disaster and settled into its new home:


 
Security.


In the evening I sat by my shed breaking some scraps of rotten wood down into a more chip-able size.  Woodchip seems to be something more experienced allotmentiers get very excited about.  It’s a valued commodity, and I can see why.  Scatter it where you don’t want things to grow.  Things like this:






These are sycamore seeds, and they’re absolutely everywhere.  Zoom out, and as you can see, they’ll even grow between the cracks of a picnic table:


And I'll see you, and you'll see me...

I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up one morning and find them growing between my toes.  They’re prolific little blighters.

Bucket of wood.



But who cares?  Things are growing, bursting, blooming into life.  Here’s that tulip again:






It didn’t have to be that colour, but it is.  Consider that.





Related posts

April on the Allotment
The Beast From the East Murdered My Greenhouse
A Shed is Born

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Wednesday 18 April 2018

Never-Ending Soup

I've mirrored this post over at yours.org - a new blogging site where you can tip people for their posts.  It's a bitcoin thing, I'm still learning about it.  Anyway, if you'd like to tip me, go to the post here, and do that.  Why wouldn't you?  Let's be honest here.




To make never ending soup you will need the following ingredients:

1.  A slow cooker
2.  A casual attitude towards the idea of a recipe
3.  Food.

Concerning "food", as a vegan I obviously recommend vegetables but the idea here, fitting with the idea of soup in general, is that you can use more or less anything edible.  Any liquefied food is soup.  It's just a question of what you like to eat.  Do you like to eat soup?  There's something wrong with you if you don't.  Read on.

Last night I managed to pick up two bags of parsnips, four bread rolls, one of those portion-or-two sized packets of chopped mixed vegetables, and some olive oil spread (vegan butter, if you will) for the princely sum of £0.78.  It was that time of the evening when the supermarkets knock the price of their leftovers down to almost nothing, the time that calls the frugal and the stingy from their slumber and into the aisles.  The night before I'd already made myself some spicy parsnip soup using onions, garlic, parsnips (duh) some pea shoots, paprika and turmeric in the slow cooker, and it was delicious but there was a lot of it, so plenty left.  So I dumped the mixed veg in there, topped up with a little more water and a pinch of salt, and turned the cooker back on to "low" overnight.  It looked like this when I went to bed:

A bit minging?
When I woke up, I followed my nose straight into the kitchen, blended the mixture, and drank some of it.  From a mug, which looks like this:


It was still delicious; earthier and deeper.  Mature soup.  Aged.  It occurred to me that, rather like with pickle, this is a process you can continue more or less indefinitely.  Drink your soup, as space becomes available in the pot, add more ingredients, and repeat.  Never-ending soup.  Time you're shopping hours right, and you can gather ingredients to sustain you for days on a couple of quid.  It's like soylent, but less pretentious and more low-tech.

Some things to consider:

Leave your slow cooker on 'low' all or most of the time.  If your soup goes completely cold, you might be wary of reheating it again for hygiene reasons.  So far I have had no issues with this - the spices and salt add not only flavour but also preservatives (in a manner of speaking).  Drink your soup at regular intervals throughout the day, topping up as you go along.  This is a also a good dietary habit to get into - little and often, rather than gorging on huge meals or succumbing to the munchies late at night.

All things considered, it's really an approach to soup with no downsides whatsoever, and one I highly recommend.  (Soup-related posts have also, curiously, been some of most popular on this blog - see "related links" below for more).





Related posts

A Soup Made of Scraps
Another Soup Made of Scraps
Sunday in the Park, Then Soup
Grow Your Own Meals Indoors, Forever and Ever

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Monday 16 April 2018

April on the Allotment




This post comes with a soundtrack.  Press play to listen while you read my words and look at my pictures.




There are rumours of warmer weather this week.  I like this, and so do my plants.  One thing about keeping plants and having an allotment is you become effortlessly more in tune with the changing of the seasons.  This is obviously a good thing - grounding us in the present, while joining us both with the past (our ancestors paid close attention to all the nuances of their climate as if their lives depended on it, because they often did) as well as with the future: are harsher winters and hotter summers in the UK becoming "the new normal"?  There's even rumours of the gulf stream slowing, maybe even stopping.

Plants understand little of this, we suppose.  (Perhaps not though).  The thyme seeds sown in March have made an abundant appearance.

The most wonderful thyme of the year.
As has the borage:


This is the borage sown in March - the area where I sowed seeds in February looks bare.  Noted for next year.  I've never knowingly eaten any borage.  Looking forward to it.

The blueberry bush looks ready for anything:


As noted in a video earlier this year, don't give up on your mint.  Here's the chocolate mint today:




Exotic, enticing, delicious.  Even the rhubarb I thought I had destroyed completely (never liked the stuff) has returned.



Perhaps I should learn to make my peace with rhubarb.  Sarah, bread baker, tongue sticker, made me some delicious rhubarb and ginger jam last year.  Or perhaps it was her Mum.  But Sarah gave it me, and it was delicious too, it really was.

Moved some more things into my shed, too.  Things are going well.

A post shared by J. Bradshaw (@apossibleworld) on





Related posts

Spring on the Allotment
In Praise of Bread
Potatoes, Onions, and a Good Luck Charm
2018: Year of the Shed

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Sunday 15 April 2018

A Shed is Born




Behold, my new shed:


Not bad for 150 quid, I'm sure you'll agree.  Only a week ago I was lamenting not having built it myself but today, none of that matters.  Results matter.  For £100, Henry built it for me.  Henry is capable (evidently) efficient and one half of a father-son shed building team; in fact, (t)he(y) got the job done so quick, Henry was the only half I ever saw.  All that's left to do is attach the roofing felt, soon as amazon delivers it, and it's job done.  I'm happy as a frog in a pond, and speaking of frogs, look who I met while clearing up some of the excess wood:


I can't remember the last time I even saw a frog in the wild.  I've seen plenty of captive, exotic frogs in garden centres and pet shops but that doesn't really count.  When I was a kid my dad had a pond so you used to see frogs all the time.  A welcome addition to my Allotment Wildlife album.  Frogs are marvellous creatures.  Respect them.  See this particular frog in action here.

Enough about frogs, though.  Back to the shed.


I've already moved my wormery in there.


It occurs to me, with the windows facing the rising sun, it might also be an excellent place to grow a lot more microgreens.  Many possibilities are occurring to me.






Related posts

2018: Year of the Shed
Shed News
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