Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Best of the Web Directory Search Results for watershed
Blogs and Websites Search - OnToplist.com
http://watershedchronicle.wordpress.com/
Life and Times at the Head of the Chesapeake Bay
http://sfwj.blogspot.com/
Covering south Florida's water cycle and interconnected watersheds, written by a National Parks Service hydrologist.
http://www.cof.orst.edu/cof/fe/watershd/
Focuses on conducting watershed intercomparison and explores the common features of watershed response.
scholar.google - MAKING WATERSHED PARTNERSHIPS
VS Saravanan, GT McDonald… - Natural Resources …, 2009 - Wiley Online Library
... approaches considered politics as a 'systemic problem' (Cooke and Kothari, 2001), and increased
their call for 'making watershed partnerships work' (Leach and ... Political pitfalls of integrated
watershed management. ... Making States Work: State failure and the crisis of governance ...
Cited by 11 - Related articles - All 12 versions
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Question about raising chickens
Posted by: "Heather Capps" heather.capps@yahoo.com heather.capps
Fri May 13, 2011 11:49 am (PDT)
Wow...this turned out to be really long...
In the beginning it was expensive because they were not laying yet. 12 chickens
should give you 8 to 10 eggs per day (once in a while...you' ll get 12 in one
day). Some lay almost every day and others every other day. Some will lay 3 to 4
days in a row and then skip a day. They have a 25 hour cycle. That would give
you roughly 23 dozen per month to sell (depending on how many you consume). We
sell our eggs for $5 per dozen. In our area, that is average. I noticed fresh
eggs in the store from a local place and they were selling for $7. Not organic
and not soy-free. It cost more for soy-free feed. Soy is a very cheap protein.
We make approx. $120 per month on the eggs. It pays for the chicken feed and
some of the llama feed. We have 16 grown hens. They are organic, pastured and
soy-free.
I buy all of their feed from the following:
azurestandard. com
They are based in Oregon. We have a local place that sells organic feed, but not
soy-free. Also, they are getting some of their 'organic soy beans' from China.
No thank you...
You need to sign in to see the prices. They deliver once per month, no tax and
no shipping. I buy food, etc. in bulk for us too. They have a lot of organic for
costco/trader joe prices.
Organic soy/corn free feed $28.35 - 50 lbs.
I buy 2 bags per month. They go through approx. 1.5 bags per month.
I also mix cayenne in their feed to keep the squirrels out. Birds cannot taste
hot and it's good for their circulation. I've heard that it also increases the
quantity of eggs.
Organic dried whole corn $11.40 - 25 lbs.
Organic chicken wheat $14.20 - 50 lbs.
I mix the corn and wheat together and throw that out as a treat later in the
day. I want them to get the layer feed first. I buy the corn and wheat about
every 3 to 4 months.
Organic raw apple cider vinegar $8.80 - 1 gallon
I put 2 tablespoons per gallon of water along with some crushed garlic.
Raw sunflower seeds $39.25 - 25 lbs.
I don't give them too much. We use it for nut butter and I give some to the
chickens for extra protein. I buy one bag every 3 to 4 months.
Crushed oyster shell for added calcium. I don't remember how much it was...but
it was very cheap. You want to start giving the extra calcium when they start
laying eggs. Giving calcium to chicks could cause kidney problems later.
I also make kefir for them and us with raw goat milk and mix it with kitchen
scraps along with some herbs and spices and garlic. I buy goat milk for $8 per
gallon. They end up with about 1 gallon per month....maybe 1.5 gallons.
Worming every fall when pumpkins are available: Pumpkin, dandelion greens,
carrots, onion, garlic.
http://www.moonligh tmileherbs. com/reg0507falla lterative. pdf
They get a lot of extras from our garden. They love plantain leaf and we have
tons. Dandelion greens, weeds from the garden (I attach to the fence by the
roots with a clothespin).
We make more on the eggs than what we spend on feed. Mike sells the eggs at work
and there's a demand for them.
Time spent on them. I clean the coops 2 times per year (spring and fall).
Pressure wash, scrub, sanitize with vinegar and peroxide (do not mix
together...spray one and then the other one). In-between the cleaning, we do the
deep litter method. We add more rice straw to the coop floors. In the AM, let
them out, feed them, refresh the water. Collect eggs later in the day and spoil
them with treats. At night, they will put themselves away and I go out and lock
them up after counting them to make sure everyone is there. Dust bath - 1/2 wine
barrel with dirt, sand and wood ash. I sprinkle herbs on top periodically to
keep mites/lice off of them. I sprinkle herbs in the nest boxes along with
crushed lay leaf, lavender flowers and wood ash. We have bay trees and lavender
on the property. I spoil them...so I spend more time with them than necessary.
The herbal and homeopathic stuff I have on hand for them and us: Pricey at
first, but can be used for all of our animals and us if needed. We have other
stuff on hand for us too.
Tinctures, slaves, etc.
Echinacea
Plague formula for respiratory infections (apple cider vinegar, horseradish,
onion, garlic, hot pepper, ginger)...Doc has this recipe in the files.
Rescue Remedy (for stress or introducing new chickens to the flock...can put
some in the water and spray around them)
MMS (have not used this yet, but read that it can cure mereks disease which is a
type of herpes in chickens)
Colloidal Silver (anti-bacterial. ..can put in water or spray on wounds and can
spray in the eyes for infection)
Salve for wounds (Ingr. colloidal Silver, comfrey, calendula, yellow dock,
plantain, E, olive oil, cocoa butter, bee's wax, rescue remedy, lavender and
rose oil)
Skin & Would Spray (Ingr. deionized water, grapefruit seed extract, alcohol,
essential oils of tea tree and lemon)
Body Balance + (apple cider vinegar, molasses, black walnut hull tincture...Doc
has the recipe in the files). I made it for us, but we had a chicken with
impacted crop due to eating the orchard grass that the llamas dropped on the
ground. The strands were long and they got caught in her crop. She also had sour
crop from it. I massaged in a downward motion a few times per day until it
passed. I read that walnut hull tincture is good for candida. Added Body Balance
+ to the water and she improved.
Homeopathic:
Arnica - shock and bruising
Ledum - pain
Hypericum - puncture wounds
You'll never make your money back for the cost of the coop, feeders, fencing,
etc. We also added the llamas for guarding and housing for them. We have bobcats
and coyotes here. But once you're set-up, then you can have animals for a long
time:)
They will molt (lose their feathers) in the winter and not lay eggs while
molting. If you get chicks and they start laying before fall, they will lay
throughout the winter and molt the next year. If you have room for more
chickens, order some every year so you have some layers in the winter while the
other ones are molting. Our adults will molt this winter and our new chickens
will lay. We will be spending $ on feed and 1/2 of the chickens will not produce
for 3 to 4 months.
-Heather (Forestville, CA)
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Solar power without solar cells: A hidden magnetic effect of light could make it possible | Chemistry, Physics and Material Sciences Research
A dramatic and surprising magnetic effect of light discovered by University of Michigan researchers could lead to solar power without traditional semiconductor-based solar cells.
The researchers found a way to make an “optical battery,” said Stephen Rand, a professor in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Physics and Applied Physics.
In the process, they overturned a century-old tenet of physics.
“You could stare at the equations of motion all day and you will not see this possibility. We’ve all been taught that this doesn’t happen,” said Rand, an author of a paper on the work published in the Journal of Applied Physics. “It’s a very odd interaction. That’s why it’s been overlooked for more than 100 years.”
Light has electric and magnetic components. Until now, scientists thought the effects of the magnetic field were so weak that they could be ignored. What Rand and his colleagues found is that at the right intensity, when light is traveling through a material that does not conduct electricity, the light field can generate magnetic effects that are 100 million times stronger than previously expected. Under these circumstances, the magnetic effects develop strength equivalent to a strong electric effect.
“This could lead to a new kind of solar cell without semiconductors and without absorption to produce charge separation,” Rand said. “In solar cells, the light goes into a material, gets absorbed and creates heat. Here, we expect to have a very low heat load. Instead of the light being absorbed, energy is stored in the magnetic moment. Intense magnetization can be induced by intense light and then it is ultimately capable of providing a capacitive power source.”
What makes this possible is a previously undetected brand of “optical rectification,” says William Fisher, a doctoral student in applied physics. In traditional optical rectification, light’s electric field causes a charge separation, or a pulling apart of the positive and negative charges in a material. This sets up a voltage, similar to that in a battery. This electric effect had previously been detected only in crystalline materials that possessed a certain symmetry.
Rand and Fisher found that under the right circumstances and in other types of materials, the light’s magnetic field can also create optical rectification.
“It turns out that the magnetic field starts curving the electrons into a C-shape and they move forward a little each time,” Fisher said. “That C-shape of charge motion generates both an electric dipole and a magnetic dipole. If we can set up many of these in a row in a long fiber, we can make a huge voltage and by extracting that voltage, we can use it as a power source.”
The light must be shone through a material that does not conduct electricity, such as glass. And it must be focused to an intensity of 10 million watts per square centimeter. Sunlight isn’t this intense on its own, but new materials are being sought that would work at lower intensities, Fisher said.
“In our most recent paper, we show that incoherent light like sunlight is theoretically almost as effective in producing charge separation as laser light is,” Fisher said.
This new technique could make solar power cheaper, the researchers say. They predict that with improved materials they could achieve 10 percent efficiency in converting solar power to useable energy. That’s equivalent to today’s commercial-grade solar cells.
“To manufacture modern solar cells, you have to do extensive semiconductorprocessing,” Fisher said. “All we would need are lenses to focus the light and a fiber to guide it. Glass works for both. It’s already made in bulk, and it doesn’t require as much processing. Transparent ceramics might be even better.”
In experiments this summer, the researchers will work on harnessing this power with laser light, and then with sunlight.
The paper is titled “Optically-induced charge separation and terahertz emission in unbiased dielectrics.” The university is pursuing patent protection for the intellectual property.
New engine shakes up auto industry - Technology & science - Innovation - msnbc.com
Prototype could potentially decrease auto emissions up to 90 percent
Despite shifting into higher gear within the consumer's green conscience, hybrid vehicles are still tethered to the gas pump via a fuel-thirsty 100-year-old invention: the internal combustion engine.
However, researchers at Michigan State University have built a prototype gasoline engine that requires no transmission, crankshaft, pistons, valves, fuel compression, cooling systems or fluids. Their so-called Wave Disk Generator could greatly improve the efficiency of gas-electric hybrid automobiles and potentially decrease auto emissions up to 90 percent when compared with conventional combustion engines.
The engine has a rotor that's equipped with wave-like channels that trap and mix oxygen and fuel as the rotor spins. These central inlets are blocked off, building pressure within the chamber, causing a shock wave that ignites the compressed air and fuel to transmit energy.
The Wave Disk Generator uses 60 percent of its fuel for propulsion; standard car engines use just 15 percent. As a result, the generator is 3.5 times more fuel efficient than typical combustion engines.
Researchers estimate the new model could shave almost 1,000 pounds off a car's weight currently taken up by conventional engine systems.
Last week, the prototype was presented to the energy division of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is backing the Michigan State University Engine Research Laboratory with $2.5 million in funding.
Michigan State's team of engineers hope to have a car-sized 25-kilowatt version of the prototype ready by the end of the year.
© 2011 Discovery Channel
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Our Lives Are Under Threat From Some of the Most Powerful and Richest Entities -- Here's How We Can Fight Back and Win | | AlterNet
Our Lives Are Under Threat From Some of the Most Powerful and Richest Entities -- Here's How We Can Fight Back and Win
Last month in the House, the newly empowered GOP majority voted down a resolution stating simply that global warming was real: they've apparently decided to go with their own versions of physics and chemistry.
This week in the Senate, the biggest environmental groups were reduced to a noble, bare-knuckles fight merely to keep the body from gutting the Clean Air Act, the proudest achievement of the green movement. The outcome is still unclear; even several prominent Democrats are trying to keep the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
And at the White House? The president who boasted that his election marked the moment when 'the oceans begin to recede' instead introduced an energy plan heavy on precisely the carbon fuels driving global warming. He focused on 'energy independence,' a theme underscored by his decision to open 750 million tons of Wyoming coal to new mining leases. That's the equivalent of running 3,000 new power plants for a year.
Here's what we think is going on, in the broadest terms.
The modern environmental movement was born on Earth Day 1970, in an unprecedented burst of mass organizing--by some estimates 20 million Americans, a tenth of the population, took to the streets. It was a young movement, at a time when large numbers of people were serious about not just cleaning the air but stopping wars and ending official discrimination. That popular base inspired--or, more likely, cowed--Washington: the next four years saw the passage of virtually all the environmental legislation that still forms the core of green law.
It also saw the birth or rebirth of many of the organizations we think of when we think of environmentalism. Powered by that initial burst of mass support, they were able to make real headway in DC, and so they concentrated on important and professional tasks: patient lobbying of subcommittees, careful report-writing. And they kept making substantial gains: Superfund toxic cleanups, acid-rain control.
But in recent years two things have happened. One, that battery wound up on the first Earth Day has finally wound down: congressmen, it turns out, can tell the difference between an aging membership list and a vibrant political movement. As the DC political bible Politico put it last month: "green groups are being forced to play defense in a world where D.C. pols aren't scared of them."
Second, the key issue has changed. Forget acid rain and Superfund; these were important but relatively easy fights that didn't directly confront anyone's business model. You could clean up acid rain by putting a filter on your power plant. But global warming is different--you'd have to shut down that power plant, and replace it with a windmill or a solar panel.
And so the full power of the fossil fuel industry--the most profitable business in the planet's history--has been brought to bear on the fight, and they play hard and dirty. The Koch Brothers spend huge sums to underwrite the network of global warming skeptics; the US Chamber of Commerce emerged as the biggest campaign funder of them all, shuttling 94% of its donations to climate deniers. This kind of clout carried the day: the biggest dream of DC Washington groups was the so-called 'cap-and-trade' bill, behind which they mustered every insider technique they'd spent the last four decades perfecting. But in the end they didn't come close: Harry Reid refused to even schedule a floor vote, knowing that he was far short of the votes needed to pass the bill. The White House stayed on the sidelines.
To us, the lesson is pretty clear. Since we're never going to have as much money as the fossil fuel industry, we need to rebuild the kind of mass movement that marked 1970: bodies, passion, and creativity are the currencies we can compete in. It's not impossible. Working with next to no money, the fledgling campaign at 350.org managed over the last three years to coordinate 15,000 rallies in 189 countries--every nation on earth save North Korea. It's been active in every US state and Congressional district. And this week, it combined forces with another important American grass roots climate campaign, 1Sky, for extra reach.
1Sky was founded in the same spirit, and at the same time, as 350.org, and has worked to develop leaders around the country and help build a base of hundreds allies. Together, we'll be smarter, bolder, faster, and more creative than we were before.
This new and expanded 350.org will mobilize on a large scale--circle Sept. 24 on your calendar for a worldwide day of bike-based action. But it's also going aggressively after the backroom money, with a far-reaching new campaign that tackles the US Chamber of Commerce for its climate stance.
This youth-based campaign is linking up with labor, with faith communities, with frontline communities who have the most experience trying to shut down dirty power plants in their backyards. Most of all it's actually out in the streets, organizing new blood. The idea is not to supplant the Washington green groups, but instead to give the whole movement new clout--enough clout to withstand the crushing power of oil money. And enough energy to let us get off defense and back on the attack.
We don't know if we'll win in the end: the science of climate change grows darker by the day, and the window for effective action is swiftly closing. But any chance requires people power replacing corporate power. In the year of Tunisia and Egypt and Wisconsin, it's worth a try.