planning for the apocalyse

we got out to a baseball game recently with our friend alex. i enjoy baseball games for the experience rather than the game itself.

sitting in the sun with the dome open,cito gaston back in charge and birds squawking above us, we got to talking about what interesting times we live in, and what we should do if the world gets suddenly, drastically, alarmingly terrible (due to, say, exreme weather, crop shortages, fuel shortages, soil erosion, world war, genetically engineered superviruses, or 'the vortex of extinction' that laurence the bee expert believes honeybees are teetering on the edge of) ad we find our world in some way going *boom*.


alex likes the idea of a safe place to escape to, where we could grow our own food and sustain ourelves until the pillaging and riots and general tummult subside. i like this idea. Of course, if the disaster is something like sulfur gas exploding out of the earth and poisoning everything that breathes, then there's not really any safe place.

alex also figures we should have dirt bikes to get to the farm--cars are too cumbersome and would likely get tied up in the panic-saturated gridlock so often featured in end-of-the-world movies. i pointed out that the vespa company would pay our carbon offsets for three years if we bought vespas. it wouldn't matter , but it's a nice though.

livestock would be good, provided there's not rampant foot and mouth epidemics. i think goats are ideal for post apocalyptic farming. very versatile, goats. they eat all kinds of things, they give milk, theyre not large enough to turn on someone and kill them, and they would probably manage stairs a lot better than cows (some living-beyond-the-big-boom scenarios feature a subterrean shelter).

i suppose this might all seem a little creepy and morbid, but it's a game we play based on what 3 of us know is going on in the world. predictions for ice cap melting and declining fish populations and areas of land lost to soil erosion are all coming true, but way faster than we believed they would.

what will you do?

(if you have skills that would be useful in a survival situation (or goats) to offer, please talk to one of us)

why couldn't we have a sloth invasion instead?

which of the following is true? Squirrels are:

a) very cute

b) clever in their own way, in spite of
having a brain the size of a large peanut

c) a highly evolved and wily species,
secretly in league with forces of evil to
bring about the downfall of mankind

d) less adorable and more bothersome than
sloths.

right, it's a trick question, they're all true! this spring we've been plagued with squirrels. they are very cute from far away, like when you're walking in the woods and you watch their tree-top frolicking from the forest floor and feel a deep sense of inner peace and gentle amusement.

it is somewhat ominous, though, when you look out the bathroom window each morning and see squirrels congregating in the beds of new plants and seedlings, and it's downright aggravating to find that each almost-blossom of a new plant has been carefully removed from the stem and torn into teeny tiny shreds by teeny tiny paws and then scattered about the garden.

now, i like to think that i'm sympathetic to most creatures. squirrels, sloths, gigantic ants, telemarketers, komodo dragons, hey, we're all just trying to live, right? but, just like the less wily-clever-and-cute telemarketer, squirrels have to be taught what our boundaries are, so that we can all live together in peace and so that the pellet-gun discussion never has to be resumed.

so, i've decided to chronicle our efforts in getting the squirrels to see our side of things and just behave reasonably. here's what's happened so far:

• wire mesh, also known as hardware cloth: this has been wrapped around a couple of potted plants and kept them safe, but the wire is more functional than pretty.


• cayenne pepper: apparently squirrels don't like it. fun to apply (a tiny bit on a spoon and a huff of breath to distribute it) but i think you have to keep applying it, and you'll probably end up sneezing a lot during the application process.


• blood meal: tiny granules that apparently stink of death. this is the last thing we've tried. i haven't seen many squirrels today, and those i have seen were just passing through. i can't tell if the stuff is working or if we just don't have that many yummy-smelling tender shoots left.

bee action!

did i mention i've gone and become a beekeeper? i joined the bee co-op and have enthusiastically been learning by doing. i spent a great saturday at the brickworks manning a booth and talking to people and pestering the more senior co-op members with questions. this is the observation hive that was on display.

larvae-beasts

the glistening white beasties in the holes are bee larvae; the other bees are hustling and bustling, feeding the larvae and building a little bridge out of themselves, so that comb-repair work could be done in those hard-to-reach places.

ant fight! ant fight!

welcome to my world! no, sadly, i'm not a gigantic cannibalistic ant; rather, i'm a diminutive omnivorous human, with a lingering fascination for nature.

i like bugs--i always think they seem very organized.

these are two of a small population of highlander-style superants that i've discovered in my back garden. i'm not sure if they were fighting or if one died and is getting disposed of or just what exactly. i see them around, but i haven't yet figured out what they're doing or where they're going. they're ants of mystery. i hope they're not up to anything more sinister than pollinating the trilliums.