dolphin encounter

Although we had watched the dolphins from our balcony at the resort, and at other times in the water when they were fishing amongst the sea grass, we went to see them one morning on cue.

The dolphins at Monkey Mia swim up and down the beach, but some come in to the shore at a regular time to be fed by DEC staff.

The recent close encounter with the Monkey Mia dolphins heightened my sensitivity to reading about the wildlife in the area of the West Atlas oil rig spill.

“There were times when we were literally in a sea of oil from left to right and as far as we could see ahead of us – it was heavily oiled water and it was sickening because in this we were seeing dolphins surfacing,” — Dr Gilly Llewellyn, Conservation Manager, WWF-Australia on ABC Online.

The oil spill is 200 kilometres off the Kimberley coast. Would more people stand up and take notice if the oil slick came into the shore?

Lining up to view the dolphins.

from the air

A real treat was to take a 30 minute air charter with Margaret of Shark Bay Air over Denham and Francois Peron National Park.

Denham has a wind farm, so I had to have a picture of that. Interestingly, the resort at Monkey Mia does not get power from this, but from a huge noisy generator that also runs the desalination plant.

The contrast of the red dirt and cliffs with the blue of the sea and lagoons is breathtaking.

The gypsum claypans or birridas were once land-locked saline lakes. There are a lot of them and quite intriguing. Some look like scars on the landscape, and others look very regularly shaped as if they were carefully planned and built.

Little Lagoon and Big Lagoon are two flooded birridas. Again, the contrast of the colours was amazing, white, aqua, and red.

We didn’t spot any wildlife, but they would have to be pretty big to be able to spot from the plane anyway.

Thirty minutes is not a long time in the air, and we were soon on the way back to the airport over the historic Peron Homestead.

adaption and resilience

For me, climate change is on the doorstep.

If I differentiate the back of the house from the front, the two spaces each have a different combination of energies or microclimate. For example, the back yard has the air moving quite differently as it tumbles off the multi-story house at the rear. Whereas the front yard is somewhat sheltered from the wind by our own home and the surrounding limestone wall. The back yard is mostly shaded, whereas the front yard is in full sun, apart from one section that has some afternoon shade from the neighbour’s carport.

All the garden ’soil’ is black sand, alkaline, free draining, and repels water.

We are considering installing a greywater reuse system and rainwater tanks as Perth’s 800 mm rainfall is reducing each year. The sprinkler ban during winter and now back to only being able to use irrigation twice per week is not enough to easily manage a lush food producing garden.

At the moment I consider myself fortunate in that I have the opportunity to grow my own food and that it is still a choice. That is, if I don’t grow food in my garden I can go to the shops and I buy what I need. It may not be as tasty, and there will be dozens of other decisions to make such as do I buy the local oranges from Gin Gin, Western Australia, oranges from South Australia, or from California. And that is not including the varieties or whether to buy organic or biodyanmic.

Eventually, we will have the greywater reuse system, rainwater tanks, solar hot water system fixed and back on the roof (currently we are using gas), and a photovoltaic system. We already have a pretty light carbon footprint, but we will do our best to look at ways of reducing it further.

Working with the climate, adapting to it, I feel is a better way of living sustainably and increasing resilience. So no, we won’t be installing the exterior uplights, swimming pool, or airconditioner that appears to be the new home essentials.

organic and biodynamic weekend

Saturday was mostly taken up with Yoke’s ‘Wholegrain, Sprouted Wholegrain and Essene Sourdough’ workshop. A dozen of us ate and baked our way through:

• wholemeal sourdough sandwich bread
• multigrain sourdough bread (sweet and moist)
• black rice sourdough ciabatta (very sweet and dramatic looking)
• quinoa spelt sourdough bread (would look great with red quinoa)
• light rye spelt sourdough bread
• dark rye spelt bread
• essene bread (we made wafers and decided these may have been early ryvita but much tastier)

Yoke demonstrated making a multigrain sourdough bread dough, which we got to take home to bake. Also, we had the choice of what dough to make ourselves to bake at home. I made a quinoa spelt sourdough bread with 50% cooked quinoa and 50% sprouted quinoa. Apart from being a bit big for my small loaf tin and the difficulty of getting it out, the crust was crisp and the bread was delicious. We had it with Borlotti Bean soup on Sunday.

Now I need a kitchen gadget, i.e. a juicer/grinder to pulverise the sprouted grains. Having seen Yoke’s Samson – it was so quiet and steady, I’ll wait until I can save up for something similar. However, apart from the essene bread and multigrain, I can bake the other breads from the workshop and perfect these. What is really great about them, is that they require a lot of starter. Great for the those days, when it is plentiful and raring to go.

Armed with sun hats and umbrellas, on Sunday we went up to the WA Biodynamic Festival at High Vale Biodynamic Orchard in Pickering Brook. It did rain while we took a tour of the orchard, but the weather was warm and we missed the very heavy downpour. The guide’s presentation was interesting and he answered many questions clearly and succinctly. A article written about biodynamic vs traditional farming was posted with a photographic display of the farm that explained that a biodynamic farmer’s enthusiasm for the health of the soil is what makes them different to traditional farmers that rely on products brought onto the farm.

One of the reasons we went to the Biodynamic Festival, is that they promised tasting of their core cider. It was worth the drive. Unfortunately, we could only taste it. Distribution is not happening until January next year. We’ll be watching out for it.

Over Saturday and Sunday, I emptied the worm factory tray ready to plant seedlings, and moved the compost bin for the first time. Also planted two lots of cucumbers (bush crop and burpless), sweet corn, basil, and red onions. I planted the seedlings in the worm castings, and spread the compost around the plants. The compost is very black and a nice crumbly texture, and very wormful. Hopefully the worms will find new homes before the neighbourhood magpies come on their rounds. There were so many snails, that I opted for the snail pellets. Not sure what the biodynamic or organic gardening technique is for snails. Strange as it may seem, I have found that they prefer my basil seedlings to beer. Perhaps they are not Australian snails

science and poverty

Last week I attended a talk by Prof Peter Quinn titled ‘An overview of modern astronomy and our quest to find the dawn of creation’. It was great to see Peter in action having listened to him on my computer for several weeks during the creation of a storyboard for a video. Face to a voice and all that.

Although I was by now familiar with the content, the questions from the audience (secondary school science teachers) were the most interesting. Peter finished his talk with information about the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Being that there is much interest in the project as Australia has been shortlisted as one of the two sites identified as potential locations for the SKA.

The question that I have thought the most about was comparing the number of dollars to be spent on science versus that on solving world poverty. The teacher that posed the question asked how do we resolve the amount of money spent on the SKA when $X can address poverty. He also recounted that at another event he attended an audience member had symbolically shown a bowl of rice to question the cost of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Peter I thought effectively addressed the question, but there is still no answer. In Australia 1.5% of GDP is spent on science. That’s every little bit of science research you can think of including the SKA. Globally, the average spent on science is 2.0% of GDP.

So I think the question of solving world poverty would be better addressed to the people that handle 98% of GDP given that a piece of a larger pie is that much greater. Also, I don’t think you can skimp on science to solve world poverty, and 1.5% of GDP is already too little for science.

someone’s been eating my porridge

I’ve been checking the underside of plant leaves looking for the culprit or culprits that are neatly nipping off leaves at the stem.

It is caterpillar season again, and having spotted them nibbling my newly planted basil and spinach seedlings I’ve resorted to the ‘vegetable dust’. No organic gardening for me this season.

The infrequent rain washed the vegetable dust off the leaves today so I’m out doing the rounds looking for more nibbling.

The basil and spinach are fine, but I noticed this critter on the ivy geraniums that were given to me a couple of weeks ago.

When poked, the millipede swung around to ward off my leaf and then curled up. Based on this behaviour, I’m guessing that it is a Portuguese millipede [1].

I thought that millipedes were like snails and that they went for the decaying stuff in the garden, but perhaps like snails, they like fresh green leaves too?

[1] Department of Agriculture Gardennote 02 (PDF)

in transit

Today I found out from Under Mouse Arrest that Perth is to be the first Australian city to be included in Google Transit, a trip planning service offered by Google.

Recently, I used the Transperth website to plan trips to Perth International Arts Festival events. It mostly worked. I knew at what time to catch the bus and where, and even found out that if I got off on St Georges Tce a few stops early the fare was $1.50 (2 Sections) instead of $2.20 (1 Zone).

Trip planning was always done ahead of time as the Transperth web site is slow, and it does take a while to navigate around the maps and suggested routes.

I have previously used Google Maps to find routes from Perth, for example, to Koorda or Bremer Bay. But being able to do this around the city would be terrific, particularly if the Google service speeded the task up and included the public transport data.

Somewhat related, Uncle C started to send coordinates via SailMail. Then stopped due to technical difficulties. But hopefully when he starts again I will be able to use Google Maps to chart his progress across the Pacific.

not parking

I very rarely use the car to get to uni, and today I was reminded why. It’s because you can’t get $^%&* parked.

Yes, it is only the second week of first semester, but I don’t feel that parking on Tuesdays is going to become any less congested. Tuesdays means lots happening in the Guild Courtyard, on the Oak Lawn, and with DJs in the Tav why would anyone leave campus for the day once you were there?

Similarly, when I then drove to the local post office as I was already in the car – I could not get parked. Well, I could, in the Coles Supermarket car park. There were a lot of spaces.

I peeked into Coles on the way past to the post office and there were queues at each checkout. I just wish those that shopped at Coles parked at Coles, so the rest of us can get on with enjoying the local shopping precinct while continuing to ignore them.

The problem that I have with parking at Coles is that the supermarket will be able to claim that they are providing the required car parking, when their shoppers are not actually parking in the car park that they have provided. I wonder if anyone has done any research into the number of Coles shoppers that have 4WDs and or cannot successfully park in the tight parking spaces provided by Coles.

Hint for South Perth shoppers: There is always car parking at the Coles Supermarket. If you are not shopping at Coles, then the only drawback is having to hold your nose while you go down the stairs (or in the lift) until you get past the ‘roast chickens’. Ugh!

WA on Show

Lots to see and not see at WA on Show.

There were a lot of displays suggesting that regions of Western Australia are places to go with things to do. For example, the Mandurah Crabfest is on next weekend. I thought it may be a good idea if you were looking for a reason to try out the new bit of train track. The reason I noticed the display is because they had a light blue/beige scooter which is a prize for a competition during the Crabfest. I thought it would be just right for popping to the shops when I couldn’t be bothered getting into clothes suitable for riding my bicycle.

I thought that the Main Roads Department’s static display of historical posters was the most interesting. For example, there was a great photo of a Volkswagen Beetle going through a very rocky river bed. Made me wonder why we needed all these slick bitumen roads for the increasing number of 4WDs.

Although I was resisting collecting pamphlets and show give-aways, when we stopped to ask questions or fill in a competition entry (bikes and weekends away being the most popular), we were plied with the ’stuff’.

Some of the stuff was quite useful, such as the sachets of sunscreen, pens, and travel tags. But we were on our way to the Music Box with plans to dance and didn’t want to be carting stuff around. So I found a phone booth on the walk up St Georges Tce, and left the show bag there thinking that anyone that went to use the phone would have more time to fossick through the bag and take anything they found useful.

don’t do this at home

The Ideal Home Show 2008 and WA on Show are on this weekend, and you can travel on the bus or train for free on Sunday to see either or both.

We caught the bus in early on Friday to pop in for a couple of hours prior to having tea and making our way to His Majesty’s Theatre for a show. It was a good day to go as there were very few people and less likely that you were going to get your ankles clipped with a pushchair. The entry fee was only $5 for the Home Show, which we thought was ample for the hour or so we planned to spend there. Note: Entry fee is $10 on other days.

I don’t think the picture of the woman featured on the promotional materials matched with what was on display. The exhibition was almost 100% of companies who sole purpose was to sell you services and products. I can’t think of any DIY displays. Perhaps that was the idea. If women DIY they get in a mess, look at the mess the woman got into with a simple bit of painting, so come to the Home Show so we can do it all for you.

It was very easy for me to say ‘no’ I don’t want to enter your competition for whatever products and services you provide as I don’t want my contact details on your calling list. A lot of the stuff on display I found ostentatious, ugly, or ‘what the hell would you want that for?”

A large proportion of the displays were suggesting what improvements that you can make to your backyard, mostly ‘decorating’ such that it becomes the outside room of the house. But to suggest that we have a woodfired oven to make pizza on our patio was just the last straw. I mean I’ve got a flued wood fire in my lounge room that we only light if putting on a few extra layers of clothes does not make us warm enough. Also, a few years ago the state government were talking about phasing out wood fires starting with open fires. Firewood is expensive and not always easily attainable, which is not a problem for us at the moment while we are renovating. But to encourage people to obtain a woodfired oven seemed pretty odd to me and at odds with the baby steps that government are taking with regard to climate change.

I was amused at some of the booth staff that appeared incredulous that we did not need or want window roller shutters. Apart from the fact that we will be replacing the window eaves, I haven’t seen many houses (old or new) where retrofitted roller shutters have added any aesthetics to the home. He had this stunned look on his face as if how can you walk away and not want to enter a competition and get them for free, as if there is no cost to getting something for free.

What was good to see at the exhibition was the increased number of businesses offering solar products, especially photovoltaic grid systems. Although what was a little disappointing is they appear to be flogging a stock standard 1.2kW system so that you as a consumer can take advantage of the $8000 rebate. The systems appeared to be priced at what you are willing to pay, so the supplier appears to benefit more from the rebate as a sort of corporate welfare. As soon as you start talking about the technology (solar cells, type of inverter, battery storage), you are quickly given a brochure. You as a consumer are not supposed to know anything other than the emotion of doing your bit to reduce your household carbon gas emissions and being able to hand over the money knowing that your 20 year investment is mitigated financially by the government. Having said that, we did get talking to one fellow that we were able to have a proper conversation with, who is interested if not passionate about the industry he is in, and listened. Yes, listened!

We only had time to pop our heads into the WA on Show pavilion to enter the competition at the Public Transport Authority to win a folding bike, Prospector trip, or cashed up SmartRider. The quick scan of the venue was enough to know that we would come back on Sunday as there is a lot to see. There appears to be many displays, including panels describing various WA history and developments sprinkled amongst some commercial vendors. Entry to WA on Show is free.