Abalone Diving

Every Summer when the weather gets a warmer in Victoria we go diving for abalone. And spear fishing too. Our favorite spot is Back Beach 16 in Rye. Its near the entrance in the Port Philip Bay area - plenty of rock pools, mini bays, and kelp forests - and the water is pretty clean here. This part of the coast faces the Bass Strait. Swim out and if you don't bump into Tasmania you'll end up in the South Pole not long after. The water temp is still pretty chilly 13C - 18C because of this.

 

We found this beach - Dimmicks Beach - off Pearse Road, not far from our usual hangout. Its got sandstone reef flats that extend 50m out to the open sea like a big submerged tabletop. As the tide is receding you can see the sandstone reef flats being exposed by the riptide. The conjunction of tidal surf in the dropoff causes whirlpools and massive swells.

But Rye Beach 16 is still a very nice beach.

The Park Rangers and Marine Park Inspectors are very enthusiastic about their job. Each time that we go, morning, noon and night, we've been checked out by the inspectors each time we come back to the carpark. I suspect that a neighborhood coastal watchdog service monitors all the Asian men divers who go to the area. The fine for illegal catches is $10,000 and confiscation of your means of transportation.

Descent 2

Alone in a sea of strangers
Trawling through the babel of voices
I feel confusion
I feel dread
A rising tide of madness confronts me

Then I descend to the depths
And the black beast does not follow
I hear my breath
In the stillness of the ocean womb
I feel my senses align
Alone in the depths

Down in the deep depths
I find the solace I seek
In this silent world
So alien to humanity
I am at peace.

Gardening early Summer November - December 2011

So far the garden has had a good start to Summer. Plenty of Rain (for Melbourne) and plenty of sunshine.

Unfortunately plenty of weeds - but 100 hours of weeding and spraying work + 2 cubic metres of mulch will help cure that. Did I tell you I generally loathe weeding? But its a bit like doing your tax. You hate it but you still have to do it, unless you're like me - which reminds me to send a card to my accountant who has practically given up hope on me.

Anyway, screw all the bad vibes. I'll show you some of the gardening photos I've taken this month-  the roses, agapanthus are doing very well this season. The rose flowers are getting mildew, blackspot, and a possible botyeris infection. I blame the hot humid wet conditions.

I've only got one rosemary bush in my garden. I decided to propagate it. Stick the cuttings in a glass bottle with water and wait til the roots appear before transplanting it. Its that easy! I did the same for my Lavender except they all went into the potting mix pot instead of the glass bottle and now I have about 20+ plants. I did not use any root chemicals. Although they say that dipping the end bits into honey is suppose to help produce roots faster.

I make no apologies for liking beautiful things. Even the humble box art cover of a box of sea salt. I like it!
We're surrounded by so many vile things - so to compensate, you should have beautiful objects and things.

 I collect Noritake porcelain. Its beautiful, inexpensive and very good quality.

Spare time reading

For kicks I like to read academic articles. Now, I don't claim to have read them fully, sometimes skimming through them or cherry-picking parts I like. One of the subjects that interests me is the interpretations and re-interpretations of the absolutely appalling history of Kampuchea (Cambodia) and how other readers see the whole affair too.

I was very bemused when Noam Chomsky, who was a great defender of Pol Pot's regime, was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize of 2011. I mean, what has he done to deserve it? And can someone who is living in a free liberal democratic nation be called "courageous" for criticizing the government? Its ridiculous. They should have given the prize to someone whose very life was endangered by speaking out against corruption and crimes against humanity.

When I look at lefties, they seem stuck in a protest mindset at the height of the Vietnam War. ie. US Govt evil. Lefty Govt good. But that's just me, because I'm a liberal conservative.

And so Noam comes up with this line- written in 1977 when the world, even the Reader's Digest, was well aware of the atrocities going on in Cambodia.

The "slaughter" by the Khmer Rouge is a Moss-New York Times creation. Noam Chomsky
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19770625.htm

He says this because - the evidence is coming from Western Media and the US Govt - so by default, such claims are "a completely worthless source".

The whole thing becomes rather infantile. Instead of meaningful dialogue - it becomes a case of us and them. A sort of "(insert Country name) bomb" game.

"India bomb, India bomb, India bomb to Pakistan bomb"
"Pakistan bomb, Pakistan bomb, Pakistan bomb to England bomb"
"England bomb, England bomb, England bomb to..."

What I find perplexing... and paradoxically enlightening in my understanding of how humans behave, is the way Noam Chomsky chooses to deny he ever supported Pol Pot's evil regime and instead chooses to do some serious mental yoga moves to rewrite history. It would have gained him the respect of many people if he had simply come out, admitted he made an error in judgement instead of trying to rewrite or re-interpret his earlier stance on Pol Pot's regime.

I guess the moral of the whole story is that very smart people can be incredibly petty, proud, and incapable of seeing their own flaw even if it bit them in their ass. And sometimes, when you hate something long enough, you end up becoming like it. You become what you hate.

Anyway, here are some articles which I've been reading on the whole subject.

I see it as an education in rhectoric - ways of arguing etc.. and you get gems like this by Bruce Sharp:

Bruce Sharp, "Curiously, he never gets around to explaining precisely what he thinks is "dishonest." (Generally, I believe it is customary to cite something that is actually false when you accuse someone of lying.)"

Bruce Sharp: "I find myself rather underwhelmed by the accuracy of Professor Chomsky, a man who is surely one of the world's most renowned scholars. There is something vaguely amusing about being called "dishonest" by a man of the Professor's stature... particularly when he admits that he didn't actually read what I wrote, and neglects to explain exactly what I said that he finds dishonest."

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19770625.htm

http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/extra/hypocrisy_of_noam_chomsky.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2779086.html

http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm

http://slackbastard.anarchobase.com/?p=12441

http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/1985----.htm

http://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/noam-chomsky-and-pol-pot-my-enemys-enemy/

http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/reply_to_chomsky.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/10/malcolm-caldwell-pol-pot-murder

http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_3_urbanities-americas_dumbe.html

Weeding

Just spent a good  hours weeding away in my garden - I'm totally buggered. I got have 2 cubic metres of mulch I need to pour onto the flower beds to prevent the weeds from coming up.

Of course it won't prevent ALL of them from coming up. Some will still manage to break through. But the impact of the mulch will kill a lot of the weeds and also make it easier for me to pull the shoots when they poke their heads out of the ground.

To do it right you also need to place wet soggy newspaper underneath the mulch - on top of the weeds, top soil. But I don't buy newspapers and the local library is being run by an old bitch who refuses to pass me any of the old newspapers - which is all placed into their secured paper waste bin. Argh, I'm not going to sell the  papers you stupid woman. I'd make more money pulling the tyres off your car and flogging them off. Geez.

Anyway, I buy my mulch from Col Smith. 1 cubic metre cost about $65. I buy a mix of two types. Eucy and something called Finebark - so 2 cubic metres, roughly one truck load. Its a good combo. The birds have a problem trying to dig at it. Total cost is $140 including delivery. Its a do-able amount for me.

What's a cubic metre? Well, pile it up and its roughly the size or volume of an office desk.

Placing it on the garden bed gives me a bit of respite. The weeds will eventually poke through in 3 weeks time or so and generally they are easier to remove due to their need to push through the mulch to get to the sun.

Reading about gardening is much more easier. I find a few good links on gardening I'd thought I'd share you you.

A good way to turn your compost pile without resorting to back breaking shovelling. As you know, we're suppose to turn over the compost pile to help it disintegrate. But its tough trying to turn the bloody pile over. This guy has come up with an easier way to do that.


http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/more-compost-less-work.aspx

Compost tea
 http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/jury-still-out-on-compost-tea.aspx
 http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/brewing-compost-tea.aspx

In my next post, I'll share more thoughts on making compost tea.

Weed Tea Problem

Two posts back I mentioned using the wheelie bins to make weed tea.

After about 2 months or so they didn't stink and so I thought the whole mix had become matured.

However when I scooped out some of the water- I found that was totally incorrect - IT STANK LIKE RAW SEWAGE. It stank so bad that my hands stank of the filth for days afterwards despite repeated washing using all manner of soaps and anti-bacterial agents - I didn't use rubber gloves.

I think what happened was that the top layer of water did in effect mature and stopped stinking - but the oxygen was not able to penetrate to the lower levels - but once I gave it a stir - the O2 got into the composting material and ripen the whole mix.

I emptied the dead weeds into the council green waste bins. And after a week, they still stink.

I've been slowly and very carefully removing the waste weed tea water and emptying into the compost bins to hasten the rotting process in those containers.

But the stink is so bad I wish I had a full haz-med suit.

I think a solution might be to use smaller bins - and keep them well away from the house and washing drying clothes area.

However the whole idea seems OK. The weeds looked totally dead and consumed, not sure about their seeds of course (only time can tell).

The compost bins are also rich with plenty of worms. Not sure how they take the weed tea but I suspect that it will help to hasten the rotting process of the contents of the static compost bins.

Post script 2012.

Looks like some of the oxalis bulbs are actually surviving being soaked in the stink. Incredible.

Weeds weeds weeds

There are just so much awful weeds in my garden.

I've filled up the two wheelie bins with weeds and have soaked them in grey water. They stank for awhile but now they don't stink so much. Actually, they don't seem to stink at all. I think the weeds are dead though. Not sure whether the seeds survived the process.


What I plan to do is to pitchfork the weeds into the council bin - on a week when its hardly used - and empty the nutrient-rich water onto the lawn. But the problem is my council rubbish green bin is perpetually full at present.

Yeah, I've got weeds all over the damn place. What is especially irritating are the grass runners that have weaved into the flower beds and gotten amongst the lavender and rose plants.Trying to put them all is sheer torture.

Its easy to get discouraged- so I'm just concentrating on one section of the garden at present. Get that cleaned up. Mulch it. Then proceed to the next area.