The Vanishing of Bees

I'm only half way through this but already felt it's worth sharing, because it gives an insight into agribusiness from a new angle: the pollination of crops.

Some of the reviews I read on Netflix are critical of it for being overly religious.  The jury is still out on this as far as I'm concerned but that may be because I'm only 1/2 way through.

God is mentioned in the film, and a lot more than once. And the most prominent people in the movie are very religious.  But I'm not convinced that the the point of the movie is going to be the rapture. But those who made the critical reviews might have watched the whole movie while I haven't. Let me know your thoughts if you take a look at it.

This is both interesting and disturbing and yet another snapshot of agribusiness and how lack of finesse with Nature.  Agriculture is now an industry and it's eerily similar to other industries, whether they build cars, refine oil, or make steel. The agricultural industry produces plants to make food or feed

And when I look at agricultural workers, at all levels, I see people like us.  Some just do their jobs, some do it more reluctantly occasionally stopping to scratch their heads and themselves "what on earth are we doing here??!!"

See for yourself.  Hopefully this preview will make you curious enough about this documentary to watch it yourself.  It's available on Netflix for streaming.

Botany of Desire & apple tree seedlings experiment

With *video previews!

* Please let me know if the video is not available where you are.  I know it is here in the United States, but I do not know whether this content is made available elsewhere in the world.

The Botany of Desire is a fascinating documentary about the world from the point of view of plants; how certain plants may be gratifying our desires for their own purposes.  


This film is about 4 plants that have travelled the road to success by satisfying human desires (1). 

I was fortunate to learn about this through the book on which this documentary is based, also called The Botany of Desire, which was graciously given to me as a present by our long-time friends, Juliet Huntly and Michael Cooke, during their March 2010 visit, when they asked me to come with them to tour the Huntington Botanical Garden, which I had been dying to see since moving to Southern California.

The tulip, by gratifying our own desire for beauty has gotten us to take it from its origin in central Asia, and disperse it around the world...  Marijuana, by gratifying our desire to change consciousness, has gotten people to risk their lives, their freedom in order to grow more of it, plant more of it. The potato, by gratifying our desire for control, a control over nature, so we can feed ourselves, has gotten itself out of South America, and expanded its range far beyond where it was 500 years ago. And the apple, by gratifying our desire for sweetness, begins in the forests of Kazakhstan, and is now the universal fruit! These are grate winner in the dance of domestication.   <...>  And this relationship with the plants learning how to gratify our desires and our working for them in exchange for this is what I call The Botany of Desire (1) 

When Juliet described the book to me as we visited the Huntington's gift shop, I was a bit puzzled because it did not seem like her to be talking about a book that really sounded  weird.  After they gave it to me, I distractedly skimmed over the first couple pages and it seemed to confirm my first thought.  But a while later, with more time on my hands, I started reading it and thought it to be the most fascinating idea.

Humans often see ourselves as the center of it all.  Even though we are continuously reminded by Mother Nature that we're not in control of it all, we pretend that we are.  So this was for me the beginning of an awakening, of looking at nature and the billions of life forms that surround us, just here on earth, as separate entities with their own needs and their own goals, so to speak.

All of us, earth's life forms, are interdependent but not independent or separate from one another.  We are a whole. It taught me a new respect for nature and is now helping me rethink my place, my role, as a a living thing, being given an opportunity to participate in this continuously evolving scheme that we are a part of but don't fully comprehend.  In other words, it made me a little more humble.

(1) quoted from the documentary The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan

More information in addition to this preview can be obtained on the PBS website at:
PBS - The Botany of Desire

Interested in my apple seedling experiments, then click here!

Apple Seedlings EXPERIMENT

I started this experiment a couple months ago, following my watching the PBS documentary by Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire.

Apples contain a few seeds, each of which will grow a tree with different genetic properties.  No one seed is alike.

So I started a dozen or so seedlings from store-bought apples, to see what will come of them.  I don't know that they can produce here, in our semi-tropical climate, due to our low number of hours of winter chilling (when temperatures are below 45ºF).  Only certain varieties of apple trees can produce here for that reason.

But if this fascinates you like it does me, I will be posting regular progress reports and photos, as the trees grow and develop.

Pasadena - City or Garden?

Mexican Fan Palms - Wall-to-wall

Mexican Fan Palms are L.A.'s Signature Palms.  They line hundreds and hundreds of residential streets throughout Southern California, and can exceed 100 feet in height.  They are native to this region.

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Lush Desert 

 

 

The San Gabriel Valley, where we are, is one of many distinct microclimates found throughout Los Angeles County. Almost all of the rain falls in Winter over a period of 2-3 months, Spring and Fall are moderately warm and fairly dry, and Summers are very hot for about 3 months.  The air can be very dry, especially when offshore winds (like the Santa Ana winds) dominate.  For this reason, desert plants thrive here.


Spring is coming