Green Soc Success - And Chockas

The first Green Soc meeting was tonight, and I'd say it went pretty well. We had about 40 people show up for the meeting, and had to go to another room (ok- it was the student bar) that had room for us. Met lots of great, enthusiastic people. Our first big event is going to be at Shillingford Organics next Saturday (13 Oct). We'll get a tour and do some work - I worked for them for a weekend during the summer, and it's a great operation. About 30 people have expressed interest in going so far. Should be a great year.

In other news, Christian made a slightly disturbing poster of Chockas, in the traditional amotivational-poster style, which is now my desktop background.

Update

Sorry to be a slack blogger - things have been picking up around here. A brief update of what has been going on:

Today was officially the first day of university classes, so there have been the usual rounds of meeting with convenors, professors, and other teaching assistants during the past week. I'm helping with the usual array of stats and psych classes, plus the stats helpdesk and I'm one of the MSc mentors. It's strange to walk around campus and see other people. And of course because 12,000 students have arrived here in the past week (the city is only 100,000 people), it means the Fresher's Flu is going around campus - I got it Saturday, but it's not too bad. Other people have been pretty busy too; I went into my office at 20:00 on Saturday, and found only 1 of the 5 people (self included) who share the office was not there working. Still, it's kind of fun to have so much stuff going on after the lull of summer.

The preparations for Green Society have been proceeding smoothly. We had a get-together of the committee members last week and made a banner and posters for the Fresher's Fair (which was Sunday.) 200 people signed up at the fair, and our first meeting will be tomorrow. Still much to do there - Green Week is in November, and we have about 20 events scheduled. This is the new Green Soc website - it's a modified blog because I didn't feel like coding raw HTML like I've done in the past - it's still pretty bare at the moment.

Our bunny Cocoa is being re-homed on Wednesday. He's a sweety, but the other bunnies bully him too much for his well-being.

Oh, and our new washing machine should arrive tomorrow. Our old one has been broken for more than a week. (!)

Bunny Blogging: Greedy Connie

Our rabbit Connie eats everything. Everything: sheets of paper, envelope glue, wood, her own droppings, jam and wine labels off of bottles, the leaves off of our indoor rubber tree, telephone wires, other rabbits' shedding fur, mobile phone charger cords, and anything that falls on the floor. Now that list includes foam packaging pellets as well:



I kept hiding this box and she kept finding her way inside of it - by the time I filmed this, she had already eaten about 1/4 of the total pellets over the past week. As you might expect, we're a little concerned about this general trend, and don't know how to stop her. She's quite intelligent, and has learned to climb up and over brick walls (which she uses to raid our neighbours' gardens and visit their pet rabbits), and to jump up shelves - she used the shelf-jumping technique to gorge herself on a bag of carefully placed bird seed in our storage room. She can also chew through steel chicken wire, and open doors that are not fully closed. She knows she is not supposed to do these things, because if you catch her she will thump and dash away, only to reappear and sit on your feet the moment she hears the sound of vegetables being chopped.

More Weekend Bunny Blogging

Not my bunnies, but other ones. These first two videos were sent in by Christian.

Tired of the finger cuts that come from opening mail yourself? Get a bunny!



Our rabbit connie has actually eaten an envelope before. I think she was more focused on consuming all organic matter possible rather than opening it though.

Most people think rabbits are rather passive things, just because they are at the bottom of just about everything's food chain. Not so! Rabbits can actually be quite vicious. Mine have drawn blood from me many times, and could probably hold their own in a fight with a cat. Or in this case, a snake!



Wow, who was the bubba in the background with the caricaturized redneck laugh?


Of course, if your rabbits fight too much, you can always get some chickens to keep them in line:

Finally Some Sun! And Bunnies.

For the first time in, what... a month? six weeks? it has gone a full day without raining here. We had the wettest June in England's recorded history, floods have devastated much of northern England, leaving 30,000 homes abandoned in ruins. Also, there may be a nation-wide vegetable shortage, with brassicas and potatoes hit hard, and with about a quarter of the pea crop ruined. Come on storm-clouds, can't we just give peas a chance?

My heart goes out to all that have lost their homes, especially those without insurance. Not all, but much of the flooding happened in areas on flood plains - flooding is a fairly predictable event to occur in a flood plain. Some places - like those subject to natural, cyclical flooding or wildfires - are not meant to be built upon. I don't think anyone in particular is liable for blame, but it would be wise for governments to stop issuing building permits for areas that are hit with predicable, cyclical natural disasters. Just saying.

Anyway, all that is preamble to the fact that today has been a beautiful, sunny, warm but not too hot, breezy but not too windy Saturday. It seems like half of Britain has gone to the beach (the car park at Tesco was full of people in shorts with plastic pails and spades), and the other half has held a BBQ party. I got some good gardening done at home, and will be doing more allotment gardening on campus tomorrow.

The bunnies thoroughly enjoyed it, after a month of being water-logged and/or cooped up. Here are some videos of what may be the laziest bunnies you'll ever see:




That's right - Chockas is being so lazy he is eating while laying down - and slowly propelling himself with his forelegs, dragging his back legs behind him.



Nom nom nom.

Friday Bunny Blogging - Chockas Edition

For those of you new to the blogosphere, it is traditional that bloggers post pictures of something from their personal interests each Friday. Many put up pictures of their cats, some ponies, others orchids. I will be doing bunnies.

And this, as many of you know, is Chockas:


He was our first bunny, and of regal bearing at that. He's a Netherland Dwarf, and when we got him from the rescue centre, his back left leg was healing from where it had been gnawed to the bone by his brother and had become infected. We cleaned the wound daily, and gave him antibiotics, and he made a full recovery. Rabbits look very passive, but feeding medicine through an oral syringe to a rabbit is about as difficult as getting a cat to swallow pills.




Sometimes, however, he becomes a square.




He can also become a line. Both vertical...

...and horizontal.

If you hold him on his back, he will fall asleep very quickly and his head will slowly fall all the way back.




And like all bunnies, he loves to eat.

Chockas can be difficult to photograph because he is so black and shiny. But he is definitely out most adored, if hardest to photograph, bunny. If our rabbits were children we would tell the others "Why can't you be more like Chockas?" until they would become very insecure.

Perhaps it's best we don't have children.

Lettuce All Start Gardening

Spring is upon us. Except for the snow we got yesterday and the blizzards across the whole of the UK (Scotland got gusts of wind up to 107 mph). But the week before was very Springy and the week after is supposed to be as well. This can only mean one thing: it's time to get gardening. Last week I began germinating many varieties of vegetables and herbs. Now most are up and reaching towards the sky (or in this case, the flourescent lighting in the kitchen.) I've still got six weeks until I can plant out, and much needs to be done in preparation before then. I'll be in Michigan for most of that time, so what shall I do? I'll make the bunnies do the work.

Our backyard is segmented into two sections, separated by chickenwire: one of grass lawn and the other of garden. The idea was that the bunnies could keep the grass lawn in check, and the garden would be safe from the rabbits. It worked beautifully in the summer, but now they have munched the lawn down to about 1/4 of an inch, and it is now mostly moss (but pretty moss.) The "garden" is just grass with a few remaining strawberry and turnip plants. So for the past two weeks I've kept the bunnies only on the garden side, and they have done a great job of trimming the grass down from about 6 inches to about 3. By mid-April they should eat the grass down to the ground, all the time "fertilizing" the ground as they munch (and they're really good at pooing. Sometimes they do it just to show off.) When it is time to plant, I'll have a big patch of nearly-bare pre-fertilized earth, and hopefully the lawn will have had enough of a rest for the bunnies to return to grazing it again. That's the plan at least. Here are Chockas (left) and Connie (right) munching down on the "garden."




As I continue to work on my garden, I'll create short plant profiles to post here because I just know you want to hear all about what kinds of vegetables are going into this year's garden. These aren't just any old vegetables, either. All are organic, and most are very old heirloom varieties. Many were developed in 18th and 19th centuries, and some are medieval in origin. I'll present them by category, my dear reader, so as not to overwhelm you with too many vegetables at once. This week, we'll take a look at one of our most misunderstood set of vegetables: the leafy greens.



Forellenschluss Lettuce
Lactuca sativa

This will be my first time trying Forellenschluss, which is a romaine-type lettuce of Austrian origin. The name means "spotted like a trout's back" in German. I've actually seen this variety in some of the pre-made salad mixes in groceries, and it's quite tasty. So far, these were my most lively germinators, putting up green in less than 48 hours after being sown.

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Bronze Arrow Lettuce
Lactuca sativa

Bronze arrow is also a new variety. It's a loose-leaf variety, so I can just take a few leaves from the base when's it's time for a sandwich or a salad, leaving the plant intact. As you may be able to tell, I really like the darker lettuces that have shades of red, deep green, and sienna.

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Four Seasons Lettuce
Lactuca sativa

This is, without a doubt, my favourite lettuce of all time. It always grows perkily, and tastes like sweet buttery velvet. In fact, it is a member of a family of lettuces aptly called butterheads. Last year, when I grew quite a bunch of this, I would make lettuce sandwiches with Four Seasons: two toasted slices of multi-grain bread, margarine, tomato puree, yeast pâté, lots of hotsauce, and about 20 layers of lettuce. It was soooo tasty and after eating it I could practically hear the nutrients and antioxidents fizzing away.

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Red Deer Tongue Lettuce
Lactuca sativa

This one is one of the oldest lettuces, popular throughout medieval Europe, but new to me. Again, this is another looseleaf variety, so I can just harvest leaves as needed without damaging the plant by cutting the entire head. I've wanted to try this kind for many years.

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Maraichère Frisée Très Fin Endive
Cirhorium endivia

Ok, so I had to have one leafy-green that was actually green and not mostly red. Endive can be quite nice, but on its own is a bit bitter. On a sandwich, or in a salad mix, it makes a nice contrast in shape and texture, and the bitterness is just right. The cool climate here should help keep it from going over-bitter, as it often did in Georgia. Just don't ask me to pronounce the full name.

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Red Oak Leaf Lettuce
Lactuca sativa

A classic that has done very well for me both in Georgia and in England. Lettuces typically don't do well in the heat (like in Georgia). In the hot summers they become bitter, tough, and go to seed. England, on the other hand, is about the best climate for lettuce imaginable. The only problem is that the best climate for lettuce (cool and moist) is also the best climate for snails and slugs. And slugs love lettuce. Fortunately, Red Oak Leaf is fairly slug resistant. It is not, however, Chris resistant.

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Red Russian Kale
Brassica napus

Ah, kale. The curly kind is often used as decorative greenery for the food at all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants. Little do most people know that the kale is often tastier than the food it surrounds. I've had much success with this variety in Georgia, and after being steamed it simply melts in the mouth. It is a favourite of slugs, so I'll have to watch over this one carefully. Last year's planting was mostly devoured by these critters before it was ready. An interesting fact about kale: it is the only plant that can grow leaves out of its leaves without the use of a stem. Really, leaves will just grow out of others at 90 degree angles. You can actually see a tiny, thin, light green one in this picture, just to the left of centre, growing near the red mid-rib.

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