June 29, November’s Sun, and Weed Radio programs.
What a beautiful day, sun sun sun and rising temperatures. Predicting the weather for November? On another note Geraldine sent through a piece of interesting, but sadly common, agricultural politics: “[…]this morning with a report on radio national about farmers planting a south african grass which grows up to 4m tall, plenty of fodder for […]
On Predicting The Future- Ethnobotany for travellers
There’s a piece of ethnobotanical knowledge where it comes from, that farmers and land dwellers have been using for as long as is remembered. According to the formula if you keep track of the weather in the last six and the first six days of the year you’ll be able to predict the weather for […]
On Venezia And The Silk Road
It may well be that for the next couple of months the frequency of postings will drop. You’re off. Today you will fly to Venice to work on the installation of this year’s Biennale for the Australian Council of the Arts. Over the next two months therefore the blogging will probably be more frequent on […]
On All The Things You Never Write Down And You Going To Forget If You Don’t
Feedback and tassles of ethnobotanical knowledge for the database always come abundant. Usually most of the information comes out of talking to people, little things here and there, that by now, you realized , if you don’t write down are going to be lost. Through this project you are learning that popular knowledge is an […]
On Talking and Responses
Pic by Mickie Flick You talked again, this time at Sydney’s. It was an horrible storming evening, you expected no one to show-up, but instead WeedyConnection and Iriz-A-Mat projects were introduced to an healthy, articulate and attentive crowd of 15 people. The night starting off with welcome warm infusions of Wild Fennel, Raspberry Leaves and […]
On A Weed Man From New York
There is a man in New York who you admire a lot. He is funny, witty, knowledgeable and community oriented. His name is Steve Brill, but most people and media knows him by “Wildmanâ€. He describe himself as a ‘naturalist’ (whatever that means) and runs tours of city parks and accessible forests teaching people how […]
On Talking About It
You gave a talk today, at the ATVP Contemporary Art. You bacame good at it, by now the catch-frases flow out of your mouth, like the one on multiculturalism in Australia,”a display of funny costumes, funny dances, funny foods and funny accents”. It works all the time, it always catches some smiles. At times you […]
On The Need To Listen To The Other Side Of The Story
Photo by Liz Bartlet You have been reading ‘Feral Future‘ by Tim Low. A fascinating book on the ecological disaster perpetuated by human in this continent. His argument is flawless, his research and historical account are excellent and extensive. Low trace back the slow intrusion of animals, plants and diseases in this continent by the […]
On Non-Native Connections With Native Species, and viceversa
So, after much research you can now name the Oxalis you were having for dinner, Oxalis radicosa, a native oxalis. Interesting how you used an old european recipe to prepare the plant, somewhat proving that trans-national ethnobotany is posiible! There are a number of other examples of such relationship with plants, in both ways, migrant […]
On Culture And Culture
culture / noun 1. Sociology the sum total of ways of living build up by a group of human beings, which is transmitted from one generation to another. 2. a particular state or stage of civilisation, as in the case of certain nation or period: Greek culture. 3. (in popular use) literature and the fine […]
