Eating is an agricultural act - Wendell Berry

Monday, August 09, 2010

sharing habitats

we had a serious problem with the rats and adopted a shock-n-awe approach.

but this new fellow is in an altogether different league.


scorpions, like rats, by virtue of sharing the same habitat as humans, run into serious conflict.
snakes on the other hand prefer to live in their own places.
others like lizards, frogs, ants, etc share our habitat, but are harmless and can be easily ignored.

back to this black lissome stinger. we sighted her at around 11 pm in the night of heavy rain. we immediately increased our potential energy and from that vantage, we observed her perambulate casually.
over 2 mins of frenzied parlays, it was decided to get 'rid' of her. and i chose a long plywood and did a steve waugh slog sweep over mid-wicket. i could not bring myself to stomp on her...

we found out that she is not an impulsive stinger and her first mode of attach is through her pincers (painful as it is) and has a 'no-first-use' policy with her stinger.
so we tread with a little less fear.

7 comments:

Magesh said...

Hi Sriram,

I am trying to reduce the usage of chemicals in my day to day personal activities. So I have stopped using soaps, shampoos, toothpaste, toothbrush. I wanted to ask what do you use for the below activities.

1) Bathing soap? (I dont use any soap these days and use only seekkai once a week for both hair and body). Rest of the days, its only plain water and rub with hands.
2) tooth paste or tooth powder: I am using a mixture of milagu thool and salt and use finger to brush, so no toothbrush also.

3) cloths washing: Need to find an organic alternative. Tried the soapnuts but my wife is not happy with it. Need more experiments with it I guess.

4) vessel cleaning: Same as above. Atleast here We have started using coconut kudumi instead of plastic srubber (as it used to be used in olden days before the advent of scrubber pads).

5) Shaving cream: Still need to find an alternative.


Regards
Magesh

Ganesh said...

Actually IMHO simply switching to more eco-friendly alternatives even while using modern gadgets is a good starting point...if you take shaving blades, 'innovation' for this industry means adding more blades and making them with more plastic. So from one blade now we are at four and this ridiculous 'growth' will possibly stop when the blade is wider than the average face. You throw more and more plastic away as well.

Just using plain old blades with steel razors that last forever is a good starting point...unfortunately they are not allowed as carry-in luggage and are not available so easily overseas, that is a pain...

There are good bath powder substitutes available such as green gram/dhal powder/turmeric(?) mix which leaves skin soft...

csm said...

magesh - impressive work.
but curious to know if you have paid attention to the chemicals that you are ingesting.
i would keep the above at the top of the priority list.
these items are literally ' superficial'.
you should shop at khadi gramudyog bhavan for khadi soaps and detergents. we use them and find them utilitarian.

like ganesh, i too use the old style single blade.

you could use khadi soap instead of shaving cream.

Magesh said...

Hi sreeram,
i am searching for a good place to buy organic pulses and vegetables. I live close in bangalore (close to indra nagar) bangalore. I searched few options. But prices are close to double the poisonous ones and i have tough time convincing my wife :)

Rags said...

Magesh, I can suggest Jaivik, in Lalbagh for organic pulses & veggies. I know for sure they get fresh veggies on Saturday. Not sure if they get it on Wednesday.

Rags

csm said...

magesh - by the same logic, you should be sending your child to the lowest fee-charging school...

forecast the fees you could be paying in the hospital and to doctors as your health deteriorates because of chemicals in the food...

rags - thanks for the leads. sahaj samruddha also is a good twice a week stocking point of organic veggies.

Rags said...

I stay on Sarjapur Road. Thanks to the other interested people, we have Jaivik opening an extension counter on Sundays for 3 hours. Additionally one of the persons in the layout has a farm & he sells "residue free" vegetables.