General Discussion Thread

[Róisín]

Yes indeed, welcome back Cancvas! We missed you. And I know about the ‘safe’ way to eat Gyromitra, but being me I err on the side of caution! They are delicious when properly cooked, but as with Japanese puffer fish, you need to be very sure that the person preparing the food knows exactly what they are doing, and that they have done it carefully.

What have you been up to since last we saw you?

[Turnstylus]

@Róisín, I just came across an article speaking about a strange paralyzing disease that afflicts a fair number of rainbow lorikeets in your part of the world.

The writer says that veterinarians and researchers are having a hard time discovering the cause - one of the reasons for this is that the lorikeets now eat more diverse foods than they used to. Their habitats have become smaller, and heavy rains have been damaging the blossoms that have been a large part of their diet in the past. I was reminded of the heavy storms you talked about earlier this month!

I hope some answers can be found soon - the research looked like it was taking a promising turn. And one of the researchers described the birds as, among other things, "battlers", so there's some optimism out there for them.

[Róisín]

Seems to be happening to several kinds of birds in our area. I’m guessing that it is most likely to be some kind of bacterial or fungal toxin. The other possibility is an insecticide, since lorikeets, like many nectar eating birds, also eat such small insects as are often found in flowers, which may have been sprayed. Even weedkillers such as Zero or Round Up can poison birds as well as non-target plants and fungi. Scary stuff!

[Keep Looking]

That disease sounds pretty scary, yeah. I hope the researchers are able to find out what's causing it.

Lorikeets are actually feral in Western Australia - they were introduced from over east sometime in the 60s I think and now there's a whole lot of them around the Perth area especially that often outcompete the local ringneck parrots for nesting hollows. However, we do have a lot of native nectar-eating birds and it would be really bad if a disease like this affected them.

[midwestmutt]

I've been stuck in the house for the last few days due to Canadian wildfire smoke which has been at "very unhealthy" levels even for people without lung trouble like I have. For a while Chicago and Detroit, a couple hundred mile east of me,  had the worst air quality in the world which is a pretty high bar to beat. This could go on all summer according to experts. The number of fires is near 500 now. Here's a couple of pics of the hills west of town.

[Keep Looking]

Oh wow yeah, that's pretty smoky.

It's terrifying the number of fires right now - I'm in Western Australia and summer bushfires are more normal for us than for you but over 500 fires isn't normal for anywhere, and so is having that amount of smoke for weeks or months on end, not just days.

I hope you can stay in good health and wishing you safety as well.

[Róisín]

What Keep Looking said from us as well! Keep as safe as you can. This whole climate disruption thing is a major problem, and it is likely to become worse with more extremes of weather. All we can really do is try to survive, plant resilient permacultures if we want to keep eating and breathing, look after one another and do our best to heal and maintain our poor battered planet. Good luck to all of us!

[Jitter]

Midwestmutt, I hope you can get respite soon! Although like Róisín says, it’s looking bad for all of us.

[midwestmutt]

The heavier smoke shifted to the north of us by @75 miles yesterday and will stay up there for the next few days. We are at 55 on the Plume Air Quality Index which puts us in the low end of the fair reading. The day before it was at 208 which is in the very unhealthy bracket. Still, we are warned that it will be back at intervals.

[Cancvas]

What have you been up to since last we saw you?

Quite busy, mostly just work, pulling a large project over finish line, but not quite there yet, but also summer (three weeks holiday squeezed in) with kid with hobby that included tournaments.

So, not much time for online procrastination, and I'm still not quite comfortable with forum as discussion environment.

[midwestmutt]

I'm housebound by wildfire smoke again. It arrived Saturday from western Canada this time and will last at least until Wednesday and possibly later. I was going to participate in the War of 1812 battle at Prairie du Chien Wisconsin this weekend but had to bow out. The air quality index is currently at 162. which is in the unhealthy bracket. The high in the big smoke two weeks ago was 208. Some records don't need to be broken.

[thorny]

Anybody here? Board's been very quiet the last few days. Hope everybody's OK.

[Jitter]

I hope so too! Not quite dead yet at least

[midwestmutt]

Not much to say. Stuck in the AC again. This time the wildfire smoke is accompanied with 90F temperatures so I spend most of the day on the computer. I do get in some music practice just so I feel like I accomplished something

[Lenny]

Been lurking! Just wiped from new job (which has been going great!). I've been coming out bit by bit as agender there as well as just absorbing a fire hose of information so it's been rough, though good.