Re: [Monbiot] Digest for monbiot-discuss@googlegroups.com - 11 Messages in 2 ...

[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 20/12/2011 15:07:30 GMT Standard Time, dun...@kopperdrake.co.uk writes:

My mum remembers the horse and carts in Birmingham as a child born in '45. Indeed, it was her job to go armed with pan and scoop to the road to pick up the brown gold they dropped for the allotment. A few more on the roads would be a welcome sight, especially if they could deposit in the large poop-bin I'd place conveniently outside ;)

I remember milk being delived by horse and cart (early 1950s). The milk was dispensed in jugs, measured by dipstick, then poured into the customers container. All kinds of health hazards - flies on the dipstick for one! Today, milk gets homogenised - a very energy consuming process, put in plastic containers which get binned, displayed at the heated supermarket in open refrigerated stands, plus all the petrol/diesel to get it from farm to very distant milk processing factory, then to distant supermarket and thence by car to the home. Energy crisis? Climate change?

 

Horses largely disappeared from street and farm in the 50's, but lingered on in continental Europe until the 70s. The battery driven milk float has also largely vanished, which is a shame as its potential for delivering all kinds of daily supplies to households was never fully exploited.

 

Anyway Duncan, I have found a very useful way to re-use milk containers - a simple rinse and they are excellent for apple juice and its derivatives! I dont get them myself, using our own goats milk, but I get my pals to save them.

 

Patrick

[Duncan Hewitt]

Now that is worth knowing Patrick - thanks! We get our milk raw from a farm about 10 miles away, but they still come in plastic containers, so we do get through some of those. I'll need to start collecting them, great idea! A milk float started selling around us about 3 years ago - pootling around the lanes selling milk, bread, eggs ets - it's great to see and does bring back memories :) Your own goats - ah yes, one day! That is my ultimate dream - to milk our own animals, but I'm trying to not bite off more than I can chew at one stage! Do you have someone to look after the milking if you need to get away, or do you keep them in kid?

Duncan

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[Lila Smith]

Talking about Milk containers, I found an image on the net the other day whereby a woman had sliced the top off the container, sliced through the handle made an open groove down the side and hung it on the clothesline, it looked like a perfect peg container, I presume she put holes in the bottom for drainage.

 

Incidentally the public here are getting peeved off about horse droppings on the urban roads in our small city - they say, if the dog owners have to pick up poo then the horse owners should.... I don't mind if they drop in front of my house,  it goes in the compost heap....

slug and snail beer  traps (-:..

 

Lila Smith
www.windwand.co.nz
Taranaki Tourism Website
www.windwand.co.nz/organickitchengarden.htm
Organic Kitchen Gardening
Mob 021230 7962
06 7512942
201 Omata Road
New Plymouth
New Zealand

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[DavidT]

...and a friend of mine sliced off the bottom of some containers,
turned them upside-down and put a length of wood through the handles,
so she had half-a-dozen containers to start off some of her plants and
some of the wood sticking out at each end. Three lines of them were
screwed to the garden fence, underneath each other and they looked
great!

David

[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 20/12/2011 17:54:24 GMT Standard Time, dun...@kopperdrake.co.uk writes:

Your own goats - ah yes, one day! That is my ultimate dream - to milk our own animals, but I'm trying to not bite off more than I can chew at one stage! Do you have someone to look after the milking if you need to get away, or do you keep them in kid?

Milking goats is very easy. I am only milking one at present, having dried the others off as they are in kid - due in February. I am going away next week, and have a stepson to mind the farm for a few days. But thats the trouble with livestock - need care 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. My neighbour who keeps sheep and bullocks had a night away, to attend his sons wedding, a couple of years ago - his first since his brief honeymoon in Wales 35 years before!

 

I came across a rural community recently who keep some communal livestock - that seems a great idea, if it can be organised. I think there is great potential for that kind of enterprise in urban areas

 

I think goats are very under-rated in this country. There seems to be a prejudice against them - even Seymour is unenthusiastic. His model 1 acre homestead with 1 house cow doesnt strike me as very efficient or practical, and his books were written years before BSE and the TB epidemic. I gave up keeping a few cattle because the movement restrictions and TB testing regime became far too dificult. Probably why there are now hardly any small herds left.

 

Goat milk is healthier than cows, freezes well. Nothing nicer than milking a goat first thing in the morning, then pouring some of it, still warm, on a whole grain cereal with blackcurrants, blackberries or strawberries. The meat is brilliant too. I think the prejudice stems from Victorian days, when the goat was the poor mans cow, and many were kept in bad conditions in urban back yards. Mind you, in those days some kept a donkey in what was supposed to be the front room - like a built in garage?

 

I think that with all livestock, some basic animal welfare conditions need to be attained first and foremost. The hygeine issue is often exagerated though. Yes you get dung, flies, smells, noises etc, which may offend neighbours. But then I find cars dirty, noisy and dangerous.

 

Patrick

 

 

[Duncan Hewitt]

I like the idea of community livestock. My wife is concerned about getting anything that will need milking twice a day - with a small flock of 9 chickens it's bad enough, and they're pretty easy with a weekly clean and daily water/food check. Luckily our neighbour keeps chickens too so we reciprocate when it comes to time away. He's mentioned not minding milking either, but as a community goat that would be ideal!

I agree about the cars - far rather live on a lane frequented by horses rather than cars - I can't use exhaust fumes on the veggie patch :?