“At some stage, the Human Species will divide. Whilst most will continue to evolve, a minority of those lacking the intellectual capacity of thought, will develop as a sub-species. Being easily lead, form into Packs attempting to control the majority. They will deny biology, attempt to undo the centuries of human development by re-writing history, and gradually revert to their Primate Origins. They will expect all to conform to their point of view without question.”
supposedly, Charles Darwin.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob."
FDR, 1936
Nothing can last forever.
When the sun has shone brightly, it returns to the Ocean.
The moon wanes, though just now she was full.
The fierceness of love often becomes a gentle breeze.
- Graffiti, Pompeii, shortly before AD 79
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
Aristotle
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.For the traitor appears not a traitor — He speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.He rots the soul of a nation--he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city--he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared."
-Cicero, Roman statesman, 42 BC
"I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go into the library and read a good book."
Groucho Marx
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly of them, they should have behaved better”
Anne Lamott
"I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction."
Clarence Darrow, 1932
“The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”
Bill Watterson,
“You cannot make billions of dollars without hurting lots of people. And you can’t hurt lots of people without, in some sense, believing that they’re not really people.”
Corey Doctorow
“Any wisdom on trying to do that?”
“Live with yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s easy. Keep yourself busy with something you enjoy doing, learn to feed yourself what you like to eat, pick up after yourself, do your own cleaning if you can’t afford a butler or maid droid, cleaner bots, or a registered cleaning company, and don’t take life too seriously. Socialize when you can, but never stay to the end, because that’s where the lonely people are, desperately waiting to hook up with someone to avoid being lonely, because they never learnt how live alone.”
Timothy Ellis, from Easter Mage
"Among these ideologies, I consider particularly insidious the one that suggests that every person must earn or justify his or her own worth, to the point of attributing greater value to those who are more efficient or effective. From this perspective, persons end up being reduced to a means of achieving results, a resource to be used and exploited, and are no longer recognized as a proper end in themselves who should never be instrumentalized. The value of persons, however, does not depend on what they achieve or produce. There are rights that apply to everyone simply by virtue of being human, and no human power can legitimately deny or arbitrarily limit them."
Pope Leo XIV
“Relationships are basically two sets of neurosis trying to determine if they can co-exist.”
Timothy Ellis
"We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement."
B. F. Skinner, born on this day in 1904
Just sharing this:
A fruit tree alone is half a fruit tree. 🌳
Most people plant a fruit tree, mulch the base, feed it occasionally and wonder why it never quite reaches its potential. The tree survives. It produces. But it never thrives the way old orchards do the ones where trees live for a hundred years and yield more as they age rather than less.
The difference is almost never the tree variety. It is almost always what grows around it.
Traditional orchardists planted guilds communities of specific companion plants around each tree that collectively do every maintenance job the tree needs. Pest suppression. Soil feeding. Moisture retention. Pollinator attraction. Mineral accumulation. All handled by the guild. No human intervention required.
A guild is not random companion planting. Every plant in a guild has a specific function. Every function serves the tree.
The classic fruit tree guild three essential plants:
🌿 Comfrey (Symphytum officinale)
The most important guild plant on earth. Deep tap roots up to 1.8 metres mine subsoil minerals that fruit tree roots cannot reach, pulling up calcium, potassium, phosphorus and magnesium from below the tree's root zone and depositing them in its leaves. Chop the leaves and drop them around the tree base instant mineral-rich mulch that breaks down within weeks and feeds the tree from above simultaneously. Chop six times a year. The tree gets a mineral feeding six times a year for free. One comfrey plant lives for decades and never needs replanting.
Also comfrey flowers are one of the most important early-season bee forage plants available. Bumblebees specifically seek them out. More bees at comfrey means more bees at your fruit tree flowers means more fruit.
Plant three to five comfrey plants in a ring around the tree drip line not touching the trunk, at the outer canopy edge where the feeder roots are.
🧄 Garlic
Planted around the tree base in autumn, garlic does three things simultaneously. Its sulfur compounds deter aphids the primary pest on most fruit trees in spring through volatile emissions that the insects find overwhelming. It suppresses certain soil fungal pathogens that affect fruit tree roots, particularly those causing collar rot. And when the garlic tops die back in early summer they add organic matter directly to the root zone.
Scatter plant garlic cloves between the comfrey plants 15 to 20cm apart, informal, no need for rows. Harvest the bulbs in summer. Replant a portion in autumn. The guild renews itself.
🍀 White Clover
The ground cover layer of the guild. Spreads naturally to cover all bare soil under the tree canopy suppressing weeds completely without any human intervention. Fixes atmospheric nitrogen directly into the soil through root nodules feeding the tree's feeder roots at exactly the depth they need it. Flowers continuously from spring through autumn providing one of the longest and most consistent pollinator food sources available. Low enough to never compete with the tree canopy. Self-seeding so it never needs replanting.
White clover is the perfect ground cover for one specific reason it grows vigorously enough to suppress weeds but not so vigorously it ever threatens the tree or the comfrey. It knows its layer.
Additional guild plants worth adding:
🌼 Yarrow Mineral accumulator, beneficial insect attractor, particularly attracts predatory wasps that control aphid populations
🌸 Nasturtium Aphid trap crop aphids prefer nasturtium to your tree and colonize it instead. The plant sacrifices itself so the tree doesn't have to.
🌻 Borage Bee magnet, self-seeds prolifically, trace mineral accumulator, decomposes fast when chopped
🌿 Chamomile Calcium accumulator, antifungal properties in root exudates benefit neighboring plants, attracts hoverflies
The principle:
Every guild plant occupies a different ecological niche different root depth, different canopy height, different seasonal peak, different functional contribution. Together they create a self-maintaining system that improves every year as the plants establish and the soil biology builds.
Year one the guild looks sparse and deliberate
Year three it looks intentional and productive
Year seven it looks like it was always there
And your fruit tree is producing more than it ever did when it stood alone. 🌳
✅ Start guild planting at tree installation establishes together
✅ Comfrey must be planted from root cuttings not seed Bocking 14 variety is sterile and non-invasive
✅ White clover seed is cheap broadcast by hand, water once, it takes care of itself
✅ Garlic planted in autumn harvested in summer perfect seasonal rhythm
✅ Guild works for apples, pears, plums, cherries, figs, citrus all fruit trees
Stop maintaining your fruit tree. Build its community instead. 🌿
Save this and plant a guild this season. 🔖
