Tended our 700 tomato plants.

Finally got 0.2" of rain.

Watered the sunflowers and the main pickles/cukes field.

Bought supplies and made a watering boom for the tractor that could water 4 rows at a time from a 130 gallon water tank.   Some fields like winter squash have so many vines I can no longer drive the tractor down the paths to water.  Other crops like the pepper plants are too tall for the tractor to straddle.  The watering boom is 16ft long and sticks out from the side of the tractor.  A set of remote operated valves and 1" tubing leads water to dispensing fittings spaced the same as the rows.  I can then drive alongside the outer row and water 4 rows deep.

Took down the narrow shelves on our Roadside Stand for the pepper plants and put up three 8ft shelves, 12" deep.

I cut a 20ft sapling to replace the flexible PVC pipe for the tractor watering boom.

We finally got 0.1" of rain.

Dug up the first onions of the season.  They look pretty good considering the little rain we have had.

We got 0.15" of rain.

Another 0.15" of rain

Another 0.1" of rain. (Good to be getting a little rain each day, however, the amount is so small it seems to evaporate quickly to nothing.  Still, I don't have to water with city water on a day we get some rain.)

I added a 3rd column of tomato bins on our Roadside Farm Stand due to the increased production.

Sunrise/Sunset Illusion
Sunrises and sunsets are among my favorite illusions.  How many times have you watched the sun rise?  Or the sun set?  It doesn't matter how hard your brain tries to tell you that the sun is actually still and the rotation of the earth is what causes the appearance of a moving sun - your eyes tell you that YOU are still and it's the sun that's moving.  My point for today's note is that our senses can create perceptions that are contrary to the facts in a given situation.  And because our sensation of an experience is so vivid, we would argue with great vigor that the sun is in motion (but it is not).  See tomorrow's note for a historical aspect on science.

Historically Wrong Science
Yesterday's note had to do with how human perceptions and mindsets can come about in contrast to the facts of a situation.  I long been interested the the history of science - and how tightly many wrong beliefs were held - even in the face of the correct facts.  I think in ancient times, classic examples would be Galileo and Copernicus and their conclusions on the earth's position in our solar system.  In more recent times, we can cite examples of plate tectonics and the Big Bang theory.   Going back to the title of this note, I'm fascinated by the long held beliefs that were in place that the new science displaced.  I think it's interesting to think about the collective knowledge of mankind and how wrong it was on so many topics of science for so many years before the truth was found.  I'm also interested at the reaction of society as the new truths in science were brought forward and encountered the entrenched beliefs in what was wrong.  Over the years, the most noted reactions have come from two groups - the entrenched scientists in the old beliefs - and religious leaders.  I have been especially interested in the relationship between religion and science over the years.  In research for my book "God's Gifts To Us All", I traced the emergence of religion from the earliest times.  The early religions had gods who were responsible for everything from volcanoes to earthquakes, thunder, and the changing seasons.  One by one, as science provided the facts, the god-cause for these things fell by the wayside - but not without considerable fighting from the religious leaders at times - you could ask Galileo about that.  See tomorrow's note for more on the religious aspect.  For now, my point is that over thousands of years, mankind had held dear many scientific beliefs that were ultimately found to be wrong.  I wonder how much of what we believe dearly today will be found to be quite wrong in years to come.   I for one, still insist that the sun is what moves to create a sunrise and sunset.

Religion and Science
As I mentioned in yesterday's notes (and in several of may other notes as well), I have been interested in the historical relationship between science and religion.  There are countless examples of advances in science in which something attributed to "the gods" was proven to actually have a non-god explanation.  Over the years, the scientific community has grown to understand the dynamic nature of scientific learning.  As a new theory or discovery is proposed, there is a process for challenging, debate, and re-testing.  The emergence of the plate tectonic theory is a good example.  The result of this dynamic scientific process is a continuing improvement in our scientific understanding.  Now back to religion.  While religion and science have historically been closely related, religion lacks any form of improvement process.  As a result, the world's major religions have been relatively stagnant for thousands of years.  I have commented before about the ancient religious texts not being changed, but I see the texts as only a part of the overall religious stagnation.   I think I have an expectation for a "good" religion to be as dynamic as we see in the scientific community - continually evolving, continually getting better.  

I think of a religion as having three parts: beliefs, rituals, and behaviors.  Beliefs would include the historical events which were the genesis of the religion and the nature (or existence) of a God.  In contrast to the scientific community, these beliefs don't lend themselves to proofs or factual testing.  It should be remembered that a belief is only a state of mind - going back two days ago, I can believe that the sun moves and not the earth - but that mindset has no effect on my behavior in society. 

Rituals are the second part of a religion.  This includes things like the need for churches, synagogues, and mosques - prayers, services, and the like.  In most cases, the rituals are derived from the foundation beliefs.  In the arena of rituals, I'm curious if the participants see their rituals as a benefit to themselves or if they perceive their god as benefiting from their ritual. 

The last part of a religion is that of behaviors.  These are all the things people do when they are not engaged in their rituals.  It's our everyday behavior.  Do we rob and kill and tell lies . . . or are we honest and helpful?  I think of the three parts to a religion, behavior is the most important - and most neglected aspect.  We spend most of our time engaged in the behavior aspect of life.  If you take people from different religions, you will probably see the behavior to be almost the same.  The behavior aspect is the part that lends itself to the continuous improvement process found in the scientific community - "What can I do to be a more helpful person?"  The major religions continue to be focused on ancient beliefs and rituals - and not active in improving behaviors.

The endpoint of today's note goes back to yesterday's.  In science, there have been countless topics where people held tightly to wrong beliefs for thousands of years.  It would seem that the same would be true of religions, in fact, given that the major religions are based on differing basic beliefs, it would be impossible for all of them to be correct.  Perhaps to put everything on a level playing ground, I think it's useful to assume ALL of the religions are not based on facts.   Since ancient historical events cannot be proven or disproved - maybe they should just be ignored.  So what is left?  Behavior.  While our beliefs (and resulting rituals) have the potential to be based on incorrect (or distorted) historical events, our behavior doesn't have that liability.  We can be "hard working, honest and helpful" TODAY in spite of what may (or may not) have happened thousands of years ago.  I'm guessing a thousand years from now, being "hard working, honest, and helpful" will be pretty good then too.

Health Clubs vs Productive Exercise
Several years ago I saw my family doctor about some lower back pain I was having.  He said that since I was 6' 4", I needed to pay special attention to keep my lower back muscles strong.  He suggested regular workouts on a rowing machine.  It just so happened I had a rowing machine hidden beneath one of our beds.  The next day I pulled the machine from the bed and was about to climb on - when I stopped.  It was as if I could see all the hours I was about to spend in the next year on that machine - and although my back muscles would be strong - I would have nothing to show for it (except maybe for a worn out rowing machine).  Having a 20 acre Organic Farm, my subsequent vision was one of expending the same amount of energy and getting the same strengthening of my back muscles - but instead of burning calories on a machine, I would find useful work-exercise to do on the farm.  It has worked.  At first I was hampered by bad weather, but I bought a rain suit and a snowmobile suit - and now I find that almost every day I can find something useful to do to burn my calories.  Every time I drive past the local YMCA or health club, I think about all the people and all the calories that are burned in those facilities during a year.  And what COULD be done if those calories were aimed at something productive rather than just being dissipated by a machine.   We could have a trash-free community, have a perfect road system, or maybe a weed-free Bluebird Meadows.  We could probably build a pyramid or two as well.   Instead of spending money to join a health club, why not spend less money on some all-weather clothing and a good pair of gloves?  In good weather walk around and pick up trash.  When it snows, shovel the snow for everyone around you.  Your productive exercise doesn't have to happen outside either (that's just MY preference). I'm sure there are indoor public spaces or community centers that wouldn't mind if you cleaned their floors for free. You will feel just as healthy as going to the health club, but you will sleep better at night knowing you made a positive difference that day with your life.

I touched on this topic in my book "God's Gifts To Us All."

Where Was The Big Bang?
Once upon a time, there was this really Big BANG.  You know, the one that created the entire universe.  Astronomers tell us they know this had to have happened because galaxies seem to be spreading apart - red shift of light, that sort of stuff.  I want to know WHERE exactly the Big Bang happened.  I'd like to point a telescope in the sky and look at the central focal point from which everything is supposed to be expanding.   Is there still a hole there?  Is maybe matter continuing to show up from nowhere?  Is there a cosmic divot from all the matter in the universe departing from a single spot?  I have read many astronomy books but none have offered to pinpoint where the Big Bang happened.  Why is that?  The books go on at length about when the Big Bang was thought to have happened and what the sequence of expansion would have been like - but not a word on where it took place.  Maybe somebody should get to work on this right now.

We got 1.3" of rain (after a dry spell, there are few things more valuable in the life of a farmer as a good soaking rain - it usually smells especially good too).

Mowed the tied 6 rows of tomatoes.

No Change, 24hr, Universal Time
There's a big stir in Indiana right now about several counties who never changed their clocks to Daylight Savings Time.  The politicians have decided that the non-changing counties are "Wrong" and must change their clocks along with everybody else.   The current debate is whether they should be on Eastern Time or Central Time.   My view is that the whole subject of time keeping needs a much larger overhaul.   The question of time is really an astronomy question - shouldn't 12 noon be when a sundial shows the sun is at it's highest position in the sky?  Well - yes, but that would mean 12 noon would take place at different moments as you go from east to west (actually, that's how time WAS kept long ago).  So we have come up with time zones - a band a thousand miles wide or so where we will declare it will be 12 noon at the same instant everywhere in that band.  If we can accept the premise that we can declare it to be 12 noon even though the sun is NOT at its highest point in our sky, then why should we care about the number of the time at all?  Consider Zulu Time (or Greenwich Mean Time).  Since we are becoming more and more a global "community", it is making more sense all the time to have a universal time - one in which it is 2 o'clock worldwide at the same moment.  Widespread acceptance of this concept would require some mindset changes - rather than working from 9 to 5 - you might work from 14 to 22.   I'm not all that sure we should go back to zero after 24 hours either - maybe we should just keep counting - or maybe add decimals and/or commas - 2005.5760.5 (half past the 5,760th hour of the year 2005). 

"Centisol" - 1/100th of a Day
While we're in the business of making changes to how we tell time, I think we should scrap the 24 "hour" and "60 minute/second" concepts as well.  The idea of dividing time into 60 parts went back to ancient Babylonia.  Today wouldn't decimals and hundreds make more sense?  Why not divide a "day" (one earth rotation) into 100 Units - each of those Day-Units would be 14.4 of today's minutes long(24 hours times 60 minutes divided by 100).  I think "Centisol" (meaning 1/100th of an earth solar rotation) would be a good term.  Add decimals to each of those 100 Centisols to describe smaller increments of time - a tenth would be a measure of time that was 1.44 of today's minutes.  A hundredth of a centisol would be about 8.64 of today's seconds long - and so on as needed.  So today's noon would be "50" and 14.4 of today's minutes after noon would be "51."  A "half-hour" TV show might last 2 Centisols (and be 28.8 minutes long). I think decimal time keeping would be much less cumbersome than hours (based on 24) and minutes (based on 60) and seconds (based on 60 again).

Rethink Daylight Savings Time
And forget the Daylight Savings time concept.  Think about it - the way Daylight Savings Time is supposed to work is that everybody sets their clocks an hour ahead/back so schools, farmers, and businesses can be more in synch with daylight hours.  Rather than making everybody change their clocks, why not just change the hours of operation of any schools and/or business that think they would be better off starting earlier/later.   Why make everybody change their CLOCKS when a comparatively small percentage of the population should consider changing their HOURS OF OPERATION?  I think somebody should do a study to measure the health effects of changing the circadian rhythms of large populations by changing their clocks twice a year.  I'm thinking there is probably some measurable negative impact from the whole clock change business.  Probably more accidents too as people reach for clocks in high places that need to be changed twice a year.

Galaxeon
And yet another thought about measuring time.  We have a "day" for a rotation of the earth about its axis.  We have a "year" for an orbit of the earth around the sun.  We don't have a time measurement term for the period of time it takes the sun (and our solar system) to orbit the Milky Way Galaxy.  An "eon" is sorta close, but the term lacks any precision.  I propose the term "Galaxeon" (Galaxy + Eon, pronounced ga-LAX-eon) as the period of time for the sun to orbit the Milky Way.  This would be about 200 million years according to current information.  So, if the sun and earth are about 4,500 million years old, they would be about 22.5 Galaxeons old.

Started setting support poles for bird netting in the sunflower field.  The support poles are 8-1/2ft lengths of conduit - I use a grape post pounder to set them in the soil.  The poles are spaced by 30ft into a grid.  Adding lengths of bailing twine pole to pole establishes a general support structure for the bird netting.

Put the remaining coleus plants out on the Farm Stand.

Star Stuff That We Are - One Or Many?
The current theories in astronomy are that our solar system - especially the heavy elements like iron - came from the death a previous giant star(s).  Today's thoughts center on that "(s)" - are the heavy elements that make up the earth, us, and the rest of the planets in our solar system the ejected material from a single previous giant star - or many?   My guess would be that it would have to be many as the ejected material from a single star going nova/supernova would have a tendency to disperse.  If the answer is "many", then it seems problematic that the ejecta from many stars having gone nova would end up in the same place - along with some fresh hydrogen (the hydrogen from the stars that went nova was pretty much used up) - enough so to form a new star (the sun) and a system of planets.  The scenario also begs the question about clean and dirty star systems.  I would consider a "clean" star to be one that was made from only hydrogen and would not include the rubble from previous nova events.  Our sun and solar system would be "dirty" since it included the refuse from previous nova events.  I think there is much more heavy elements out in space than is currently recognized.  As I mentioned in a March 2005 note, I think some of our heavy elements came from big bang fusion nebula - and as a result, the amount of fusion debris is greater than would would have come from nova alone.

Pounded in some more of the support poles for the sunflower bird nets.

Brown & Black "Solar" Systems
As long as I've got my head in astronomy, I think it's interesting to consider Brown and Black "Solar" Systems.  A "Brown" system would be one with a central star that was smaller than the sun but larger than Jupiter - just barely able to have hydrogen fusion.  With a smaller central body any planetary bodies would be different too.  Lacking the intense solar wind that our solar system has encountered, in comparison a Brown System would have a gentle breeze of a solar wind.  Lighter gasses might remain in larger proportions that we see around us.  Next are the "Black" systems where the gravitational center doesn't even have fusion.   It's either a glob of hydrogen too small for fusion or perhaps a super-planet of iron and heavy elements.  Interesting to ponder the makeup of the planets in a Black System where there wasn't any solar wind at all.  I also wonder just how many Brown and Black systems are out there - are they common or are they rare?  How would we detect them?

Pounded in more sunflower net poles.

Got just a trace of rain.

Finished setting up the poles for the sunflower bird nets.  I tied bailing twine pole to pole at the 7ft tops of the poles.  The result is a grid of 30ft squares of bailing twine 7ft about the field.  This is sufficient to support the lightweight plastic bird netting for a couple months.  My biggest concern if for deer, coyotes, or dogs getting tangled up in the sides of the nets.  Last year I had a neighbor cat freaked out when it thought it was trapped inside of one of the nets.  It climbed up on the inside of one of the sides and eventually pulled over one of the support poles.  The cat got away  (this time).

Took all the basil out of the Greenhouse and set up some sprinklers in the south bays.

Started setting the bird nets in the sunflower fields.  Each section of netting is 14ft wide and about 180ft long.  I overlap adjacent sections and tack them together with grape ties.

Worked on closing the seams of adjoining sunflower field bird net panels.

Built some more sunflower drying shelves in the greenhouse.