What an ecological catastrophe

Have you seen these images?

Sarajevo ski jump 1984 winter games

Baseball venue at Hellenikon Olympic complex in Athens

  

Beach volleyball venue 2008 Beijing Olympics

Swimming pool Olympic Village Athens

(All images above from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3730579/As-Rio-Olympics-kicks-eerie-photographs-reveal-derelict-sites-past-games.html)

I was aghast!!  What an ecological tragedy, an unmitigated waste of money, concrete, resources and an absolute affront to this planet.

I have never done anything like this before, but I couldn't help myself.

I established the contact details for the Chairman of the IOC and sent him a letter.

"16 August 2016

Attention:  Mr Thomas Bach

IOC

Route de Vidy 9

1007 Lausanne

Switzerland

Dear Mr Bach

“The goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.” (source:  https://www.olympic.org/the-ioc/promote-olympism)

I viewed all the images, and read the following article, with absolute horror:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3730579/As-Rio-Olympics-kicks-eerie-photographs-reveal-derelict-sites-past-games.html

What an ecological / recycling / financial nightmare – all in the name of the Olympics.  Surely, one of the aims of the Olympics should be for it to be more globally sustainable, and with the minimum of negative impact on our fragile planet / global ecosystem?

With that in mind, perhaps something positive can come from this disaster because what immediately sprang to my mind was the following question.

Why on earth hasn’t the IOC adapted to modern times?

How could this be achieved?

Re-use, re-purpose.

There are winter games, and summer games – so the Olympics are already “fragmented”.

Plus, with all previous 26 individual Olympic hosts (see appendix 1), not everyone was able to accommodate all the disciplines e.g. I understand that golf has only 3 venues

Appendix 1

If the larger summer games were segmented according to weather and sport classification /discipline and each “group” (see appendix 2) was hosted in different countries, instead of just one country, then the immense logistic and financial load could be shared amongst those countries.  Adopting such an Olympics Games allocation would then allow for that diminished financial outlay / burden to be allocated more proactively within the hosting country e.g. given the financial situation worldwide, and especially with the number of poor and starving in Rio, it could not actually afford to build the stadiums it did.  But because it wanted to expose the country to a larger (future tourist) audience it applied to host the games.  How much more could have been done for that country’s benefit and the long term benefit its inhabitants, without that immense expense of hosting the entire Olympics? 

Appendix 2

Furthermore, this would prevent scenes like those in the link above from occurring, as the combined existing 26 various Olympic venues would be in more regular use.

Instead of the single host country building a plethora of brand new Olympic stadiums – for a once-off 16-odd day use – why couldn’t the various events be allocated to those countries who have already built those enormous facilities?

That wouldn’t prevent new hosts from entering the future Olympic hosting scene.  In fact, knowing that they will not have that enormous logistic burden and capital outlay, it would probably encourage new hosts to apply for the privilege of hosting a single Olympic “group”.

To my mind holding water (swimming / diving / waterpolo) segment of the Olympics in cold places like Russia / Stockholm / Antwerp / Helsinki to name a few is crazy.  Rather, why not allow places which have the appropriate hot weather - like Saudi Arabia / Los Angeles / Barcelona / Brazil / Australia / South Africa - to be the revolving hosts of that particular discipline?  The additional strain on athletes to perform in unsuitable weather is surely not what the Olympics is all about and can’t allow them to perform at their full potential.  The additional handicap of having to run a marathon / 10 000 mtr race in weather that is too hot, or swim in freezing cold water, is surely detrimental to the athletes health – and, I feel, to the broader sport appeal.

And ball sports – all those countries who have hosted the Rugby World Cup, or the Football World Cup – they already have the venues – which, again, are seldom used, but the venues still have to be maintained and income derived from their existence / inherent and on-going costs.  Places, again, like Saudi Arabia / Los Angeles / Barcelona / Brazil / Australia / South Africa would be ideal as an Olympic Rugby 7’s / Football venues – because we (South Africa) have already hosted the Rugby and Football World Cups and thus already have the facilities to be Olympic hosts without having to incur the additional costs in order to host the numerous other Olympic disciplines.

This adaption by the IOC would reduce the total travelling footprint of the athletes and organisers / the international media / and the spectators, and would allow for a much larger, more varied and discipline specific spectator attendance.  How many people can afford to travel the world in order to watch the Olympics in the one host country?  However, if some of the games are held in their own country (or a close neighbouring country) you are more likely to have a greater (physical) audience.

And that doesn’t include the audience who watch the Olympics electronically either.

We are more fortunate than those who hosted the Olympics prior to 1980 as we now have the technology to allow anyone in the world to watch the Olympics via their TV’s or computers.

I believe that the Olympics has the potential to reach an even greater audience than ever before – if you can adapt to the times?

Consider also allocating a week to each discipline “group” – e.g. as per appendix 2, that would be 10 disciplines or a 10 week period – where the events within each group would not run concurrently with any of the other “groups”.  Have you thought of how many additional events that would enable the electronic viewers to watch?  How much additional “broadcasting” income could be derived from the extended TV coverage licences?  How many additional young viewers you could expose to the various disciplines, and who could thus be encouraged to become future sportsmen and women – future Olympians?

Spread the Olympics worldwide – in smaller “groups” of disciplines.  Allow each host country to benefit financially, instead of incurring a debt it takes years for that country to recover from, invariably to the detriment of that country’s inhabitants.

Surely all of the above is the more in line with the spirit and ethos of the Olympics?"

I couldn't sit back and do nothing.  I was too offended.

Obviously there would be various details to work around, but to me it makes total sense.  What do you think?





Update:  Strange how things happen, isn't it?  Complete synchronicity :)  This article was published on Green Times website on Wednesday this week.  Seems to make my suggestion even more appropriate...

Source:
 http://thegreentimes.co.za/climate-change-limits-potential-host-cities-for-olympic-games/

Wintry day

Woke up this morning to these wintry views : 

Snow on the mountains behind Swelledam...

It's about bloody time - I've waited ALL winter for these views!  Quite a bit of snow - more than usual - has fallen in South Africa this winter, but this is the first time this winter that it has settled on "our" mountains.  Not a heavy fall, but better than nothing :)

...and snow on the mountains behind Suurbraak

The only thing a day like this calls for is...

... a mug of hot chocolate... (or if I'm honest, a few mugs of hot choccie)

 ... and the Rosie - at full burn :)

Life is good :D

Hydroponics vs ground 2

Time for an update on the vegetables which I am trialling in our basic hydroponic system.

Once again, I was let down / felt great disappointment with the manufactures of seedlings.

Last year (autumn / winter 2015) I purchased some cabbage seedlings, and they grew wonderfully - only problem was is that they were cauliflower seedlings :(  This year what was labelled as cabbages turned out to be broccoli.

Broccoli not cabbages grrrrrr!

Finding this out at the end of the growing season does not please me!!  The alpacas love cabbage, and they had to go without home grown cabbage yet again.

The soil grown broccoli is still not producing
 and, 3 weeks ago, was roughly half the size
 of the ones in the hydroponic pots

What I have found with the hydroponic vs soil grown plants was that the cabbage broccoli went to seed very quickly in the hydroponic container, but, as can be seen from the pics above and below, the soil grown cabbage is performing much better.

So, cabbage broccoli won't be hydroponic-ed again.

The red cabbages I planted - as you can see
 the soil grown ones are leaps and bounds
 ahead of the hydroponic ones

The peas, on the other hand are working well.

My hydroponic peas - 3 weeks ago

4 weeks ago they looked like the image above...

The hydroponic pea plants today

 ... and today the plants are twice the size / height - at roughly 1.4 mtrs tall.

There are loads of pea pods on the
 hydroponically grown pea plants

Happily, the plants are laden with pea pods too :)

The comparison between the soil grown pea plants and those grown hydroponically?  The land grown ones were planted roughly 5 - 6 weeks before the hydroponic ones so it's not that easy to demonstrate with pics, but I reckon that the hydroponic pea plants have more pods on them.

Do I need to grow them hydroponically?

Nope - they  normally do well in the ground, but I was so excited about the hydroponic system we had set up that I wanted to grow something - anything - to trial it before the coming summer, and peas were all I had to hand at the time.

But, I am satisfied that the system is working.

I will be growing tomatoes and peppers hydroponically this coming summer - as well as in the ground.  Apart from the piquanté peppers, I do not seem to be that successful with normal red / green / yellow / orange capsicum - the plants are permanently in a state of "wilt" no matter how much water I give them, and the peppers themselves seem to be susceptible to rotting on the plant very quickly.

So again, with this experiment, let's see which produces more and which plants do better?

Mulch rescue

The one thing about having totally free range chickens is that they can play havoc to your best laid plans.

Mulch mess - thanks chickens!!

Take the mulching that we're doing to try and preserve water / assist the plants / veggies / fruit trees to thrive in adverse heat (global warming) conditions and be productive.  The chickens delight in scattering that mulch as far and as wide as they can.

Nope - that doesn't suit me at all!

So, I asked RMan if he could build me a mulch protector.

First things first though, in tidying up the mulch mess, and removing some weeds / grass, around the beds we came across this little fellow.

About 1.5 - 2 feet long - with quite a scary "V"
marking on it's head.  A brown house snake.

Initially, we were a tad concerned, because the single row of scales underneath of the snake seemed to imply that it was poisonous, but it was confirmed as a non-poisonous brown house snake - that delights in eating frogs and mice!

We were told that a single row of scales
below a snake indicates that it is poisonous.
Thank goodness that proved to be an
incorrect theory ;)

It's a pity it was dispatched before we could find out that it wasn't a threat to us, but was, in fact, a very helpful fellow.  But, too late to cry over spilt milk / a deceased snake lol

Thank goodness for the table saw
 that RMan scored from the auction back in 2011

But, I digress - to get back to the mulch protector.

My request to RMan involved him pulling out his table saw which he scored from that auction all those years ago.  I have to say it certainly has come in handy round the property :)

RMan chopping up the 3.0mtr long droppers

Then we grabbed a whole bunch of spare "droppers" (3.0 mtr long lengths of alien vegetation a.k.a. Black Wattle branches / young trunks) which we had in storage for just such an occasion.

With a cut here, and a cut there, plus a whole bunch more, we ended up with this...

Literally within 15 minutes of completing these
 mulch protectors, the chickens arrived to
 confirm that it would work :)

... a mulch protector :)

It involved thumping one middle and two end "posts" into the ground in order to use them as supports for the horizontal cross posts - of which there are two at the front and two at the back.

All it took to make was 10 - 12 X 3mtr long
 "droppers", 3 X support posts,  4 X cross posts,
 umpteen  short vertical posts, and exactly 6 screws

Between the horizontal cross posts we inserted a whole bunch of 300mm high vertical posts which will act as the mulch protector "fence". 

It looks quite cute - and goes with all the other
 wood we have requisitioned for whatever use

Not quite a white picket fence (which we didn't want) but it certainly does the trick!

As for the fruit trees - as they are part of our "food" production, they are going to get some extra special treatment.  More on that in September when it happens...

Update on Snoops

Snoopy has been with us just over a month, and is settling in nicely.

I think I know why Snoopy - or Squeak as she has been renamed - is so skittish.

A few weeks ago whilst sitting on my TV chair on evening, she came, as usual, to join me / take command of my lap.  She started "kneading" my soft gown, and I noticed that she was biting my gown at the same time.  It reminded me of a cat we had years ago who had kittens - what she was doing was "kneading to make the milk flow" and the biting action was reminiscent of her sucking on her mum's nipple.

Snoop - Squeak kneading and biting my gown

So I think that Snoop / Squeak was :

1)  A wild kitten who was taken from her mother through a accident (to the mum) and a human found her and took her in;

2)  Was just plain sold (by an "informal settlement" individual) in order to make some dosh.  That is a terrible situation - where those "individuals" over breed their pets in order to sell their offspring - they stand in the middle of the road and hold animals up by the scruff of their necks.  When you pass by they threaten to drop the animal under the wheels of the car unless you buy them.  She must've been still too young to leave her mother...

She has become brave enough to venture outside
 and catch some rays - keeping a watchful eye out
for the rooster - whom she isn't crazy about.
 Invariably though she positions herself so that
 she can watch the wild birds at the bird feeder /
 nectar bottles.

Snoopy - now Squeak - is so named because she doesn't "meow" she only gives a plaintive immature kitten-ish squeak.

If she hears a vehicle arriving she bolts to hide behind the records in the cupboard - absolutely terrified.  And will remain hidden for a good few hours.

No wonder she was freaked out when she arrived here - hiding under the bed for 2 days.  The 3 hour car trip here must've been sheer hell for her.

Squeaks new bed

I do not believe that it is healthy for a cat should sleep on a human's bed, and so she was locked out of our bedroom at night.

She proceeded to scratch at out door, and "squeak" until we let her in.  

Hmm - why would she do that?  There has to be a reason...

Giving it some thought I said to RMan that I think she is cold.

So the next time we went to town, we purchased her a cat bed - with high sides to protect her from the draught from the window which we leave open for her.

The catnip I rubbed all over the inside
 certainly seems to have helped make
 her feel right at home

Rubbing some catnip on the inside of the bed soon had her exploring it, and that first night she settled herself into the bed whilst we watched TV.

She knows exactly when we are going to go to bed, and puts herself into her snug place whilst we are tidying up before heading to our bedroom.

Clever kitty :)