6/5/08
I was in Perth a few weeks ago and although I had to cut my visit short, I did manage time to visit Kings Park. For those who havent been there, it is a beautiful native garden on the cliffs overlooking Perth and the Swan River Basin. Much work has been done since I was there last, and this includes a wide swinging bridge through the treetops, and suitable for wheelchair access too! Not that I need one yet. ;o) Ponds, creeks and fountains have also been added or improved on, and major native plantings have occured.
All WA plants are superb, they are very different to Eastern Australian plants, and look as though they come from another planet! Although it wasn't Spring flowering time, many plants and shrubs were in flower, and I got hundreds of photos. If you havent visited Kings Park before, this year would be a very good year to do it! I also in my travels checked out the Sydney and Canberra botanical gardens. The orchid house in Sydney is superb, and just next to it is a heated structure which houses many of our warmer climate ferns and similar plants.
One evening I stood on the roof of my motel and watched the Sydney Botanical Gardens flying foxes on their evening flyout....and what a superb sight it is. Tourists love to see them and gather around the Opera House area to watch them fly out. There are moves afoot to try to relocate them from the Gardens, and what a loss that would be.....how could we have a native forest without the wildlife? Sydneysiders are so lucky to have this colony right in their backyard.
The Canberra Native Gardens are looking good too, although some of the tree ferns were suffering from what appeared to be heat stress, or perhaps a fungus disease, but hopefully not. One of the delights of the Canberra Gardens is the large numbers of birds and other wildlife in the gardens. Wrens, colorful parrots, superb butterflies, the odd wallaby, the Gardens have to be my favorite Canberra hideaway.
Unfortunately Canberra has a sad story to tell. Someone decided that the side of a bare windy hill at Stromlo would be a good place to plant Wollemi Pines. The hillside was razed by the 2003 bushfires. These rare Wollemi pines were only recently discovered in the Blue Mountains, where the tree grows in moist, sheltered, and protected areas. However the ACT government decided that a windy exposed hillside was suitable for the plantings. Most of the trees have since died, and a recent inspection showed weeds and thistles were taking over the plantation. Some sources have said the cost of the illfated project was around 7 million dollars.
1/4/08
Over the last couple of weeks I've had a whirlwind around Australia....Perth, Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney. I managed to find time to visit all the Botanical Gardens, and will write a report about them as soon as I get back to my office.
13/2/08 I'll be back in Canberra for few days next week, and Im looking forward to seeing the Botanic Gardens again. They've had some good rain, so the Gardens should be looking great. I'll let you know how they look when I get back! *
Herbal Therapy. To ease coughing and other discomforts of winter clods and flu's, choose one of the following herbal remedies: For excess mucus, try coltsfoot, thyme, or mullein tea before each meal. To make any of the teas, steep 1 to 2 teaspoons of the dried herb in 1 cup boiling water for 10 minutes; strain. If you're bothered by constant coughing, try either of two tea blends: equal amounts of coltsfoot, mullein, and licorice; or equal amounts of marshmallow, mallow, colts foot, mullein, violet, and red poppy flowers. To make either of the teas, steep 1 to 2 teaspoons of the blend in 1 cup of boiling water for 10 minutes.
You also might try eating hot, spicy meals laced with generous amounts of cayenne or ginger. Other helpful herbs include comfrey, fennel seed, fenugreek, rosemary, and rose hips. Herbal products are available in health food stores and in some pharmacies and supermarkets. Follow package for specific directions. *
Now here's a garden the entire family can enjoy: a pizza garden. The best part? It's easy. All the plants are hardy, which makes them pretty good growers in most climate zones. You can ask your local garden center for advice on which varieties to buy, or just browse our Home Herb and Garden website!
For a pizza garden, plant tomatoes, green bell peppers, basil, oregano, garlic and chives, preferably in a round, pizza shape in the garden. You can even go so far as to divide the "pizza" into slices, using stepping stones (or are those "pepperoni slices"?) or one of your plant varieties, such as the basil, as dividers. Depending on the size of the garden, plant one tomato plant and one pepper plant per "slice" and fill in with the garlic, chives and your favorite herbs.
Say Goodbye to Google?
Is it "pure genius"? That's what some have called this internet strategy of saying goodbye to search engines, with a unique twist. Find out in detail how to promote any product or affiliate program without needing to keep up with secrets only search engine gurus claim to know.
Don't miss this simple but clever viral strategy, here! I have to admit that it's brilliant!
Grab this free PDF report (you DON'T need to leave your email addy!) at: http://www.goviralgo.com (Copy and paste) It's the best read I've had for years! Cheers, Patrick
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12/1/08 I hope all our readers and friends had a happy Christmas and holidays. All of us here at Home Herb and Garden would also like to wish you very successful and happy 2008.
When I was a little feller, I used to quite often stay with my Aunt who lived at Takanini, near Auckland, NZ. On our walks up to the shops from her place we often used to see this feller running along the footpath. My Aunt told me he would run every day for miles and miles, regardless of the weather. A bit like Forest Gump, I suppose. Anyway, I asked her why was he doing all this running.
She told me he that said he was going to climb Mt Everest. "What? Noone can climb Mt Everest!" I snorted, "its far to high...what's the matter with him?" Well, he did of course. Sir Edmond Hillary went on to climb Mt Everest, and so became New Zealands most famous person.
He passed away last week, and I'll never forget seeing him running along the footpath, day after day. Theres no moral to this story, but I guess if you want to do something, like Hillary, you just go ahead and do it!
Did you know that the first record of Acupuncture can be found in the 4,700 year old Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine). This is said to be the oldest medical textbook in the world. It is said to have been written down from even earlier theories by Shen Nung, the father of Chinese Medicine. Shen Nung documented theories about circulation, pulse, and the heart over 4,000 years before European medicine had any concept about them.
For those Australians who plant native plants in their gardens, the Wildlife Protection Association of Australia has a new website to help you decide which palnts are best suited for our area. It's www.australian-wildlife-habitat.com
Just copy and paste this url into your browser. Cheers, Patrick
27/11/07 A couple of weeks ago I was in Tasmania. The rural areas are a bit like England or New Zealand, green and lovely. Lots of introduced weeds though, gorse, blackberries, and rosehips growing in some of the paddocks, and along the roadsides. Lots of dead wildlife on the roads too, the logging and woodchip trucks run all night, and many possums, wallabies and even a few Tasmanian devils get killed on the roads at night.
While there I spent day on beautiful Maria Island which used to be a penal colony in the old days. However many of the prisoners escaped to the Mainland. Some people say most of them got a job in the Government and their descendants still work there, which might explain why they are destroying the forests for a few foriegn dollars.
Anyway, the gardens in Tasmania are superb. It is Spring there, birds are nesting, roses and other cool weather plants are in flower....just beautiful.... **
Has anyone seen Ratatiouee, the film about the rat who wanted to be a Chef? Very funny film. Anyway I had my own experience with a rat this week....well, not really a rat...but a native Australian rodent that decided to have a family in my car glovebox. It must have accessed the glovebox from under the car. I opened the glovebox a few days ago, and there was this animal (called a phascogale) sitting there looking at me.
She had four or five babies attached to her teats, which is what baby phascogales do until they get older and drop off. Mum runs around with her babies attached to her until then. We stared at each other for a moment, then I grabbed her intending to place her outside in the forest where she was supposed to be. She decided she didnt want to go, and bit me. Phascogales are carnivorous, and eat cockraoches and spiders etc.
She had very sharp teeth. I dropped her, she disappeareed under the car, and next day she was back in the glovebox. This time I was prepared for her, I scooped her, babies and all, into a bucket, put the lid on, and took her several miles away to be released. I hope she stays there. Phascogales love to climb, and often get into roofs where, in mating season, they gallop around at night like a herd of camels, usually waiting until after after midnight to start the romancing.
Last year one built a nest of dried leaves on top of the motor in my car, and I was driving down the road when the nest ignited from the engine heat. I hoped she escaped first. For these reasons, and because they look like a rat, many people dont like them, but they are very handy little animals to have around because they eat pest insects.**
14/9/07. I'm working on a new book about native plants that can be planted in Australian gardens, plants that will provide food for wildlife. Mid-Octber I will be in Adelaide visiting the Adelaide Botanic gardens, which I've never seen before. I'm looking forward to the visit and I'll write a short report on what I see there.
Saw palmetto prices are set to soar following a drought in Florida, leaving further room for low-quality or fake products to enter the market, says Valensa International.
The Eustis, Florida-based manufacturer claims to supply approximately 30 percent of the world's saw palmetto ingredients market. It has sent two memorandums recently to clients informing them of price increases - undisclosed to NutraIngredients-USA - which it says are the direct result of the drought that has shriveled its harvest.
Masquerading ingredients has been a problem across the entire nutraceutical industry, and the delicate nature of saw palmetto supply combined with high demand means it has been no exception. Now, the plant's even more precarious supply is set to exacerbate this. "We have a situation where a lot of the easy-to-pick berries are gone," Valensa president Rudi Moerck told NutraIngredients-USA.
Wild-harvested in the southwestern US, namely in Florida, saw palmetto has been linked in scientific literature to supporting prostate health. Valensa holds two patents for the ultra high extraction of oil from the berries of this palm mutant
- the product of which the company markets under the brand USPlus.
Valensa insists that much of the health benefits of the berries are lost if they are picked too early, as they have not had time to develop sufficient amounts of the oil where the biologically active compounds are contained. It is the oil and not the powder from ground-up berries that has been used in studies on prostate health, according to Moerck.
Most of what is on the market this year, will likely be from the lower quality green berries, said Moerck. The company is getting the message out on such ingredients.
"The 2007 saw palmetto berry harvest, which in past years would have barely started by Labor Day weekend, is nearing completion and has proved to be worse than predicted in our earlier pre-harvest evaluation," said Valensa in one of the letters issued to clients.
The price of saw palmetto raw material has subsequently shot up between 30 and 50 percent across the board over last year as supply continues to tighten, and Valensa has twice raised its own prices. For raw berry material, the price now stands at around $1/lb or $80/kilo.**
Mangosteen Fruits, a tropical fruit famous as the Queen of Fruits, is one of the most nutrient-rich plant foods on Earth, in which containing the compounds called Xanthones with biological active plant phenols structurally similar to flavonoids, which is thought to have antioxidant properties; which also a rich source of other bioactive molecules including flavenoids, benzophenones, lactones, phenolic acids, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and also contain such nutrients as well as zinc, iron, copper, calcium, germanium, etc.**
Membership Site After more than ten years of working on the Internet, I have seen enough to spot a good product from the ordinary ones and I must confess my admiration for The Business Professional! At $17 a month, or $1 for seven days, it's a steal. Interviews with online pros give a rare insight into successful techniques the pros use, and for which many online marketers actually charge a fortune. Content, tools, and resources are fresh and top quality, and the downloads more than make up for the membership fee. If you have an Internet based business (who doesn't nowdays?) this may be a worthwhile investment for you. Cheers, Patrick **
26/8/07 Today I managed to get in a trip to the Moroochydore Botanic Gardens on the Sunshine Coast, which is fairly close to where I live. The Gardens had been knocked around a bit by the recent storms, but the creeks were running, and I got some nice photoes. I've got some new printed books out this month, which will be avaible only at the Sunshine Coast markets, and online. Ill let our Home Herb and Garden Newsletter (due out this week)readers know when they go online, and of course mention it here on the Herblog.
I also have to mention the new Content 2 component in Sitebuildit, our web hosting company. If you use Sitebuildit to host your website, you will already know all about it. If you dont, you will see Content 2 in action on our Home Herb and Garden website very soon. More about Content 2 in the very near future!
7/7/07 Herbal remedies could cause liver failure in some people so severe they needed a transplant to survive, a leading gastro-enterologist warned yesterday. University of Queensland liver disease professor Darrell Crawford warned about the potential dangers of the over-the-counter remedies at the launch of the Australian Liver Foundation in Brisbane yesterday.
He said the most common cause of herbal hepatitis was black cohosh, a herbal preparation used to treat menopausal symptoms.
But he also warned about the dangers of valerian, sometimes taken to treat insomnia, and skullcap. "I don't think there's a lot of awareness that herbal and complementary therapies can cause liver failure," Professor Crawford said. "They can be bought over the counter, non-scripted in most chemist shops or outlets." One of the aims of the new foundation will be to increase community awareness about liver disease, which affects about two million Australians.
Professor Crawford's warning comes only weeks after the death of a 62-year-old woman of Rosewood, west of Brisbane, from liver toxicity after drinking goji juice. The woman, who was taking medication for type 2 diabetes and arthritis, died after drinking about a litre of the juice in just over a month. Tests of the goji juice and from a liver biopsy are continuing to determine whether the juice may have been responsible.
Professor Crawford, the incoming president of the Gastroenterological Society of Australia, urged people who recommended natural products as alternative treatments to be aware of the potential adverse side-effects. He said herbal hepatitis could occur in people without evidence of pre-existing liver disease.
Queensland Health last week cracked down on two companies which distribute goji juice for illegally describing the product as a treatment for cancer and other diseases. The companies were directed to remove the claims from their promotional material because of breaches of the Food Standards Code. Professor Crawford said he was also concerned about the increase in the number of Australians, including children, with liver diseases directly linked to obesity. Former Queensland premier and health minister Mike Ahern will chair the Australian Liver Foundation. Information is available at www.liver.org.au *Courier Mail
Our Comments; Its quite true that some herbs can be toxic if taken in large quantities...everyone knows that. However to condemn herbs like black cohorsh, valerian or scullcap out of hand, herbs that have been reliably used for thousands of years is grossly irresponsible. The good Professor fails to mention the many drugs that have been responsible for patient death and sickness, through their side-effects.
Also the sad death of the woman quoted above, has not been proved to be caused by Goji juice, she was merely taking the product when she died. What "medication" was she taking anyway? We have to wonder who's funding this liver Foundation, is it a drug campany? With proper and moderate use, all the herbs quoted in the newspaper story above have a long history of helping people who are reluctant to try the "wonder drugs" that may in fact kill them, and often do. *
10/6/07 I havent written a blog update for a while, Ive been very busy! Ive had three trips form Brisbane to Canberra, and another three from Brisbane to Sydney. Each trip Ive managed to spend a little time in the Botanical Gardens. Both Sydney and Canberra Gardens are feeling the stress of drought, in spite of the work being done by the ground staff. Even so,they are both well worth a visit. In Canberra a Powerful Owl decided to roost in the Gardens for a few days, but of course I just missed seeing him.
I also had a chance to visit Yankee Hat and the Namadji National Park, where I got some great photos of kangaroos and other wildlife. *
We have developed some new herbal tea blends on our website.
Anti-aging Tea 50gr
Ginko biloba, hawthorn berries, alfalfa,
oat grass, gotu kola, sage.
Allergy Season 30gr
Peppermint, eyebright, plantain, lemongrass,
sage, red clover, fennel, nettle, liquorice, ginseng.
Aphrodite 30 gr
Damiana, rosepetals, peppermint, muira puama,
ginko, orange peel, calendula. Just the tea to kindle flames!
Blossoms of Health 30gr
Ginko, red clover, nettle, meadowsweet, calendula,
chamomile, dong quai. A popular, healthy, energising tea.
Cold Relief 30gr
Yarrow, elderflower, lemon grass and peppermint.
This recipe has been used for hundreds of years
to help ward off colds.
Muscle Relief 50gr
For tired and sore muscles.
Crampbark, Rue, Dong Quai,
Raspberry leaf.
Merely male 30 gr
Ginseng for energy, epilobium and red clover
for prostate health, hawthorn for the heart,
damiana for getup and go, and horny goat weed.
You can find them on the herbal tea webpage. Cheers, Patrick
24/3/07 For me the highlight of last week was of course, St Patrick's Day. I spent the weekend at Mooloolaba, which is a beach town on the Sunshine Coast about an hour and a half North of Brisbane. The weather was superb, three days of "beautiful one day, perfect the next". Anyway on Saturday night the local surf club featured a "St Patrick's Day Evening," with a jazz band doing old Irish numbers. The youngest player must have been 85 years old if a day, and the others .... Never the less they played well, I had a great night, with just enough Guinness to wash down the meal and leave me with a headache the next day. The band assured us they all would be back next St Patrick's Day, but...I dunno.... I know I'll be there anyway!
*In any Government organization there is always one person who knows what is going on. When found, that person must be fired.*
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5/3/07 Last week I took an early flight from Brisbane to Sydney. I had a business meeting at 10 am, so in the couple of hours before that I headed straight for the Sydney Botanical Gardens. The Gardens are suffering from the drought, but many of the garden areas are still looking very good. At the herb gardens I had just missed the echinaceas, they were finishing, but the bromeliads were looking great, as always. Broms are superb garden plants, and look good at any time of the year. The tropical house looked good as always, with many superb flowering tropical plants, and I got some great photos. I finished my photography the Opera House, taking some photos of the Sydney Harbor Bridge for the cover of my next fiction book.
Early next morning saw me on an aircraft to Melbourne for further meetings. I spent that day in the City, but I took the next day off and spent most of it at the Melbourne Botanical Gardens. A couple of years ago the Gardens management decided to kill the flying foxes that roosted in the trees at night. The Melbourne community rose up in arms over this, with many protests and much political lobbying. Eventually the Government coughed up three million dollars, and a relocation attempt was made. Some "experts" decided the bats would be very comfortable in a mangrove area away from residents.
After many months of harassment in the Gardens, the flying foxes went into backyards and schools, and many died, but eventually the survivors settled somewhere else. Of course at some stage they wil go back to the Gardens, it may take 5, 10, or 50 years, but they will go back. Meanwhile the gardens are much poorer for their absense.
As with the Sydney Gardens, they suffer from drought. Gardens management have signs everywhere stating they are the leaders in "large area" irrigation, but it seems to me they have scattered, small easily irrigated areas of showy flowers, and the rest of the gardens focus is mostly on trees, succulents and shrubs. Fairly sensible tactics, I suppose, when we consider that Australia is believed to be very heavily affected by Climate Change.
The herb garden was a bit neglected I thought, but most noticable of all was the succulents, yuccas and similar plants that had obvious signs of damage, in fact some were dead. Whether this damage was caused by extreme heat and lack of water, unaccustomed humidity, or disease or climate change, I couldn't tell, but the succulents were not looking good at all.
I spent some time in the Craft Plant area, and I gathered enough info and photos to build a webpage about craft plants, which will be online in week or so.
I spent the rest of the day wandering around Southbank, Federation Square and drinking lots of cappachinos, before flying home early the next day. Again later this week I have to go back to Sydney, and this time I'll spend some more time back at the Sydney Gardens. *Patrick
21/2/07 I'll never forget Penny Mc Tavish. Not ever. That's not her real name, but it's very similar. Everyone remembers their first love, but Penny was my first infatuation. We were in the same class at school, and we were good friends.
I left school a bit early, to work in a butcher shop. Penny went on to eventually get her doctorate.
But Penny loved tennis, and although I had little interest in it, after work I would go to tennis, and we would often play together. She was much better than me, but occasionally she would let me win. We were good friends, had lots of fun together, but never even shared a kiss.
I left town to work elsewhere, and that was the end of that, although I never forgot Penny McTavish.
Recently, and many years later, and in another country, during the course of my work I bumped into a young lady called Veronica McTavish. During our conversations I mentioned that I once knew a girl in ..... called Penny McTavish. She told me her Mum grew up in that country, and came to this country after she married a doctor.
After more talking, sure enough her Mum was my old tennis friend Penny. Veronica told me her Mum had divorced her father. She lived in Brisbane for several years, and she never remarried.
Veronica said she seemed to be pining for an old friend, and she used to talk about the tennis matches they played together. Then three years ago, she told me, Penny McTavish died of cancer. Bugger. I'll never forget Penny Mc Tavish. Not ever.*
Next week I'll be in Sydney and Melbourne on business, and I'll have time to check out their Botanical Gardens. I havent seen the Melbourne Gardens for year or so, but they have had some rain recently so I'm hopeful they will be worth seeing. **
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3/2/03 I was in Canberra for the Australia Day long weekend, and managed to spend a couple of hours at the Canberra Botanic gardens with my camera. The Gardens are looking great with good displays of our native plants, and I got some superb bird photoes while I was there.
I guess I’m a prolific writer, I like writing, and I try to spend at least an hour a day on it. I love writing fiction, but I’ve just finished a non-fiction eBook some of our newsletter readers may be interested in. There is a rapidly rising trend to male and female impotency worldwide, and it can be controlled or avoided. The eBook is called the
“The Secret Herbs for Love, for Sex, and for Keeping your Feet Warm on Cold Nights.”
You can read more about it here! It is an Adults Only book.
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17/1/07 Drought! Most areas of Australia have been drought affected for 10 years, some longer.
Clive Blazey, a long-time advocate of digging up the lawn and replacing it with delicious, heirloom varieties of fruit and vegetables, fears the traditional backyard vegie patch is at risk from water restrictions. He argues that home gardeners not only use less water than commercial farmers, but they are sequestering carbon dioxide and saving all the greenhouse gases that result from commercial farming, transport, refrigeration and storage of produce.
"It is probably the most positive thing a person can do at home," he said, "and I think it is appalling that we get penalised." The first target of water restrictions now in place in every mainland Australian state capital is use in the garden. Most jurisdictions ban sprinklers and strictly limit hand-watering of gardens. The nursery and associated industries have suffered a downturn of between 30 and 40 per cent and about 6000 job losses due to water restrictions.
But The Digger's Club, which Mr Blazey set up in 1978 to preserve and sell heirloom vegetables, fruit and flower seeds, is thriving. "We are going through the worst drought ever, and our sales are booming," he said. "We are staggered." He thinks gardeners are motivated by food scares, the desire to eat healthy, organic produce and by climate change. "About 25 per cent (of our greenhouse gas production) is connected with food, from the beginning to the end distribution. So if you grow at home, you are saving 25 per cent."
Permaculture advocate David Holmgren established his garden, Mellidora, at Hepburn Springs in central Victoria 20 years ago. "Potato farming in our district uses six or seven megalitres (million litres) per hectare. We are using under one megalitre." Melliodora is just under 1ha.
"We are producing all the fruit and vegetables, most of the nuts, dairy products, but not grains and oilseeds, for about six or seven people," he said. Both Mr Blazey and Mr Holmgren would like to see state governments adopt a system where households get a water allocation and use it as they wish, with charges rising steeply for higher consumption. Malcolm Turnbull, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister with responsibility for water, has said the idea of individual water allocations should be considered. *Herald Sun
Its quite true that gardeners have been the first ones to be penalised for using water. Business and factories have not yet been forced to reduce water usage, but some have started anyway. There is no doubt that many Australian gardens have suffered. Some gardeners are reluctantly removing water-loving loving plants and replacing with low water-use or arid land plants. Mulching is becoming more widely used. You can read much more about waterproofing your gardens in our Gardening Index on the left hand side of this page. * Patrick
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27/12/06 I hope everyone had nice Christmas. I spent Christmas day lying around a pool with a bunch of friends, and with plenty of good food and drink. Earlier in December I had the pleasure of meeting one of our Canadian Home Herb and Garden Newsletter readers. Evelyn had contacted me by email, asking what gardens she should visit while in Australia. We managed to catch up for coffee a couple of times (I know where all the good capachinos are made!) and I enjoyed hearing all about gardening in Canada.
It turned out she lives on the Sunshine Coast, Canada, and I live on the Sunshine Coast, Australia! It was very nice to meet one of our readers from overseas. Early in 2007 we are going to produce another newsletter, this time focusing on business news. That will help us to focus more on herb and garden news in the HHG newsletter. We will also be starting a free business Membership Site to help online business owners get their businesses into the Insane Growth Zone! (IGZ) Hey, that's a good domain name!
Meanwhile you may like to take a look at this below;
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27/11/06 MEXICAN CORN BREAD
1 cup yellow corn meal,
1 cup flour,
1/4 cup brown sugar,
1 tablespoon baking powder,
2 teaspoons chili powder,
1/2 teaspoons cumin powder,
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder,
2 teaspoons cilantro, chopped or dried,
1/2 teaspoon oregano, chopped or dried,
dash cayenne pepper,
1/3 cup oil,
1 egg,
1 cup milk,
1. Combine dry ingredients and herbs in bowl and mix well.
2. Combine oil, egg and milk together. Mix well. Stir into dry ingredients until just blended.
3. Pour into well buttered 8" square pan.
4. Bake in hot oven, 400 for 25 minutes or until done.
Serve warm.**
This is a true story.
A friend... I'll call him 'Fred'... needed an engineer to come round and connect up the phone in his new house. So he called Telstra and they promised to send someone round. A week later, Steve's at home, waiting for the guy to turn up. A van pulls up outside his house and the engineer comes to his door, looking agitated. 'You're here to connect up my phone?' said Steve. 'Yeah, mate,' said the engineer, 'but first, can I use your bathroom, please?' 'Sure,' said Steve, settling onto the sofa as the visitor hopped upstairs.
Minutes passed... many minutes... After about ten minutes, Steve began to wonder what was happening. It was a long time for a bloke to be in the toilet. A few more minutes passed... Finally, he heard the bathroom door open and the engineer trot down the stairs. 'Right,' he said. 'I just need to get a couple of things from the van, and I can get started.' Fred watched him jump in his van and drive away!
Fred stared out of the window, confused. What in crikey had happened? Unsure of modern telecoms practice, Steve wondered whether the engineer had driven to another place to connect up the phone line. But that seemed unlikely. So he went upstairs to check out the bathroom. He pushed open the door... walked to the toilet ... and peered into the bowl. There he saw the largest, most monstrous thing a human bowel could create. It not only filled the bowl, but the water level was almost at the lip of the seat. He could see that the engineer had made some desperate attempts to flush the thing away. As the water levels rose, he must have panicked and decided to do a runner instead of facing up to the consequences.
Fred rang up Telstra again, and got through to a Delhi call centre. 'You've sent an engineer out to my house, and he's blocked my toilet.' 'No, sir. We are Telstra.' 'Yes, I know, he was here to connect up my phone. But now I need a plumber.'
'We are not plumbing company. We are Telstra.''I know you are Telstra. But your engineer has used my toilet and blocked it. I now need to pay for a plumber.' 'We are not plumbing company.' 'I realise that, but...'
And I always thought I have a bad time of it with broken computers, fridges and broadband
connections.
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24/11/06 There is another 'we'll take our toys home' tantrum from the drug companies reported this week. A young medical researcher almost stopped the show after her talk about drug company influence on medical education at a conference in New Mexico.
One drug company representative said her company would immediately withdraw its sponsorship, while every drug company exhibitor, save one, dismantled its stand and left. The one who stayed hadn't heard the speech.
As the speaker, Prof Adriane Fugh-Berman from Georgetown University, told the audience: "Drug representatives are paid to be nice to us, as long as we cooperate, sustaining our market share of targeted drugs and limiting our continuing medical education lectures to messages that increase drug sales."
Brave words indeed, and ones you won't hear around New Mexico again in the very near future. (Source: British Medical Journal, 2006; 333: 1027).
We're pleased to report that, for the 22nd year running, doctors have been voted the most trustworthy professionals in the UK by an overwhelming 91 per cent of the population.
We're also sorry to report that journalists were considered the least trustworthy, polling just 16 per cent of votes.
But then, pollsters were considered untrustworthy by half those polled, so should we believe the results? Especially as the British Medical Association, the UK doctors' trade union, paid for the whole thing. (Source: Mori website).
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7/10/06 It’s 3 am as I’m writing this. Okay, what am I doing sitting in front of a computer at this hour of the night? Well, it’s a full moon, isn’t it?
I reckon full Moons are far too valuable to sleep through.
Full Moons are for courting, camping, sailing, fishing, hunting werewolves, or chasing vampires with a gun loaded with silver bullets. We only get 12 full Moons a year, why waste them sleeping? You can do that anytime!
But nowadays Id rather have a cappachino than go courting or camping, I can’t go sailing or fishing with one arm in a sling, I think Van Helsing got most of the werewolves, and I’ve run out of silver bullets for the vampires.
So that’s what I’m doing sitting in front of the computer at 3 am.
Mind you, full Moon is good for other outdoor activities. Would you believe me if I told you that some people work in their gardens on the night of full Moon? It’s true, it’s true!
And it’s not a bad idea either! Many plants and herbs reach the pinnacle of their growth on full moon. Through the waxing period, as the Moon grows bigger, plants actively suck up water and nutrients. As the Moon becomes full, plants reach their full potential, and should be picked at this time. After full Moon, as the moon wanes, the plants do too.
With herbs for essences, it is especially important to pick your herbs on the full Moon. You can read more about gardening on the full Moon at Go to Gardening by the Moon!
28/9/06 My Dad had a deafness in one ear. He got knocked around in WW1 and he reckoned that’s what caused it. He was 14 at the time, he put his age up so he could go overseas. Anyway, he had a bit of a selective hearing loss. If I said to him “Dad, can you lend me ten bucks?” he wouldn’t hear a thing. But if I said “Dad, do you fancy coming down to the Pub for a beer?” he’d say “Yes, don’t mind if I do!”
Anyway as I got a bit older myself I developed a similar hearing loss. It was handy too, when my partner Susan would suggest it might be time to mow the lawn, I’d look at my watch and say “It’s half past three!” Of course it never fooled her, but it was a good try.
I had noticed that my hearing was worse when there was background noise. I had done a lot of scuba diving in my younger days, I’d had a couple of emergencies when I had to surface in a hurry, and one time I had bleeding ears after such an assent. Once I had to bring up a diver who had passed out at some depth, and another time I got chased out of the water by a very big shark. Things we do when we are young and bullet proof!
So recently I decided to get my ears candled, to see if my hearing would improve. Although an unskilled person can do this, I went to a naturapath. She explained to me the importance of using high quality candles, and away we went. She candled each ear three times, and I have to say the difference was amazing. Each candle took about 10 minutes, and was quite painless. The amount of wax that came out was incredible. My bad ear, the one I had been having trouble hearing with, was full of wax, no wonder I was half deaf!
And I’m going back soon for another once only treatment to clean out any wax that may have been left. If you are having hearing problems, I strongly suggest that you get your ears candled by an expert before you go down the expensive and possible unnecessary route of a hearing aid. *Patrick
20/7/06
In a 'landmark' clinical trial, Spanish researchers
have found that eating a Mediterranean diet with
extra nuts or olive oil is significantly better for
heart health than a low-fat diet.
Commenting on the results, researchers
from the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona said:
"The results to date make us believe, long term, the
Mediterranean diet enriched with walnuts or olive
oil will indeed reduce heart disease. The size,
duration and clinical basis of this study make it
landmark."
The Med diet, rich in cereals, fruits, legumes and
whole grains, fish and olive oil, has been well
publicized for its potential to promote a longer
life, prevent heart disease, and protect against
certain types of cancer. The diet's main nutritional
components include beta-carotene, vitamin C,
tocopherols, polyphenols, and essential minerals.
But researchers said that the previous results on Med
diets and heart health were merely "scattered pieces
of evidence from prospective studies.The early
results of this clinical trial indicate that the
Mediterranean diet pattern is ideal for
cardiovascular disease prevention". *
Kim from the US emailed us about some bugs eating her plants. She said: I have some sort of insect that is eating holes in my basil and sage. Went to the local home improvement, garden center and they suggested "sevin" product. Is that what you would suggest and also is it safe to eat the herb that has been treated with that product?
Our reply? HI Kim,
I wouldnt put any chemical on a herb or vegetable that you are going to eat. Id try simmering up a few very hot chillies, add a little soft soap or detergent to help the chillies stick, pour it through a strainer, and spray, or pour through a sieve, on your herbs. Much safer, and probably more effective, Cheers, Patrick *
30/6/06 Last week I flew from Brisbane to NSW on business. What I like about landing in Sydney from a Northern flight is that the aircraft does a long slow circle over Sydney Harbour, with a great view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. That’s if you have a window seat, which I always try to get.
The aircraft then circles out over the ocean, to line up for the runway. I always look for whales, I’ve seen them here before, but not this time, although it is the migratory season for the humpback whales as they head North to the warm waters of Queensland. More about whales in minute, though. The other interesting thing about landing from this quarter is that you can look down on the headlands where Tom Cruise did all his daredevil motorbike scenes in the movie Mission Impossible Two, or was it One? Whatever, I didn’t think MM Three was as good as the other two.
Last time I landed in Sydney there was big brawl at the Taxi Stand, so this time I jumped on train. By great good luck, and through no fault of Sydney Rail, it was on time. I jumped off at Circular Quay by the Opera House, and caught a jetcat ferry to Manly, and by about 9 am I was sitting in my favourite café overlooking Manly Surf beach having breakfast.
So why did I go to Manly? Well, apart from breakfast, I needed some more boat photos for a new website I’m building, and Sydney Harbour has lots of boats on it! On the way back on a slower ferry, I took a hundred or so photos, many of which will go on the website.
Back at Circular Quay I got off the ferry and I walked just up the hill to the Sydney Botanical Gardens, to the herb area, but it was a bit disappointing. Its midwinter in Sydney, and the echinaceas were almost finished, and garden staff were getting ready to plant for Spring. The hothouse was pretty good though, lots of tropical gingers and orchids in flower.
By 2 pm that afternoon I was back at Sydney Airport for my flight to Tamworth, an hour or so by air West of Sydney. Tamworth is a bit like Nashville and the Grand Ole Oprey. Well…it’s nothing like it really…..but as they are the Country and Western Centres of the US, Tamworth is the C and W Centre of Australia. In January each year, for a week the whole City stops and listens to Australia’s top C and W stars, and a few imported ones as well. They have buskers everywhere for the Festival, open air concerts, and they even have a 40 foot tall Golden Guitar in the town!
There was one odd thing about Tamworth that I saw, and that I'd never seen before. I called into a Pub for quiet beer before tea, and the clock on the wall ran backwards! Dead set! The numbers instead of going one, two, three etc clockwise, they went anti-clockwise. Of course, I had to have another beer while I figured it all out. The clock kept perfect time though, it just ran backwards! I suppose if I had another beer it might have gone faster. Or slower.
Next day I hopped in a smaller aircraft, and flew back to Sydney. The aircraft flew towards Newcastle, which is North of Sydney, and then circled down to Sydney Airport, on a very similar flight path to the bigger aircraft I had been on a couple of days before.
And there were the whales. I saw a pod of 5 or 6, just North of Sydney, and very close to the Coastline, surrounded by half a dozen obligatory whale-watching boats, then a few minutes later I saw another 3 on their own. Wow, I love whales! Who would read a book in an aircraft, when you can look out the window and see whales? Patrick
24/6/06 Australian actress Nicole Kidman and singer Keith Urban are to be married tomorrow, Sunday, in Sydney. There are many stories circulating around about the pair, as the media scrum digs in to find some interesting snippet of information that noone else has found.
One story surfaced about Keith Urban. When he was a little feller he used to go to school on the school bus. He would take his guitar and sit down the back of the bus by himself, and play and sing.
I used to travel on the school bus too, when I was little feller, but I used to like to sit with the girls. So anyway, later on in life, loner Keith Urban marries the gorgeous Nicole Kidman. I think there’s a message there. *
Brazil nuts are nature’s top source of selenium, a mineral that neutralizes pre-cancerous cells in the digestive tract before they turn dangerous. In studies, volunteers who ate at least two Brazil nuts a day reduced their colorectal cancer risk by as much as 60%*
New research shows that downing a quarter cup of ground flax seed daily reduces hot flashes by 38%, regulates out-of-whack periods and reduces cramping for 66% of women—plus slashes the risk of periomenopausal mood swings and depression tenfold. Flax contains mild, natural plant estrogens that mimic a woman’s own estrogen—filling in when hormone levels dip too low. Just sprinkle ground flaxseed on cereal or yogurt, or add to your favorite burger, casserole or pancake recipes. *
21/6/06 The Australian media has gone crazy over Nicole Kidman and country singer Keith Urban's upcoming wedding in Sydney. Urban comes from Caboolture in Queensland, a town close to where I live, and where I visit regularly. Of course I know all the best tea and coffee shops in Caboolture. Anyway the locals here are busting with anticipation to see if Keith Urban will visit his old home town while he is in Australia.
Meanwhile the wedding may be on Friday or Monday in Sydney. I'll be in Sydney on the Tuesday, and I wonder if I'll be lucky enough to catch a glimspe of the famous pair strolling along Circular Quay with the rest of the tourists! *
*Herb Dumplings* Mix one cup of wholewheat flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, salt to taste. Then add two tablespoons of freshly chopped parsley, or marjoram, or oregano, or almost any other herb you like. If using dried herbs, use half as much. Mix all with milk, soy milk, or plain yogurt to dumpling consistency. Scoop out with a wet spoon, drop into casserole, and cook a further 20 minutes. Yum! *
15/6/06 One of the main ingredients in beer appears to thwart prostate cancer, according to findings released recently by researchers at a US university. However, a person would have to drink more than 17 pints daily to imbibe a medically effective dose of xanthohumol, the cancer-fighting chemical found in hops.
So the counter effects of the alcohol may outweigh any health benefits from drinking beer. Hmmm. But crikey, what is this fixation that blokes have towards beer anyway? Is it just a male thing?
Anyway, after finding out about this research, a brewery in Germany (where else, except perhaps Australia)decided to make a beer loaded up with xanthohumol, and they claim its tastes good! So now blokes can have their prostate cancer and their beer too! The beer only for medicinal purposes, of course.*
Recently I visited the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens in Central Queensland. I got some nice photos of some wild corellas,(a medium-size white parrot) and some water birds on the Lagoon. In spite of the drought, the Gardens are looking pretty good, although maintenance is a bit slack.
Unfortunately the whole Gardens atmosphere is spoilt by the sad and sorry little Zoo that is there as well.
9/5/06 About Hayfever: alternatives not to be sneezed at
The best way to prevent hayfever is to arrange not to have parents who suffer from an allergy. If either your mother or father is allergic, you’ve got a 40 per cent chance of inheriting the condition, and the odds rise to near certainty if both your parents are sufferers.
The bad news is that hayfever is on the increase, probably for two man-made reasons: global warming is bringing earlier summers and more pollenation; and environmental pollution is trapping the pollens in the atmosphere. Last year, pollen levels were almost the highest ever recorded.
Although complete avoidance of pollen is impractical - if not impossible - there are a few ways to reduce its impact:
* Wear sunglasses to help prevent pollen getting into your eyes
* Stay indoors on sunny, windy days and when the pollen count exceeds 50
* Keep the windows in your home and car closed, and use an air conditioner if possible
* Live by the sea, where pollen counts are lower
* Try excluding common food allergens such as milk, wheat and eggs,they may be exacerbating your symptomsand. Eat more fresh fruit and vegetables.
* Get someone else to mow the lawn!
There’s one bit of good news about hayfever. It’s one of the few conditions that doesn’t get worse with age - in fact, quite the reverse. If you, like most people, had your first attack before age 30, your symptoms will ease as the years go by, probably because the immune system learns to cope. *
4/5/06 We've had a request from a lady who suffers from eczema, and she has asked us if there is any herbal tea she can drink that will help.
Well, there certainly is. Eczema is sometimes caused by an allergic reaction, but also can be hereditary. Peppermint and chickweed are both useful for easing the skin irritation. We suggesteed she make a peppermint tea, let it cool, and wash the area affected 2 or 3 times a day.
Also chickweed ointment is effective too, and both chickweed and peppermint can be used together. Another possibility is to dust the affected area with gotu kola powder.
Also she will need to detox if she haven’t already done so. She should drink some dandelion root tea as well, 3 or 4 cups a day, hot or cold. She should cut out dairy and wheat products too, they may be the cause of it.**
2/5/06 Have you ever wondered why, when we pump billions of dollars and pounds into our health systems every year, that we don't have a better service? Paradoxically, perhaps, one of the reasons is because we pump billions of dollars and pounds into our health systems every year. A new report has discovered that medical care is one of the most corrupt industries in the world - because of the amount of money involved.
Bribery of regulators and medical professionals, manipulation of research findings, the 'disappearance' of medicines and supplies, corruption at the procurement stage, and the over-billing of insurance companies are all daily practices in medicine. The study, the Global Corruption Report 2006, estimates that the world spends more than three trillion dollars a year on health services.
This makes it a feast day for the corrupt, and they are rarely found out. It's almost impossible to put a figure on corrupt practices. Medicine is so inept that a great deal of money is also lost through inefficiencies and honest mistakes, says the report. (Source: www.globalcorruptionreport.org)
12/4/06 Chinese herbal medicines may find a place alongside mainstream Western medicine to treat illnesses such as vascular dementia, irritable bowel syndrome and bad period pain if trials being conducted by a Sydney university and hospital prove successful. Researchers at the Centre for Complementary Medicine Research at the University of Western Sydney (UWS) are conducting clinical trials with herbs used commonly in Asia to treat sicknesses.
Herbal medicines were used systematically in public hospitals in Asia but more clinical evidence was needed in Australia before it would gain more wide-ranging use. Herbal medicine is really well established in Asia. The hope is that if the trials prove successful, Chinese herbal medicines will be used alongside conventional medicines.
Ginger has long been a star player in Indian and Chinese traditional medicine. It has bacteria-killing properties and is also used as an antiviral agent to treat colds and flu. Chinese medicine practitioners view ginger as an excellent warming, stimulating agent, capable of soothing the digestive system and also fighting infection. Western medical research also backs its abilities.
Studies have found that ginger can be as effective as conventional drugs at relieving travel and morning sickness. In other research, the extracted flavour compound gingerol slowed the growth of human bowel cancers. One British trial found a 255 milligrams twice-daily dose of a ginger supplement was as effective as conventional drugs at relieving moderate to severe osteoarthritis pain.
Garlic has exceptional health benefits. Compounds in garlic have antifungal, antibacterial and anti-malignancy properties, and studies have shown that garlic can help defend against heart disease, cancer, fungal infections and the common cold. In one experiment conducted during winter in Britain, daily garlic supplements reduced the risk of catching a cold by half. A recent study has also found that allicin, the chemical in garlic which is responsible for its flavour, can treat the antibiotic-resistant hospital superbug MRSA. Another found that men who ate the most garlic and onions had half the risk of developing prostate cancer. Yet another study has found that garlic compounds may help in the treatment of malaria. Garlic can also help reduce high blood sugar levels.**
24/3/06 During the last couple of months I've driven around 7500 kilometers of Western NSW and Queensland on business. I have to say the country is not looking good. In spite of years of drought, most Western areas have been cleared and ploughed as far as the eye can see. Mallee forests have given way to cotton, sorgum and sunflower seed. Very few kangaroos can be seen, the odd one dead on the raod, and a few small mobs scattering away in fright. Shooting, habitat loss, and drought have decimated the kangaroos. It's all very sad. **
According to the ABC the fruit and vegetable industry is angry at a decision to exclude major supermarkets from a new mandatory code of conduct. The code was promised by the Federal Government in 2004 to try to give growers more clout in negotiating contracts with supermarkets.
But it has now decided not to include retailers Coles and Woolworths. Andrew Young from the wholesaler-backed, Central Markets Association, believes supermarkets could end up benefiting at the expense of both growers and wholesalers.
"Over 50 per cent of the product will be outside the scope of the code so there's really a big question mark over whether it's meaningful at all, particularly given that two prior government reviews into the code issue have both recommended that if there is to be a code it should apply to the whole retail/grocery industry," he said. "It's a half baked code that will have a half baked outcome with a massive cost to the industry." **
28/2/06 Yesterday, after months of hastling Telstra, and many years of unreliable dialups with subsequent dropouts and line failures, I finally went on to Broadband. What can I say? Wow! *
Scented geraniums have been chosen as Herb of the Year 2006. Native to South Africa, there are literally hundreds of varieties and hybrids. Flowers are small, they are grown for the scents in the leaves. The oil is used for massage, leaves and flowers for medicinal purposes, cosmetic use, aromatherapy, and many varieties are used in cooking. They grow easily from cuttings, and grow well in pots or in the ground. *
If echinacea and elderberry is not working for you for the flu, try aloe vera juice. The juice contains acemannans, long-chain sugars known for their immune-boosting properties. The molecules act like food for white blood cells, allowing them to multiply and attack foreign invaders in the body. This stops the flu virus from replicating, so symptoms disappear faster. *
10/2/06 During the last few years I’ve written/edited over 40 books, some were eBooks, some were printed, and all were non-fiction.
But now I’m writing fiction, and the non-fiction books just can’t compete. Writing fiction is so much more enjoyable, characters can do whatever you want them to do. You can take ordinary humans, and trust them into extraordinary situations, and then manipulate the end game. I don’t believe in filling a book up with page wasters either.
I write adventure fiction, and the people who buy my books expect to read adventure. I don’t believe they want to read three or four pages about how a Blackhawk helicopter goes up and down, or how big the gun is that the hero shoots the bad fellers with. (Unless it’s essential to the story-line, of course!)
An adventure story is what I write, that’s what my fiction book customers buy, and that’s what they get. A lot of people ask me how I get my ideas, and I have to say, ideas are everywhere.
For instance, this week I had to fly from Brisbane to Sydney again. It was an afternoon flight, and when I grabbed my bag off the carousel and walked out for a taxi, it was very quiet. Although there were 25 or so taxis at the taxi rank, there were only a couple of us passengers that needed one.
But just before I jumped in a cab, a fight broke out only a few meters away. It started off with a bloke and a security guard pushing and shoving each other, then punches where thrown. The security guard went down, and the bloke jumped on him, kneed him in the stomach, and then punched him hard in the face a couple of times, while he was on the ground. It must have hurt!
At this point six or eight taxi drivers jumped out of their cabs, and went to the aid of the security guard. The bloke jumped up, put his back to the wall and decked four or five of them straight up.
One big taxi-driver got hit so hard he staggered/ran back to his cab holding his bleeding nose. The rest of the taxi drivers then realised this bloke could probably beat up on all of them, so they stood back, and motioned with their hands that the fight was over. The bloke picked up his bag, waved, and walked away. Welcome to Sydney, I thought!
But there it was, punch by punch, several pages on my next book! Sure, I would change the venue perhaps, or the participants perhaps, but there were several factual nearly-already written pages for an adventure book! The citizen might be the hero, the security guard an imposter, and the taxi-drivers a bunch of crooks, or the other way around, who knows?
Ideas for an adventure book are everywhere, in the news, on the tele, in every facet of our lives. Coincidentally, the Chinese New Year was being celebrated in Sydney while I was there, and all the pageantry, crowds, and color just begs to be written up in another adventure book! **
28/1/06. I was in Sydney unexpectedly on Australia Day for some meetings, and early in the day I was on the Manly Ferry watching all the hundreds of boats out fishing in the Harbor.
Two days previously, all the Sydney papers carried frontpage stories about how fish caught in Sydney harbor contained over 100 times the WHO limit for dioxins!
Adults who catch this fish and eat it deserve all they get, but the real tragedy is for the kids who will eat some of the fish, and then years later wonder why they have got significant health problems.
On a better note, the Sydney Botanical Gardens herb garden was magnificent, with a long row of colourful eachinacea in full bloom. The tropical house was loaded with native and exotic blooms from some very strange plants. The Gardens are well worth a look for anyone visiting Sydney. Patrick**
24/1/06. Daily gardening and enjoying a drink or two afterwards may protect people against dementia, an Australian study has found. Researchers studied 2805 Dubbo (Australia) men and women, aged 60 and older, between 1988 and 2004, to identify risk factors for dementia. Over the 16 years, 115 cases of dementia were recorded in 1233 men and 170 cases in 1572 women.
Leon Simons, of the University of NSW, and colleagues found people who said they were daily gardeners had a 36 per cent lower risk of dementia while drinkers were 34 per cent less likely to develop the disease than teetotallers. Daily walking also predicted a 38 per cent lower risk of dementia in men, but the researchers recorded no significant reduction in women. *
Garlic has exceptional health benefits. Compounds in garlic have antifungal, antibacterial and anti-malignancy properties, and studies have shown that garlic can help defend against heart disease, cancer, fungal infections and the common cold. In one experiment conducted during winter in Britain, daily garlic supplements reduced the risk of catching a cold by half.
A recent study has also found that allicin, the chemical in garlic which is responsible for its flavour, can treat the antibiotic-resistant hospital superbug MRSA. Another found that men who ate the most garlic and onions had half the risk of developing prostate cancer.
Yet another study has found that garlic compounds may help in the treatment of malaria. Garlic can also help reduce high blood sugar levels. *
Cheers, Patrick
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