Posts: 1602
From: CA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted September 15, 2006 04:07 PM         

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I was having a convo the other day with a friend of mine about my strange tendency to feel like I'm Dr. Mengele when I have to kill any living thing, including ants and mice, even when I have to prune and the plants "bleed", and he referred me to the Findhorn Foundation.

Since you're kinda the resident "Greenie" around LL, I was wondering if you are familiar at all with this organization or any like it, and what your thoughts were on it.

Thanks

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Posts: 2200
From: land of the midnight sun
Registered: Dec 2002

posted September 15, 2006 04:52 PM         

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Dr. Mengele? I had to google him cause I wasn't sure who he was..
oh no.. you shouldn't feel like you are a sociopath for doing some necessary pruning and pest elimination!
It is the way of nature to have to kill things so other things can flourish. I like to think of myself as the dark aspect of the Goddess.. like the harvest goddess Demeter perhaps. Death is a neccessary part of the circle of life.

As for the Findhorn Foundation, I know a little bit about them. I know that Findhorn is an intentional community in England that's been around for quite awhile. Some of the witches I run with in my tradition have spent time there and I hear that they are doing some really neat stuff. They are all about trying to create a community that is in harmony with the wider ecosystem within which we all live, in one form or another. I'd love to visit there. I read a book about conflict resolution that was written by a resident and cofounder of the IC.
Beyond that, I don't know many more details about them. Their website looks very extensive.. I'm going to have to do some reading. I think there may be a thread about it around here somewhere...I'm going to see if I can find it..

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Posts: 1602
From: CA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted September 15, 2006 05:20 PM         

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I have to remember the death is part of life thing when I have to kill bugs or catch mice. I've always been a bit weird about that kind of thing, but in the past several years I've gotten worse. I feel incredibly guilty and horrible about it - I can't bear to spray ants with Raid because of the way they obviously suffer - the go into convulsions and stuff. I don't like thinking of a mouse stuck on a glue strip, not dead, but suffering, starving to death in my garbage can. I would rather save a bug and put it outside than kill it.

I think maybe in a past life I was one of those monks whose ideology includes trying to avoid even stepping on a blade of grass for fear that they're causing a living thing to die (tried to Google it and find the name of the sect but I can't find it)...

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Posts: 2200
From: land of the midnight sun
Registered: Dec 2002

posted September 15, 2006 05:30 PM         

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ew..oh man.. yeah I would hate to think of a mouse starving to death in by garbage can.. better to stick it in a plastic bag and whack it real hard against a table or cement a few times to kill it fast. We actually have to kill mice often to feed our snakes and that's how my husband does it. He's a Scorpio too, btw, and he HATES having to kill the mice but he loves his snakes soo much that he's willing to do it for them. You are better off avoiding the Raid too, in my opinion just from the nasty chemical factor on top of the torturous nature of it. There's got to be some environmentally safer method than that stuff, I would imagine.. I don't have an ant problem so I'm not sure what those solutions would be tho....

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Posts: 1602
From: CA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted September 15, 2006 05:36 PM         

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With the Raid, I just spray a quick line across their line of march. I can't bear to spray them all and I had cancer so I detest using chemicals if I can avoid it. Basically, just making a line across their march will make most of them turn back and go back to where they came. Seems that less die that way (and there's less clean up).

Beating a mouse is to me as difficult as just dropping it in the trash can. I just couldn't put a living creature in a bag and beat it on something. I'm thinking of going back to the old fashioned traps because at least they usually kill quickly.

Last year we caught a mouse in the old style traps and it only sprained her leg (didn't know it was a "her" at the time). Goofy me, went out and got a mice habitat and nursed her back to health only to find out that she didn't want to be set free cause she was about to give birth (I actually tried to free her in the garden and she wouldn't go...). So I kept feeding her and taking care of her. All her babies died, which broke my heart. But that just shows you what a dork I am about such things. I don't know anyone who will rescue and nurse a wild mouse back to health LOL.

Maybe I read too many Ralph the Motorcyle Mouse books when I was a kid.

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Posts: 2200
From: land of the midnight sun
Registered: Dec 2002

posted September 16, 2006 03:25 PM         

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aw, you're such a softy! I remember following the story of the mouse rescue over in Heathcliffe's Corner and thinking how sweet of you that was. Sounds like something I would do.

So I found this book I have of old folk
remedies for a wide variety of household tasks and there was a section on pests.. so I scanned some pages relevant to the ant problem.. I don't know how well or even If they all work but most of the solutions are things people keep around the house anyway, so maybe with alittle experimentation, you can eliminate the Raid.

That must have been scary, having cancer. I had a weird growth on my arm that turned out to be a benign form of skin cancer and it thoroughly freaked me out.. I was planning for how our family would go on with out me and everything!

So here's the pages-

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Posts: 2200
From: land of the midnight sun
Registered: Dec 2002

posted September 16, 2006 03:26 PM         

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Posts: 1602
From: CA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted September 16, 2006 07:05 PM         

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Thanks for the info! The flea remedies will be especially helpful. One of my dogs just had to be taken to the vet because of an allergic reaction to flea bites. Before that I never gave them any flea medication because I don't like pesticides, so I just tried to bathe them regularly and trust that the eucalyptus bark that drops in the yard would keep fleas away. With all the warnings on the flea med box, I wasn't that comfortable using it. I'm glad to know there's a more natural way to keep them out w/out using Frontline.

The cancer I had was in my arm too - but it was in the soft tissue - a type of sarcoma. It started out as a small pebble in my upper arm and because the treatment was mismanaged initially, it ended up growing to nearly the size of a softball by the time I got them to finally remove it. If it would have happened five years earlier than it had, I would have lost my arm up to the shoulder joint. Thanks to Stanford University I have full use of my arm and can still play drums.

You must have been relived to find out it was benign!

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Posts: 145
From: USA
Registered: Jul 2005

posted September 17, 2006 01:58 AM         

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thanks for the remedies- let me say however that I put a giant mint plant outdoors and fire ants have moved in! They must have evolved.

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Posts: 2200
From: land of the midnight sun
Registered: Dec 2002

posted September 17, 2006 08:41 PM         

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wow.. what an incredible story. Sounds so scary! That's wonderful that not only were you able to keep your arm (yikes!) but you can still play drums.
I didn't know you played.. I played for a few years in school and my first child's father played for 16 years. He was very talented. I have a soft spot for drummers.

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Posts: 2200
From: land of the midnight sun
Registered: Dec 2002

posted September 17, 2006 08:43 PM         

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tux, those fire ants are brutal I hear..I'm glad they don't live here. I wonder if the mint thing was only for sugar or carpenter ants...hmm..

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Posts: 23814
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted October 06, 2006 12:40 AM         

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"There is no use trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Lewis Carroll

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Posts: 1578
From: NC, USA
Registered: Aug 2003

posted October 14, 2006 03:09 AM         

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Just wanted to mention that there is a chapter in the book 'The Secret Life of Plants' by Tompkins and Bird titled "Findhorn and the Garden of Eden". The book was mentioned in Linda's Pilgrim's Progress section of Star Signs and that chapter was where I first learned about Findhorn. It was just amazing, although too short for my taste. If you haven't read this book yet, I highly recommend it.

Here's how the chapter on Findhorn starts:

"The most advanced experiment involving communication with plants has now developed in a remote corner of northern Scotland, with results more radiant than have been achieved by any other means. On a barren, wind-blown patch of gorse and sand overlooking the Firth of Moray, a seedling community has taken root which may flourish into a marvel of the Aquarian Age.
Three miles as the raven croaks from the battlements of Duncan's castle at Forres, and just south of the heath where the three witches prophesied to Macbeth that he would be the Thane of Glamis and Cawdor, an ex-RAF squadron leader turned hotelkeeper decided to take up residence with his wife and three young sons in the derelict corner of a caravan park on Findhorn Bay - a rubbish heap of old tin cans, broken bottles, brambles, and gorse bushes."

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Posts: 23814
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted October 18, 2006 04:13 PM         

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"There is no use trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Lewis Carroll

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