Summer Updates, Good By Chevron, Hello Monarchy
“If you're in favour of any policy - reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever - if you're at least minimally moral, it's because you think it's somehow good for people. And good for people means conforming to their fundamental nature.”
Noam Chomsky
In this chapter of the blog, you will meet the summer intern from Chemeketa Community College and learn about the cool projects he is working on. We will discuss the Geothermal Greenhouse, and of course talk a little bit about plants and the soon to be coming flower bulb offering and of course hear me complain about the weather!
Andy Hamelin has joined the Illahe team for his cooperative work experience term, where he learns the skills of operating and managing an alpine, rock garden and flower bulb nursery while receiving school credit and a stipend and I get some much needed help. Andy is about to graduate from the horticulture program with an associate of applied science, He is an army veteran who served 2 tours in Afghanistan and came home to take over operation of the longstanding family farm where his grandfather raised Quarter Horses. Andy now manages herds of goats and alpacas and outside of his school time enjoys the company of 3 dogs, 2 kittens and a barn cat. He is an adept mechanic, car enthusiast and if that isn’t enough he has a degree culinary arts from Portland’s Le Cordon Bleu college of culinary arts. We are feeling pretty lucky to have him with us this summer!
Andy Hamelin the 2024 Chemeketa CWE Intern at Illahe Rare Plants
One of Andy’s interests is environmental controls and he will be working to design a microcontroller processing board to take on the complex tasks of regulating the fan systems and other environmental controls in the new Geothermal greenhouse. Speaking of which, we have been doing some test runs and calculations for the final fan fitting and it’s amazing how well it works. Check out the gallery to see some of the test run results and also some of the summer highlights.
The 11 degree cooling effect of the test run is a pretty impressive feat, it’s bound to be much better with the proper sized fans and the ducting routing, but the most amazing thing is to get such a huge amount of cooling with such a tiny little input of electricity. It’s almost laughable that this very simple ‘technology’ isn’t more widely used throughout the oil and energy intensive ‘green industry of greenhouse production’. This geothermal design is much more studied for it’s heating effect in cold Nebraska winters where they utilize them to grow citrus, but I’m finding the cooling effect very welcome here during the summer.
I’ve long thought the only way humans survive climate change is probably going to be digging caves and going back underground. Talk about a regression, from caves we came and caves we will return someday. Sad it will be for this horticulturalist who loves the sun and flowers but I doubt I live that long. Did I just hear on the news that it was going to be 132 degrees in Phoenix, Arizona? I have legit cooked pork ribs for a whole day on the smoker at that temperature and they were delicious!
Maybe the SCOTUS decision to recind the Chevron Deference will allow for Corporations to make much more climate friendly decisions in and we will all get the much needed cooling we need. But I doubt it. If there is one thing you can count on it’s that corporations are going to remain greedy, despite any level of humanity suffering. The current move to get away from science and maximize the bottom line is something I’ve been writing about for too long now. God save the king, we will have a monarchy as well as the rich ruling powers deciding where the pollution can and can’t go. You think the rich are gonna NIMBY that pipeline? I’m imaging an America run by a king with no morals and it’s insane what one can come up with in that scenario with an imagination as vivid as mine. Again, the regression is unbelievable. I’ve heard this will be the end of the clean air act and if you have been in a Wahlgreens lately, you can find oxygen cannisters for sale now. Better stock up, everything is for sale in corporate america, especially the drinking water and the oxygen.
Getting off the soapbox for a minute, I’ll still ship out plants, but it’s getting mighty hot across this land and it’s Caveat Emptor for the purchaser, I will put in ice packs and insulation, but you have to make sure the packages aren’t going to sit in the sun on your porch. Best to come by the nursery and buy plants if you can. You can always come and see what’s thriving in our “new normal'“.
It’s going to be 102 here in the next few days, this old farmer remembers most Oregon summers barely reaching that level once a summer and now it’s all too common.
Cheers,
Mark