Sunday, January 13, 2008

Scrumping has it moments


To scrump is an old English word that means to steal fruit from an orchard, or fruit trees. I would not recommend it, however had an embarrassing moment when my harvesting of fruit on "abandoned" land turned into scrumping.

Only having a small section that was completely blank a year I carry around in my mind a map and timing of when various fruits trees that I pass, that appear to be on abandoned land come into season.

There is a delicious plum, big, yellow sweet and juicy on a nearby research farm. This research farm is right on the outskirts of town, and years ago they must have brought up house sections and moved the houses along, as in the fields next to the road there is plums, grapefruit, feijoas, mandarins, kiwifruit and other trees that look like fruit trees but I have no idea what they are. Anyway it is the plums and grapefruit that draw me there, so sweet so nice and heavenly. I first noticed them when I used to work on the now abandoned buildings on this research farm and have enjoyed the plums and grapefruit every year since.

So today during my lunch break went down and jumped the fence like I have been doing for the last, so say at least 3 if not 4 years without any problems. This paddock is next to a house that for ever has been rented to people, and they have never cared. Well this year things have changed - dooh!

Happy picking away from this wonderfully laden tree, noticing that not many are yet ripe and will have to come back next week. This lady comes storming across the paddock on a mission, turns out that she has kids at home, and her husband is not the farm manager. She was not happy out the stranger wandering and stealing her fruit. Apologised and used all my people skills to try and befriend her, but to no avail. I was doomed to be the enemy and she had worked up such a good mad, that a few kind words was not going to change anything. So being the polite person I was stopped my picking and move on....

Guess I will not be going back there for grapefruit nor the ripe plums as they come on. Very disappointing, dang which I had know that the disused land was not disused anymore! I'm sure that she would have been nice to talk to if I had asked first.

Guess that sometimes those abandoned places come back to life.

(thanks to wiki for the pic)

Lets do the time warp again - ode to the apples

Check out this wonderful article regarding preservation of older variates of apples.

A stupendous idea

Technical stuff is found here if you want to order a variety, or find more about some. I wouldn't mind getting a Hetlina variety as they would appear to be very high in anti oxidants, seemingly about 10 times more than your standard variety.

It is exciting to think that maybe in 15 years time fruit will be appearing on the market based upon the nutrient level, instead of the fruit breed now for looking and smelling good for long storage times.

Thee book vs a book - my virus parodox

Health, like any topic that is really important, raises people emotions makes them passionate. How often have you meet someone and they are ranting and raving about this new book? (or how often have you or I done it?) . We spout off about how it is so cool and it is changing their lives, and the answer to life the universe and everything and if everyone just did this new idea all health problems would be solved and world peace would occur (or maybe not).

When I was much younger I used to argue with people like this and try and change there mind, and was very satisfied if I deflated their balloon. Man I wasn't that nice to be around, no wonder I didn't have many friends! Know I politely nod and then ask lots of questions so that they can explain it to me to the best of there ability.

I figure if I get it it will be one less book I have to read. And as books and the ideas they hold tend to infect people like virus (why do The Matrix come to mind.. for those who don't remember the scene check it out here on you tube). So as other people here this new theory they often ask me about it (ask david dot com). And now that someone else has told me about it I can at least appear somewhat knowledgeable in the areas I am supposed to be an expert in. And if it really seems interesting I can read the book...

Scott Young states some awesome reasons to read more in his blog. One of them he says is :

"Knowledge. It only takes reading 10-20 books on a subject until you know more on that topic than most of the population. Read 200-300 books on a subject and you’re an expert."

I think this is very wise advice. I find that after 10-20 books on a subject when someone start to rave about some new idea, even if I haven't heard about that exact area, it kind of makes sense and fits in.

I wonder what the world would be like if we had to read 10-20 books before making any comments about the topic.... (of course no body would have anything to talk about).

I have also noticed that one the few topics I have read 200-300 books I know quite a lot about them, and know so much in fact, that I don't know how much I know. I often surprise myself by what comes out. For the record I have only two areas that I have read that much about, one is self help/self improvement - for example above I needed it! And the other one is optimal nutrition, though this one is not 200-300 books, but more about 50-100 books and hundreds of journal articles, which I think counts.

Of course the irony is that I want as many people as possible to be "infected" by my book and talk up my book and say that it is thee book. Raving and ranting about how it changed their lives. Because I truly believe that if people took to heart the message that lives would be changed for the better and "miracles" would occur, and though world peace would not happen, it would get pretty close to it. No doubt there is some ego need in there to, looks like I need to read another few hundred self esteem books to deal to that!