Rumi

@No one Fire is an incredibly useful wholistic landscape management tool. However, the appropriate use of fire is not analagous to the resource depletion you promote in MD. Thr use of fire in ecological management essentially promotes healthy new growth while eliminating dangerous, stagnant, or diseased older growth. An example is regular use of fire in a forest to eliminate the understory buildup of brush and limbs. This is called the fire ladder and presents a threat to the mature canopy when not regularly eliminated. The lack of natural or managed forest fires over 100 years in the American West is the reason our forest fires today are so devastating. While the underuse of fire presents opportunities for the build-up of stagnant ecology, the overuse simply destroys that which you are trying to save. A first cannot survive a constant conflagration, which removes all moisture and eventually burns all living things to the ground. Some further examples: Pruning will extend the life of a tree or other plant by eliminating older and disease prone limbs. Proper pruning of a tree can extend the life by many years. Coppicing is an extreme form of pruning where you cut the tree back to the ground to allow complete regrowth. In Europe, coppicing of trees in hedgerows and around farm fields kept trees alive for centuries that would not have survived without being cut, all while proving farmers lumber and firewood. Again, pruning and coppicing have their limits. The general rule in pruning is take no more than 1/3 of the top growth in any year. For plants that can coppice and regrow, you cannot cut them back to stumps every year or eventually the root system will die back just the same as the top growth. In pasture or prairie management, growth is checked through the use of grazing animals. Managed rotational grazing of cattle herds mimics the natural herd migrations such as the wildebeest heed in Africa and the buffalo herds once found in North America. These animals move in established migration patterns which allow full growth of pasture grasses, followed by regulation of biomass through consumption. Fields where grazing herds are not present present fire a fire danger, and often lose mature ecological elements as other ecologies move into the space. The overuse of cattle on a pasture, or overgrazing, which is very common on farms and ranches across the world occurs when their it's no migration pattern. Pasture animals easily destroy the field ecology, leaving a bare stubble of growth. Without strong root systems, compaction occurs under the weight of the animals and the soil structure is destroyed. Regeneration of these fields can take years in the best of conditions, and decades or centuries in areas prone to desertification. So, back to you No one. The constant depletion of resources is in no way like the benefits of fire. Appropriate management would be allowing full regrowth after each depletion or daily "pruning" of resources from full down to the percentage that provides full regrowth each day. These are two ways that maximize harvest and mimic the general process of nature. Since the day the first herb basket was available, the Meeting of the Roads scene has not once, NOT ONCE, had 18/18 herbs. You and your companions have overgrazed it like a herd of stupid cows. You have yet to produce any decent milk or meat and instead you have provided this load of infertile bull****

@dst You have not missed the start. Where I live today is the best first day for planting cool session seeds. In fact, that's just what I did today. I started about 1600 brassica seeds in the greenhouse on the organic farm where I work. As for your questions, I told you there will be flexibility. Injuries and funerals are the very definition of flexibility in this case. If your work schedule makes it prohibitive, do your best. I don't want to exclude anyone, but the wishpoint contest really requires the best work. Your stop motion video will speak for itself if you've done well. Depending on how many people make these videos, we'll determine how many wishpoints (if more than one) we can award. If you're competing against someone whose video has been daily photography, they're simply going to have an advantage. I hope this clears up your concerns. Feel free to PM if you have questions specific to your situation.

We just passed the first new moon and I have received questions about where to post your photos. I am adding a new sub-forum to the Community Garden forum where each participant can have their own thread, just like the community garden logs. A link will be added to the top post on this thread when it's ready. Until the new sub-forum is approved and set up by chewett, please just sit tight and hold onto your photos. A reminder as well, you will need to use another upload service as our forum storage remains near capacity. It won't hurt to think about this ahead of time and set it up if you're ready. As far as I know, storenow.net (Mur's upload service) links are supposed to expire, but don't. Maybe Chewett or someone else can offer a better recommendation. I having begun storing all my uploads on a hidden section of my business website. Happy gardening!

These are the winners of the Community Garden Scarecrow Contest. I meant to announce with more fanfare during the mid-winter festival, but we took right to the final minute to complete the toolshed. Instead, this brief post. So, without further ado... Winner: Dante Lionheart - Wishpoint awarded by Rumi #2: Tom Pouce - Collection of spell stones from Community Garden treasury - contact Rumi #3: Plix Plox - 1 gold coin - contact Rumi gonzalocsdf did not complete the contest but will receive a reward for his artwork. joshdragon offered to sponsor this contest with an Imperial Aramor and a Joker. These rewards go to gonzalocsdf. If he is not available or no longer has these creatures, I will give you from my own creature collection. That's it! See you in the garden

Rumi

7gc

There will be flexibility and there will be a limit to that flexibility as well. Plants can grow a lot in a day and that daily photography is necessary, especially for seedlings. If your stop motion video is full of gaps, you will not win a wishpoint. You will be eligible for the many other rewards. If you want to attain this wishpoint, make photography of your garden part of your daily routine. Do it when you brush your teeth in the morning or when you vote for free credits. Taking a single photograph won't take as long as either of those tasks.

The MagicDuel Community Garden will be hosting an ongoing contest for the entire community. One mission of the MagicDuel Community Garden is to encourage all members of the community to grow gardens in their own part of the world. Now, with Mur's blessing, we are hosting the Grow Your Own contest and offering substantial rewards for players who demonstrate some gardening prowess. The goal of the contest is simple. Grow a plant. Document your progress. Participants will need to document their progress from seed to harvest with photography. Your plant should be labeled with MagicDuel and your playername. We're primarily looking for annual vegetables, but other types of vegetation are welcome too. If you want to grow a whole garden, by all means do so. We all live in different climates, latitudes, and hemispheres. As such, the contest will begin anew eight times a year, at the turn of each season and on the mid-season Sabbats. We will have a festival at the Community Garden on each of these days, such as our recent the Mid-Winter Festival. These festivals will also serve as completion dates and rewards will be given out at that time. Every Esbat (new moon and full moon) you will need to post an image of your plant in the appropriate thread on the Community Garden forum. More frequent posting is welcome, but this two week interval is the bare minimum. On each of these dates, I or another member of the Community Garden leadership will be available to discuss gardening and offer tips and advice. These dates are also important for planting. The general recommendation is that above-ground crops should be planted while the moon is waxing, and root-crops should be planted while the moon is waning. There will be a variety of rewards for players who participate. These include tools, seeds, and other items useful in the Community Garden and other areas of MagicDuel. Each year, one of our seasonal festivals will be an annual celebration in which a medal and trophy will be given to the player whose garden and documentation receives the most votes by the MagicDuel Community. There will also be an unreleased creature which is ONLY awarded in this contest. All players who keep their annual vegetables alive for over a year and document a second year harvest will be eligible for even more valuable rewards. And you can win a wishpoint! In order to win a wishpoint, you need to photograph your plant or garden daily from the exact same location (and preferably at the same time of day) and make a stop motion video of your progress. The entire catalog of your photos must be submitted in addition to the full video. You will probably need to build some kind of semi-permanent mount for your camera to make a decent video. Images from this contest will also be posted in the Community Garden toolshed for you to see. The crops you grow in your home gardens may just find their way into the Community Garden at the Meeting of the Roads. You might think about crops that suit your role. Spring (or fall ) is just around the corner. Do you have your seeds? All garden photography should be posted in the [url="http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/forum/305-grow-your-own/"]Grow Your Own Sub-Forum[/url]. Please read the pinned thread before posting.

Work between 00:00 and 08:00 (when I went to bed) included the following: Removal of two planted saplings (oak and apple) from toolshed site Layout and establishment of contour swale in forest garden Transplanting oak and apple into forest garden Leveling of toolshed site Processing aramor fenths into bolts, nails, and fasteners Layout of foundation blocks Construction of base frame Floorboards added Upright posts fastened to floorboards and secured with temporary supports Cross beams nailed to upright posts There is much more still to go. Construction begins again in 30 minutes.

Any construction tools available will be most welcome. We will certainly need a saw. Please reply or PM if you can bring a tool.

There is a fun new contest coming to MagicDuel. I will leave the details for the Mid-Winter Festival on February 2. I want to give you the basic idea, so you can all begin to prepare as you enjoy the light of the full moon tonight. This contest will in some ways be very similar to a contest hosted by Akasha in Spring 2010. http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/topic/6918-spring-contest/ http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/topic/6920-autum-contest/ One thing that will differ from the original contest is that this contest will muddy the line between the realms, if you take my meaning. Your gardens around the world will impact the MagicDuel Community Garden at the Meeting of the Roads. I won't say much more about about it now, but I want you to be well aware that there will be substantial and valuable rewards for those who join up and follow through. The theme of today's Esbat (a full or new moon celebration) is contemplation and planning. What do you want to grow? Why? Can you grow it where you live? Does it support your character role? It's it tasty? Beautiful? MOST IMPORTANT: Where can you get some seeds? And how soon? I will be online today sometime between 20:00 and 23:59 (sorry, I can't commit to a specific time - check mood panel) to discuss gardening and answer gardening questions (NOT contest questions). See you in the garden under the moon.

It's the middle of winter and I know what's on everybody's mind. Spring gardening! The MagicDuel Community Garden will be holding festivals during each of the eight Sabbats of the year. These include solstices, equinoxes, and the four dates right in the mid seasons. These include Groundhog Day, May Day, and Halloween. Gardeners around the world use these dates to determine planting schedules, along with moon cycles (which we will also be observing). These dates will be used for a number of garden events, including plot management at the community garden. This festival will be highlighted by a party the way gardeners party best. WORK PARTY!!! We are going to build that toolshed we have been talking about for so many months and we need all the help we can get. This is the main event! We would like to have some other games and contests, so please post below with ideas and plans. PM if you prefer. As it will be groundhog day, we'll have a groundhog themed poetry and story contest, with prizes for winners in both categories. Necrovion scarecrow contest winner will be announced. Details of a massive new garden contest will be announced. And you all can begin work on your garden plots for the spring season. Perfect time to get those cool season crops started (think roots, greens, and peas). Community Garden plots remain free for all interested gardeners. I'd like some help planning and preparing for the event, as well as an additional host for the hours America sleeps. Garden experience appreciated but not required. As I have said before, I'm also looking for dedicated leaders to help manage the community garden (DEVELOP YOUR ROLE) and this is a great opportunity to step up. The event will take place at the Meeting of the Roads in No Man's Land. There will be a special lottery giveaway if on the day of the event, the scene has 18/18 herbs and 2/2 memory stones. Stay tuned for more information...

The results of this quest will be announced during the upcoming community garden festival on Saturday February 2.

Will you give your values for sharptear and nutcracker? If nutcracker is a little more than 3gc, then my sharptear would have to be near worthless (which it may well be) to be outbid by DD. Same with my hug In fact, if you're accepting creatures, is it reasonable to post a current price list at the bottom of the original post each month? Maebius' offer with nutcracker last month the me for a bit of a loop. I decided to wait to see if you would accept and accidentally missed the rest of the auction. I'm still a little confused how you accepted half a nutcracker for payment, but I'm happy for (and maybe a little envious of) Maebius getting a sweet deal. Thanks for clarification.

6gc & sharptear & hug

5gc

Toolshed materials required: [b]508 lumber[/b] [b]30 memory stones[/b] (foundation blocks) [b]16 raw glass[/b] (window - four raw glass per window pane) .....and metal..... We need metal for the roof, the rain tank, the gutter, the plumbing, the door handle and lock, and a whole mess of bolts, nails, and fasteners. I have no idea where to get metal. Absent any other suggestions, I think we'll need to fall back on the plan of aramor fenths. Based on the previous estimation, I think [b]40 aramor fenths[/b] and [b]4 heat stones[/b] will be sufficient. 20 fenths roof (4 fenths per panel) 10 fenths raintank (slightly larger tank than 8 fenths per tank in previous estimate) 5 fenths (gutter and plumbing) 5 fenths (bolts, nails, fasteners, door hardware) 4 heat stones to melt and reforge the metal If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, please post your comments.

EDIT: It looks like the forum formatted my charts to be practically illegible. My apologies. Anyone having trouble reading them, please contact me if you need clarification. Okay, here's a little construction math. I went through this design, bit by bit to figure out how much lumber is required. The entire design is put together in English Units (feet and inches) because that's what I build with in America. It's easy to wrap my mind around board lengths and such this way. First, here is a list of total board requirements, with everything rounded to the nearest 2 feet. The format is depth (in inches) x width (in inches) x length (in feet). In a few places, here I have already put certain small pieces together, where I know for instance one 8 foot board will work to create three 2.5 foot pieces. Framing Total 6x6x16 x2 6x6x10 x6 6x6x8 x19 2x12x16 x11 2x6x16 x2 2x6x12 x9 Cladding Total 1x12x18 x12 1x12x16 x9 1x12x12 x6 1x12x10 x18 1x12x8 x6 1x8x16 x1 1x8x12 x2 1x8x10 x1 Trim Total 1x12x16 x2 1x7x18 x2 1x7x12 x2 2x4x8 x2 2x4x4 x1 1x4x6 x4 1x3x12 x2 1x3x10 x2 Doorstep 2x12x4 x1 2x6x4 x1 2x6x1 x2 From this total, I further combined pieces to make full board lengths, which can be cut up into the appropriate pieces. An example is merging 1x8 sticks with 1x3 sticks, and 1x7 sticks with 1x4 sticks. I know all of these can be ripped from appropriate length 1x12. This brought the total down to four depth/width combinations. 6x6x16 x2 6x6x10 x6 6x6x8 x19 2x12x16 x12 2x6x16 x2 2x6x12 x9 1x12x18 x14 1x12x16 x12 1x12x12 x10 1x12x10 x19 1x12x8 x6 At this point the common denominator in all this is 1x6 depth/width, so a 6x6 is six times 1x6, a 2x12 is four times 1x6, etc. Instead of all these varied lengths, I simplified the lumber into either 10 foot length (for 8 and 10) or 20 foot length (for 12, 16, and 18). Breaking it down to these few common depth/width/length combinations, I set the lowest common denominator (1x6x10) to be one piece of lumber. In this way, the most minimal pieces are multiplied only x2 (1x12x8 and 1x12x10) and the largest pieces are multiplied as much as x12 (6x6x16). The resulting chart gave me a lumber total. Number Multiplier Total 6x6x16 x2 x12 24 6x6x10 x6 x6 36 6x6x8 x19 x6 114 2x12x16 x12 x8 96 2x6x16 x2 x4 8 2x6x12 x9 x4 36 1x12x18 x14 x4 56 1x12x16 x12 x4 48 1x12x12 x10 x4 40 1x12x10 x19 x2 38 1x12x8 x6 x2 12 Which gives us a sum total 508 lumber. This does not include the door, which would be another 14 lumber, bringing the total to [b]522[/b] lumber. If we set 1 piece of lumber to be EITHER 1x12x10 or 2x6x10, rather than the smaller 1x6x10 (which is a pretty small piece of wood), that would halve the lumber total to [b]261[/b] lumber. If each piece was only 1 lumber, the wood material count including the door would be [b]112[/b] lumber. The community garden treasury has plenty enough lumber to cover any of these totals. I request input from the woodcutters guild (or anyone else for that matter) regarding which seems most appropriate. Also, the foundation block count is 30 blocks. The remainder of the materials requirements for the toolshed will be ready soon.

It's been a little while since the community garden has seen any design activity (No I haven't forgotten about the scarecrow contest... awaiting results from one more judge and a winner will be announced shortly) and now is a great time to get back to it. We're coming up on a new gardening season and there is lots of fun planned for the community garden in 2013! You may recall we discussed building a toolshed as a good first step for the community garden. After much consideration, the design for the toolshed is completed, and we are going to have a construction party in the next few weeks. Ultimately the design was simplified from the original design, and with good reason. More on that later. I'm going to detail this design, including all the specific materials required for construction in this thread. In fact, I intended to do it tonight, and unfortunately it took me quite some time to get pictures functionally uploaded without using MD Forum storage. So comments and materials list will have to wait until tomorrow (or soon...hopefully tomorrow). The full designs are constructed as 3D models using Sketchup, an incredible piece of software formerly run by Google. To view these designs in full 3D, you can download Sketchup for free at [url="http://www.sketchup.com/"]http://www.sketchup.com/[/url] The following links model the toolshed design/construction in five stages, from foundation to completion. [url="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5u245Hgf8b0cE80azdRR0FTMmc/edit"]Stage 1[/url] - Foundation [url="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5u245Hgf8b0SXByM2tUaEQ4UDQ/edit"]Stage 2[/url] - Framing [url="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5u245Hgf8b0NzRveVNRbjMxRlk/edit"]Stage 3[/url] - Cladding [url="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5u245Hgf8b0cWVpOVpqandfUXM/edit"]Stage 4[/url] - Details [url="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5u245Hgf8b0TjBfYkhWTDVwZmc/edit"]Stage 5[/url] - Completion And here are exported jpgs for those of you who don't want to play with 3D models. Stage 1 - Foundation [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed01a.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed01b.jpg[/img] Stage 2 - Framing [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed02a.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed02b.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed02c.jpg[/img] Stage 3 - Cladding [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed03a.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed03b.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed03c.jpg[/img] Stage 4 - Details [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed04a.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed04b.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed04c.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed04d.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed04e.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed04f.jpg[/img] Stage 5 - Completion [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed05a.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed05b.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.msecodesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Toolshed05c.jpg[/img]

I wish for an independent rainwater harvest tool and four casts of Weather - Mild Rain. I intend to provide and collect rainwater for the community garden.

ॐ. It feels like home. π. Especially blueberry or raspberry π. I also like L, which makes me think of my wife, lovely Lydia Lynne.

Rubber banned for being a banned aide

Can images stored on another server be directly viewed on our forum or can they only be linked? Do you have a recommendation for a free storage server? Do storenow links expire eventually? I know these may be seem like silly questions, but any advice would be most welcome. My project will continue to be fairly upload intensive and I'd like to choose a simple and reliable system and stick with it. Thanks for your help.

6gc

I apologize for lengthy delay. I have been conferring with other judges and a winner will be announced soon. I had a new baby girl just last week and have little time for MD at the moment. Thanks for your patience.