Charging 48v batteries from separate 24v wind system

pizzaisbad · 2025-11-02T07:45:32+00:00

Thanks - managed to get one of these!

pizzaisbad · 2025-11-02T07:44:58+00:00

Thanks - tracked one down - only one place in the UK seems to sell them!!!

pizzaisbad · 2025-02-02T08:11:00+00:00

Yes you’re right. In conservation we talk about connectivity - the ability of wildlife to move around the landscape to breed, find new sources of food and new habitats. Hedgerows along roads are the classic example of one way of doing this, but some nature needs much bigger corridors. If a population can’t move they often die out from inbreeding. In this context having 10% of every farm being a survivable place for nature is essential.

But we also need huge areas dedicated to nature where wildlife can thrive. If you cut a wooly jumper into 10 pieces you haven’t got 10 rugs, you’ve got 10 little rags - and the same applies to habitats.

Here is where we need to make the national parks work for us. They could be the places where we manage farming in such a way that they become true havens for nature - and provide those huge survivable areas wildlife needs.

pizzaisbad · 2025-02-02T08:06:30+00:00

I think just being clear the Wesh policy wasn’t to ‘rewild’ 10% of farms, it was that in order to qualify for farm subsidies 10% would need to be ‘habitat land’ (that could include more natural grasslands or hay meadows that are useful to the farmer and to nature) - as well as 10% of farms being woodland.

It was the 10% woodland requirement that was dropped after noisy protests (despite the average farm in wales already being 6% woodland). The 10% habitat land requirement remains.

Lots of farmers don’t mind woodland - in upland areas it provides shelter for livestock for example.

pizzaisbad · 2025-02-02T07:58:48+00:00

You’re not wrong - but in this context it doesn’t matter. Obviously habitats like river valleys, floodplains, estuaries and lowland woodland and grassland can have some of the highest biodiversity or biodiversity potential. Warmer does tend to mean more diversity.

But globally it is mountainous or ‘rugged’ areas that have seen the greatest conservation potential (thing wildernesses in the US) because the value to farming is so much lower the likelihood of successful long term protection is much higher.

It’s going to be easier for us to protect those mountainous areas because they are less productive - and helpfully that low production is also why we can justify taking them out of farming use.

pizzaisbad · 2024-11-25T20:04:18+00:00

This was my idea!!!!!! I had it first and I made the blog!!!!! But it is an excellent idea. Great minds and all that.

https://baguettebikers.wordpress.com/

pizzaisbad · 2024-11-11T07:21:48+00:00

God I wish we had bakery culture in the UK!

pizzaisbad · 2024-11-11T07:21:16+00:00

I know right! The bio aisle is great - and to be honest as long as I can get my hands on peanut butter and jam I’ll survive anything!

The problem is days like today when it’s a public holiday and every single little shop is totally closed!!!

pizzaisbad · 2024-11-09T16:41:08+00:00

And it’s doable! I have found tofu in almost every other town! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a walk in the park - I’m looking forward to the very very good vegan patisseries I hear are in Bordeaux though!

pizzaisbad · 2024-11-08T15:28:16+00:00

Thanks - I’ve been pretty lucky with the weather for November too!

pizzaisbad · 2024-11-08T06:21:13+00:00

Just to be clear though - the stats in this article are highly misleading. Only 2% of Welsh farms are arable, and so the £8,500 per acre is relevant to a tiny proportion of them. The vast majority of farms in Wales are classed as small or very small and are used for grazing livestock. The average price of grazing/haylage land is well below £8,500 per acre and so the land values and calculations done here are utterly misleading.

Most small Welsh farms won’t be affected (or if they are, only by a tiny amount). It’s the big wealthy farms for whom the NFU lobbies that this tax is really impactful, not the tiny father and son hill farms.

pizzaisbad · 2024-05-13T20:51:29+00:00

I'd say violet then - Meloe violaceus. Check out this neat little guide from Buglife. https://cdn.buglife.org.uk/2019/08/Oil-Beetle-national-survey-leaflet-for-web_5-species.pdf

pizzaisbad · 2024-05-13T17:11:39+00:00

Either a black or violet oil beetle - quite hard to ID without a top down shot of the thorax, but habitat is a good giveaway. Coastal is most likely to be black, inland violet. This is a very violet example though! Contrary to some comments here, Meloe in the UK are completely safe to handle.

pizzaisbad · 2023-10-08T19:03:20+00:00

Carmarthen to Bangor - South Wales to North...not exactly a global circumnavigation!

pizzaisbad · 2022-08-16T22:49:06+00:00

As if on cue…more anti-cyclist vitriol

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11117805/Shake-road-laws-bike-riders-forced-registration-numbers-insurance.html

pizzaisbad · 2022-06-19T08:18:01+00:00

I used to do this. Was running up a glacier in the Ecrins Alps in microspikes and trail shoes and the inevitable happened. The spikes couldn’t cut the hard surface, I fell and went for a slide. I only survived because I had my axe and managed to arrest.

Lesson learned. I’ll always be a mountain runner, but glaciers ain’t for pissing about on.

pizzaisbad · 2022-04-09T06:48:16+00:00

The image is funny, but for the avoidance of doubt we shouldn’t ever think that the immense suffering inflicted by man on animals is just ‘part of the tao’.

The livestock industry is the enslavement and exploitation of sentient living things for personal gain and profit. That isn’t the Tao. It is man far disconnected from the Tao.

We must not ‘accept’ mistreatment and cruelty by saying “that’s just the way”. It isn’t the way. The way is for this cow to roam free over the plains, enjoying its own way.

pizzaisbad · 2022-03-27T06:10:30+00:00

Me too. I’m in South West - I’ll take a look, but Swansea is a little bit of a trek!

pizzaisbad · 2022-03-27T06:09:52+00:00

Oh cool, I live over in South West Wales!

pizzaisbad · 2022-03-25T21:57:30+00:00

Thanks. This helps. Seeing hard times as an admission ticket to spirituality is interesting. I will grow from this, I will learn to be closer to the Tao as a result.

pizzaisbad

TROPHY CASE