Podcasts I'm Listening To - Learning Whilst Moving

At the moment my work means that I am do two long drives (around 3 hours each) a week in areas where radio reception is very poor at best.  Whilst I have been using some of this time to listen to the CDs I have left to decide whether or not I really want to keep them, it also seemed like a perfect time to do a little bit more learning by listening to some podcasts.  These are the ones I've found so far and listen to on a regular basis.

• No Such Thing As A Fish - produced and presented by the QI Elves, this is a weekly podcast where they each bring up their favourite fact for that week.  As you can imagine, it's very educational but it's also very, very funny and I often find myself laughing out loud as I drive - something that's probably very disconcerting to other drivers around me.  The thing I love most about this show is that they talk about things I wouldn't normal think to look up and so I learn so much more than I would just left to my own devises.
• The Ground Up Show -  this is one of the first podcasts that I actually started listening to on a regular basis and is produced and presented by Matt D'Avella (who I also watch on YouTube).  Here Matt talks to different creators about the processes they use and what they've learnt along the way.  It's obviously not as facts based as No Such Thing As A Fish and not every podcast feels like it's necessarily relavent to me.  However, I've still learnt things from each show, even when I wasn't expecting to, and I like the relaxed feel of Matt and his guest talking.  It's particularly interesting to learn about how each individual overcome something they were going through to get to where they are today - a nice little reminder that not everyone always has it together all the time.
• Science Vs - is another facts based podcast and will also have you unexpectedly laughing at topics.  This is a Gimlet podcast and it takes all the trends and opinions that are out there at the moment and breaks them down using facts.  The subjects can be very varied from week to week and can be quite hard hitting.  And, again, I like the fact that I'll be listening about subjects I wouldn't normally choose to look up myself.  I'm finding handing this decision to someone else a very useful tool.  Probably my favourite one so far has been about Sharks and the completely misguided information that has been put out about them.  Like the idea they can smell a drop of blood in a swimming pool - not actually true apparently.
• Nature's Voice - this is the RSPB's podcast.  Produced on a monthly basis I've found it a pretty good way of getting the latest information about current, mostly bird but also other wildlife news.  They also have little features and interviews with people working in the field and, whilst most of the ones I've listened to so far have been UK based, this is information about projects going on further afield as well.  It is quite a dry podcast, but I don't mind that.
• Pulse of the Planet - this is a really lovely little podcast, and I say little because each show is only 2 minutes long.  Produced daily, you get a sound portrait of Planet Earth covering the rhymes of nature, culture, and science.  The subjects vary greatly and you can find yourself listening to serenading moths one day and a Texas rodeo the next.
• Normal To Nomad - is a pretty new podcast (they first uploaded on the 16th July 2019) and is produced and presented by Elsa Rhae and Barron Link.  I actually found these guys on YouTube as well where they've been documenting their life in the US living in a Scamp with their dog Kamp.  They only have five shows up at the moment, but it looks like they'll be posting on a weekly basis so this'll add up quickly.  There is lots of information on their channel about living this type of lifestyle, but I love how specific these podcasts are, honing in on one specific subject.  It works well with the more varied subjects they cover on their YouTube videos.  I'm glad they've started podcasting.

There are some new podcasts that I've started listening to and am enjoying so far but can't really give a proper review about.  They are:

• Sustainable World Radio - Ecology and Permaculture Podcast - I've only listened to one episode of this, which was an interview with Dr Monica Gagliano about her research into plant cognition, but it was interesting and not a subject I would necessarily have picked so I'm keen to listen to more.
• Warming Signs - this podcast looks at the most pressing environmental issues of the moment, interviewing experts and using facts to look at what's really going on.  One of the shortest podcasts on this list, I've found this a really good, unbiased way of learning a little bit more about the subjects I'm interested in.
• Sustainababble - I've only listened to two episodes of this podcast and already I love it.  Very funny, but full of facts and information, this is a weekly podcast that looks at a variety of environmental issues and exposing what they call 'eco-guffs'.  Definitely worth a listen and I'm looking forward to the next one.

I've also been finding myself listening to these podcasts as I potter around the hostel I'm staying at whilst sorting out my gear and getting ready for the next day.  It's a great way to give myself something interesting to do whilst carrying out those mindless tasks.  What's not to love about that.  Oh, and if you're wondering, I listen to them on Google Podcasts.  At least for now.

What Good Can I Do?

When talking to people about some of the issues we face today the most common reason I hear from people to do nothing at all is 'What good can I do? I'm just one person and my contribution will be so small it won't make a difference'.  And whilst there are some people who use this as just an excuse to do nothing, there are those who are genuinely overwhelmed by the issues we face today.  This has been coined eco-anxiety when it comes to making the decisions on what the best actions to do for climate change are.

The general idea is that one action carried out by one person will be engulfed by the overall inaction of everyone else.  In which case, why waste the effort at all.  But I don't entirely agree with this idea and here's my reasoning why.

1. The effect of your behaviour and actions on their own could be small, but if they inspire others to follow the same then the knock on effect can actually be quite large.  Just look at Greta Thunberg and the climate strikes she has inspired across the world.  While there is the unfortunate possibility that these strikes will have little affect on changing Government policies, they will inspire people to change aspects of their behaviour that, collectively, will have a larger impact.  I've also noticed this in my life and the choice I've made to become an almost (work in progress) dairy-free vegetarian.  I'm not militant about it nor do I try and push it onto others, but people naturally have questions and they especially have questions when it comes to the very physical job I manage to do without meat (apparently the one thing you need to by physical).  When they find out that I'm healthy and happy, that I have no problem doing the work I do, and how easy and tasty the dishes that I make are they want to try it too.  They don't necessarily go completely vegetarian, but they do end up adding vegetarian dishes to their meals and cutting back on the amount of meat they eat, which environmentally still makes a difference. 
2. You may not be able to act directly for a cause or action you believe in, but you can support those who are.  Most of us in the western world are in a fortunate position to be able to make a financial donation to one or more of the variety of charities available to us.  Whilst on our own we wouldn't be able to make provide the necessary funds to make a difference, our smaller individual donations are all part of supporting the work they do and without it the organisations wouldn't be able to function at all.  It's a little contribution to us, but it makes a big difference to someone else. 
3. If we've learnt nothing else from Brexit (though lets face it, there's a lot to learn from Brexit) the one thing we have learnt is what a difference a vote can make.  Studies that came out after the voting took place showed that around 35% of Britains didn't actually vote and, if everyone had voted, then the likely results would have been 50.35% in favour of remaining (https://ukandeu.ac.uk/what-if-everyone-had-voted-in-the-eu-referendum/).  Obviously this is not conclusive, if it had happened that way then the last 3 years would have been very different.  Today, especially with the types of politicans we have at the moment, we often think that voting is really a bit pointless and won't produce any positive changes to the way our lives are.  But Brexit has clearly shown each vote really did make a difference, and not necessarily for the better. 
4. Recently I've been coming across a lot of articles about how being kind to people has a positive impact on the giver, which would make it a worthwhile action in its own right (my favourite article on this comes from the Random Acts of Kindness website).  But as a way of making a positive change in the world it's actually been shown to be quite effective. Those who have acts of kindness shown to them are much more likely to then act kindly themselves in their behaviour and decision making.  Not only does this have a cascading affect, as in the person you are nice to are more likely to be nice to multiple people who will themselves be nice to multiple people (as shown here), but people will also be kinder even if they don't actually receive the act themselves but see it happening to someone else.  In otherwords, acts of kindness are contagious.   So, that one little act you might think is insignificant and impactless can actually have a very large affect on the world around you.

When you think about everything that is wrong in the world and all the things you would need to do to fix them completely it can be very overwhelming.  It may even make you not want to try at all.  But even just little behaviours and actions can make a difference.  And, even if it turns out that my actions don't have as a big a impact as I would hope, I'd still rather know that I had actually tried than have done nothing at all.

Dry Stone Walling Training

Taken from https://pixabay.com/images/search/dry%20stone%20walls/

One of my goals for this year was to learn some new skills and in the work area that was to learn about dry stone walling.  I registered to do a weekend training course with the Dry Stone Walling Association's Central Scotland (CSDSWA) branch at Blackruthven at the end of July and I thought I would write a very quick post about my experience here.

And because I always talk about the weather when it comes to work I thought I'd start with that 😉.  It had forecast rain for that weekend, but, apart from a downpour on Saturday morning, we got blisteringly hot sun and I managed to really work on increasing my farmers tan whilst squeaking around in my wellies.  The two trainers were Jim, who has been building dry stone walls for decades after retiring as a vet, and Martin, who had been on an apprenticeship with CSDSWA a couple of years ago and was now a fall time dry stone waller.

We were each given a metre to work on and which we would take responsibility for.  The previous wall that had needed repairs had already been mostly dismantled so we could re-use the stone and the first stage we had to do was to remove a section of grass and ensure the ground we were building on was flat.  Starting with the larger stones we started with the foundation stones, in which we really needed to ensure was flat, and then built up the base with stones reducing in size until we were half way up the height.  Then we placed cross stones on the wall for stability before building the second lift before adding on the final layer of stones, the cope stones.  A batter frame and string was used to ensure we got the right shape of the wall as we moved higher up the frame.

We had to ensure that the lines were as straight and close to the guide string as we could manage, and that the main building stones went at least a third of the way into the wall.  Any space in the centre was filled with smaller stones, acting as packing to ensure the wall remained strong, and placed between the stones to keep them flat in placement.  We followed advise like 'long is strong' and 'turn, turn, turn' when placing the stone into the wall.  We also had to ensure that the next layer of stones covered the joints between the stones of the previous, also to add strength.  There were a few tools and buckets we learnt to use during the training, but the main tool was the waller's or stone hammer.  This allowed us to alternate between breaking up the stone with the flat end, angled when you hit it (a new techniue I will definitely be taking with me), and to chisel at the stone with the angled side.

I was actually quite satisfied with the work that I did (though I managed to somehow delete the photo of my finished work, grrr), but I can definitely see where I can make some significant improvements if I were to build another wall.  There are some similarities between dry stone walling and the stone work I do in path building, especially when it came to the importance of packing the stones to ensure the strength of the structure, but the stones used are obviously much smaller and the placing of the stones much more delicate and precise.  I definitely had resist the urge to drop the stones rather than delicately place them on the wall, a mistake I made once and the noise it made brought me right back to what I was supposed to be doing.  Thankfully it didn't do any damage to the wall.

It was a very interesting way to spend the two days of my weekend, though it probably didn't give my body the rest I should have given it from work, and I really enjoyed learning about dry stone walling.  It has definitely given me some extra skills which I will be taking to work with me, but if I was to decide to do this as an additional job I would need to gain some extra qualifications and more hours in walling before I could start applying for work with different organisations.  They were also good enough to give us a book published by the organisation about dry stone walling and which covered the skills they had taught us over the weekend.  I'm definitely glad I signed up for this training course.

Path Work - July (Glencoe)

So this blog is a little bit over due and I know I've missed two weeks, but I did recently buy a van and have been doing some temporary conversions to it to make it a suitable place for me to live in when I'm not at work.  I'll write more about that in the future and the possible plans I have for it moving on.  But for now that's the excuse I have for not keeping up with my one blog a week goal.

As with the last couple of months July has seen us working on the Coire nan Lochan path at Glencoe.  A beautiful location that means that, even though we see it on almost a daily basis, the views never get tiring.  It has been a pretty hot month though, and in this area of Scotland that doesn't necessarily entail clear sunny skies.  Instead we've had many humid, muggy days that have made the walk up a bit of a trial and brought out all the midges.  However, watching the mist rolling in and away again has been pretty spectacular and given us the chance to get some pretty close close views of the resident deer.  We've also had some amazingly clear and sunny days to compensate for it.

Just to finish of the last week in June that I wasn't able to add to the previous post.  I carried out some deroughening work on the upper section, removing stone that was making the path difficult to walk on, adding step rises to help maintain the height, and then cobbling and surfacing the section to produce an even surface.  This was followed by packing and landscaping work that had already been carried out, but needed finishing.

On a lower section a revetment was built on the slope side of the path to hold the bank in place and further step rises added to allow for easy movement in the section.  These also help reduce the number of stones from the scree rolling down onto the path which can cause a very uncomfortable walk.

Week 1 in July saw me carrying on with adding step rises and revetments to both the upper section leading up to the exposed bedrock and lower sections of the path.

And finishing off the revetment (mainly landscaping) started at the end of June.  More step rises were also needed as the section was a lot steeper than I had originally realised.

Week 2 was a particularly wet week.  However, this did allow us to survey the path in these conditions, helping to pinpoint areas where work was really needed.  This isn't always as obvious as you might think when it is dry or even in just light rain.

When we were actually able to get to the upper section I added some blockers to the side of some steps that had been added in previous work, but where there were areas of erosion.  I then started the process of winching over stones into a section of path where would be carrying out stone pitching and began the first curved turning point.  It's important that these curves are quite large when compared to the rest of the path to not only make the turn in direction as comfortable as possible but because this is usually the spots people choice to pass each other on.

When we weren't able to get to the upper sections we worked on a lower section where erosion had caused a section of the edge to fall away.  This had left an exposed area and was likely to carry on eroding until the path was gone completely and  new route would need to be found.  To protect it here we built up a stone revetment and, due to the steepness of the slope, this needed to start quite low down to ensure it didn't just follow the turf edge that had been there previously in rolling down the hill.  This was quite a satisfying build, but it would take a couple of days to complete this section entirely.

We were also able to see that a large amount of water hits the path at this point and so it became obvious that we would also need to add in a cross drains and dig a ditch into the bank to move the water off the path quickly reducing erosion and to allow it to carry on its natural course down the hill.  

We also needed to work on some existing stone work that had begun to collapse, causing people to pick a different route that was eroding the edge of the path.  Once the stone work was reinstated we blocked this braid with stones and landscaping.

Week 3 was almost as wet and did slow down the work a little.  However, I carried on working on the stone pitching I had begun the week before.  Adding a revetments to the side as well to hold everything into place.

And finally week 4.  The weather was definitely kinder to us during this week and it was definitely a week of packing the stone work we had already done and landscaping.  As well as adding surfacing to the path now that the stone work was in place to reduce the amount that would be lost through erosion.

The next stage was to work on the section just below the bedrock, putting in stone pitching to make it easier to get to and to make obvious the most accessible route.  We also needed to block a section that really wasn't suitable for people to use.  My role here was to do a lot of winching before adding some loose stones to act as a blocker and carry on with the final packing and landscaping.

And then we were onto the bedrock.  We were wanting to add steps to this section to safely carry walkers over the rock and avoiding some of the scree.  This was intriguingly like a very, very complicated jigsaw where you had to search for the almost perfect stone to fit into the mini gully which would also interlock with sections of the bedrock securing them into place.  We didn't get it finished in July and will continue on it in August.

The final work was on the large revetment we had been working on the week before.  This was mainly packing and landscaping but I also carried out some deroughening on an earlier section and added to step rises whilst my colleague was adding needed surfacing to the whole section.

And that was our wet and often quite midgie July.  Perhaps the most memorable moment was when a male deer came quite close to us (about 50m) in the mist and, when it lifted and he could see us fully, proceeded to just lie down by a rock chewing.  We stayed there for a few minutes staring at each other until the mist rolled back in again and he disappeared.