Having sold the car a few months back as part of this solarious experiment, I've been hoofing it all over the city this summer. It's been great for getting a tan, and also a refreshing way to view the neighborhoods in my area. A good walking street does not necessarily mean the same for driving, and since you have plenty of time to examine things as you go by, you'll probably find yourself seeing details you never noticed right in your own stretch of town. I use the time to look for edible and native plants along the street... in Los Angeles, there is an old law that states any tree or plant that overhangs the sidewalk is fair game for harvesting by the general public (see FallenFruit.org, a great website complete with "Fruit maps" and a commendable mission statement for more on this). Yesterday, as I trekked to get my mail from the post office, a stretch of about 1 3/4 miles that I used to cover by car in about 5 minutes without more thought or notice than to curse the traffic gods, I recorded the following:

Walking down Santa Monica Blvd, sharing the sidewalk with transvestite hookers and average Joe and Jane shoppers peacefully co-mingling around large retail storefronts, I turn back onto a neighborhood street once known as an artists' mecca, but which is now a darkly comical mix of homeless people camping near the lawns of middle income family homes. There are ample opportunities for herb stalking here, which occupies me for the remainder of the block (a funny thing about LA is that regardless of its immense size, the cultural landscape changes drastically every couple of blocks, kind of like a permanent Olympic Village).

I make my way to Melrose Ave, past a sea of tourists waiting in a never-ending line for Pinks Hotdogs, and past the local halfway house for adults with developmental disabilities which shares its corner with one of the most popular Cuban restaurants in town. As I walk by, the halfway house residents are watching the arrival of a Hollywood celebutante and her entourage at the restaurant, who, needless to say, are not watching those watching them. Melrose is awash with foreigners who haven't yet heard about the street's decline and think that they'll find the next hot designer outfit there. These days, you're more likely to find a ten dollar clubbing outfit or a glass bong, though a few brave designers have shops there still. Mixing with the exotic foreigners' accents are the rough voices of immortal punk rockers, the giggles of wannabe high school hipsters, and the rolling grumbles of Persian and Asian store owners who still work the sidewalks attracting customers. Turning off Melrose, I walk down the alley through an open air art museum, courtesy of the talented taggers and spray can artists who've made the alleys their gallery for years, and hopefully for many more to come. This is one of my favorite spots in the city, and I linger for a few moments to appreciate the ever-changing canvas.

Beyond there is another neighborhood, this one the domain of the local Orthodox Jewish population, where men in Yarmulkas drive nice cars (except on Shabats) and women in long black skirts push double wide strollers down the sidewalks. This is another foraging mecca, lots of date palms and fruit trees, undoubtedly because the second-generation families who live there still appreciate the historic reality of food shortages and self-sufficiency. The houses themselves are historic craft services houses from the golden days of Hollywood, each with their own character and story.

Turning onto Beverly Blvd, I start to notice Ferraris and Porsches parked street-side, indicating I'm now in the realm of the hipster designers. Trendy cafes and coffeehouses are interspersed with interior design firms and Fashion Week designer boutiques. Writers peer intensely at passers by from behind their laptops and eavesdrop on actors who gather to share "I'm too cool" party tales with other actors with whom they are, no doubt, too cool to be hanging out. Finally, I pass the local public park, a haven for youth sports leagues, middle aged joggers, and boheme-chic refugees from CBS Studios' resident neighborhood actor population and the renowned Farmer's Market (which is now more like a shopping mall) just beyond. Inside the park's entrance stands a largely ignored Holocaust monument to those who died in the great war and the remnants of an old amphitheater that, despite being in the heart of thespian territory, today only serves as a frisbee park for local dogs and the meeting spot for several Hollywood fitness boot camps.

In twenty minutes, I feel like an ambassador at the United Nations, having traveled half the globe without ever leaving town! As a bonus, I've gathered enough seeds from passing plants to start a respectable guerrilla garden somewhere, got a good workout, and it took no fossil fuels to get to my destination, save whatever was used in making the rubber soles of my shoes. Most importantly, I got to interact with my neighborhood on a personal level, rather than simply staring out the window at a traffic light.

Is there somewhere local that you generally drive that would be a good candidate for a walk? If time is a luxury, then treat yourself to a little jaunt through your local world. Picking a regularly scheduled destination you already frequent will help encourage you to ditch the car and get out more often than simply saying "I will go for more walks", at least if the shattered remains of many new years resolutions are any indication. When you do decide to hoof it, keep a mental trip journal and post your best tales here! See you on the street~

Blackberry Jam

Makes 1 x 500ml Kilner Jar plus a little extra for instant use!

450g blackberries, washed

180 - 200g apples, peeled, cored and chopped

1 tbsp water

juice of half a lemon

525g granulated sugar, warmed.

Place the blackberries and apples in a pan with the lemon juice and water and simmer for approximately 30 mins until soft. Add the warmed sugar to the fruit and stir until dissolved. Bring the jam to boil and boil rapidly until setting point* is reached. Pour into a sterilized kilner jar or jam jars if you prefer. You will probably have a little extra left over. I usually either use this straight away or put in a ramekin dish covered with clingfilm and store in the fridge. 

*There are various ways to test if the jam is ready. I use the following method: Put a dollop of jam on a cold plate, leave for a few seconds then gently prod it with your finger. If the surface wrinkles then the jam is ready. 

One of the challenges of being a good cook is coming up with new ideas and exciting ways to prepare ingredients. Some cooks simply heat and serve products that have been processed and sold ready-to-eat. Many cooks prepare foods from factory-farmed meat, fish, poultry, and produce. The challenge then becomes how to create a new and exciting way to prepare a chicken breast with broccoli and potatoes. After all, there are 20 places in your area that prepare chicken and broccoli with potatoes.

But the magical quality of foraged ingredients is that they practically tell you how to prepare them! I know it sounds a little metaphysical, but let me try to explain. When I buy produce in the store I am typically uninspired by the product itself. Most of the time, I am going to the store with a recipe in mind. So in order to execute my recipe I need to plug in the essential ingredients. After foraging or happening upon an apple tree or a patch of nettles, I take these items home, clean and taste them, and along the way tap so many of my senses and even emotions that a method of preparation seems to come naturally.

By last night, when these chokeberries were harvested, I had grown even more excited to learn about them and how they taste. I first spotted them a couple of days ago, took pictures of them yesterday morning, and had them identified yesterday afternoon; I had researched them, learned about traditional ways of preparing them, and was determined to do something with them when I got home from work. I always try to taste a new discovery in its raw form to get a true idea of what its real, unadulterated flavor is like. At first bite the berry was very astringent and sour, which told me that it would have to be heavily sweetened. As the astringency went away and the juice interacted with various parts of my palate, I picked up a whole array of fruity nuances.

The berries spoke to me and led me to believe that a syrup would be a simple and quick way of transporting it from raw to cooked with only the addition of water and sugar. In a couple of hours I had a deep-red, complex fruit syrup that is screaming to be poured over some buckwheat pancakes.

Recipe to follow!

Still being relatively new to SoCal at the time, I didn't recognize the leaves of the plant, and when buds formed, I was so excited.  Now I'd finally know what this lovely little planty was!  And so it bloomed.  A tiny little yellow flower, and then another.  Hmm, I thought kind of disappointing for a cultivated flower, but hey, maybe I didn't give it enough love.  I kept on watering and hoped for the best. 

Now shortly after that, I was walking down the road one day, and I saw my plant, or rather dozens of them, growing on the side of the road.  My little plant, the object of all that devotion, was a weed!  I was not happy to make this discovery at all, especially since it was only days after I'd let the seeds from my plant scatter wantonly across all of my flower beds, and I was therefore looking at the prospect of having hundreds of them growing in my garden.  I went home, pulled the "weed" and did my best to collect the seeds I could see on the rest of the soil. 

Fast forward to this year, as I'm reading all the foraging books, and lo and behold, there is my "Weed" on the pages of the wild foods guide, listed as a particularly nutritious foodstuff for hikers.  What?  I killed a plant that would have fed me if I'd known better, and spurned it daily as I passed its brethren on the the roadsides of CA?  Never again!

The moral of the story is this: the things we think we "know" about the world are often just perceptions we've been taught that have little to do with the reality of a situation.  My disappointment in finding that the plant I loved was a common weed didn't even compare to the disappointment I felt when I realized that I'd allowed myself to be swayed by common opinion into killing a useful plant.  I guess in the end, it's all about making sure you learn from reliable sources, and educate yourself on all sides of an issue before you feel comfortable saying you "know" what you're talking about. 

For more information about wild lettuce, see PlanetBotanic.ca

In the meantime, I've been reading a lot about urban foraging.  It's a huge topic with relatively few available references.   But starting with Christopher Nyerges' excellent Wild Foods and Useful Plants guides and also covering specific guides to my local SoCal area, I've been out every morning hunting for food.  And it's everywhere!  Did you know that most of the plants in your garden, never mind those that professional landscapers use in public places, are edible in one way or another?  Geraniums, pansies, daylilies, lavender, nasturtium, chrysanthemums, marigolds, roses and more all make tasty snacks alone or blended into recipes.  You can even replace some of the gourmet items in your pantry with wild alternatives, adding an exotic flair to your cooking.  For example, nasturtium seeds make an excellent caper substitute when pickled, and you can make jellies straight from your yard instead of store-bought marmalades. 

If you'd like to find out more about the plants of your area, I'd highly recommend you check out a book that specializes in your area and start looking for wild foods every time you go out the front door.  I have to admit that though I'd never even noticed what was edible before, now I'm finding myself distracted trying to walk down any street, looking at the possibilities.  And the fruit you pick is SO much sweeter than the one you buy, even if just in principle.  The book I just finished Edible and Useful Plants of California (can't remember off-hand who wrote it) also included many great anecdotes about the Native American food and medicinal uses of various plants.  When moving away from reliance on the grid, you'd do well to know a bit about the native flora of your community.  And I hardly need to spell out its importance after grid-crash, except to point out that it will be the few months following immediate aid and before people's sowed crops mature that will be hardest for individuals to survive.  If you know about edible plants, then you can sit happily munching on your neighbors' lawns while they sit inside their houses panicking.  You might even get an "I told you so" out between bites.  How's that for sweet justice!  Until next time, happy foraging!

When I was young and strong and ambitious I used to grow a vegetable and fruit garden. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, cucumbers, berries and fruit trees and the like. It was great fun to go out into the morning sun and pluck God's provision off the vine, tasting the goodness of real food. I especially enjoyed sharing those moments with my daughters. My, how time flies by.

Then there were the rare times when we would find something planted by God. There we were, taking a quiet walk in the woods or hills with loved ones and God revealed a wild onion or alpine strawberry, blackberry or goose berries in the shade of an old enormous oak tree. Ahhh, that's a moment of wonder and awe, don't you think?

These simple pleasures make enjoying food so much richer. So, I toast you who savour those moments, teaching your children and remembering Who it is that has provided the bounty on your plate! Go forth and forage...

Genesis 1:29 (NKJV)
And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.

If you're looking for a few suggestions, check out this edible flower list from HomeCooking.com, and also this separate list of poisonous plants to avoid on your forage. Then check out this article from About.com on the tastes and uses of different common wild flowers. Well educated, you're ready to hit the trail and spice up your evening cuisine.

Of course, in these days of manicured lawns and ornamental gardening, you probably won't even have to hit the trail to find what you seek. Roses, pansies, and nasturtiums are all edible, so you can plant your beds with produce that's extra easy on the eyes. Never mind the possibilities of fruit trees, marigolds, lavender, day-lilies, hibiscus, chamomile, and chives. It's a bloomin' cornucopia out there, so grab a basket and head for the backyard.

Here's an excellent list of edible flowers with pictures.

I read this book after arriving home from hiking last week, and came away from it feeling like I'd learned some useful tips for future trips.  The most interesting sections I found were the discussions of edible foods, which contained several commonly found entries I'd not heard of being foodstuff, and the discussion of making ropes, which I was able to put into practice immediately using dried palm leaves from the neighborhood and other shreds of string around the house.  It's kind of addictive, like meditation.

In fact, putting things into practice before you need them could have been the unstated theme of the book.  After all, do you want to be figuring out how to coax fire from a magnifying glass AFTER the disaster when you're already tired and hungry?  The main focus is on preparing a site, making utensils, tools, and weapons for your later survival. Places to find potable water are discussed, as well as how to purify water that isn't so palatable.  But once you're settled in, you're on your own. There isn't a lot of discussion about HOW to use things once you make them, but if you follow Mr Nyerges' experienced advice (he's a respected teacher who has lived in MANY different improvised and off-grid places) and practice, then you should be all right when the disaster hits.

Recommended especially for people who want to more closely examine the potential for survival in an urban setting, as he covers this topic very well.

The good news is that hay is available, but the price is high. Right now decent (not great) 2nd cutting is about $10 for a square bale that weighs about 50 lbs. Delivery is extra. The combination of a poor growing season last year and the high price of gas has just made prices spiral upwards.

My horses get no grain (just a ration balancer), so their diet is forage based. They each eat about 25 lbs of forage per day, so it's running me $10/day in hay. Just a few years ago the same hay was $4/bale -- quite a difference!

In anticipation of the hay shortage, I started hoarding hay over the winter. I only have room for about 150 bales, but I filled my loft with beautiful second cut hay when I could and started supplementing their hay with forage alternatives. In my quest to make my hay last I looked at chopped hay, hay stretcher, hay cubes and beet pulp.

Chopped hay is forage that is dried at high temperature, chopped and bagged. In the past I've fed Totally Timothy, by Lucerne Farms. Several of their feeds -- including this one -- are blended with a low sugar molasses, although they recently introduced one that is molasses free. I tried it because one of my horses has a dust/mold allergy and was really suffering one spring. I also had a mare who didn't eat much hay but was a hard keeper and I wanted to encourage her to eat more forage, rather than continually increasing her grain.

This was a total taste test winner, according to my horses. They would walk through fire for Totally Timothy -- they like it that much. There is a lot that I liked about it, too.

• The nutritional content is excellent and consistent.
• You feed slightly less than regular forage (1-1.5% of body weight if it's the only forage), so a 35# bag is the equivalent of 50# of hay.
• There is no waste. The horses don't leave a shred.
• It is completely dust free (which helped my allergy-prone gelding).
• It can be easily mixed with grain to provide a fiber supplement.
• Chopped forage provides the long-stem fiber that horses need for their digestive systems.
• It's easy to transport and store as it's bagged.

Ingredients are: dehydrated chopped timothy hay, cane molasses, and proprionic acid (preservative).

The nutritional profile is:

Protein: 7%
Fat: 1%
Fiber: 30%
Calcium: 0.3% min; 0.5% max
Phosphorous: 0.1%

The disadvantages that I've found are that 1) it's expensive and 2) the horses eat it quickly. They finish off their ration in short order and that deprives them of the entertainment factor of heating their forage throughout the day. I prefer them to nibble for several hours, especially as one of my horses tends to crib or weave when he doesn't have something to eat.

Hay Stretcher pellets were recommended by my vet as a way to keep weight on a horse without providing unnecessary energy. I buy hay pellets from Blue Seal and feed them to my horses with their ration balancer, to make them feel like they're getting a meal, and in an outside feeder as a supplement to their hay.

Hay Stretcher is a large pellet with a nutritional profile similar to grass hay, but slightly lower in fiber and higher in energy. You can use it to replace up to one-half of your horse's total forage needs, substituting it on a pound-to-pound basis. It is not fortified with any vitamins or minerals so is not a replacement or a complete feed.

Currently I feed about 4 lbs of hay stretcher daily to each of my horses, but as my "real" hay supply dwindles, that might increase. It is highly palatable to them and they always finish it up. It has many of the benefits of chopped forage:

• Pellets are easy to feed and palatable
• There is no waste when it's fed
• The nutritional profile is consistent
• You can feed it dry or soaked (it does get mushy when wet)
• It's easy to transport and store

The disadvantages are that 1) it is not a long-stem forage so it does not provide the digestive fiber that horses require and 2) it is pricey (not as expensive as chopped forage but still more than hay), and like chopped forage, horses eat it quickly. I'm currently paying $12.95 for a 50 lb bag.

Ingredients: Dehydrated Alfalfa meal, Wheat middlings, Oat Mill by-products, Cane Molasses, Calcium Carbonate.

The nutritional profile is:

Protein: 11.5% min
Fat: 2 %
Fiber: 20%
Calcium: Min. 0.80 - Max. 1.30
Phosphorous: Min. 0.45

Beet pulp is another good source of forage. It is the fiber that is left over when sugar is extracted from beets. It is high in fermentable fiber and easy for horses to digest. In fact, beet pulp is an ingredient in many commercial horse feeds (Purina Ultium and Blue Seal Vintage Victory, for example), but it can also be fed separately.

Beet pulp is available either in shreds or in pellets. Much of it has some molasses in it, but it is also available without it. Typically beet pulp is fed soaked, although, contrary to rumor, most horses can eat dry beet pulp without problems. There's a lot of debate and misinformation about beet pulp (for example, it does NOT expand in a horse's stomach if fed dry), but it is a feed that can cause choke in horses that eat quickly or that or prone to it. Another myth is that beet pulp is high in calories and can be used to help put weight on hard keepers. In fact, beet pulp has fewer calories than the equivalent weight in oats and only slightly more calories than good quality hay. Since you measure/weigh beet pulp dry, you would need to feed an awful lot of it to really add significant calories. Beet pulp can be used to replace up to 50% of a horse's total forage needs.

Benefits of feeding beet pulp include:

• Excellent source of digestible fiber.
• Low in starch and sugar.
• When soaked also helps hydrate horses, which is particularly useful in winter.
• Can be mixed with complete feeds.
• Excellent way to "hide" supplements or medications when served soaked.
• Low cost.
• Beet pulp shreds can be soaked, or moistened, in 10 minutes if warm water is added.

The disadvantages of beet pulp are that 1) Soaking takes extra time and effort (not all barns will accommodate the request); 2) some horses find it unpalatable, and 3) in the summer, beet pulp will ferment if left soaking for too long.

Nutritional profile:

Protein: 9.5 -10 %
Calcium: 0.8%
Phosphorous: 0.5%
Sugar: 10 % average
Starch: 1.3% average

Finally, there are hay cubes. They are generally available as either alfalfa or alfalfa/timothy but I've also seen cubes that were alfalfa/beet pulp. They are made from hays that are either dehydrated or sun cured. They provide long-stem fiber and have similar nutritional profiles to conventional hay. Many people soak hay cubes before feeding them, but unless your horse is prone to choke, that isn't necessary. However, soaking the cubes does help with hydration and allows them to fed to horses that have difficulty chewing.

The advantages of feedings cubes include:

• They can be fed as a replacement for long-stem hay on a pound per pound substitution.
• Reduced waste. While horses will sort through long-stem hay and inevitably leave some, horses tend to finish all of their hay cubes. In fact, it's important to limit hay cubes (rather than feed free choice) as a study that measured consumption showed that horses fed cubes consumed 17-25% more cubes than long-stem hay.
• Low dust. Hay cubes generally have little to no dust making them good for horses with respiratory problems or allergies.
• Consistent nutrient profile. You always know what you are feeding.
• Easy to handle and store as it's available in 50# bags.
• When fed dry, horses eat them slowly.
• When fed soaked, they are an excellent way to hydrate horses or feed supplements or medications.

The disadvantages associated with feeding cubes are 1) they are expensive. I am currently paying $14.95 for a 50# bag of alfalfa/timothy cubes; 2) you need to limit consumption as horses will eat too much of them; and 3) if your horse is prone to choke, they need to be soaked before feeding.

I have not put a nutritional profile for the hay cubes as it will differ depending on they type of hay they are made from.

All in all, I've found that feeding forage alternatives has been a successful way of extending my hay supply. While they all do cost more, on balance the difference is not as much as the price tag would suggest as the horses consume all of their Hay Stretcher and hay cubes without any waste.

Additional Resources:

• Alfalfa Cubes for Horses
• Hay alternatives for horses
• Stretching your Horse's Hay Supply During Drought
• Finding Alternatives to Hay
• Forage Options for Horses

Arabie saoudite : des réserves qui s'effritent (Bakchich n°75, p11)

Pétrole Les pétroliers commencent sérieusement à se faire du mauvais sang : malgré l’optimisme de façade des dirigeants saoudiens, ils savent pertinemment que les réserves de pétrole du royaume s’amenuisent comme peau de chagrin.

Le 25 mars dernier, le Wall Street Journal révélait que Total s’était retiré en janvier d’un consortium recherchant des gisements de gaz dans le sud de l’Arabie Saoudite. Les forages effectués se sont tous révélés négatifs. Pourtant, cette vaste zone désertique et baptisée Rub Al Khali (littéralement « le quartier vide ») a toujours été présentée par les responsables saoudiens comme abritant d’importants gisements de gaz mais également de pétrole. Cet échec est un nouveau signal préoccupant adressé aux compagnies pétrolières occidentales qui peinent à renouveler leurs réserves pétrolières et gazières mais aussi aux pays consommateurs

En effet, si les Saoudien détiennent moins de gaz qu’ils l’affirment, ils devront, au cours des prochaines années, consacrer une part croissante de leur production pétrolière à un usage interne pour pallier cette carence, ce qui réduira sensiblement la part vendue sur les marchés mondiaux. À un moment où la demande internationale ne cesse de croître, cette information illustre une nouvelle fois le fossé existant entre les déclarations optimistes des dirigeants saoudiens et la réalité sur le terrain. Sept gisements géants assurent à eux seuls 90 % de la production saoudienne : celui de Ghawar, le plus important jamais découvert sur la planète, s’étend sur 250 kilomètres de long et décline au rythme de 8 % l’an. Il a été découvert en 1948, et, désormais, pour faire jaillir le pétrole et maintenir la pression, il faut injecter 7 millions de barils par jour d’eau de mer. Aucun gisement d’importance n’a été découvert à travers le royaume depuis 1967. Les Saoudiens, qui prétendent détenir 60 % des réserves mondiales, affirment depuis 1986 (année où les pays de l’OPEP ont augmenté fictivement de 65 % le montant de leurs réserves), qu’ils détiennent 260 milliards de barils dans leur sous-sol. Les compagnies Exxon, Chevron, Texaco et Mobil, qui ont exploité pendant des décennies ces gisements jusqu’à leur nationalisation, sont bien placées pour savoir qu’il s’agit d’un mensonge absolu. Leurs évaluations, restées confidentielles, se montent, elles, à 130/140 milliards de barils.

Le seul point sur lequel tout le monde semble s’accorder est le niveau de pétrole déjà consommé : 100 milliards de barils auraient été extraits depuis la découverte des gisements. Si les calculs des pétroliers américains se révèlent exacts, il ne reste plus que 30 à 40 milliards de barils à extraire des sables d’Arabie. Soit… une simple année de consommation mondiale.

Le pétrole, pour l’Arabie Saoudite, n’est pas seulement une matière première stratégique, il est également le secret d’État le plus jalousement gardé, comme d’ailleurs en Russie. Probablement parce que les responsables du royaume n’ignorent pas que les espoirs du monde reposent sur eux et qu’ils seront incapables d’y répondre. Malgré l’utilisation de la technologie pétrolière la plus complexe et la plus sophistiquée, la compagnie pétrolière nationale Aramco, confrontée au vieillissement de ses gisements, s’avère impuissante à récupérer davantage de pétrole.

Le déclin constaté des réserves saoudiennes semble annoncer celui du royaume et reflète le nouveau visage énergétique de la planète : depuis 1995, le monde a consommé en moyenne de 24 à 30 milliards de barils haque année, mais n’en a découvert que 9,6 milliards. Selon une étude réalisée par Wood Mackenzie, l’industrie pétrolière couvre désormais moins de 40 % de ses besoins. Le banquier Mathews Simmons, un des meilleurs spécialistes du monde pétrolier, parle de « tsunami énergétique qui va bientôt submerger l’économie mondiale. » Voilà qui est dit

Eric Laurent

En effet, cette technologie offre une game complète de solutions qui peut s'adapter à toutes les configurations (air-air, air-eau, eau glycolée-eau, etc...) pour fournir une énergie (chauffage, climatisation, eau chaude sanitaire) abondante et continue tout au long de l'année.

Par ailleurs, son entretien est minime et sa durée de vie semble tout à fait comparable aux chaudières à énergies fossiles.

• Les systèmes utilisant l'air ambiant sont une bonne solution mais attention aux nuisances sonores (surtout en ville). Le rendement est plus faible que les deux autres solutions ci-après.
• Les systèmes puisant l'eau des nappes phréatiques (ou des sources) ont le meilleur rendement mais j'ai été dissuadé par mes discussions avec le BRGM et la DRIRE qui semblent très prudents sur l'évolution du niveau des reserves d'eau sous-terraines dans les prochaines années: si le niveau devient trop bas (à cause du réchauffement climatique), le captage risque de se retrouver à sec, rendant inopérant votre chauffage.
• Les systèmes puisant la chaleur de la terre (eau glycolée) sont souvent proposés suivant 2 modes de captage: étalement horizontal dans le jardin à 3 mètres de profondeur, ou alors captage vertical à l'aide de 2 puits d'une profondeur avoisinant 100 mètres et plus.D'après le retour d'expérience, il semble que le premier mode (horizontal) soit à déconseiller car il condamne une partie du jardin pour la plantation d'arbre, et assèche la terre.Le second (vertical) est plus cher à cause du forage mais il annule les inconvénients du premier. Par ailleurs, dans ma région Ile-de-France, les surfaces des terrains sont souvent réduites (inférieures à 500m2) et le captage vertical devient alors évident.
  
  Bon à savoir: la mise en oeuvre d'une solution à captage vertical fait intervenir 2 ou 3 corps de métiers distincts: le foreur, l'installateur chauffagiste et/ou l'installateur du plancher chauffant. Il est possible de demander un devis consolidé à son installateur chauffagiste mais la note risque d'être très salée (on m'a demandé 50000 Euros !!!)

  Bon à savoir aussi: la mise en oeuvre d'une solution à captage vertical demande quelques autorisations et autres dépôts de dossiers (DRIRE, Préfecture, Service Voirie de votre mairie). En effet, ces institutions doivent vérifier la compatibilité du forage avec les possibles canalisations urbaines, les projets actuels ou futurs en sous-terrains, la non pollution des nappes phréatiques, etc.
  Toutefois, a priori, ces dossiers seraient reçus favorablement et il semble tout à fait acceptable d'utiliser ce procédé en zone urbaine.
  Seuls quelques dossiers (3 ou 4) ont été déposés à la préfecture des hauts de seine (92) en 2006 !!!

  Bon à savoir (encore): Ces sociétés présentent la particularité de forer à la profondeur voulue, et, d'installer la sonde géothermique, en attente de la chaudière PAC.
  On peut citer par exemple la société TECHFOR.
  Au préalable il faut encore prévoir une étude du sol qui, je l'espère , peut être réalisée par ces mêmes sociétés. Sinon, il faut faire appel à des bureaux d'études.
  Je n'ai pas trouvé de société de forage géothermique en Ile-de-France. Si vous avez des tuyaux, n'hésitez pas à m'écrire !

Dryads Saddle Calimari

Batter recipe 1 cup of flour 1 cup of beer 1/2 cup of milk Teaspoon of Paprika 1 eggWhisk it all together
Cut mushroom into strips and roll in a little flour
dip strips in batter mixture
Deep dry in sunflower oil (I used some that has dried chillis soaking in it for that extra zing

Amethyst Deceiver Salad

Amethyst Deceiver mushrooms with , french beans, spinach, potato in a warm balsamic vinagrette ( balsamic vinegar, olive oil garlic & honey )

Amethyst Deceiver Sushi

Thought I would try making sushi with these amethyst deceiver shrooms since the colours seemed delicately suited to sushi mushrooms... was my first time making sushi.... bit of a kick before evening class. also inside black sesame seeds ,wasabi , pickled ginger , cucumber .
All from this forage click on the image to visit the original with rollover id