When we look for information about Drought Research, we have to ask ourself, what exactly are we looking for? Do we want to plant trees, for example in a dryland area? Do we want to use less water because of drouthy conditions? Do we want to prevent erosion? Or do we want a broad overview, with some specifics thrown in? Farming? Permaculture? Reviving irrigation methods?

If you aren’t sure what you want, but are looking for a large amount of research material to dig through, check out The Arid Lands Newsletter. Published by the University of Arizona, it contains scholarly papers written by scientists and farmers, teachers and sociologists worldwide, to understand the vast world of desertification, drought, farming, and the like.

This is a gem of a find. Each newsletter has several articles, and all are archived by a fall/winter season, or a spring/summer season. It will take you a while to plow through this site. Look especially at the pre-web archives, at the dryland garden section. Good, solid information. As always, the link is on the right under “Drought Research”.

Just so every one knows, we are far more than a farm.

Although we like the work and the farm life, we have extremely diverse interests. Education, for one is important to us. We are both college graduates, with my wife, Dr. Leslie Machado a high school resource teacher as well as a professor at a local University.

We are interested in health and nutrition. Part of that is reflected in our farm products. We like to work out. What a rush!

We read a lot, study and debate past lives, art, pottery, collect ewers, save our own seed, use charged crystals,  do our own construction work, listen to Tom Waits faithfully, do public speaking- we like a busy life.

And then there’s sex. A great subject to talk about. A big subject. We connect it with Women and Power, and pay close attention. I am currently doing some grad work in the area of Human Sexuality, and am constantly running after my wife, saying, ” Honey, I need to do some research”.  Ahem. Hmmm.

So today’s link is related to this subject. It is the website She Makes the Rules. Run by women, for couples who believe that women should be in charge. These are women-run marraiges, and women-run relationships.

This is important to understand, because just because we have the standard dominant man-submissive woman traditional setup, doesn’t mean it works for everyone. We like the idea of women having power, and we don’t mean John McCain’s absurd posturing with his new VP pick as “giving women power”. He must think we are all stupid, especially women voters.

No, when we say “giving women power”, we mean she makes the rules. She makes the decisions. She is the decider. She is the director. Men answer to her, and she runs the place, for everyone involved. We  like it and want more of it.  Look for the link on the right under “Women and Power”. It’s a good place to check your tolerance and belief system.

Like most blogs, we have several links to look through, and we will continue to have more.

Each link is important to us, very important. We see an enormous information overload on the Web, and we DON’T want to waste your time. So if you see a link from us, it’s a pretty big deal.

Take the Women and Power links. We believe women should be running the world. We want women to run the world. So this is our way of promoting women to a better status in life, by giving them their own platform. I love these links, I hope every woman in the world gets a chance to see herself through them.

As a farmer, we deal with drought constantly. We work to understand it, try to minimize it, anticipate it, head it off. So we want to pass along what we learn through the Drought Research links. There is a lot of research, but not all of it easily accessible or easily understood. I hope to do my part by bringing you current and past information on this important topic.

The Clothes for Working People links are as important as all the others. Clothes can make or break your day, a day in the rain with poor clothing can make for a long, unhappy workday. Proper fitting clothes that are what you need are in necessary and important, and again, let me pass along what I have learned.

From time to time, I will add new links. I will always do my best to explain them in a paragraph or two, and give them some blog space.

This is my last post to go backwards and explain how I do things. From here on in, it’s new. Believe me, we’re far more than a simple farm. We have thoughts, opinions, a point of view, and beliefs that fall all over the Board.  So as Tom Waits would say, Step Right Up.

As I start up the Behind the Shovel blog, let’s first get to the Mad Genius behind the curtain, Walt Schaefer.

Walt, owner and creator of www.waltswebworx.com is the King of the Web. There are other people who lay claim to the title, but it’s only cheap talk. Walt talks the talk, and not just walks the walk, but delivers the goods as well.

He built my first site over 5 years ago, and it worked extremely well. We sold all over the country, we sold seed, roots, tubers, Scartar, SaladFlakes, and we were off and running.

However, because I suffer from a bad case of cerebral constipation, I took my business and my website to a guy who promised a slick looking cart, superior sales, fame, glory and all that goes with it. I dumped Walt for a promise of gold.

Turns out it was a false promise, of course. The website looked slick, alright. But in the next 2 years, I sold nothing. Not one packet of seeds, not one jar of Scartar, nothing, nada. Seems like my new webmaster had the skills to make the site LOOK fine, but not the skills to make it actually WORK fine. And friends, therein lies all the difference.

I crawled on my hands and knees back to Walt, and had he lived a thousand miles from me instead of ten, I would have crawled that far too. He graciously accepted my mea culpa’s, completely dismantled the old site and built me a new one for a reasonable price. I would have paid double, and been happy to do so.

When you see our website www.machadofarms.com , you are seeing the mind of Walt the Webmaster at his best. Simple, smooth, clean, workable, long on function, short on frills, the guy knows what works and what doesn’t. He makes websites that not just work at their best, but makes your entire web experience deeper, richer, interesting, happier. And most of all- whatever he says and does- works. Everything he has done for me has made me deliriously happy.

I still suffer from severe cerebral constipation, but until the day Walt drops off this earth, he is my go-to guy. And, he should be yours too.

Look for his link on the blog home page under “The King”.  Thanks Walt!

Today, August 20th, 2008, we start our blog.

This is Rick Machado, and it just happens to be my 53rd birthday. Coincidence only.

To begin, I am going to transfer the contents of our News and Info Page from our website www.machadofarms.com to a new page.  The page will be called, surprisingly, News and Info.

All the links will slowly be posted in our links part of the blog, and after that, I will really get into posting information.

If you are curious, if you are interested in alternative subjects, if you find yourself starved of authenticity, then we welcome you here. Feel free to comment. Tell us what’s on your mind. Be cool-no insults.

As I get the hang of this, I will edit it and hopefully, do a better job over time.

I’m excited. So let’s get to it.