Hey, let's get started with our second talk. There's lots of outstanding trees and shrubs that can provide food and or beauty in small spaces of home landscapes. Here to highlight some strategies and some of the finest plants to use in small spaces is Dr. Todd West. Todd is a horticulture professor at North Dakota State University and he's the director of the Woody Plant Improvement Program. His famous program focuses on the development of new woody cultivars suited for hardening the zones three and four, which is us in North Dakota. And this program has released 60 ornamental woody plants to the nursery industry, many of which have been shown to be the heartiest selections of their type in the industry. Todd, welcome to the forums. Awesome, thank you so much. And I apologize for my voice. I'm coming off from a cold. So we're gonna talk about a tight fit and we wanna talk about adding some edibles and other some other space saving landscape plants. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at some tight fits. Now in North Dakota, we aren't necessarily having smaller yards, but that is the trend with new developments. A lot of us don't live in this type of environment, but this is what's really coming with the new construction. So we're getting smaller yards. So we have to have plants that fit into these tighter spaces. So what we're gonna talk about is some edible landscaping. This goes really well with the previous talk. And so I won't spend a lot of time on talking about containerized plants, but I do wanna hit a little bit onto that. And so we're gonna look at some herb gardens, some edibles as ornamentals, and then edibles complimenting ornamentals, also looking at a spilier, some container gardening, again, very briefly, and then look at some dwarf and upright woody ornamentals. So edible landscaping, people call it ediscaping, and it's the practical integration of food plants with an ornamental or decorative setting. A lot of edible plants have a really nice aesthetic ornamental component to them. Good design is essential and often overlooked.  So by integrating them correctly, they can actually be really nice. They can enhance by our gardens by having that unique ornamental component, but also allowing us to have a harvestable product. Remember filling the yard with edibles would often produce too much food for most families, but also it's a lot more work. And we're gonna talk about some of those aspects. Careful planning and the judicious use of fruits, herbs, and vegetables is a must. Careful use will result in a yard that's flavorful, practical, visually pleasing. And it's also a great topic for conversation. So this is a real quick pop quiz. Yeah, since we're talking about edibles, what's the average distance that food travels to US cities? 100, 500, 1500, 2500 miles. And again, I'm not gonna wait because we don't have a lot of time. 1500 miles is what's the average distance that our food travels to US cities. If a truck stopped in the US, or if trucking stopped in the US, how many days of food does the city have? And we're looking at like one, I had one to two days, three to four days, seven days, 30 days. And it really is that one to two days is what it takes for the food in the city to run out. So some edible landscaping challenges. Light conditions is pretty much the number one. When we're producing fruit, most plants need a lot of sunshine. Whenever we have that shade component, we're going to sacrifice the fruit if we don't have enough of that light. Also pests, that's a really big challenge for us here in North Dakota and everywhere, deer, rabbits, birds, they're gonna be going after those plants as a food source, whether it's the plant themselves or the fruit. So you covering the plant to protect ripening or mature fruits is not that aesthetically pleasing. So here you can see this picture. If you're growing cherries, bush cherries, you're gonna have to net them or just expect that the birds are gonna get their fair share as well. Growing requirements, right plant, right place, right reason. That's the keys to healthy plants or choosing the correct plant for that location. We've heard a lot about soil and also potting mixes, making sure that you're properly preparing that. With few exceptions, most edible plant varieties require soil with fast drainage. They don't like to be wet. And so if you're looking at adding in any type of tree fruits or shrub fruits, any woody type plants, you're gonna have to make sure they do not get flooded. Soggy soil is a culprit for many failed edible gardens. Annual fruits and veggies need soil filled with lots of organic matter and a source of nitrogen. Again, because you're expecting to produce that extra bit, whether it's a vegetable or that fruit. And again, light. We need at least six hours of midday sun to produce well and to be healthy. Water use, commercial production, produce production. Average pound of lettuce uses 15 gallons of water. Average pound of tomatoes, 22 gallons. Average pound of potatoes, 30 gallons. So there is a book, it's How to Grow More Vegetables, concluded that the home gardener using organic techniques, grow edibles, uses between one quarter and one eighth as much water. So that's one nice thing about adding edibles into our landscape to try to increase our own production is that we're gonna be having smarter use of our water resources. And we know that's a big issue across the entire US. One thing that we wanna look at is install and using rain barrels. And that also fits into our tight spaces. And here we have the, a kind of a real traditional looking kind of water barrel where we're harvesting from our roof. Here they're in tandem, they're tied together in sequence. This isn't really that attractive though. It's more of that a zombie apocalypse. Do we have enough water to make it through? But we can actually have some very attractive type of water collection devices. Here's two rain barrels. One on the right actually looks like an old fashioned barrel. The one on the left is also a rain barrel but it has a planter on the top so we can incorporate that container gardening that we just learned about previously. Then there's some even fancier ones. So here the one on the left, again has that top planter but the whole inside is a water collection barrel. Same thing on the right. You got that more of that Italian kind of Tuscany look where it looks like an old weathered pot. Again, having just the very top to be able to plant some annuals in or some edibles. And then having that water source. So you have that available for your edibles in your garden. Here again, just kind of showing how it works with these fancier type of water collection. Having that top basin that is gonna be for planting. Combining edibles and ornamentals, you wanna kind of be creative. For instance, try a cool season border of lettuces and spinach interplant with dwarf nasturtiums. All types of peppers are striking when combined with dwarf marigolds or even with some salvias. Shady areas, try a border of alpine strawberries and curly parsley under a hedge of currents. For dwarf fruit trees, try to plant them in geometric beds surrounded by the border of culinary herbs. So you kind of create a fancier herb garden or plant them along the driveway instead of using privates or junipers. Again, edible plant selection. You wanna look at what's the purpose?  What do you have available? Looking at the form. What is it gonna grow up to be? Texture, like rhubarb is a great one. You're gonna have a very coarse texture though. It's similar to like what we see with some hostas. But then if you wanna look at asparagus, you know, asparagus is a wonderful ornamental as well. Having those really small, fine leaves adds a really nice fine texture. Color, we wanna look at color in our landscapes. Plants add color. You know, multi-hued flowers, showy fruit or vivid seasonal foliage. You know, the leaves and every hue and intensity of green. We're gonna talk about some plants that we can deal with that. Green becomes the neutral color against which you see all other colors. You know, we do need still need green in our landscapes. So here, you know, again, not a great picture, but and definitely not really space saving, but just showing kind of the textural differences. This is more of a, you know, larger edible garden. But some popular edibles that we wanna talk about. Edible flowers, greens, fruit, veggies.  You know, we live here in the North. Rhubarb is kind of a staple, you know, they even make rhubarb wine in the region. But it's a really nice focal point. Look at the picture here on the right. You can see where you've got that kind of elephant ear, hostage kind of look, but yet it's rhubarb. And so you can go in and still harvest, maintain a really nice looking plant, but it blends really well with the texture and the aesthetics. Again, this is actually in the Denver Botanic Art. They're using rhubarb that green as that backdrop. They have parsley and oregano that's blooming, provide bright green accents against the red of the flowering amaranth and rhubarb stalk. So by incorporating these edibles into a landscape, you know, it's very aesthetic, it's very pleasing, but very functional and completely edible. I'm also a big fan of Swiss chard. And having those really bright petioles and it goes up into the veins, into the leaves, you know, you get that really nice striking component. Again, very similar to rhubarb where you know, you can selectively harvest. You want to obviously cut the whole thing down, but you can selectively harvest and eat it. So there's several different types of cultivars. There's bright lights. That's kind of the standard. And there's many different colors. There's petioles can be white, yellow, gold, orange, pink, red, or striped. And you got 55 days to maturity. So obviously we want to get that going a little bit early. There is one also called rhubarb and then also neon lights where they're more intense colors than what the bright lights cultivar is. So here is just a garden with rhubarb Swiss chard. So that's that cultivar. And then putting in with some edible pansies. So the pansies themselves, you know, the flowers are edible. One thing to keep in mind is that when you're doing any type of edibles, just like a vegetable garden in your landscape, you want to make sure you control what you're putting down for insecticides and herbicides, because if you're eating the flowers, you don't want to be applying things that are going to cause harm. Strawberries, again, containerized gardening. We're not going to go into that. You know, here on the right, you get the buckets. They don't look very attractive, very functional for growing strawberries in smaller spaces. But, you know, on the left, it's a little bit more aesthetically pleasing. There's actually quite a few edible flowers out there. There's a borage, there's calendulas, chamomile, lavender. You know, you can use them in a lot of different ways. Nosturtium, I mentioned Nosturtium earlier. It's a really nice annual for ornamental. Adds a lot of splash of color. And even into some areas where you get a little bit more shade, but great in salads.  And you can plant that just about anywhere. Squash, you know, they talked about that gardening, the square foot gardening, you know, trellising it may be up, but you can also harvest the flowers as well. Here is typically what you would do. And you can fill it with, you know, a cheese, and I'm not gonna go into all the different ways you can prepare this, but then, you know, batter it, deep fry it. And you got a lemon ricotta stuffed zucchini blossom. So another way to prepare zucchinis, and maybe even a better way so you don't have a ton of zucchinis left over. Combination plantings, roses and chives. Garlic is said to repel rose pests. So it's neat to have these kind of companions. Garlic chives probably are just as repellent and they're small purple or white flowers in late spring look great with rose flowers in the foliage. Tomatoes and cabbage. Tomatoes are repellent to diamondback moth larvae, which are caterpillars that chew large holes in the cabbage leaves. Cucumbers and nasturtiums. Nasturtium binding stems make them a great companion rambling along your cucumbers. They are reputed to repel cucumber beetles and provide habitat for predatory insects such as spiders and ground beetles. So having these companion plants, you know, fitting more into those tighter spaces. Lettuce and tall flowers. Having, you know, cliome giving some shade to your lettuce so it doesn't burn. Potatoes and sweet allysum. Tiny flowers that attract delicate beneficial insects such as predatory wasps. Also adding fragrance as well. That's one thing we haven't really mentioned. Herb gardens. We talked a little bit about that already, but you know, you can fit the small herbs in a lot of different places, whether it's like a little rock garden or a container. Again, I'm not gonna spend time on containers because again, we just heard about that, but you know, any combination to be able to really fit a lot more plants into tighter spaces. I like the picture here on the left where they have kind of like containers in containers. Again, this is that kind of strawberry plant planter, you could use this for herbs as well. Plant choices, what will you use? You know, there's a lot of different herbs, but then we can also get more ornamental. You know, so instead of using a standard basil that is just green, why don't we go with one that has purple leaves? Same thing with sage, you know, you can get a variegated sage. Chocolate mint. So it's not just standard green, but we have that little bit of that darker stem color to it as well. Pineapple mint has that variegation, so it's adding a little bit more splash color into our gardens. Now we're finally kind of getting into some woody stuff, but I'm a big fan of a spillier. This is where you can really fit plants into some tight spaces, adds a really neat aesthetic component, and also a really neat conversation piece. Here is how you can actually, you can actually buy them pre-made. This is where they would actually be produced in the nursery and getting those arms to be trained. There's different types of a spillier, and depending again on the type of fruit, on the right, having the horizontal cordons or the arms is typical for apples and pears. If you're doing plums and apricots, you wanna have more of a fan style, and that's all because of the branch angles and what the plant can handle. You know, you can get into arbors, you can do candelabras. Candelabra style is very common, what you see like in France, again, using more of an apple and pears. Cocktail trees can really fit into a landscape much better. Here on the left, you know, picture from like 1950s, but you know, you can graph five different types of apples onto one tree, and then even having different blossoms. Here's just a crab apple with, you know, three different colors. Here is actually similar to what I did with my apple trees as having each layer or each level be a different cultivar of apple. And so you get what they consider to be a cocktail tree. There's now a lot of columnar apple trees that are available. So instead of them growing as wide as they are tall, they stay very narrow, and as you can see here on the right. So not all of them have been tested for zone four and zone three, so we gotta be a little bit careful, but there definitely is a nice added component with these columnar types of fruit. I'm not gonna get into the types of fruit, but I just want that to be there. Again, NDSU extension and what Tom called his done, you know, great resources. Here, I'm a big fan of black ice plum, and I actually made my black ice into a palm fan type of espilier. Also, I did a Juanita as well. I had to fight my kids for the plums. But then getting into some other fruits, you know, like honeyberry, you know, it makes a really nice looking shrub. And, you know, cold hardy, it does need a cross, you know, does need a pollinator for pollination, but you hear you get to have the fruit. Now, as you can see in this picture on the left, is that there is potential that you're going to have to net them or just realize that animals will be able to get to them and may get more than what you would like them to get. Juneberry, or in the ornamental world, we call it serviceberry. And this is one that is used in the ornamental world quite extensively for a nice shrub, but it also then produces a beautiful fruit as well. It's a nice blueberry substitute for us here in the North because of the hardiness issues, but also more importantly, it's pH tolerant. Blueberry is not. And so this is one where we get an ornamental, but we also get an edible out of it. And again, netting may be necessary because the birds are going to love to take it from you. Chokeberry, or is what the industry is trying to call it now, is just straight eronia, eronia melanocarpa. There's quite a few cultivars out there. I'm a big fan of eronia and it's becoming more common in the landscape. Produces a really nice white flower and outstanding fall color, but it also will produce a nice fruit. Now, it does say chokeberry, so it's not, you're not going to make a chokeberry pie, but it's really great for mixing into with other fruits for making smoothies or jams, really high in antioxidants. It's really healthy for you and they're actually a little bit sweeter after first frost, but again, sweetness and chokeberry or eronia is very relative, but beautiful plant. I know it on the NDSU campus, this is being used a lot more in landscaping. There's a lot of different cultivars, so fitting into smaller spaces, there's what's called low scape mound, very compact, very small, very nice. I don't have a fall color picture here, but it's outstanding fall color. There's low scape hedger, so this is about a three to five foot. It doesn't sucker and just great for a nice little hedge, as the name says. And so again, it will produce all the fruit which are really high in antioxidants. The shrub cherries that came out of Canada are absolutely fabulous. I've planted quite a few of them. I've got Crimson Passion for sure. Says that they will produce about 20 pounds after six years and this is dead on. I get so many of these nice small cherries that and it makes some of the best jam. I've had, everyone has told me about my jam, it's just fabulous. So highly recommend them. I've got them planted as a hedge, right on the edge of my garden, so they get plenty of light and they're that transition from the ornamental because they produce the flowers, which are really nice and the red fruit really is nice and bright, but I actually, I do net them because I want more of them and I don't want the birds to get to them. Elderberry as well. Elderberry is known for its uses on ornamental, but it's also used quite a bit in for medicinal and also can be used for food. Again, the fruit can be produced wine and also some juice and jams. There are some tighter here of the European type with the purple. I haven't more of a tighter upright. I'm a big fan of Elderberry. I grew up in Wisconsin and my grandparents always made Elderberry fritters every spring when the flowers were ripe and just absolutely love them. Hazelnuts, there's some really nice hazelnuts out there now. This one is from Bailey's, has a really nice purple green foliage during the growing season and a beautiful burgundy fall color and then you get the edible nuts as well. So instead of having just a regular shrub, I highly recommend putting in a hazelnut because then you actually get a nice product out of them after the growing season. Some other space-saving ideas, hanging planters. I don't know, I'm not really fond of these. They look personally and I won't even comment. The hanging bags as well, raised beds. We've already heard about raised beds, but trellis gardens. This is a great way to be able to utilize kind of your espiliers to give them a place to be able to develop. This picture is showing more of that fan types. This would be great for your plums and apricots instead of having the straight across horizontal arms that you would have like with your apple, but it gives you the structure. It gives you that break between your yard and somebody else's yard. Also maybe a windbreak, but a privacy screen, but also a structure for your plants to be able to actually be trained upon. And then some just real basic trellis. It's like if you wanted to grow up your zucchinis for harvesting your flowers or whatever, or maybe your watermelon, but just giving that vertical upright, because we don't use the upright much. We always think of the horizontal, but not the up. Gazebos are pretty common. You can see these are a void of life. Why not use them? Get some grapes, get some different plants that we can put them on. You can use just wired trellis in different areas. Here, now, this is not one that is edible, so this is actually poisonous, but if you have a gazebo, why not train some wisteria up to it? Take advantage of that structure and this vine wants to have that structure so you can fit some really beautiful plants in some tighter spaces. Same thing, you know, climates. We know that it's a climber, and so if you provide any type of structure, whether it's the light pole on the left or having some type of trellis there on the right, will really work well.  I already mentioned grapes, you know, you can have your own grapes and have it on any type of trellis structure, whether it's just a single kind of trellis, but here, you know, having more of this kind of a gazebo-pergola kind of look and having the grapes just hang down. When it comes to some ornamentals, there's a lot of work on plants trying to get to be tighter and upright. You know, one from NDSU is the Dakota Pinnacle. I think many of you are probably familiar with the Parkland Pillar, which is a tighter version of the Dakota Pinnacle. So being able to fit plants into tighter spaces, I've seen this planted quite a bit around Fargo. It makes really nice screen, but it doesn't, you know, consume your yard then, which is really nice. You know, arborvite, we know, are very susceptible to deer damage, even some rabbit, but they give that nice vertical accent. But instead of using arborvite, I always suggest using Taylor Juniper. Now, Taylor Juniper is a really nice type upright. This is actually a photo from ours out at the NDSU Research Arboretum near Absaraka, but it has that same kind of form, 25 foot by four foot, it's deer resistant, but it's not drought tolerant. Well, no, this one's drought tolerant, whether it's arborvite or not. And so we actually suffered and lost a lot of our arborvite when we went through drought, but this one actually can handle that, but so it can't handle wet. So you have very different growing environments. That's that right plate, right plant, you know, right reason. Fineline buckthorn, you know, this is one that is kind of that asparagus kind of look, but it's a very tight plant that fits into spaces that you normally wouldn't be able to necessarily get a plant into. It doesn't get wild, it doesn't sucker. And it's not invasive, you know, we think of buckthorn as this really invasive plant, which, you know, normal common buckthorn is, this one is not, and it adds a really neat texture and adds a nice form. We mentioned the edible apples, having these columnar uprights, there's a lot of crab apples now that are available that are also uprights. So being able to fit these plants into areas that again, you normally just wouldn't have the space. This one has the purple, it's called purple spire, it has more of that purple foliage during the summer, but you know, we'll have a beautiful spring bloom as well. And then just looking at some smaller trees in general, Northern Empress, this is one NDSU release, it's a smaller statured elm, because people think of elms as being these big monsters, which they can. This one's gonna be in about that 30 foot range. So it's a better fit for a yard and it won't be overwhelming, but still get a beautiful fall color. This is another NDSU plant, cinnamon curls, and this one is a dwarf birch. So it gets to be about nine foot by about nine foot, but a nice little specimen tree, again, something that won't be so overwhelming, not a 30, 40 foot tree that's gonna take up an entire yard. Same thing with buckeye. Now again, buckeye is not edible and actually poisonous fruit. So you gotta be careful with that, but buckeyes typically get pretty wide and they don't really fit well into a landscape. Here, you've got this one that's an upright and so fits much better into a landscape. So we gotta really think about what do we have for a space? What are we trying to accomplish? What are we trying to do? But there's a lot of great plants that we can incorporate in that are edibles that can replace kind of standard shrubs. So we get that extra benefit of fruit, whether it's a berry or a nut, but still get good fall color as well and then have that texture and aesthetics during the growing season. So lots of great plants that we can play with. So that is my quick little dive into tight spaces and what we can do to hopefully kind of make things a little bit nicer and add some edibles as well. That was a great time, lots of great information there. So we invite people's questions. Here we go, Todd. You said you love rhubarb here. So when you get a division off somebody's rhubarb, a mature rhubarb plant, how soon can you harvest from the new division? Well, I am not a rhubarb expert. I think once you get it established, I think, I don't know, personally, I would wait at least probably one year to let it establish on its own. Yeah, I agree with that. Gotta wait at least a year. Then we just take a little bit to second here. How about, do you know of a flower that opens only at night? Oh, there is one. Goodness, I can't think of the name of it. How about moonflowers open at night? Yeah. There you go. And but it's dark outside, you can't see it. Yeah, because my neighbor had one of those. And the same thing, it's like, here we're all standing around in the dark waiting. It's like, this isn't really that enjoyable as the mosquitoes are eating you alive. That's right. You got it. How about you showed pictures of strawberries growing in a plant or how successful can you be overwintering those plants? So the same thing that was mentioned if you were attending earlier, anytime you have a plant that you're trying to overwinter, the most susceptible part is going to be that root structure. And when we have a container, we just don't have enough buffer. So you'd have to protect it, whether it's mulching, bring it into a garage or a shed, but you're going to then have to deal with pest issues. So it can be quite a quite a challenge. So maybe just consider it as almost as an annual, you could use like the day control or the ever bearing types.  So if you plant chives and oregano next to rhubarb, are you going to have an off tasting rhubarb? You know, it's a good question. I wouldn't expect that you'd have an off tasting rhubarb. You know, they're going to stay pretty true with what they are. Is it choked berry the same as a choked cherry? No, they are different. So choked cherry is a prunus. So it's an actual true cherry, whereas choked berry is aronia. And that's why they're trying to get away from that choked berry name. But but choked berry really has a true name. And it's not a very nice, flavorful fruit, but it's really healthy. There you go. So this person's never heard of espalier trees before. So can most trees be trained to espalier most fruit trees? Yeah, pretty much any fruit tree can. Again, when you're dealing with more of the stone fruits, you want to be like the plums and apricots. You want to be more into that fan shape, whereas your apples and pears, the the then you want to have more of that horizontal branching. But if you've never experienced espalier, that's a great Google activity. And, you know, maybe in the future, we can I can do a talk just on espalier. That's for sophisticated gardeners, I think.  Is it hardy here? Or do you have specific cultivars you would recommend? That bad Betty Matthews. And then there's also the summer cascade. They they both are pretty hardy. They do really well. How about this person has a question about red cedar being? Is it more tolerant to winter injury than the white cedar in the Arbivite? Yeah, yeah, I would say probably, yes. You know, how about what size of that buckeye plant that you showed? So lava burst, and that's one that's becoming available. It's really about in that 20 foot, you know, 20 foot by about 12 foot. OK. How about have you ever grown a goji berry or a mulberry or a hardy kiwi or hops? You know, hops does well. You know, we have hops on the NDSU campus and Dr. Hadriman Blente has done a lot of research at NDSU with hops. I have never done a goji berry. I think that would be really cool. I have not done hardy kiwi here. I used to have hardy kiwi and actually in my previous home, this is back in West Virginia, so it was a lot warmer. But I actually had hardy kiwi growing and I trained it through my chain link fence. And so it made a green fence. So what was the other one? Mulberry, hardy. Now, mulberry, that's the thing.  But mulberries are wonderful. I love mulberry jam. I love mulberry syrup and mulberry is is hardy here. OK. It was the dwarf Korean birch need more water than other trees. So the cinnamon curls, that is available now. I've seen it now like here in Fargo, several garden centers have had it available. So it's through Isley. It actually is more drought tolerant because it's very similar. Oh, well, it's it's in the same kind of grouping as river birch, which you think would need more water, but it actually is shown to be very drought tolerant. How about have you ever grown winter berry? Winter berry that it's kind of depends which winter berry. Is it for the salada? Yeah, I like for silly for silly or for to silly out of that one actually does really well. One that I would not recommend eating the fruit. There is also a euonymus that's also a winter berry as well. And both are actually hardy. How about is there a difference in rhubarb cultivars? This person wants an upright, thin one. Oh, I don't know. I don't know of anyone. Yeah, I don't think it's not rhubarb.  Most people don't grow rhubarb for the ornamental beauty. But but it's pretty. I support you. How about Dakota Pinnacle and Parkland Pillar? Are they bronze birch bore resistant? They are not completely. So if they get stressed, they will get bronze birch bore. They have a little bit more tolerance because they're supposed to be a little bit more drought tolerant, but they're not resistant by any means. So if you're going into drought, make sure you do proper watering. This person grows a mountain ash tree. Do you know of a mountain ash variety that the birds won't eat the fruits from? No. Yeah, very cool. Are there dwarf conifers like mugo pine that do well here? Oh, yeah. And I didn't talk about any of the dwarf conifers. I think I had a talk several years ago or something on dwarf conifers. So we'd have to go back to the archives for that. But yeah, the lot, all the dwarf conifers do extremely well, whether it's the mugos, they do extremely well. There's all the dwarf Colorado spruces. They do really well. The one to to really avoid, though, is the white spruce. And you mentioned that the archives, all of the Spring Fever Garden forums are recorded and they're archived on our website. So you can see Todd's presentation from five years ago. It's there. There you go. You can just binge Todd West one night. Oh, yeah, I would not recommend that. How about Hardy Hazelnut? Is that Hardy to Zone 3? You know, it depending on the one, I know there is hazelnuts growing very successfully up in Botno. OK, how about our San cherries? Hardy, San cherries are Hardy. Again, making sure you get the right one. Yeah, they were they were developed from the Northern Great Plains. They're tough as nails. How about does the cinnamon curls, dwarf Korean birch turn a reddish color in the fall? It does not. It's a beautiful gold, like a typical birch. Have you ever grown that chocolate mint? Actually, I have.  Well, I guess you know. You're really fooling yourself. It's one of those where, you know, it's like having a blue flower in the horticulture. Is it really blue? No. There you go. But now that's a chocolate mint. Yes, there's not chocolate basil. No. Is there a chocolate basil? No, I'm not sure. No, there's all kinds of there's lemon basil. Yeah, there's a million basil, cinnamon basil, holy basil. Yeah, Genovese basil. But I don't think there's chocolate basil. There's a chocolate. But that chocolate mint is amazing, though. That really freaks freaks all kids. They love that stuff. Exactly. Oh, this person says there is a chocolate basil. So we have we have an argument going on here. All right. Where can you get a chocolate mint? You should be able to get it, you know, seed for your own. Or at a garden center, it's it's not, you know, it's not a rare, rare plant. I agree. I see those. Those all those mints that you showed, Todd. Yeah, pretty ample man's there. If you go to a major garden center, they'll have a collection available for you. Is there a smaller willow tree available? And if there is, how far should you plant it away from a home? You want to make sure that you do plant it away from any kind of water source, if you've got a septic or any type of your drains. There is a smaller willow, prairie reflection through NDSU. It's going to be in that kind of 25 foot range. But it doesn't have that weeping effect. But it's got beautiful, glossy leaves. Beautiful stands out for that. How about let's see if there's anything in the chat box here for you. I think we got it covered. Todd, that was excellent. I really appreciate your presentation. Yeah, thank you for having me.


to my channel and welcome if you are new here. Thank you so much for clicking on today's video. Today, we are going to talk about 11 proven scientifically backed ways to lose weight without exercise. Now, can you lose weight without going to the gym without sweating without exercise? Absolutely. And I'm going to share with you 11 proven ways to do just that. However, I want to encourage you to include some type of exercise or daily movement for 30 minutes or more a day into your weight loss regimen. You are going to feel better. Your body will be toning up throughout your weight loss and overall exercise, including strength training is so important for body function, the way your body looks and the way your body feels, your strength, your mobility and your endurance. So although we can lose weight without exercise, I recommend including some type of intentional movement every single day. But if you're not quite there yet on your journey, maybe you're just starting, maybe you're not quite ready to incorporate exercise, let me share this 11 proven tips to lose weight without exercise. I need to take note of and that is to chew thoroughly and slow down when you're eating. I am literally the fastest eater and I know that about myself and I try to mindfully slow down my eating, but I'm still a fast eater.  He often makes comments like, holy moly, I barely started my dinner and you're done. So this tip definitely needs to be taken by myself. Your brain needs time to process that you've had enough food to eat.    You're going to feel full and satisfied while consuming less points and calories. And in fact, a study has shown that people who eat faster are more likely to gain weight than people who eat slower. And that's because the slower eaters feel full and they consume less points and calories than those of us that are fast eaters.  You can even put your fork or you're eating utensil down between bites. That way it takes you time to pick that up, get some additional food on there and bring it to your mouth. So those are a couple of tips on how to chew thoroughly and slow down noted. Number two is use smaller plates for unhealthy foods. In fact, use smaller plates for most of your meals. It plays a trick on our mind to see a full plate of food, one that is stuffed to the gills with food. And if we're using a really large dinner plate, mindful portions won't fill that plate. So if you go to a smaller plate, like a salad plate or a dessert plate, especially for unhealthy foods, but for healthy foods as well, it's going to trick your mind into thinking that you're getting a little more food bang for your buck. Now I will say that if you are going to have a big old salad, put it on a big old plate because that is a healthy low calorie food. Salads are really good for you. So on the flip side, if you're eating a really healthy meal that is low in calories and points, put it on a big plate. But everything else, put it on a smaller plate so that your eye tricks you and that you feel immediately like you're getting a lot of food for those points in those calories. Number three is extremely close to my heart. And that is eat a lot of protein. Protein is the number one macronutrient that keeps you full and satisfied. One study shows that by increasing your protein between 15% and 30%. So basically 15 to 30% of your daily calories should be from protein. Show that people eat on average 441 less calories in a given day when they focus 15 to 30% of their calories on protein. They also lost about on average 11 pounds in a 12 week period. So not only did it keep them full and satisfied, it caused them to eat 441 calories less, putting them in a calorie deficit, thus losing about 11 pounds over a 12 week period. Add protein to every meal, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. Make sure that you are pairing a carbohydrate, a healthy fat, a sweet treat with some type of protein. Set yourself a protein goal.  Right now I am doing my goal weight times 0.7. I am going to link the video playlist down below for points versus calories where I talk all about Jordan Syat and his approach to protein. What I track is my calories, my points and my protein. Carbohydrates and fat, fiber. I get plenty of all of those that they're not on the forefront of my mind. I am very concerned about protein because protein keeps me full, satisfies, helps me lose weight and again is the most important macro nutrient. Number four is store those trigger foods, those unhealthy foods out of sight. Better yet, don't even bring them in your house. If you store your favorite foods, your unhealthy foods at eye level.  It's going to trigger cravings. You're going to reach for that sometimes even when you're not hungry. So store those items out of sight if you even brought them into your house. Better yet, again, don't even bring them into your house. Number five is eat a fiber rich diet. There are so many benefits to fiber. Most importantly, fiber keeps you full. It is the one nutrient that keeps you full alongside protein. Also fiber keeps you regular and we all, let's be honest, we all want to be regular. So studies show that viscous fiber, I'll put that here on the screen for you, is the type of fiber that is most beneficial with weight loss. Viscous fiber essentially forms a gel when it comes in contact with water. So it does that in your stomach. It forms a gel, it's a little heavier in your stomach. I don't want to say heavier, but it's in your stomach and it's there and it triggers your stomach that you're full and satisfied. Viscous fiber is found in plant foods, things like beans, oats, cereals, Brussels sprouts, oranges, asparagus and flax seeds. So those are some of the best sources for viscous fiber. Just make sure that overall you are eating enough fiber in a day, a minimum for women of about 25 grams of fiber per day. Number six is drink your water. We all know how important water is. So if you're not going to get an exercise or you're not going to intentionally exercise, make sure you're drinking enough water. Water flushes out our bodies and our organs, but water also helps keep us full. Studies show that by drinking half of a liter or 17 ounces of water, about 30 minutes before a meal, you consume less food at that meal, less calories, less points. In fact, participants of this study who drank water 30 minutes before a meal lost on average 44% more weight over a 12 week study period because they were eating less at the meal because the water in their stomach kept them full. Number seven is serve yourself smaller portions or ask whoever serves you your meals to do smaller portions. If we put a lot of food on our plate, we're going to eat it. Sometimes even when we're full and satisfied, we'll continue to eat because it's there. It's on our plate.  Serve yourself a little less of your favorite foods. Make sure you're weighing and measuring as well. Use a food scale. It is the most accurate. You can measure in grams, fluid ounces, milliliters, pounds. Use your food scale.  Weigh it out on your food scale, track it, record it, account for it, but start with a smaller portion size and I bet you're full and satisfied even though it looks so much smaller to you. By using that smaller plate in those smaller portion sizes, you're going to end up eating a little bit less or even a lot of it less. Number eight, eat without electronic distractions.  When we are on our phone or watching TV, we are not mindfully eating. We are focused on something else other than what we are eating. We can eat a lot mindlessly and not be full and satisfied, where if we're really focused on intentionally enjoying and eating what's in front of us, we are likely to be triggered to be full or satisfied a lot faster.  When we are eating distracted, we don't even know that we're overeating. So I encourage you whenever you are eating a meal or even a snack, really sit down and enjoy it. Mindfully eat that. Turn off the TV, the computer, and the phone.  Number nine is sleep well and do your best to avoid stress. Now, I know this doesn't always happen. I know that life gets busy. We don't always get eight or nine hours of sleep every night. Life throws us curveballs. Look where we are right now, where we are a little bit overly stressed, a little more added stress than normal. These have a tremendous effect though on your appetite and your weight. So try, try to get your sleep and try to lower your levels of stress. We know that the hormone cortisol becomes increased when we are stressed and when we have lack of sleep. That cortisol makes us crave food. That makes us snacky and hungry and we will reach for foods that we generally wouldn't reach for with enough sleep and less stress. Chips, candy, junk food. Also chronic sleep deprivation. If you are starving your body of sleep on a regular basis, it is proven to lead to type 2 diabetes as well as obesity. So my friends, try to get enough sleep. Try to reduce your stress level. If that means just taking a moment to breathe deeply, it's important. It's important for weight loss and your overall health. Number 10 is eliminate sugary drinks. Try to eat your calories, not drink them. It is proven that sugar is the worst thing for our body. Sugary beverages such as sodas, juices, waters that have added sugar for flavor like vitamin water are one of the leading causes of diabetes. It's very easy to consume excess calories from sugary drinks because they don't make us full. They don't satisfy us. They don't curb our hunger. So it's very, very easy to overindulge. It's best to stay away from sugary drinks in general and focus on things such as water, coffee, unsweetened green tea, even unsweetened black tea. You can even flavor your water with lemons or limes or cucumbers or oranges. Just stay away from sugary beverages. Don't drink your calories. Eat them. Number 11 is extremely interesting. It was something that literally I'd never heard of before and that is to serve unhealthy or what is deemed as unhealthy foods on a red plate. The color red is indicative of stopping. That is why stop signs are red. So when we're eating unhealthy foods on red plates, it triggers our mind to stop, to stop eating so much of these foods.  Those that ate the pretzels off of blue or white ate far more than those who ate it off of red. Now, do I know if this works? No, but it's worth a shot. Grab a few fun red plates and when you're eating something that is unhealthy or high in calories or points, try eating it off of a red plate and see if it triggers you to stop eating sooner than it would on a different color plate. So in summary, many very simple lifestyle habits or changes can help with your weight loss. You don't have to sweat for hours in the gym. You don't have to run a marathon. You can just change some of your basic daily lifestyle habits and you should see a benefit in your weight loss. You don't have to go into these tips and tricks. Guns of blazing. Try one or two of them. See how they work for you and then move on to a couple of others. You don't have to do them all at once. Just baby steps. Take baby steps into a healthier lifestyle and I also want to remind you that it is still important to move your body. A body in motion stays in motion. A body at rest stays in rest. So even again, if you're not sweating it out in the gym or running a half marathon, do a little bit of intentional exercise every day. Get up and move your body for at least 30 minutes. It's so important to your overall health, but by making these very simple lifestyle or daily habitual changes, you're going to see a benefit in your weight loss. Again, you don't have to sweat, you guys, to lose weight. So that is what I have for you today. I hope that these 11 tips really, really help you out. I will go ahead and type these up down in the description box for you so that you have them at a glance. Also in the description box, you're going to find the links and discount codes to my favorite things and the link to head over and join my Facebook group. We would love to have you be part of that community over there. Head on over and join us. If you're new, make sure that you're subscribed and that your bell notification is turned on so you don't miss a single video. Give this one a big thumbs up. If you enjoyed today's video, it really helps out my channel and means a lot to me. Thank you guys so much for hanging out with me today. I hope that I am helping you with your healthy lifestyle journey and I'll see you all in my next video. Bye!


Welcome to class everyone. Thank you for joining this class on Romans. On Monday we began looking at Romans chapter 2. We continue looking at the rest of the verses in Romans chapter 2. I'll just give you a recap of what we studied last week and then we'll continue with the rest of the verses. So can one of you please lead us in prayer before we begin? Anyone? Rosalind, you'd like to lead us in prayer? Yes Pastor, let's go. Wonderful Heavenly Father, we thank you Lord. We thank you for this time that you have given us the Lord to study from the Book of Romans. Father God, we commit each and every one of us into your hands, Lord. Father, we ask you to open our spiritual understanding that we may understand what we are going to study now. Father God, give us the grace, give us the wisdom, Lord, and give us the open our spiritual years and spiritual minds. Father God, to receive your word, Lord, I also commit a dear pastor into your hands. Father God, whatever your word comes forth, Father God, let it be for our spiritual growth and let it bring glory to your name. Thank you and we bless you. In Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you Rosalind. So on Monday we began looking at studying chapter two. Basically in chapter two, Paul is addressing the Jews and he's saying, hey, you know, he's talking as one among them because he himself is a Jew. He says, you know, we feel proud as Jews because we have been given the oracles of God, that means we've been given the written law. And he goes on in this letter to also talk about how we've been given the promises, we've been given the prophets, the covenants have been given to us. So we feel proud about all of these things and we hold this. And we who have been given the written law, the written oracles, we go and teach it to others, we tell others what is right, what is wrong. You know, when they're doing something wrong, we quickly tell them. But he says that, you know, at the same time, we ourselves are not keeping the law. We ourselves are breaking the law. We who are custodians of this law, we who are teaching the law, we ourselves are not keeping the law. And then he says that, you know, in chapter two, we will be judged by the law. And the Gentiles, you know, they can say, hey, we've not been given the law. So, you know, the Jews will be judged by the law, but how would the Gentiles be judged? So Paul says, you know, God has given them as a written law in their hearts, which he refers to as the conscience. The conscience is the written law in their hearts, a conscience that tells them, you know, what is right and what is wrong. An inbuilt law that is written in their hearts. And Paul says that, you know, there is also a law that is built inside every person, irrespective of whether they are Jews or Gentiles. And he says there are two things that are inbuilt that God has given all of us. And these two things are reason and conscience. So reason and conscience, which means within every person the way God has designed us, he has already given us two things, which is, you know, reason. And reason, which he has just finished talking about in chapter one, the latter half of chapter one, where he says, you know, creation. When you look at creation, we can reason in our minds that, hey, this does not come about just by itself, everything that did not happen by itself. But, you know, he says that in Romans chapter one that, you know, creation reveals the invisible attributes of God. It reveals the eternal power of God. It reveals the Godhead. So people are without excuse. So he's just finished saying that, and this is a continuation. So he's saying that, you know, people have been given reason to inbuilt things by God that every person has been designed with. That is reason by which they can know that there is a God. Okay. They can, that which can lead them to having a personal relationship with God. And the second thing is he says is conscience. Conscience means what is right and what is wrong. Okay.  So we can ask this, I mentioned last week and said, we can ask this question. What about people who don't hear the gospel? You know, we really don't know, but we know that, you know, every person who by reason, you know, discover God would not to know God would seek to know God. God would reveal his gospel to them and reveal his good news to them, reveal himself to them. But those who do not hear the gospel, you know, what can we say? We can't infer anything or we can't say anything much. You know, we can't come up with another alternative because we don't have another alternative option. All we know is when we read verse 16 of Romans chapter 2 that, you know, everyone will be judged, whether Jew or Gentile will be judged according to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Okay. So Paul is basically writing this whole portion of this letter to the Jews. He's addressing the Jews. He's speaking to them. And then we looked at verse 17, where he's, you know, 17 on this. He's strongly rebuking the Jews.  And in verse 18, he says, we know his will. We can tell what is right and wrong. And Paul is telling them, you know, you know what is right and what is wrong. You're teaching it, but you yourself are not doing it. And when you're not doing it, you are also breaking the law. In fact, not just breaking one part of the law, but breaking the whole law, because if you can't keep one law, you break the entire law that God has given them. So Paul is basically building up the case here. And he's telling the Jews, Jews, it's true that you have the law and everything in the law, but you know, you know about it, but you are also breaking the law. And then he goes on in verse 19 and he says, you know, you're so confident in yourselves about the law, but it's like, you're like a blind man, a blind guide leading others into darkness. And then he says, he's been very strong in his words towards the Jews. He says, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge, verse 20 and truth in the law. You devil who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal?   You who make the boast in the law, do you dishonor God to breaking the law? And then we stop at verse 24 where he says, for the name of God is blaspheming among the Gentiles because of you, you know.  You are doing exactly what the law does not require of you. You know, you are doing opposite of what the law says. Okay. And then he goes on to talk about another issue which the Jewish Christians were basically, he goes on to talk about in verses 25 to 29 about circumcision which the Jewish believers will join the church, you know, are forcing the Gentile believers in church, to be circumcised. And so, you know, Paul very beautifully argues or brings about the point that circumcision, yes, is a physical sign of the covenant that God made with us, as us means he's talking about Jews, but, you know, God really requires not the physical circumcision, but the circumcision of the heart.  So, that is what he speaks or talks about in verses 25 to verses 29. So, can one of you please read verses 25 to verse 29, please. Verses 25, for circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law, but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision. And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who even with your written code and circumcision are a transgressor of the law. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God. Amen. Thank you, Rosalind. So, verses 25 to 29, Paul goes on to talk about the issue of circumcision, which the Jews were very proud of and which for them was a sign of the covenant between God and them. And he says the Jews, you know, we say we are circumcised, and circumcision is a sign of our covenant with God, you know, which we have physically, but you know, he says which we have physically, even if we have this circumcision, you know, which is a sign of the covenant, and we are breaking the law, we are not doing what is right, we're not doing the right thing. Okay, then circumcision, which is a physical sign of our covenant with God actually amounts to nothing. So, it's of no use.   And then he says if the circumcised who are the, sorry, the uncircumcised who are the Gentiles, the Gentiles keep the law or do things, you know, that are right in God's sight.  So it says if the uncircumcised who are the Gentiles, you know, if they keep the law or if they do things that are right, then shouldn't we say that their uncircumcision is good as being circumcised because they are doing what is right before God. So what Paul is basically saying is, you know, don't go around, you know, telling the Gentiles that they have to be circumcised, you know, because circumcision is actually of nothing. He comes back to this later on in this letter, you know, it's not, he talks about how Abraham was justified by faith. He was made righteous by faith even before the physical sign of the covenant or circumcision was given. Abraham was already declared righteous by faith. So Paul is bringing that argument very beautifully and he's saying that, you know, it's not the circumcision ritual that will make one justified before God or will make one righteous before God because Abraham was not justified. He was not made righteous before God because of the sign of circumcision or because of the covenant of circumcision. But even before that physical sign of covenant of circumcision was given, he was already being justified. He was made righteous because of his faith in God because he took that step of faith. So, you know, he goes on to elaborate about this in the other chapters. But for now, he says, you know, we Jews, you know, we boast of this circumcision ritual, this covenant that we have, but the uncircumcised are, you know, as good as being circumcised because they're doing what is right before God. In verses 28 and 29, Paul says, what really matters is not circumcision of the flesh. Okay, it's not the physical circumcision that really matters. But he says it's the circumcision of the heart, which means he's saying that there has to be a change of heart. And, you know, and he's reminding them of the Old Testament promise where he says, God says, I will remove your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh, which means I will give you a heart of understanding, a heart of flesh means a heart of understanding. So here he's saying that what is more important is an inward change, an inward change of heart that is more important and it's not the physical circumcision. You know, so for the Jews, he's saying, don't get old, don't hold on to all of these signs, these rituals, you know, these practices, because yes, it has a meaning in its own context. But it's of no use if we are, you know, doing it just as a ritual, just as a practice. But in our hearts, we are not committed, we are not a lawyer, we are not pursuing righteousness and holiness, which is more important to God than any of these outward signs that we do. What God is more interested is in that we live a life that is righteous upright and holy before him.   I have failed before God, you know, I don't meet up to his righteous judgments or to his righteous standards. So we see that through chapter two, you know, what he has built up so far, he continues to talk about that in chapter three, which we will look at again. But here he's just leaving the Jews with this thought, or he's just getting them to think.  But, you know, you are not keeping the law. And, you know, when you're not keeping the law and the circumcision, it amounts to nothing because you have failed before God, because of you, his name is blasphemed among the people. And you don't meet up to the righteous judgments of God. So, you know, he builds this up till here, and then he continues on in chapter three, which he will continue to discuss about sin, and then he goes on to talk about how we will be justified or made righteous by faith, and then how we will be justified and made righteous by grace. Okay, so if you look so far, you know, I've just given, I've just followed my kind of my own thought process as notes that just given you have followed that. But we will just look at our notes and highlight a few important things because there are a few important things in our notes that we can look at and that we can highlight. Okay. So, I'll just open to notes just in a minute. So, in this chapter, basically in our notes, if we look at, you know, he says, we see Paul challenging the attitude of Jews towards the Gentiles, then he's presenting an understanding of God's judgment, how, what and when. And then he's also revealing the work of conscience, and then he's presenting what a true Jew is. So, we just look at a few points here, because I've just kind of mentioned, I've gone through like through my own notes, but it's important to also look at a few things that have been given in the course content, which are also important. Okay. So, there are some few insights that we can gather from our course notes. The first thing is, you know, in this chapter Paul is challenging the attitude of Jews towards the Gentiles. Okay. So, as I mentioned that Paul is addressing the Jews here, he's challenging their attitude towards the Gentiles who do not have the law.  So, as we consider these three truths, we can apply them to ourselves, and, you know, we can also have the understanding of the truth and how we can view those who do not have this truth. So, this is what is mentioned, a summary of it is mentioned in Romans chapter 2. Paul challenges the Jew and that attitude by stating that judging others requires that I must hold myself accountable to the same standards. Okay. So, Paul is challenging the Jews and challenging their attitude by saying that, you know, when we judge others, it requires that we also must hold ourselves accountable to the same standards. And when we're judging others and practicing the wrong, you know, that we condemn, we will not, God will not permit us to escape the judgment that he has in store for us. That is what he's telling the Jews. Hey, Jews, if you are, you know, judging people in the same way that you are breaking the law, then you will not escape God's judgment. And then we also looked at in verse 4, you know, that the goodness of God, his patience that leads people or leads us to repentance. God's righteous judgment is without partiality on all who do evil, the Jew first and the Gentiles. Okay. The Jew first, because to them we're given the oracles of God first.  He will judge everyone without partiality and all who do evil. And he says, you know, first to the Jew and then to the Gentiles. So why does he say first to the Jew, then to the Gentiles? Because they were given the written law, God had given them the written law first. Then another point he mentions in Romans chapter 2 is those who have the law, God would judge them according to the law. Okay. Because God has his own way that he is determined to judge them outside the law. For those who do not have the law, he has his own way of judging them outside the law. The Jews were very proud that they had the written code and that is the written law and the circumcision which is the sign of the covenant. But Paul makes it clear that just having these things or just hearing the law will not amount to anything if they violate what the law requires them to do. Okay. So says there's no point in having the law in circumcision. If you are not keeping it, if you're not following it, you know, it's good as blaspheming the name of God. And then we see in chapter 2, what's giving the notes is, he presents an understanding of God's judgment. How, what and when. How God judges when will God, what God will judge and when will he judge. Okay. So we look at how God judges in Romans chapter 2 verse 2. We see he would judge everyone according to the truth. That means he would judge everyone according to the word of God. And in verse 5, we read that it's a righteous judgment. Okay. And verse 11, he will judge without partiality. And in verse 16, he will judge everyone according to the gospel of Jesus Christ. So how would God, who is a righteous judge, judge us? He will judge us according to the truth. That is the standard of his word. Okay. It's a righteous judgment. It's without partiality. And he will judge according to the gospel. Okay. We read in John chapter 17 verse 17, you know, God's word is the truth. Like we all mentioned in Romans chapter 2 verse 2, he judges us according to the truth. And what is the truth God's word is the truth. And also John chapter 12 verse 47 and 48. Can somebody read that please? John chapter 12 verse 47 and 48. And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which judges him. The word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. Yes. Amen. Thank you Rosalind. So the word will judge him on the last day. And ultimately, you know, we'll all be judged by God in truth that is according to his word. Okay. And we will be judged in righteousness. We will be judged without partiality. And we will be judged according to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Okay. And I've already answered this question. What will happen to those who have not heard the gospel? So we will not forget that it's already given in our rules. But I've already mentioned that and I've reiterated that even as we began class. Okay. What does, what God judges? Okay. What God judges? Romans chapter 2 verses 6 to 11. He judges our deeds. Okay. So if our deeds are, we are not obedient to him. We are not obedient to the truth in his word. We're not living according to his word. You know, if we are not being righteous in the way that we are dealing with things, the way that we are living, you know, our deeds, we will be judged for our deeds.  We will be judged for that. And verse 16 he says, you know, we will be judged for our motives when God will judge the secrets of men's heart, you know, as we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 5. Can somebody read that please? 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 5. Therefore, judge nothing before the time until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsel's purpose, motive of the hearts, then each one's praise will come from God. Amen. Thank you, Rosalind. So he says when the time comes to judge, God will judge and reveal or bring to light the things that are hidden, you know, he will reveal the counsel's of the hearts. That means counsel's means what? He reveals the, he will judge the, or he will reveal the motives of men's heart, whatever is our motives. So sometimes we can appear to do things in a very nice way and everyone will praise us but what is our motives deep down, you know, hidden agendas, hidden motives, hidden plans and purpose may not be God honoring, may not be God in the way that God wants us to do things. It can, it will not be righteous in God's side and God says he will, the time of judgment he will bring that to light. He will reveal the counsel's. The counsel's here means the purpose and the motives of people's heart. And then, you know, each one, depending on their motives, the way that they have done things, you know, their deeds, their desires, then each one will get their praise or each one will, you know, will receive their judgment, whether it's condemnation, it's hell or it's heaven. So whether Jews or Gentiles, all of us fall short of, all says in three areas, you know, all of us fall short, we sin in three areas. And what are the three areas, areas of our deeds, areas of our desires where we are seeking our own desires, our own selfish motives and our own plans of our hearts. Okay. Now Paul's intent in showing this to us is so that we can understand all of, that all of us, whether it is Jews or Gentiles, you know, fall short when we are judged in these three areas and that none of us are perfect. And that is why he goes on to talk, you know, that all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. Okay. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, which he talks about in Romans chapter three. Okay. Then he, in this chapter, he also talks about when God judges men. Romans chapter two, verse five, says, you know, on the day of Roth, God will judge us on the day of Roth, which means that, you know, the day when God will judge, he has an appointed day for it. He mentions this in Romans chapter two, verse 16, the day when God will judge. There is a day that God has appointed for specifically for judgment as we read in Acts chapter seven, verse 31. So can somebody please read Acts chapter seven, verse 31 please. Now it's 17 or 7. 17, verse 31. Because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained, he has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead. Amen. Thank you. You know, so we see here in Acts chapter 17, verse 31, that God has an appointed day when he will judge the world in righteousness, a specific day and an appointed day when he will judge us. So this is, you know, one of the themes that he talks about is the law. Also talks about God's judgment. Another thing that we can see in Romans chapter two is conscience. Okay. So he also reveals the work of conscience. And in Romans chapter two, verse 14 to 16, he talks about this. And what does he talk about conscience? Paul reveals that the work of the law is built into every person. And he says this work of the law is the conscience that effectively, you know, achieves the same work of the law pointing out what is right and wrong. So here the conscience is presented to us as a law which is built into every person. Okay. So when he says conscience, he's basically saying this conscience is, you know, what he presents to us is a law which is built into every person. And the conscience is the functioning of the human spirit. Okay. The conscience is a functioning of the human spirit is a human spirit that is programmed with the law of God, so to speak, you know, it's like the law of God. And it's like, it's programmed to be the law of God in our hearts, in our spirit man. And the human spirit is telling us or speaks to us or is telling us, you know, telling the person what is right and what is wrong. So that is what he's talking about conscience that he says every man has a judiciary system built in, you know, maybe a judiciary system is basically a conscience that he's referring to the conscience that judges you that tells you what is right and wrong but their own conscience is challenging their own thoughts. Okay. Look at John chapter 8 verse 9, it says our conscience convicts us. Okay. Can somebody read John chapter 8 verse 9 please. Then those who heard it being convicted by their conscience went out one by one beginning with the oldest even to the last and Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. Yes. Another is the incident of, you know, the woman who was caught in the act of adultery and this whole narrative, this whole scenario that they bring her to Jesus.  They're not interested about the woman, but they want to trap Jesus. And, you know, in the end what we see was, you know, they were all convicted in their own conscience because none of them knew that, you know, their deeds, their desires, their motives were right. They all knew that their conscience, you know, was not right, was smirled, was, you know, was evil, was not good, was weak. And they did not have a chance or stand to, you know, condemn this woman because they themselves stand condemned because they are not righteous in their own actions, in their own deeds, in their own motives of their hearts and in their own desires and their passions.    And we also answered this question, that conscience instead of the gospel, can people be judged by their conscience? We said, you know, whether they have the law or they have the conscience, everyone will be judged by the gospel of Jesus Christ. We already mentioned about that. I also mentioned about the two built-in indicators, that is reason and conscience, so I'm not going to go through that again. But we'll just look at this point on the conditions of the conscience. You know, we see that in other places in scripture that conscience can, you know, be in different conditions, you know, we can have a good conscience. A good conscience is basically a conscience that is fine-tuned. We can say that a conscience that is functioning properly and conscience that is functioning according to God's intent. It's telling the person what is right and wrong and the person is listening to their conscience and doing what their conscience is telling them or following their conscience and not giving in to what is evil or what is wrong, okay? So scripture also talks about, you know, conscience without offence means a conscience that has not been violated in any way, a conscience that has been protected. It's a pure conscience. It's a clear conscience. It's a holy conscience. So when we talk about a conscience without offence, we're basically saying that it's a conscience that has not been violated in any way. It has been protected. It's a pure conscience and it's a clear conscience. And then, of course, we have a pure conscience that is holy, that is righteous, that is God-honoring, that is, you know, doing what God wants us to do walk according to the standards of His Word, the truth in His Word. And then we have a weak conscience. A weak conscience is basically a conscience that, you know, we all start off with a good conscience, but slowly, you know, we tend to get into our old nature at times.  It's not as big as adultery. It's not as big as addictions or it's not as big as smoking or drinking that I'm doing. I just told a lie. I just saw something, you know, or maybe I got angry. I spoke, you know, condemning words about somebody else. You know, it's okay. I mean, I just gave into that moment of my weakness but we need to be very careful because, you know, a weak conscience can, you know, move us away from a good conscience, a pure conscience and a conscience without offence to a conscience that is seared. You know, what does it mean? A seared conscience that is totally dead.  So a conscience that is seared is basically a conscience that is dead, you know. So we can lie and then we can continue lying thinking it's okay.  It's not something that is big but we can come to a place where our conscience can be dead to lie. You know, that just at the drop of the hat we can say a lie and it will not even affect us. We will not even have to think twice that, hey, I've seen, I've done something wrong because our conscience is seared in that area of our life or it is, you know, retaliating or it's grumbling or it's murmuring or it's complaining or it's constantly talking negative about others or, you know, not looking at the positives. So, you know, all of these areas, our conscience can be seared. The sense that conscience can come to a place where it's, we are totally dead. We don't know at that point what is really, you know, we don't know what is right. We come to a place where we just do it because we are dead in that part of our faculties or in that part of our area of our life and we continue to indulge in sin and that can bring us to a very dangerous place because that can lead us to a place where we are defiled. You know, a place where defiled means, you know, where we are living in willful, constant sin which is unholy, which is displeasing to God. So, it doesn't start off, you know, move dramatically from a good conscience, a pure conscience dramatically to a defiled conscience but it goes to a place where our conscience gets weak and then we're not listening to the whistle that blows, you know, hey, what you did is wrong, what you're saying is wrong. When we overlook it, when we think that we have control over it, we can come over it, we can get over it, then we come to a place where our conscience is totally dead and then we come to a place where we are defiled in our conscience and, you know, we begin to live a life that is, you know, a defiled conscience or evil conscience, you know, is a place where we accept what is wrong and no longer think what we're doing is evil in God's sight or is displeasing to God. So, we come to a place where we are living in defilement, in total unrighteousness and unpoliness and in evil and wicked ways. So, you know, we need to be very, very careful, we need to listen to our conscience when the whistle blows loud, you know, we need to listen because when we don't, the whistle slowly starts, I mean, this is giving you a kind of an illustration that you can understand. So, when the whistle blows, it blows loud the first time. Hey, what you did was wrong and you feel really terrible. But the second, and when we think it's okay and we overlook it, the second time the whistle blows but, you know, the sound is not too loud and slowly it diminishes, it comes to a point where, you know, we can say it's a sealed conscience where our conscience doesn't even, you know, react because we are dead and to that part of sin and that can lead us into more dangerous, you know, sin which we can fall and we can hurt the heart of God, we can go away from Him, we can do things that are totally unrighteous, unholy, even to the place of adultery or, you know, getting into addictions, getting into deep sins because, you know, we've given that place where our conscience is sealed. So, let's listen to our conscience, very, very important.   They came to a place where I said, you know, God, I need to be so much more careful, you know, I can look at their sin and, you know, how they've fallen, the depths of sinfulness that they have gone into, but I can also be that place, I can also come to that place and God, you know, helped me to every day be conscious of living, you know, according to your word, living in the truth, being accountable, you know, not straying away, even little sin that is there, you know, helped me to be mindful of those little sins, to know those little sins that I'm doing, pointed out to me, God, and helped me to deal with those sins so that I don't come to a place where my conscience becomes so seared that it becomes defiled and evil. Okay, so we'll stop at this. We look at the rest of the notes on Monday and just a little more, and then we'll move on to chapter 3, but just let to leave us with this thought, you know, let's listen to our conscience, whether it's a small thing or big thing, sin is a sin, whether it's a lie, whether it's a word, whether it's grumbling, murmuring, let's not move, you know, to a place where we can come to a place where we have defiled and do what is evil in God's sight. Okay, thank you all for joining today's class. I'll see you on Monday, and I'll ask God to help us to listen to our conscience and to live according to his word, whether in secret or in the opening that is recountable to God and to walk in his face and to live in righteousness and holiness and play according to that and live according to that. Thank you, everyone. Have a blessed weekend. God bless you.


Welcome to this talk on GIS and drought management in a global perspective. This talk is part of the GIS course on Agmox. My name is Balaji. I work for the Commonwealth of Learning based in Vancouver in Canada. My co-author in this is Dr. Sridhar, who is based in India. At the end of this talk, you would be able to state that in adaptation and preparedness for drought, local information is important and its integration with science and technology-derived information is important. You would be able to give an example of a highly integrated local planning tool and you would be able to show the role of GIS in it. In another talk, we learnt about the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the way it makes its assessment available to the global public through assessment reports. The last report appeared in 2014. It was called the Fifth Assessment Report. One very important forecast in that report is that drought will increase in frequency in many parts of the world. This report also pointed out that effective adaptation strategies must integrate local knowledge with globally-derived scientific and technological knowledge. Local knowledge must be integrated with scientific and technological knowledge. We saw in another talk in this course that very large-scale global overviews were available. Like in this case for Africa, drought vulnerability has been computed and forecasted. We also looked at how drought vulnerability is made available for a continental nation like the United States. We also looked at the fact that it can be scaled down to the level of a state and even to a collection of counties inside that state, in this case Colorado, which is considered to be a highly vulnerable state. But you find in this map that some counties inside the state are not as vulnerable as many others. In other words, there is a noticeable variation in vulnerability to drought. That is clear only when you scale down, when you go from a macro scale to a semi-macro scale. We understood that to plan mitigation steps, micro-level assessment is necessary. We also understood that there has not been much progress here. One of the best examples of how micro-level assessment is used in drought management has come from Professor Nagarajan, who covered this in another lecture on this course. Here is a cluster of villages, 200 of them, that we are looking at, where Professor Nagarajan has computed drought vulnerability based on a variety of parameters. But primarily based on rainfall. This map shows village by village vulnerability. Professor Nagarajan also showed village by village adaptive capacity to drought, which is presented here. This is a cluster of 200 villages we said. We can look at a much smaller cluster, namely a cluster around a village called Adakam. This map shows how in a cluster of just 21 villages inside the 200 village collection, how drought vulnerability varies. It's based on a particular forecast of rainfall, and you find that some villages are extremely vulnerable compared to several others, and therefore effective measures can be taken by local authorities as well as by farmers based on such information. For example, crops can be planned in a better way. Irrigation can be planned in a better way. In fact, choices of seeds can be arrived in a much better way using this information. This information was indeed shared with farmers, and they found that information highly useful. Authentic statements are available on the internet. Here is Mr. Balachandar, who is from one of the affected villages, potentially vulnerable villages, talking about how useful to him this particular vulnerability analysis was. There could be many such examples that we will notice in a small area like this. Today, it's not necessary to communicate with farmers only face-to-face. Information like this, which is very specific to localities, can be communicated via mobile phones. IIT Kanpur, Professor TV Prabhakar's group, which runs the Ag Moogs, has developed a very sophisticated yet very easy to use technology for connecting experts to farmers to communicate information pertaining to localities in a very precise and in a very timely manner. It's called VKVK. Now, with GIS tools and with VKVK, farmers can be given extremely precise vulnerability assessment and in a way that is very timely for them. So to conclude this talk, we would say that local micro-level info systems are essential for planning adaptation to drought, which is going to increase in frequency in many parts of the world. GIS tools are critical, and there is effective technology available for communicating those results to farmers who need them most. This combination of GIS tools and mobile technology is going to be fundamentally important in the years to come in most regions of the world where drought is going to increase, both in intensity and in frequency. Thank you.


a group of celebrities gather together in order to encourage people during the coronavirus pandemic unfortunately the song that they sang is pretty hopeless but we're gonna explore that today hey what's up guys my name is Isaac and this is The Daily Disciple where I help you follow Jesus daily like I just teased we're gonna be watching a clip multiple clips of celebrities singing parts of the song Imagine by John Lennon but before we do that I just want to give a huge shout out to my patrons on patreon um as you guys know or some of you know recently I was let go of my job because of the coronavirus so things are tight right now but thankfully I have patrons on patreon that support me in this ministry so if you want to help me out head on over to patreon.com slash daily underscore disciple and partner with me on there thank you again for those of you who already do that it is a huge blessing onto the video okay without further ado let me just set up this video real quick so Gal Gadot uh superwoman uh she wanted to you know do something that I believe like she thought that she you know it was it was nice and and let's get together and let me sing a part of the song Imagine and then a bunch of other celebrities will send in their tapes and sing this song as well well unfortunately what turned out well it began as maybe a nice idea ended out people really being kind of offended by it so people got upset about it um a lot of people memed on it um for me I wasn't personally offended but I just thought it was more interested in in terms of the song that they were singing the song choice that they chose um but we'll we'll explore that as we listen to the song imagine there easy if you try no hell below us above the sun in sky okay just to start out I mean I'm not gonna necessarily comment on their singing performance because I'm not a good singer I'm not good at that stuff what I like to be of course I'm trying to be taking I was going to be taking singing lessons but this whole coronavirus thing kind of gotten the way of that so I'm no expert in terms of musical performance at all so if I if I talk about their their singing or whatever know that I am no better I'm just laughing because I know this is what I would do I'm in the same boat in terms of singing quality it is interesting though because you know it's impossible pretty much to make it sound good but you know aside from that the actual lyrics that they're singing you know they're trying to encourage people give people hope in a time of of just uncertainty and stress and anxiety and all of a sudden they start singing this song and I've heard it and you've probably heard it before if you haven't heard it that's pretty crazy but but the song is all about look imagine there's no heaven it's easy if you try no hell below us only above us only sky right this fact that hey look no imagine if we're just here there's nothing in the afterlife right there's no heaven or hell also this idea that okay hell in heaven or you know God's gonna judge us at the end of end of time when he comes back right God's gonna judge us based on what we've done the song is kind of like okay imagine if that didn't happen imagine if we could just do what we want it wouldn't that be a great thing to me and and it's a very different distinction right if you're a christian or if you're not a christian that might sound really nice to you that might sound really good like just living hey doing what you want to do hey I just you know you do you type mentality um but the Bible actually presents something that is amazing and it's freedom and that confuses a lot of people that aren't christians they're like no that's you know the Bible and all those you know stuff you have to do that sounds like bondage but actually through Jesus we have real freedom where we don't need to be a slave to sin we don't have to be a slave to our you know our random desires or honestly sinful desires a lot of the time but no we can be in service to christ and that actually allows us to have great freedom because we're actually living out who we were created to be the same thing about this song and you'll you'll hear this as it goes imagine he's actually john lennon is actually saying hey look this this stuff i was actually real but wouldn't it be great if it wasn't real that's something to think about imagine all the people living for today okay okay i'm not even gonna comment on that last like i said i'm not good at singing either so you know maybe it was a comedic take well we'll hope for that from sarah silverman there but um okay so so imagine if all the people are living for today there's two sides of this right because yeah you want to live for today right you don't want to just you know worry about the past or worry about the future you want to take advantage of what you have but there's also this idea of living for temporal comfort versus living for eternal impact and this is something that maybe to unbelievers this might not make sense but the idea is is that because we were creating the image of god because we have this amazing purpose of imaging him on this earth and bringing glory to him everything that we're trying to do on this earth has eternal impact right so if every relationship that we're in every friendship you know sharing the gospel serving other people it's all in this eternal mindset because it's not just about here and now but it is about about eternity right not only you know when you share in the gospel you have this idea hey look we're not just here for today how you live your life here matters and what you believe here matters and that's why i want to share the gospel with you you know when you're serving people it's not just about here and now but you're imaging you're showing what god looks like to other people so yes we want to live for today meaning that we want to take advantage of every day but we don't have this mindset of only you know taking advantage of today and trying to you know get temporal comfort i'm trying to you know have temporal pleasure just do what feels good now or do what i think is best now because that kind of leads us to the selfish mindset but actually what the bible is calling us to is this eternal mindset where we're making eternal impact impact for god's glory imagine there is no country yeah it isn't hard to jimmy why is jimmy it is nothing to kill or die for and no religion too i find this so interesting i mean uh on different social media platforms as i as i share my faith and just share my my christian journey and and just try to share what i'm learning the scriptures i'll often encounter people that maybe identify agnostics or or atheists or whatever and often a criticism will be look look how much harm religion has done to the world look how much harm religion is done so many wars so many battles you know and this is the same idea right imagine if there's no religion right we'd all live in peace but ultimately um all the religions are just attempts by humans to figure out the meaning of life what happens when you die answer those big questions in life atheists too trying to figure out the big questions of life and do you know other religions get into wars and do all sorts of terrible yeah absolutely just because somebody says that they are christian or says they're part of you know a christian church and does something terrible or you know claims the name of christ and yet starts wars or kills people whatever that doesn't discredit the actual message because you need to read it we're all trying to find the big answers in life and the bible actually has those answers if you're willing to take a look so ultimately when you say oh look religions are just you know if we didn't have religions we'd be great no you'd still be looking for answers and so now the real question is is what religion or what thing has those answers who has those answers and we look in the bible jesus says i'm the way i'm the truth i am the life he's claiming to be god he's claiming to be the only way to the father if this is new to you i encourage you to go read the book of john in the bible just begin reading it and explore what the bible has the answers to the big questions of life i don't even know who that is she's got a good voice you know i don't know who she is honestly i don't know a lot of these celebrities but she has a good voice and that i'm a voice goes i'm going to do like a voice coach reacts i love those videos imagine no possessions i wonder if you can no need for greed and hunger brotherhood of man sharing all the song kind of has the theme of hey look what what what if there were no things that divide us what what if we just you know we're lived together as one in one happy family and honestly that sounds like a nice idea you know it's a warm and fuzzy feelings within us but when we actually start to think about it what are the things that actually begin to divide us they're actually the things that are most core to us how we answer the biggest questions in life how we choose to live our lives how we choose to interact with people those are the things that often divide us and when we begin to just hey no we just gotta you know accept and come together and and love each other that's a nice idea and obviously the bible says hey love one another we should have friends of non believers right we should be friends with non believers but that doesn't mean we come together and we ignore the truth right because we can't all we're not all gonna believe the same thing and by just coming together we'd be actually ignoring some of the deepest and most important things in life so i actually propose a different thing i propose a different strategy let's not just come together and just be one and not talk about the things that truly matter that may divide us but let's come together with respect and treating each other with dignity and knowing that we're each created in the image of god loving one another right as we love ourselves listening to other people's perspectives and opinions but not being scared of sharing the truth and what we believe that is what i think is actually a better aspiration than just coming together singing kumbaya on a nice circle but coming together with love and respect but not uh not cowering down and not hiding the truth from people you know ultimately i think what they're looking for even though the song may be you know misguided and not completely that not really that hopeful at all but ultimately um we're looking for peace we're looking for peace we're looking for hope where can we find peace in our circumstances and where we can find hope for the future and ultimately that that peace that comes it comes from not within ourselves if we're just trying to focus on oh man how is my life going how my circumstance is going how how how is my job going what what is the you know what am i gonna do all this kind of thing we're gonna be anxious and we're gonna be trying to figure out you know what is life next there's no peace there ultimately peace the bible says comes through christ not in our current circumstances not in our changing circumstances but in our unchanging god because we can trust him he has things under control and where can we find hope hope ultimately when we're looking towards the future it's not a hope of well i hope there's no heaven or hell so we can do whatever we want now it's a hope of the future a hope of jesus coming back ultimately and establishing his kingdom here it's a hope that he will restore us all to our original design without sin without you know selfishness but we can live together in sinless perfection and and we can do all the things we can explore creation there'll be no more death there'll be no more tears that is our hope and the hope for right now even before jesus comes back is that god can use you right now he can use me right now and it's not because you're that amazing it's not because i'm that amazing but god loves you and he wants to use you despite your inadequacies he wants to use you in the midst of your weakness because his power is made full in your weakness so as you're trying to navigate this kind of crazy time honestly i just encourage you to dive in god's word ask him draw any to him that he will draw near to you there is peace there is hope available not necessarily and listening to celebrities sing imagine but in christ thanks so much for watching guys i really appreciate it i hope you enjoyed this video um this is all in good lighthearted fun but i hope you learned something i hope you took something from this video i really appreciate you guys and uh support me on patreon if you can head on over to patreon.com daily underscore disciple i really appreciate it thanks so much for watching guys and i'll see you next time