MamaStories

I did a lot of work in the garden today, another glorious Spring day. I filled up almost the entire new bed against the fence (4 x 16 feet). I am using the soil from the potato towers, which after sitting still for a good 7 months is showing its true nature: it’s full of pebble-sized cement crumbs. I’m sifting them out. The bed is about 2/3 full. It was back-breaking but feel-good work.

I’m only able to take off the top foot of the soil in the towers, the rest is still frozen. I covered it with black plastic so it will defrost quicker.

I also covered up most of the beds. They have straw on them, which has a high albedo, being light-colored and shiny, and the soil underneath it is more frozen than the beds without it. Amie said they finally do look like “beds” now.

She also laughed when Laura and Ma speculate that the moon is made of green (unripe) cheese, at the end of Little House in the Big Woods. “That’s so silly,” said Amie. I asked here “So what do you think the moon is made of, then?” And she very seriously replied: “Creamy soy milk.”

Well, that aside.

I brought my beehive home today, along with the veil, smoker, gloves and tools. I’ll write about that tomorrow. I’ll be moving the hive around on the property to see where it would be best - and to see how the neighbors react! About those neighbors, I have more ideas…

last of the frozen blueberries (rinse out baggie, reuse)

Today was fabulous. Almost 60F, sunny, a mild breeze. Amie and I went outside and worked - well, she sat and drew, I worked. I made a new 4′x16′ bed near the fence, for peas and lettuce (it will be shaded by the summer hoop house). Still have to fill half of it in, with the soil from my potato bins, only the top twenty inches of which weren’t frozen. Ooph, my back! Feels good. I also bought enough timber for 4 more beds and 5 trellises, which means…

… that I am going through with the tree, bush and vine order. This is the order I am contemplating:

• 1 BARCELONA HAZELNUT (Corylus avellana), layered
• 6 BUSH HAZELNUT (Corylus americana), 1-2 foot seedlings
• GAMMA HAZELNUT (Corylus avellana), layered
• 1 MEADER PERSIMMON (Diospyrus virginiana)
• 2 PAW PAW (Asimina triloba)
• 1 ATREANO FIG (Ficus carica)
• 3 PATRIOT BLUEBERRY (Vaccinium corymbosum)
• 2 ANANASNAYA FEMALE HARDY KIWI (Actinidia arguta)
• 1 MALE HARDY KIWI /POLLINATOR (Actinidia arguta)
• 3 CHINESE MAGNOLIA VINE (Schizandra chinensis)
• 1 ROSA RUGOSA / ALBA (Rosa rugosa alba)
• 1 RUBY AUTUMN OLIVE (Eleagnus umbellata)
• 1 SWEET SCARLET GOUMI (Eleagnus multiflora)
• 2 SOCHI TEA (Camellia sinensis)
• 2 RED HUCKLEBERRY (Vaccinium parvifolium)
• 2 RED OSIER DOGWOOD (Cornus sericea)
• 3 ARONIA SEEDLINGS (Aronia melanocarpa)
• 2 YORK ELDERBERRY (Sambucus canadensis)
• 2 JOHN ELDERBERRY (Sambucus canadensis)
• 3 SNOWBERRY (Symphoriarpos alba)
• 2 SERVICEBERRY (Amelanchier alnifolia)
• 2 HiGHBUSH CRANBERRY (Viburnum trilobum)

I’m still trying to find these:

• WITCHHAZEL (Hamamelis)
• WINTERBERRY (Ilex verticillata)
• SHADBLOW SERVICEBERRY (Amelanchier canadensis)
• APPLE SERVICEBERRY (Amelanchier grandiflora)]
• STRAWBERRIES

Mot of these don’t mind shade, and not a few of them don’t mind it wet, either. All are edibles - except the Red Osier Dogwood, which we want for coppicing, for basketry.

I just need to do some more fine-tuning, placement in the garden plan, sourcing and price matching. So far Burnt Ridge seems my best bet (they have all the ones in the first list). A pity it has to come from so far away: we’re talking seedlings, 3 foot trees, and some pots!  I wonder how all that can survive in the mail. But my local garden center is too expensive, and they don’t sell half of what I want - same with the few Massachusetts nurseries I found. If anyone knows of one: I’m near Boston…

In the hoop house:

Outside: garlic

And this is where the bee hive will stand:

I stopped reckoning our food consumption for the Riot a long time ago: the Riot way of calculating our food consumption and production was never clear to me. And so, though the growing and storing and preparing of food are almost constantly on my mind, I haven’t kept track, which made me feel at a loss. The challenge over at Not Dabblng in Normal is a great occasion to take stock.

For me the issues are

1. processing (preservatives, food coloring, pesticides, and simply the amount of steps from field to fork)
2. packaging (especially plastics and styrofoam)
3. food miles

(+) I’ll first discuss those points we’re already making progress on and are improving as we go. (+/-) Then there are the points that we still need to get started on, that need work but that can be done. (-) Then the ones we can’t do much about in either the near future, or ever.

Lastly, why are we doing this? Three words: health, resilience, thrift.

1. + EGGS: We’re eating a lot of eggs (4-5 eggs, each, a week), which we buy locally at our Winter’s Farmers Market or through my raw milk buying club. The cartons are being reused by the farmers, and I’m keeping some for when we have chickens ourselves. I still hope to have those chickens soon.
2. + SWEETENER: Hopefully we’ll also be getting our bees soon (end of April). The idea is to start using more honey for sweetener than sugar. (We decided, BTW, to go ahead with the bees even if we can’t have honey: for the skill, the pollination, the wax - the potentially poisoned honey will be returned to the hive for winter feeding.)
3. + VEGETABLES/BEANS: Compared to last year, our vegetable garden will be expanded, in time (we’ll have a Spring season this time), size (double, at least), and yield (thanks to my higher position on the steep learning curve).
4. + HOME-PROCESSED FOOD: We’re still eating well from our canning pantry: jams, jellies, chutneys, pie filling, apple sauce, peaches in syrup, etc. I can’t wait to start adding more and more variety to that in a few months.
5. +/- FOOD STORAGE: Tomorrow marks the removal of the asbestos tiles in our basement, which prevented us from installing a root cellar or “cold room”. Then we’ll start drawing up plans and we hope to have a cold room by the end of Summer, when the big harvest comes in.
6. +/- FRUIT: We will be planting berry bushes, kiwi vines and paw paws this Spring, but it will be a while before we will be able to harvest a good amount.  No room for apples or pears, our staple fruits, but we buy them locally and organic when in season and eat them processed at other times.
7. +/- FISH: We don’t eat a lot of fish” two or three times a month. To be honest, looking at the selection at the grocery store (Whole Foods), I don’t know what to buy anymore: farmed, wild caught? We’re planning to have a small pond in which we might grow tilapia or some such (haven’t researched it much yet) which we will harvest and freeze for special treats.
8. +/- MEAT: We also eat very little meat: once a week, if at all. When we do, we buy it at Whole Foods: no antibiotics, etc, and usually quite locally sourced, but still, to be minimized. The allowances from the meat CSAs are too big for us: we’d have to stuff ourselves with meat, by our standards. They’re also pricey. The thing to do here is to keep our meat consumption down and to enjoy only as a special treat the occasional chicken from the backyard.
9. +/- DRINKS: We don’t drink soda at all and rely mostly on water from the tap, which we filter. We do love a good cup of coffee and tea, or two - especially in winter, when it’s 58F in the house. I am going to experiment with tea plants and maybe, with a good homegrown tea, I could kick the coffee habit. As for juices, what little comes into the house is for Amie, and I hope to make our own come berry time.
10. +/- BAKING: This is a weakness of mine. I know I can bake a bread and that it doesn’t take a lot of time or hassle. I know that with just a little more effort and dedication I can make perfectly good bread (and cookies, cakes, crackers). But baking just isn’t in my blood. I hope we get to make that Earth Oven: it’ll be a kick in the butt. Imagine how much processed, bagged foods I could ignore at the store if I did this! (As for food miles, see GRAINS).
11. +/- DAIRY PRODUCTS: There is also, really, no reason why I shouldn’t be making my own yogurt, butter and cheese! As for the raw materials for those:
12. - MILK: The raw milk is as unprocessed as it gets, and it comes in glass ball jars, so the packaging isn’t a problem. But its has a lot of food miles on it: it comes from 100 miles away. And at its price, $4.50 for half a gallon, we can afford only 1 gallon a week, but we consume about 3 gallons. The rest I buy from Organic Valley at Whole Foods. Nothing much I can do about this, as yet. There are cow shares around that I know of and that would be affordable. But the plastic bottles I will reuse either as hotcaps for early transplants,  or for emergency water storage if I ever get round to that.
13. - GRAINS/RICE: I have no room in my garden to grow my own grains, let alone rice. Most grains on the market come from over a 100 - probably a 1000 -  miles away. The only thing way I can do, for now, is to buy them dry and in bulk.  I’d love to get a grain mill and buy whole grains, then grind them, but that would be for later and would not solve the issue at hand. I’ll look into ways to eventually replace conventional grains with other sources of carbs and starches.

Over five hours of fairly uninterrupted work I planted:

1. Anise Hyssop (mint!)
2. Aster: September Ruby NE
3. Broccoli Blend 09
4. Broccoli: Waltham
5. Brussels Sprouts: Roodnerf
6. Cabbage: Charming Snow
7. Cabbage: Earliana
8. cabbage: red express
9. Catnip
10. Chard: Bright Lights
11. Chard: Fordhook Giant
12. Charming snow cauliflower
13. chives: Purlie
14. Collards: Evenstar
15. Cornflower: Bachelot Button
16. eggplant: Applegreen
17. eggplant: diamond
18. Hyssop
19. kale: White Russian
20. kale: Winterbor
21. Lavender
22. leek: King Richard
23. leek: King Sieg 09
24. Lemon Balm
25. Lobelia: Crystal Palace
26. Lovage
27. Maltese Cross
28. Mustard: Early Mizuna Japan 09
29. Mustard: Mild Kingdom 09
30. Onion: Clear Dawn
31. parsley: Gigante d’Italia 09
32. pepper: hot: Czech Black
33. pepper: hot: Habanero
34. pepper: sweet: New Ace (hybrid)
35. pepper: sweet: peacework
36. pepper: sweet: purple beauty
37. pepper: sweet:Valencia Orange 09
38. Rosemary
39. sage: Broadleaf
40. spinach: Giant Winter
41. Spinach: Longstanding Bloomsdale
42. spinach: Space
43. tomato, cherry: Sungold
44. tomato, cherry:Be my baby
45. tomato: cherry: husk cherry
46. tomato: paste Heinz
47. tomato: slicing: cherokee purple
48. tomato: slicing: Ida gold
49. tomato: slicing: pink brandywine
50. tomato:slicing: Glacier
51. Wormwood

Of course I am absolutely certain that I caught all the mice in my house and that not one will ever dare to come in for ever here-on-after.

Having that heat mat (for four flats) on that bottom shelf is so handy! I now have room for four more flats, on one shelf. There are a couple of seeds that escaped my attention today (the lettuces!), so probably that shelf will be filled up tomorrow.

We went to our Garden Center’s Winter Fair and of course bought more seeds. This time DH was in on it too (Habanero), as well as Amie. It’s good to spread the guilt obsession pleasure! Amie chose two annual flowers and one packet of Three Sisters seeds - she was very taken by the name, so that’s what she got. She also got to pot up a Marigold seedling and pet a parrot.

Well, the hoophouse almost kicked the bucket, again. Yesterday night we experienced 50 miles per hour gusts of wind that got through every crack and gap in the hoop house and almost lifted it up off the ground. Almost. When I woke up this morning after a pretty fitful sleep it was still there, but only just.

Our hoophouse skeleton is made entirely of flexible pvs pipes and rigid pvc connectors, and it is covered with 6 mil landscape fabric, attached to the ribs by pvc clips. It is anchored to the ground by sideways (squeezing) pressure on its base, through galvanized stakes hammered in the ground on one side and the two wooden boxes of the garden beds on the other.  There is one small cable inside that is mainly for correcting the top from leaning over too much, because the whole thing sits on slightly sloping ground.

Our initial door design very quickly proved a bust, and we never even  installed it, so now the entrance is simply a flap of plastic that we clip and unclip as we go in. This is a major gap in the structure. There are also big holes along the covering of the side walls.

When I walked out this morning to set things aright before the big snowstorm - we know how the house, even in its better days, performs under snow loads! - I found that it had jumped all of the anchors but one. It had jumped over all of the stakes and even one garden bed (a foot high!). Only the corner of the other garden bed and the tight  (now too tight) plastic covering held it in shape and in place.

In short, in a place where it gets windy and snowy, I would not recommend going with this simple design, or even this choice of materials. It is simply underbuilt.

We decided to add wooden frames on its short sides. In one of those we can place a more convenient and air tight wooden door, and in the other we can stick a window that can open for cross-ventilation.  We’re also contemplating a low wooden wall all around its base for the now sliding off. We’ll replace the ripped and punctured cover with a more transparent and durable one.

We’ll rebuild it in the Spring, before we move it to its Summer position. The idea is still to have it be mobile, but instead of picking it up in one piece, we’ll make it modular.

That said, I am glad we made this house. It got us going, we’ll be able to use most of its materials, and it taught us a lot about good (and bad) design.  Also, all the plants inside survived the calamities so far, and I think it won’t be long before we can harvest some lettuce and mache and replace them with new seedlings growing in the basement as we speak.

Caught two more mice. Bought more covers in case there are more mice. Gearing up to do a huge planting over the weekend. Got more seeds too, mostly chard and spinach. How could I possibly have enough of those!

Lots of herbs have to be started early. So I started them:

1. Greek Oregano (*) x12
2. Sweet Marjoram (*) 3 rows
3. Rosemary (*) x13
4. True Lavender (*) x12
5. Lemon Balm x12
6. Lovage x12
7. Valerian x 12
8. Mints: Bee Balm 3 rows
9. Mints: Common 3 rows
10. Mints: Pennyroyal 3 rows

Luckily most of these (not the *) germinate at temperatures around 60F, so they don’t take up space on the heat mat.

It’s great to know, this time around, that the beds are ready, for all of them. All my herbs last year were stuck in pots and, though I did get to harvest the culinary ones, they never really thrived.

I put the Echinacea seeds into the freezer to stratify them. If I sow them in warm soil in 3 or so weeks, they’ll break dormancy and germinate, I hope.

In the interest of record keeping, I started the following growth chart (IN and OUT means sowed inside, or direct seeded outside):

Let’s see if I can keep this kind of record keeping up. If so, think of how colorful it will be in a few months! I’ll see if I can make it a public document, so you can see the updated one at any time.

It took me three hours to wash all the plugs and containers from last year. Or should I say, another three hours? I had washed them at the end of last  season, but storing them on the screened-in porch turned out to be not a good idea. So I washed and scrubbed in a bucket of water, dipped into a bucket of water+chlorine, rinsed in a bucket of water, dipped into a fresh bucket of water+chlorine (really don’t want pathogens in that tiny, contained micro-climate that will soon house most of my vegetable garden of 2010!), and rinsed in fresh water again. Let drip.

This is the collection of recycled containers - there are more than it seems from the pictures:

With the 50 or so peat pots left over from last year, I think I’ll be all set. I do love those green containers that mushrooms come in: they’re strong, the right depth, and because they’re rectangular, they waste less space in the rectangular setup. 8 of them snugly fit one flat.

I did have to buy two new heavy-duty reservoir trays, which at $10 a pop will have to last me many, many years. The ones from last year are so leaky. They were the flimsy plastic kind that comes with the plug sheets, and got banged around quite a bit, from rack to bench to hardening-off area to garden, and back. So I won’t be using them for bottom-watering my seedlings, only of holding the seedlings on the light rack. I was thinking of punching holes into the leakiest ones and planting large batches of lettuce in them.

I installed the heat mat plus thermostat on the bottom shelf (the heat will rise and warm up the rest of the rack), but I won’t be using it yet: all the seedlings so far like my basement’s temperature (a constant 56F).

Here’s a wishlist for my potting area:

1. clock
2. radio
3. brush
4. trash can

And what went in?

1. Olympia spinach (an incredible 38 days to harvest!) 2 x 10
   
2. Longstanding Bloomsdale spinach (last year’s seed) (42) x 11
3. Tom Thumb Bibb lettuce (46) x 20
   
4. Cracoviensis lettuce (last year’s) (47) x 20
5. Winter lettuce mix (50) x 20
6. Bright Lights chard (last year’s) (56) x 8
7. Bright Lights chard (56) x 8
   
8. Safir cutting celery (60) x 24
9. Ventura celery x (80) 24
10. Redventure celery (last year’s) (84) x 24
11. Brilliant celeriac (89) x 10
12. Clear Dawn onion (last year’s) (104) x 20
13. Clear Dawn onion (this year’s) (104) x 30

If my last frost date is 3 May (according to NOAA, there’s 50% chance of a later date at 32F; you can find this info here), then I’m sowing 13 weeks (oops) 12 weeks before the last frost date (BLFD). A bit early, I know, but I’ve got season extenders. I’m growing in raised beds (always a bit warmer, earlier), and I’ll be warming the soil in those beds with black plastic, and they’ll be covered with a hoop house and/or cold frames and/or extra row cover.

The first seven batches (those in italics) are so hardy, they will already have moved out by the time most seedlings need starting (6-8 weeks BLFD). Some of them are actually so fast-growing, they might even be ready to eat by then!

Spinach, in 4 weeks? Dare I dream it?

I’m ready to start sowing in my basement light setup. I checked it and everything still works. I just received the first batch of seeds from Fedco. We also found a great deal for a 4-flat heat mat with thermostat, so jumped on it - and that has arrived as well. I bought my seedling starter (I splurged on a huge bag of Country Cottage Seed Starter). So here’s the plan for this weekend:

INDOORS: start seedlings in basement

1. short term seedlings destined for cold frames: lettuce, mache, chard, spinach, some brassicas
2. long term growers: onions, celeriac, many herbs

I also need to figure out how to make seedling flats. I don’t feel like using those plastic plugs anymore (except for those seedlings that really enjoy their own space). I’ve saved up a lot of plastic containers, but I am thinking I might build some flats out of scrap wood, maybe making them so I can easily remove the sides when it’s transplanting time…

OUTDOORS: prepare Spring Garden

The weather is cold (28F max) and gray, but there’s no snow or rain. I’m wrapping up to do some outdoor work as well. Here’s a map (made with Plangarden) of the early spring garden (click on it for a slightly larger image):

1. plant carrots and most hardy lettuces in beds 10 and 15 inside hoop house (indicated by red crosses)
2. start fitting and making extra box plus windows for on top of beds 3, 5 and 10 (circled in frosty blue)
3. put black plastic on beds 8, 12, and the one in front of the house, to start warming the soil (circled in camo green)
4. clear and check ground that will become bed 11 (circled in brown): this is located inside the hoop house so the soil might not be frozen, in which case I could start digging on one side - the compost bin is standing in that spot, but I doubt I’ll get to that side

I also want to walk the property and take some serious measurements so I can start placing the pond, the channel that will take the rainwater runoff from our roof there, the chicken coop, the studio, the beehive, and take some decisions about potentially getting some more trees removed.

~

In the image, hardy crops that will be ready for harvesting when most Summer crops go in are in in bright blue (after last year’s bolting incident, I’m planning on freezing a lot of spinach this time!). Crops in darker blue are already in there (mostly overwintered in the hoop house). Crops in light green go in early as well (favas, peas and carrots), but they will stay in throughout the summer. Crops in pink are also longer term (brassicas) or succession crops (more lettuce, etc.), but their beds aren’t ready yet.

I have two of these maps: one for Early Spring, one for Late Spring/Summer, each with most of the crops I want to grow fitted in. I’d love to show them, but I need to find a better platform to show them along with my spreadsheet.

Do you think about the future? Do you wonder what it will be like? Or do you live like it’s always going to be the way it has been?

~

I found at least 5 entries like this one, all in drafts, abandoned. As I prepare for the growing season with more resolve and urgency than ever before now that my apprenticeship is over (ha!), I need to line up my motivations like a general does her troops. This is just a declaration, not a proof or demonstration: others are supplying the data much more clearly and comprehensively than I ever could.

~

1. We’ve got problems

I believe that sometime in my lifetime, and certainly in the lifetime of my daughter, life will be changed, drastically. This is because three changes are already happening.

• Peak Oil

(I believe that) there will be a chronic shortage in oil production and thus cheap oil. This year, in 20 years, I don’t know, but in my lifetime. This will not just affect the heating of our houses and our trips to the grocery store, but also the delivery trucks’ trips to the grocery store, and the farm equipment that “grows” our produce, and the factory equipment that put together all those plastic containers for our shampoos, and the pharmaceuticals producing our medicine, etc. (cf. The Oil Drum)

• Economic Depression

(I believe that) increasing debt, decreasing value of money, hyperinflation, the precariousness of globalization and the lie of never-ending growth will soon mean the end of any value to our national currency, the end of imports, the closing of  businesses and banks, rampant unemployment, the end of the middle class as we know it, and the cessation of public services. (cf. The Crash Course)

• Climate Change and Overpopulation

(I believe that) the Earth is changing and that it’s too late to do anything about it (if we ever could), that several tipping points have been already been (b)reached. The effect is the disturbance of the climate pattern upon which our agriculture and settlements developed and rely, and thus a growing difficulty for growing food and maintaining our towns and cities. This means a growing number of climate refugees and massive immigrations of our immense world population.

All three are interrelated. I suspect Economic Depression will be the first step, soon exacerbated by Peak Oil, then, more gradually but much more insistently, Climate Change. (Read also, John Michael Greer’s “Endgame” and Richard Heinberg’s Museletter).

~

2.  Collapse

I believe that even just one and certainly all of these events together will lead to collapse. I don’t believe it will be as bad as zombies or The Road, but I foresee some hard times and, at the very least, the end of the way we live our lives today.

I can’t say that it is my hope that this won’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, it would be great if it didn’t. If, for instance, we found some renewable, clean and omnipresent source of energy, freely and democratically available,  capable of powering our fleet of vehicles and our agricultural and factory equipment. Oh, and if it could also reverse the climate change tipping points… Sounds like heaven on earth to me, but I’ll just go ahead and prepare for if that doesn’t happen.

And it’s not like we have a lot of time. Collapse is already happening. Maybe not to me, or you, but to many in this country, in the world, and to whole countries even, to some degree or another. But for reasons that will become clear, here I just want to talk about myself, my family, and my neighborhood.

~

3. Hope

Still, I have hope. I hope that (for myself and my community, at least), collapse will be gradual enough. I hope it’s not a precipice, but a staircase, and that at each step enough people will (have to) take sufficient action to “catch up” on the decline. I hope that we can descend gracefully: without famine, violence, the destruction of culture and civilization…

A funny thing, though, this hope. I hope it’s reasonable (unlike “aw, come on, nothing’s going to happen!”). It will require hard work and sacrifices,  but we could pull it off. And to those who say “forget it, it’s too late, TS is really going to HTF,” I say “I hear you,  but you know what? I have no choice but to hope. My child leaves me no choice.” I must do my best to make my hope, her hope come true.

~

4. Starting descent

How do I do this? We, myself and my immediate family, have already started to power down. For instance, this month, February 2010, is our 16th month of the Riot for Austerity. In the Riot we try to decrease our consumption of oil, water, electricity, and consumer goods, and our production of waste, all to10% of the US national average. It’s tough! We’re almost there with certain things, but not anywhere near 10% with others.

We changed our eating habits: less meat, less food, more bulk, dry goods, and very little eating out. We are establishing a large food garden, with a hoop house for a winter harvest, and hopefully a beehive soon, and chickens. We work on our food storage and emergency supplies. The immediate goal is to grow and store enough and a healthy variety of food to feed two families, and to plant an extra row for the hungry. You can find more details of our lifestyle changes on the “What We Do” page.

Why are we doing this, making these sacrifices in the time and the land that is still plenty? Do I  think it’s going to make a difference to climate change? I’m not that naive.

• But I do it out of principle: to take more than what one needs is to be greedy and bad for the soul.
• I do it because, when I make something myself, with my own time and genius and effort, I take responsibility for it and I take care of it as a thing that I love. When I buy it, I just get the responsibility, like an extra price tag, easily snipped off. I “take care” of it only because it cost me so much - or, more frequently, I don’t take care of it at all, because it cost me so very little. I want to take control, responsibility, and care.
• I want to be prepared - practically and psychologically - for a future with less cheap oil, less income, less security, more manual labor, the need for different kinds of skills, etc.
• I do it to set up a model for others, for when circumstances will force them, too, to adopt such a lifestyle. That’s my next point.

~

5. A model

We take these and many other actions as an average (middle class) family, with an average income and debt. We can’t bring in the big machines to flatten the land and mow down all the trees that shade our vegetable garden. We can’t tear down our 1950’s ranch and put a zero energy house in its place. We can’t buy the $1000 compost toilet, the photovoltaics, the hybrid car. And that’s good, because that makes our place an attainable model for anyone in our quite average situation around here.

As people start realizing they can no longer afford the $300 electricity bill, the $4000 oil bill, or the cable subscription, we can show them that it’s possible both practically and psychologically, for them to descend without hurting and actually even gaining something. For we don’t need television and video games to entertain ourselves, and digging in the garden is better exercise than the gym, and eating from that garden is healthier than take-out. I hope to demonstrate by example that living with a little less at a time does not need to hurt.

~

6. Will that be all?

Do I think that what we are doing and working on - this 90% reduction in consumption of this and that, this 50% (?) self-reliance in food, this reskilling, etc. - will be all that is required of us?

Not by a long shot! But as a first step it’s the perfect preparation for the second step.

Which is? I don’t know. Ask me on a good day, then ask me again on a bad day. All I know is that what my family and I are doing right now is not what will be required, at some point, of all of us, and that after that, there will be even more.

Think of it. When oil hits $5, or $10, or $50 a gallon? When the shelves in the grocery store stay empty? When we are freezing in our houses? When half the people on the street are unemployed, and one third is homeless to boot? When a shift in climate wipes out a major crop? When the majority of us can no longer ignore or evade the situation, because our money can’t buy anything? Now we’re talking collapse.

There are times when I think the worst and that head-for-the-hills feeling flares up. When, in essence, I lose hope. But I squash it. Many reasons make it impossible for my family to pack up and dig in. It wouldn’t work for me to want to live as if collapse has already happened. It would wreck my family and isolate me. That’s not what I’m aiming for.

So if in the eyes of some I take it too fast, and in the eyes of others I take it too slow, so be it. I hope I’m hitting that golden mean, but I also know that mean is sliding down as we speak, until at some point “too much” and “too little” collapse into one.

In the meantime I hope the forerunners can be helpful, by their example, to the masses descending behind them. But if there’s suddenly going to be a whole lot of people barreling down that ever steeper and narrower staircase, it would be good for those who are ahead to install a railing as they go. Or else we’re all going to end up in a big, crushed heap at the bottom.

~

That railing is relocalization, but about that, next time. It takes a lot out of me to write this, and it takes a long time to write, because I know that most of you don’t agree, and I feel I have to be argumentative, on the defensive, and watch my words. While I just want to say it like it is for me, so we know where I stand.