Be joyful though you have considered all the facts
Actually Hen-Of-the-Neighborhood-Woods.
My mycologist neighbor came by today with a paper bag. In October, after a rain storm, I know exactly what’s in it: mushrooms! It was a gorgeous chicken-of-the-woods, so fresh and soft it was still almost entirely white that new creamy white (compare to last year’s). I fried it in some olive oil with onion, garlic, chick peas and half an apple that was at hand, pepper, salt and a pinch of paprika.
Bon apetit!
A friend was at a farm stand and called to see if I wanted apples. Do I! A bushel, please! I got all McIntosh. They were utility apples but they all looked impeccable to me! I’m dehydrating 1 peck (1/4 bushel), which takes about 6 hours. I just finished canning 1 peck in apple sauce. I’ll peel, sauce and can another peck today.
Amie likes the apple sauce for snack at school, so I canned 1 peck in all 1/2 pints. I just have to remember to pop the vacuum for her when I assemble her lunch in the morning.
The Earth Oven series:
Today we worked on the oven again. Rain threatened but never materialized. It made for a warm, overcast day, just perfect for some more or less hard outdoor work. First we formed the sand form. This was a lot of fun.
It was like a day at the beach. But with chickens.
They were all outside and curious. Then an owl sang out, three times, in the middle of the afternoon. I’m used to hearing them around midnight. Then Amie and her friend herded them into the run, where they would be safer.
It’s important  to get the right height (16″) and a convex shape, because apparently that makes for more even thermal movement. We wetted the sand a bit, and overall it was easy to achieve a nice shape, it just took a while, and a LOT of sand (five 50 lbs bags).
In order to protect the sand form, you can put strips of wet newspaper around it.
Then it was time to pack the oven mud around the sand form, making the inner shell, the thermal mass that will absorb the heat during firing and release it during cooking. Because we’d need a lot and because we used the more clayish soil that came from deep in the hole we dug, which was a lot heavier than the oven mud used for the hearth, I opted for a quicker way of mixing it:
I made many, many batches. The inner shell is supposed to be 3″ thick, but because of bulging due to the oven mud being too wet in places, a lot of mud went into that shell.
Yesterday my friend R and I carpooled into Medford to see Rob Hopkins speaking at Tufts University. We walked into the crowded room and someone called, in a British accent: “I know you!” I turned and there was Rob Hopkins. He had recognized me from our “just get going” segment in the movie In Transition 2.0. We chatted for five minutes about how thankful we are that he came,  about his tour and about my town as well – he was genuinely interested in what is going on in Wayland. It was also touching when he said this would be the longest time he has ever been away from his kids.
The audience was about half Transition crowd, half students and faculty and others interested in Transition as well as in the other two speakers, the mayors of Fitchburg and of Medford. Rob’s all-too short talk was delivered in his usual familiar, passionate manner. Even though I’ve read up on Transition, obviously, and  took trainings and “talk” it all the time, there were some insights and turn of phrases that were new to me. I particularly liked three elements.
One, how in many core groups, at a certain stage, there develops a need for special support for the middle. Rob likened the core group to a donut: it spreads outward, which is great, as it grows, but often time there develops a hole. Groups would be more effective, and happier, if that middle weren’t empty, if someone held it. But that also means there has to be support for that person, and that’s what the Transition Network is working on. At this moment, for us, the person holding the middle would be me and boy, did that message resonate! Not just that I would be supported, but more importantly, that anyone in the middle would be supported. Meaning, of course, that if I had to take it easier or even step aside, there would still be someone to take my place, unafraid of the ‘whelm.
The second aspect was Rob’s emphasis on the economy, on how Transition should see itself as a new economy driver, the creator of a new local and sustainable (non-growth) economy. Our group too is slowly veering in that direction as we investigate the possibility of founding a co-op. It looks like the Transition Network is looking to push the importance of local economies in the global world, with this report, well worth reading. A quote: “Growing the community resilience movement to the national and global scale that’s needed will require the full support and participation of the US environmental community.”
The third element was Rob’s response to a question from the audience: should Transition groups walk in protest? Rob’s answer was nuanced. He thought for a minute, then said: “That is not for me to say.” Then he said that on the whole Transition is so positive and inclusive that protesting against things may get us pigeonholed and thus undermine our role. He said that Transition groups shouldn’t shirk away from debate and can be great catalysts of debate.  But again, he stressed that it is up to every group to decide. (Rob wrote about this here.)
I had thought at first not to go to this event. I am very suspicious of, even allergic to, gurus. When someone tells me some guy’s brilliant, they’ve not done that a person a favor in my eyes. (I’ve written about this before, here.) But I can report that I need not be suspicious here. Rob’s not a guru, and doesn’t want to be. I can imagine how weird it must be for him to come to these things and be thought of as having all the answers and be stared at. (I admit I did a bit of staring, but just because he caught me by surprise, and because he’s much taller than I thought he was, and just for a second or two).  His demeanor and his explanation of Transition, as well as, for instance, his answer to the protest-question, put any misgivings I had to rest.
That’s the whole point of Transition: there is no guru – one who knows it all – and the network  is each and everyone one of us, equally and together. I hope everyone in the audience got it too! I’m so happy I went.
THANK YOU, ROB, for starting this and giving it away!
If you have the chance to meet Rob Hopkins on this ONE TIME ONLY tour of the US, make sure not to miss it! His schedule is here.
We tested that today.
Maybe they just need to get used to it.
In the last few days I’ve come across no less than three children (all 8) who think babies are born by being cut out of their mothers’  bellies. That adds to the child who, a couple of months ago, said this to Amie, who immediately set the record straight. What with all her exposure, from a young age, to David Attenborough’s documentaries, my kid knows about mating and birth in detail. It was a bit of a shock to the other girl’s mom (a GP) when she heard the life lesson her daughter had just received. And then it was a bit of a shock to me what that mom’s reaction was!
Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge. But it worries me that children now think that C-sections are the way children are born, “naturally.” It means that the girls are scared witless, for one, and “never, ever want to have babies!” But what really scares me is that here is yet another essential function of a culture down the drain. The other two are initiation into adulthood, and death rites. There’s a slew of others, of course, like where food comes from, respect  for elders, the preservation of the earth for future generations, etc. But these come out of and after the three basics: birth, initiation, death. Our children are born in hospitals, with only the parents present. Our youth lacks any kind of clear transition into adulthood. Death is hidden away.
If it does not give guidance in the landmarks of our lives, a culture is truly an empty shell and the men who live by it are hollow. All it gives guidance in is the latest style in fashion, what new technological gadget will make you happy, how much money this or that celebrity makes. When  it does reach us deep in our foundations, it disempowers us with fear, submission to the political/economic powers that be, and the suspicion, truthful, finally, that our lives are meaningless.
In this culture, our children are not prepared. We do not prepare them. What do we do about it?
For this reason I’ve become interested in cultures that still give the precious gifts of initiation rites, death rites and birth rituals to their community (let’s not use the language of the dominant culture, that they are “public events,” for that  immediately befouls the goodness). Not to adopt these other cultures – I would be extremely uncomfortable with that – but to learn from them. What do their rites look like, what do they do? Perhaps they will help me recognize the remnants in my own culture(s) and then I can perhaps revive them. And, if my culture turns out not to be redeemable, they will help me make a new one.
That is the task, simple as that. All you have to do is say yes to it, and start the work.
ALMOST FIVE YEARS OF RIOT!
This is the Riot for Abundance for the months of August and September 2013,  for the three of us. Edson fixed the calculator: all go tither to crunch those numbers!
Gasoline. Â Calculated per person. Though I feel like I’m driving a lot more due to an uptick in activism-related trips, we nevertheless did pretty well.
11.6 gallons pp.
28.2 % of the US National Average
Electricity. This is reckoned per household, not per person. We cook on an electric stove. According to our solar meter, we produced 11173  kWh since the system was turned on in August 2011 and 995 kWh over the last two months (you can follow our solar harvest live here). We owed NSTar nothing (for four months now), so we overproduced, but again I don’t know how much we used. Definitely less than 497  kW/month.
497 kWh monthly average
27.5 %Â of the US National Average
Heating Oil and Warm Water. This too is calculated for the entire household. Since we obviously didn’t need heat this month, the number indicates only water heating that is supplemental to the solar hot water that was installed in February. The production of the heating is entirely fossil fuel-free, but the production of the system wasn’t, of course. Still, as there is no provision for solar hot water in the calculator, I’m taking this out of the equation. The furnace, which is our backup, has come on for 2 hours in the last  ??? months, possibly on the fourth or fifth gray day, when the tank cooled down too much. I can’t repeat how happy we are with this system!
.65 gallons of oil / month
1.1 % of the US National Average
Water. This is calculated per person.
493.7 gallons pp.
16.5 %Â of the US National Average
Trash. After recycling and composting this usually comes down to mainly food wrappers:
6 lbs. pp per month
4.4 %Â of the US National AverageÂ
The Earth Oven series:
So far, none of the Earth Oven preparations, the foundation and the base, have had nothing to do with heat. Which is, of course, what the oven is all about. Heat becomes the issue and challenge with the hearth, upon which the wood will be burned and the food, not, we hope. Since the hearth is a very important part of the oven, this is the stage where we started becoming a bit more careful and since it finally involves clay, we also started having more fun!
Wood shavings and clay slip (a very watery clay) make a great insulating material. Over time, the sawdust will burn out, creating small pockets of air, which is the best insulator (as long as it can’t move or escape).
This was a lot of fun. So tactile. The whole family got into it.
We buried empty wine bottles (again, pockets of air) in this insulating stuff.
Now we’re really talking thermal. This is the first barrier between the cold stone fill beneath and the heat that will develop up top. We buried the bottles up to their shoulders, then leveled with sand.
The oven has three shells:
As we had started with the bottom of the middle, insulating shell, we built that up, creating a ring up to the right height (3″ give or take):
We were ready to start on the inner shell of oven mud, which is just clay, sand, and water. This is the stuff we tested earlier, with our bricks. This shell will absorb the heat during the burn and release it during the bake. It’s easy to mix an oven mud that is too wet. While mixing it,  make a ball out of it often and you’ll see that even though it’s quite crumbly, it makes a strong brick.
The test is to drop it from shoulder height. It shouldn’t shatter (needs more mixing), and it shouldn’t go splat (too wet). This batch needed a little more mixing.
This stick insect was intrigued
This shell envelops the oven bricks. After filling up the space inside the circle, about 3″ high, we placed the 22 oven bricks. At $60, they were the most expensive part of the project, as most of the other stuff (except for some bags of sand, gravel and cement) came straight the property.
It’s important to have as few gaps or cracks between the bricks, as those will capture ashes and food residue. Also, make them as level as possible, so the food or your sliding tools like the rake to pull out the ashes or the pizza peel, don’t catch on it.
Then we made the door out of 2 by 4’s . The shape it that of our pizza peel. Here it is placed where the door opening will be. You can also see the beginning of the sand form. Stay tuned!
An acquaintance some time ago took me up on my offer of a kombucha mother. They accumulate in my fridge and I had sent a call out. I gave him the mother with all the instructions and he said he would take care of it. A week later I met him and asked about his kombucha. He said, oh, he had forgotten all about the mother and it had died.
I was pretty upset about it. These mothers are alive. They live and breathe, as the video below shows.
The idea for this weekend was for us to go the Amherst, MA, for me to do a three-day training in Effective Groups while DH and Amie did some sightseeing and goat research – lots of people with goats in Amherst! However, DH fell sick and we had to cancel the whole thing. So Amie and I got to go to the 350 Draw the Line rally in Newton, against the Tar Sands. We stuffed one car with people and signs and carpooled there. Amie finally got to use her sign. Here she is showing it off.
Like that it looks like she was almost by herself, but this is what was going on across the road:
As we were early and she was the only kid there for a bit, she was very popular for group pictures!
She had a blast!
