My Flight From the Grid

Wedding Economics

2010-04-20T06:50:00.000-05:00

This will be the last post for a couple of weeks. I’m sorry about the lack, but I’m getting married on Saturday and then we’ll be out of town until the second of May. So there’s a good reason behind it all. Posting will resume the week we get back.

I wanted to do a short post about wedding economics. The cost of weddings has gotten out of control in this country –as has the complications involved with getting married. All of this burden, naturally, falls on the bride and bridesmaids. Most grooms in this country have only one job between handing her the ring and showing up to say “I Do” –having the tux she picked out for him fitted. I’m marrying another woman, so the burden of this has fallen on both of us. And we’re both about to go out of our minds.

Ours is a simple wedding. It will be outdoors, with just our closest friends and family. We didn’t realize until after we made up the list that this still comes to about 75 people. We made our own invitations. The reception is potluck, not catered. Neither one of us is wearing the tradition white wedding dress. And yet, all of this, plus the rings, is costing about $900.

The site cost us $135. There’s a pavilion there for the reception and to serve as a rain site.
Clothing for both of us cost about $100 plus shoes and haircuts. Add in invitations, very simple decorations, flatware and the like for the reception, and it adds up in a hurry. My fiancé’s parents paid for about half of it, which helped tremendously.

Both of us are in a tizzy this week, trying to get everything done –finish the tablecloths, look at flowers, get the shoes for our little flower girl. We’re about to go mad. I don’t know how people with more complicated weddings do this. Or why. What matters is that you marry the person you love –not how big and fancy your wedding is, or how much it costs, or whether it meets your idea of a ‘fairy tale’ wedding. I went to a wedding a few years ago where the bride’s dress cost ten grand –and the couple went to Hawaii for their honeymoon. I would have opted for a simple courthouse wedding and bought a house for what they spent on one day.

If you’re getting married soon, stop the madness. Sit back and assess what you’re doing. Do you really need everything you’ve planned? Remember what matters most is who you’re going to marry, not how or when. Save yourself some stress –and some money. There are other uses for it.

And aside from all of that, you don’t want to be so worn out from stress that you fall asleep on your wedding night. ;)

Climate Change and Update

2010-04-11T08:40:00.002-05:00

We’ve been having really weird weather again. I don’t understand how people can deny the reality of climate change. Do they have no connection whatsoever to nature? Even if they don’t believe it is caused by humans, they should have at least noticed the changing climate.

We had a hard winter here in Northern Alabama. The hardest one I’ve ever seen. It snowed several times, and when it snowed, it really snowed. We had severe cold snaps intermingled with springtime weather. Now it has almost been summer for the last few weeks. The last frost date for this area is technically April 15 –Tax Day, and still several days away. And yet, it hasn’t gotten below 40 at night here for the past month or so. Most of the past few weeks the nighttime temps have been in the 50s and during the day we’ve already had several days approaching 90. The past few days have been cooler -70s in the day, down to 45 or so at night. But still.
Climate Change does NOT mean ‘hotter’ weather. It means more EXTREME weather –of all kinds. People need to understand that. And they also need to understand that spring coming a month early is not a good thing.

I’m still planning to put up a post about soapmaking, but I haven’t had time to get the pictures of my soap. Some of it isn’t wrapped yet. I have a huge show coming up next weekend -5,000 people are expected to attend. I hope I do well. The weekend after that is the wedding and then we’re going out of town for a week as honeymoon, so posting will be light until we get back. After that I hope to get back to regular updates.

We’ve been to look at two buses so far. One of them was sold before we got there and the other was not as advertised –which is a kindness the owner doesn’t deserve; he said we could drive it home and it didn’t even have a carburetor. We’re also looking into other options. We plan to leave around August 15 –four short months from now.

Today is our wedding shower at K’s workplace, so I have to go –we’re busy busy busy!

Bus Misadventures

2010-03-28T10:25:00.000-05:00

I've had an interesting two weeks. I've been working sixty plus hours both weeks plus making soap flat-out for my first big show, which is next month. I'm going to put up a post on soapmaking in the next few days, complete with pictures.

Yesterday K and I went to look at a bus. We drove all the way to southern Arkansas. Two of our friends came with us so we would have plenty of drivers for both bus and car if we got. Friday was crazy as we tried to get ready to go up there. The guy who had the bus assured us that it was running and had been driven recently and was in good condition. The only problem was that the brakes needed to be bled. We got there and the bus didn't even have a carb on it. It hadn't been driven in months. And the brakes? They needed replacing, not bleeding. So we came back without a bus.

K is pretty upset. She arranged the whole thing and feels like its her fault, but there was nothing else she could have done. We're back to square one looking for a bus, but we'll get there.

My apologies if this post is a bit incoherent. I just got up. We didn't get in until midnight and I got to sleep in for the first time in weeks. Yay, sleep!

One last thing: I've had to turn on comment moderation due to the sheer amount of spam comments I've been getting on older posts. It should only apply to those posts.

Changes Comin' On

2010-03-17T07:47:00.000-05:00

I’ve let this blog linger unattended for far too long. I have had so much to do, and so many things going on, that I just have not been able to get back into the habit of blogging. Over the many months since my last post I have several family crises, written a lot of material I am in the process of publishing, my relationship with my gf has deepened and matured –we intend to get married next month.

There have been other changes as well. This August, should everything go well, we will finally be moving out to our new homestead. It is not in Alabama, but rather in Northeastern Missouri. We have a lot of friends up there, and there are several intentional communities. The land is beautiful and productive. A lot of Mennonites call the area home. I finally have a camera, and when we go up there again I’ll take some pictures and post them.

The next step in our journey is to find an old school bus. Why? We are going to convert it into a temporary home while we build our new house. A full size school bus has around 300 square feet of usable floor space. Not a lot, but better than a tent or most RVs. You can generally find an older school bus in decent shape for under $2000. We are currently searching and hope to find one to buy within the next month or so.

I intend to document this transition step by step on the blog. Buying the bus, converting it, moving to the homestead, and starting up the homestead. I hope to detail all of it (with pictures) on here for everyone to see. I am also going to post about other things, such as my soapmaking, gardening, and the like. If you just found this blog –welcome. If you’re coming back to read it after my long absence, welcome back.

Weird Weather and Garden Update

2009-07-20T08:18:00.000-05:00

We have been having some really odd weather lately. Both this weekend and last weekend were abnormally cool. Last weekend wasn’t that far off –maybe high 80s. But this weekend it never broke 80, and last night it went down to 52. That is unheard of around here in July –normally we have that kind of weather at the beginning of October! But that seems to be a pattern occurring across the country. If this keeps up, I don’t even want to think about what it portends for the harvest. Oh I will –I must –but that doesn’t mean I want to.

The bounty of peaches is finally slowing down, and none too soon. We’ve eaten them raw, cooked them in pies, crisps, and cobblers, stewed them, froze them, and last week I made my first ever batch of peach jam. It came out great. The jars are so pretty! I wish I had a digital camera so I could take pictures and upload them.

Everything else in the garden is doing well. The one lone tomato plant affected by blight is still hanging on. The others are thriving. The peppers are coming in, right on schedule, but this weather may change that. It’s not supposed to really warm up for several more days. Our basil is doing well, in particular one plant that is juxtaposed in between three tomato plants. I think that has something to do with it –the other basil plants that are near tomatoes are doing particularly well too.

No rain for five days. Other than that and the strange temps, things are going well here.

Free Food Storage Buckets!

2009-07-14T14:19:00.000-05:00

I got some free food storage buckets Sunday from the bakery at one of my local supermarkets. I had heard you could do this, but had never before tried it. The ones I got are 3-gallon icing buckets. The lids on these won’t seal air-tight, so I’ll need to either use mylar bags or find another way of sealing them –K thinks silicone sealant will work. But they were free. All I had to do was clean them out and deodorize them with vinegar. That certainly beats paying nearly $10 each from some of the supply houses.

With things going the way they are, I am becoming more and more concerned about keeping enough food stored up to get us through. I’ve read several reports that each estimate global grain production will go down by about 15% this year –and that is an utter disaster. Then there is the Irish Potato Blight, which is devastating gardens and farms alike across the country. All in all, having food stored in the pantry makes me feel a lot more secure. Before K moved in I had enough food to last me three months. That, of course, halved when she moved in. We both agree that building up the pantry is a priority, so I am working on that as much as possible. Our eventual goal is to have a year’s worth of food on hand. That will not happen tomorrow, but we think we can do it in about 6 months.

If you don’t have any idea how much food one person eats in a year, go take a look at the LDS food calculator. It will give you a rough idea. There are several other calculators out there that do the same thing, and have roughly the same numbers. Those numbers are sheer calories –grains, beans, fats, cooking aids. They don’t include fruit and vegetables. The water requirement listed is for one week, as its generally considered impractical to store more water than that.

Here are the numbers for two people:
Grains -600 lb
Legumes -120 lb
Fats and Oils -26 lb
Sugars -120 lb
Milk -170 lb

It’s quite a lot, but my estimates indicate it can be done for around $1000. Less, with really smart shopping. But remember, ANYTHING stored is better than nothing if things go south. A year is a goal we’re striving for, but not one everyone can or even wants to meet. If you don’t have anything stores, start small. Buy an extra jar of peanut butter or a pound of dried beans the next time you go to the store. Every little bit helps.

Peaches, peaches, everywhere!

2009-07-10T09:51:00.000-05:00

Peaches, peaches, everywhere!

My peaches are ripe. Last year was the first year I had any peaches from my tree and this year it just exploded. We literally have peaches everywhere –on the counters, the table, in baskets, in the cast iron skillets. The first ones were of course eaten properly. That is, we ate them underneath the tree with the juice running down our chins. The only bad thing we’ve discovered is that these peaches don’t keep well off the tree, so we’re rushing to preserve them.

Georgia peaches or Chilton county peaches? Neither, thank you, good sir –I prefer the ones from my own backyard!

Some more about my peach tree: it’s a Belle of Georgia peach, planted four years ago when it was about a year old. It is a semi-dwarf tree, which means it’s “only” about 15 feet tall. Currently it has a roughly 12-foot spread. It has never been affected by serious disease or pests, but some of our peaches developed a harmless fungus. These were mostly lower on the tree, and we’ve learned how to prevent that next year.

Happy peach season, everyone!

Of Farmer's Markets and Corruption

2009-07-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

We have a farmer’s market in our community, like many others. This market is open year-round. It has two anchor stores at either end and then other farmers come in three seasons out of four and sell their wares in the middle section. The anchor stores used to be held by two large local farmers who supplemented what they grew with bananas, extra produce, and the like so that they could stay open year-round.
‘Used to be’ being the operative term. All that changed this spring. The contracts were up for renewal this spring. There were competitors, for the first time ever, and so the commission had a bidding process. A secret bidding process, mind. That alone caused outrage among much of the community. When the results were revealed it turned out the old stores had lost –big time. The new tenants had bid DOUBLE the old rent. Furthermore, they had signed the leases before the results were made public.
That might have been the end of it, if the old stores hadn’t appealed and certain other details hadn’t leaked out. Like how the bidding process was rigged –the new bidders were told what the old tenants bids were and how much over that they’d have to be to get the commission to accept their bids. Then it turned out that the new tenants were actually part of a corporate chain who was trying to take over farmer’s markets using franchises. And then it came out that the county commission had not vetted this chain –no background or credit checks even, which are required by state law. And this chain has filed for bankruptcy twice. Oh, and the final straw: the two franchise owners are….the husband and brother-in-law of the head of the county commission. Nepotism, anyone?
There was outrage. There were hearing. The local news and the mayor got involved. And in the end…nothing happened. It was all allowed to go forward. Now the main place in town for poor people to get fresh vegetables has been co-opted by corporate interests who have driven up all the prices, and ran out a lot of the small farmers as well.
Even farmer’s markets aren’t immune to corruption these days, it would seem.

Pickles!

2009-06-27T07:05:00.002-05:00

I made pickles on Monday. Sweet and sour pickle chips. It was fun, and incredibly easy. The pickles look so pretty in the jars. Just seeing them makes me smile. I used the recipe in the Ball Blue Book. It will take six weeks for them to fully cure, but then I will have pickles to last for a year.

I spent an afternoon making pickles and I have enough to last a year. Take that, Monsanto.

One more skill I've learned. I've now canned jam, tomatoes, and pickles. I've also dehydrated and frozen lots of fruits and vegetables. Every thing I do and learn to do is one more step on the path to self-sufficiency and food security. And pickles look might pretty, too, especially when you've made them yourself. :)

I'm Back

2009-06-24T12:30:00.003-05:00

My life has been totally crazy, hence the silence. Things finally seem to be calming down. What has been happening? Here's a short list:
The house -the sell fell through at the last minute. Three days before closing. How's that for ironic? I was more than half moved out. What happened next is a little complicated, but the house is off the market and is going to stay that way for a while. I was having some trouble paying the mortgage on my reduced income but not anymore. My girlfriend moved in with me. That's good for a whole lot of reasons. We're doing really well.

The farm -some of the plans had to be scaled back because of the craziness. My greens have slowly petered out. The tomatoes, peppers, and squash are taking off. We're growing a trial patch of sweet potatoes. I've also planted the garden patch at the house, of course.

Health -I have been seriously ill with sinus problems, but they are finally getting better.

Weather -the weather has been completely crazy. After an abnormally cool and wet spring, we sprang right into the middle of summer. It got hot, and fast. Sunday it was 107 degrees with the heat index. The heat index was over a hundred for four days running, and today is going to be slightly under that.

I promise I'll post more later.

When it rains, it pours

2009-05-07T14:05:00.002-05:00

In more ways than one. I apologize for my silence; I have been busy getting ready to move. Unfortuanately, the sale of my house got scuttled at the last minute so it appears that I am going nowhere fast.

As far as the other kind of rain, we've been getting LOTS of it. Yesterday we got four inches. No, that is not for the entire week; that is for yesterday alone. We've had about three times that in total for the past week. Today it is mostly dry, but tomorrow it is supposed to rain again. My garden is surviving (barely) but a lot of them have been washed out. Many of the crops -those that were planted -have been as well. We've gone from drought to flooding in the space of a couple of months.

But climate change isn't real. Naw.

A Brief Update

2009-04-25T07:06:00.001-05:00

I apologize for the lack of new posts. I have been extremely busy working and getting ready to move. The house has been sold. Well, it’s not official until it passes the termite inspection on Monday. (Mother Goddess are you listening?) The home inspection was a few days ago. I am working on a longer post about the two healthcare systems in this country (did you know that there are two?) and I hope to have it posted on Monday. This is just a brief update.

-The house has been sold. It sold for less than I was hoping, but hey, I’ll take what I can get. Assuming the termite inspection comes out okay, I start moving out next week. “Moving where” is the key question.

-My “farm” is doing well, but it has turned out to be more difficult than I thought to do this on rented land. Instead of wandering out to weed for 15 minutes whenever I feel like it, I have to block out a large chunk of time.

-My book has officially been accepted by Amazon! I got the email last night. Look for it about the middle of June. It will also be in brick-and-mortar stores but I don’t have the date for that yet.

-The weather has gone completely mad. For about two weeks it seemed as if we were in India during the monsoon season. The rain was that bad. And it was fairly cool for April -40s some days. The last three days the temperature has been in the upper 80s. My thermometer says we came close to 90 yesterday. At the end of April. Um, what is July going to be like? Hey Congress WAKE UP!

That’s about it for now. Look for the healthcare post on Monday.

Song of the South

2009-04-10T16:49:00.000-05:00

“Song, song of the south
Sweet potato pie and I shut my mouth
Gone, gone with the wind
There ain’t nobody lookin’ back again
…
Well, somebody told us Wall Street fell
We were so poor that we couldn’t tell
The cotton was short and the weeds were tall
But Mr. Roosevelt [Obama] gonna save us all”

-Song of the South, Alabama

That is one of my favorite songs. It is just about as old as I am. (Okay, it’s about seven years younger, but still.) It has long been a favorite here in the south. I have made an interesting observation about this song: as the economy has worsened, it has been played more and more often on radio stations, muzak, and I even hear people humming it more and more often. There is a strong sense of resilience down here. And there are an incredible number of people who are like Fine! Close down the plant! I’ll go home to Mama’s and help her with the corn! It will be interesting to see how this changes as the years go forward, and when the anger will start. (And against whom it will be directed.)

My little rented farm is thriving. The only thing in the ground so far is my salad greens, but most of the rest have been started in little pots in my office. This is what I will be growing this year: assorted salad veggies, tomatoes (Cherokee purple, Yellow pear, and Roma), peppers (Cayenne, sweet bell, and Jimmy Nardello’s frying pepper), Wautoma cucumbers, two kinds of pole beans, edamane beans, yellow crookneck squash, black beauty zucchini, patty pan custard squash, acorn winter squash, and moon and stars watermelons. Hopefully, the torrential rainfall we’ve had this afternoon hasn’t drowned my lettuce.

I’ve got an offer on the house. Assuming it passes inspection, it will be sold. I should get a few thousand dollars out of it, but it looks like I’m still going to be about $2,000-$2,500 short of buying the kind of land I’d like to buy. I’m going all in on this; there’s nothing being held back. If you’re going to shoot, aim for the stars, that way you might at least make the moon. Any ideas how I can raise some cash?

Update

2009-04-08T15:07:00.000-05:00

I have a feeling this may be a really bad year for agriculture. Why? Available evidence and the weather thus far seems to indicate as much. We had a really cold winter here in the South. That almost never happens, these days. Then it warmed up around the first of March and stayed warm –I’m talking 70 degree days, with a couple of days in early March that were around 85. Then Monday and Tuesday of this week we had another hard freeze. Now, that would not ordinarily be a problem –our frost-free day here is technically April 15, and we usually get a couple of frosts in early April. But because the weather has been so warm everything has popped –including the fruit trees. There may be no peaches this year. Sigh. To make matters worse, all the rain we’ve had has swamped a lot of early spring vegetables and made it too wet to plant more. The early corn can’t go in right now because the seeds would rot in the field. Later on we’ll probably have droughts.

My rented farm is doing well. The greens are doing okay, but I planted them after the last round of torrential rains. Everything else is still in pots in my office. I knew better than to go ahead and put out my tomatoes like so many folks have been doing. I had the feeling we’d have another frost or two. I finally got an offer on the house, which is a very good thing. As long as it passes the inspection it’s sold and I’ll get a bit of money out of it.

The first copy of Walk-About came in yesterday. Am I ever excited over that! It looks wonderful. It’ll be in stores soon and I’m taking a bunch of orders from people I know. For once, most things are looking up.

Rain, rain, and more rain (again)

2009-04-02T07:13:00.000-05:00

We had six days of rain last weeks. I’m not talking about light, gentle rain either, or even mostly light rain with periods of downpours. No, we had six days of mostly torrential rainfall. We had some intervals without rain, of course, but mostly it was six solid days of rain. Then Monday was nice; Tuesday it rained again (light rain this time); Wednesday was nice, and today it is supposed to storm. It is a good thing I did not get my seeds planted last week; they would have been absolutely swamped. I worked all weekend, which is good because I needed the money.

Monday I finally got my greens into the ground. They are so pretty. Yes, not many have come up yet but there are a couple of dozen shoots all ready. As long as the rain isn’t too hard today they should be fine. It is only a couple of weeks until tomatoes and peppers can go out, sans hot caps.

Also, Monday, after I planted the greens, my girlfriend and I drove up to Amish country in Tennessee. It is so pretty up there. There are no suburbs and little in the way of subdivisions. One of the things that struck me was the difference in the grass between the Amish and the non-Amish. We went by one farm that had “English” neighbors. The Amish grass was lush and green. The “English” grass, while also green and growing well, was a decidedly different shade of green and looked rather…unhealthy. It was the same sort of grass, so obviously that is not the difference. It would have been hard to notice if the two had not been compared side to side.

We each got a dozen eggs and a gallon of real milk. Right from the farms where they are grown, of course. The eggs were $1.50 a dozen and the milk was $2.00 a gallon. I had never dreamed milk could taste so good. I drink the organic milk all the time, but this is another order of magnitude beyond that. It has a rich, complex flavor that I can’t even begin to describe. Sunshine and clover is the closest I can come, and that makes no sense whatsoever. I have been drinking entirely too much milk since we brought it home. I gave some to the cat and ever since then, when she sees me bring out the jug she tries to grab it. (She is Siamese after all.) I set my glass on the counter the night before last because the washer was empty, left the room, and came back a few minutes later to find her on the counter frantically dipping her paws in the glass and scooping up the bit of milk and cream that was left. She had the most comic look on her face. Then she gave me a look that said, plain as day, try to take it and die.

I don’t agree with everything the Amish do and believe in, but you think they know something we don’t?

The Button of Financial Doom

2009-03-23T09:30:00.000-05:00

In case you missed it, the government pushed the Button of Financial Doom last week. It was an easy thing to miss. It is a small button, after all, even though it is red. I’m not certain if it sits on Geithner’s or Bernake’s desk, or maybe it is kept in a vault somewhere. But one of them pressed it. Or perhaps they pressed it together. And unlike the big red button, doom is not instant or nearly so when this one is pressed. Nor did the headlines read ‘Government Presses Button of Financial Doom’.

No, the headlines read ‘Fed to Buy Some Treasury Bonds’. Why is this the Button of Financial Doom? Isn’t this a good thing? Another market for the massive amount of T-Bills we need to sell to finance our spending spree? Um, no. This amounts to the time-honored tradition of PRINTING MONEY. What’s wrong with that? Well, when you print money you get inflation. Serious, rampant inflation. But what’s the worse that can happen? Inflation is better than deflation, right? Um, one word: Zimbabwe.

We started down that road last week.

The 'farm'

2009-03-21T08:48:00.000-05:00

I had quite the adventure yesterday. I spent most of the afternoon working on my rented plot of land. It turns out I didn’t get the greens in; I had underestimated the amount of work I still had to do. However, I did get all the beds ready. I also didn’t know I would have two small and very eager helpers –the two and four-year-old grandsons of the property owner. That distracted me quite a bit, even though their mother and grandmother were present (and the mother helped me out as well). They were really curious and kept asking me questions and showing me their toys, in between helping.

The most ‘interesting’ part of the afternoon was when the older found the small pruning shears in my tool bucket. No, he didn’t hurt himself. But we looked up and he had decided to see if they were sharp enough to cut the fruit trees at the back of her property. Needless to say, I spent some time doing emergency surgery on cherry and peach trees. ;-)

Today is Ostara

2009-03-20T08:43:00.000-05:00

Today is Ostara, the spring equinox. Once more night and day, light and darkness, are in precise balance. After today the days will gradually get longer until we reach the summer solstice and then they will slowly shorten again until we reach the fall equinox. The cycle will repeat, as it has done for millennium upon millennium, and will continue to do for many, many more.

The Crone (winter) passes away today and the Maiden (spring) is born. The Light half of the year –the planting, growing half –begins today. Light and darkness, forever in balance. Without one, the other cannot exist. Life comes from death, just as death comes from life. Now is the time of the year to grow, to plant, to change. It is good luck to start a project on Ostara. Spring is here, so make the most of it. Go outside and play. Spring is here!

P.S. I’m planting my greens today. Yay!

Workin'

2009-03-19T09:17:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the dearth of posts this week. I have been extremely busy. I am picking up a lot more odd jobs as spring kicks in and people need help with their yards and such. I had two cleaning jobs on Sunday (one routine, one extra). Monday I spent planting bushes and trimming privet for ten bucks an hour. Tuesday I had another routine cleaning job and then I spent the rest of the day on another yard job. Over four hours of trimming hedges and pampas grass. But I got paid well –both in money and cookies, so I’ve got no complaints. Yesterday I had two more yard jobs –one big, one small, and then I had to go into my actual PRN job in the evening. Today I get to work on the floors here and then go back to work this evening.

I am, to put it mildly, bushed. And I still am not earning enough to support myself. (But I’ve made a lot more this week than I would have if I’d have kept the retail job.) Well, I would be if I did not have to support this house but I haven’t been able to unload it. I either have to soon, or I’m going to lose it because I can’t make the payments any longer. They haven’t really gone up, but my income has gone down since losing my last ‘real’ job. I haven’t been able to find another roommate.

Tomorrow I’m going over to my temporary farm to clean up and get my lettuce mixes planted. That is going to be great, and a giant step forward. I have found several tracts of land I would like to buy, and they are all between $5,000 and $6,000. I don’t have that much, obviously, and no bank is going to give me a mortgage so it will (obviously) have to wait. But it is nice to dream.

Retail Hell is Over

2009-03-13T18:03:00.002-05:00

I had to give up the retail job. The job itself wasn't bad; boring and mind-numbing, yes (not to mention useless) but not bad. It was mostly folding and hanging clothes. I don't mind doing that. But it was a part-time job for $7 an hour, and after hiring me, knowing I did other work, they decided to mess with my schedule to see how badly I wanted the job. Not that bad, thank you very much. I needed that money in addition to, not instead of, my other income. I'm no worse off than I was before -just still not making enough money to support myself, but it was that way without the job too. I have an extra cleaning job this weekend and a line on some other work, so I'll be okay. I'll even be up a hundred bucks when my check comes in.

The sad thing is, I make more when I spend two hours cleaning a house than I did working a full-shift there.

H.R. 875, Climate Change, and Retail Hell

2009-03-11T08:14:00.002-05:00

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming. Comments and questions on the story are still welcome, however.

First, more info on H.R. 875:
The sponsor's campaign contributions. Guess who's #1. http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/pacs.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00000615.

A good summary of the bill. http://cryptogon.com/?p=7362

Now, climate change. Around here it is fairly normal for it to get into the 60s throughout March. Early spring and all that. The 70s are pushing it. The 80s are way too much.

It was 85 when I left work yesterday, and 83 the day before. Climate change, anyone? Yes, it's all ready cooling back down, but still.

My new job is not going well, to say the least. It's a retail job. At the mall. The words 'retail hell' don't do it adequate justice. It can't be a good sign when you'd rather shoot yourself than go back to work. Oh, I'll go back all right. I need the money too bad not to. But it is pretty awful. I feel all of a sudden like I'm part of the problem again instead of part of the solution. But until I get my land I can't farm or write full-time.
To make matters worse, my manager has scheduled me for at least one day and time I specifically told her I could not work due to a prior committment when I got the job. When I mentioned this to her, all she said was "I'll see what I can do." I'm afraid we may end up in a Mexican stand-off: how bad do I want this job? Bad enough to give up everything that matters to me and jump everytime they say jump?
I do not make a very good corporate automaton.

I can't help but think retail hell and climate change may be related. Oh, that's right, it's because they are!

The End of Small Farming and Farmer's Markets

2009-03-09T07:42:00.000-05:00

This bill (link below) would require all producers of food (on any scale) to register with the government, follow strict regulations, and open their properties to inspection -including anyone who sales excess produce, small farmers, etc. It would do the same for any vendor of food -including farmer's markets, pick-your-own-farms, and roadside produce stands.

What this means is that anyone who sells excess squash can go to jail and be fined a million dollars. Per squash. The regulations and inspections are deliberately designed to be expensive and time consuming.

What will this really do? Put small farmers and farmers markets out of business. Who wrote this bill? Monsanto and other agribusiness. Becuase you see, a 3,000 acre patch of broccoli is much less likely (and much easier to inspect) to be a safety hazard than a small farm were the farmer visits everything every single day. Not. That explains why every major outbreak of food borne illness in this country comes from industrialized food production.

We can't let this happen. Call congress today.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-875

Spring is Here!

2009-03-08T13:25:00.003-05:00

Spring is well and truly here. I awoke this morning to find my peach tree awash in blossoms. The forsythia look like golden waterfalls and the daffodils are in full bloom. Even the hyacinths are getting into the act. Trees are budding out all over the place. It has been really mild here for the past several days -mid 60s, sunny skies. Tomorrow the spring rains begin. I can't wait. My seeds are on their way, so soon I'll be able to start planting in my temporary plot.

Part seven of the serial will be posted later. I start my new part-time job tomorrow so it may be Tuesday before I can finish editing part eight.

Part Four -Heading Out

2009-03-02T11:58:00.003-06:00

(This is about halfway through, now. Comments and questions are welcome.)

Part Four
Sharkey.

Before I go on I should say a few words about Sharkey. He was more my father than Papa. Not that Papa wasn’t a good man. He was. But he was gone more than he was home and he never spent much time with me. And both my parents were mild people who had no idea what to do with the little hellion they’d spawned. The first time I started a fight at school (started, mind, not got into) Papa simply sat me down and asked me why. What he should have done was what Sharkey did when the same thing happened: turned me over his knee, gave me two hard swats, and then set me down for a severe talking-to.
“We don’t start fights,” He told me firmly. “We finish ‘em but we don’t start them. You hear me, Edna Jean?”

I never started a fight again.
No, I didn’t start that fight at the Saddleback. Jeremiah did that when he beat my dog so bad I had to put ‘im down. Toby was so old at the time he was half blind and arthritic as hell, but that don’t matter one whit. You don’t do that and get away with it, not with me around.
Sharkey was waiting for me on the porch when I got home, but he wasn’t angry. Nope. He had his last bottle of good whiskey beside him and two glasses. That was the first time I ever got drunk.

Sharkey’s family had lived on that farm for at least three generations. But Shakry didn’t want to be a farmer. No, he wanted to be –of all things –a vet. But college was expensive and his family didn’t have the money. Scholarships were hard to get and wasn’t a good enough ball player to go that way. The only other way to do it was to go so deep into hock he’d never have seen the light of day. Sharkey, being Sharkey, took the only other route available: he joined up. I don’t know if he was ever infected with the kind of hyper-patriotism that a lot of those in our area had, or if it was sheer practicality, but he went and joined the marines after high school. A lot of kids did that.

It turned out that Sharkey was good at being a marine and he actually liked it. But war makes you question a lot of things and Sharkey did a lot of thinkin’ in the marines. He went in a garden variety Baptist and came out a card-carrying atheist. He joined up to become a vet and came out an entirely different kind of vet. He lost his right foot far from home in a place called Iraq on his third tour of duty there. They drummed him out and he came home to help Mama Jo.
By that time it had become obvious to anyone with eyes to see that there was some serious shit hittin’ the fan in our country and the world. Sharkey could read the writing on the wall and knew that most of the dogs we had weren’t going to hunt much longer. So he sat about changing some things. Mama Jo had always kept a garden. He expanded it and started planting wheat and corn in some of the old fields. He planted an orchard. Then he upgraded all the appliances and insulation in the house, reduced the power load, and converted it all to solar power. I don’t know where he got the money for the last, because that was expensive as all hell, but he did it. Somewhere in those years he married and Mary Ellen and Jane were born. His wife Kelsey died of cancer the year before the fever and his sister (Robert Earl’s mama) was in New York when it happened and we never heard from her again.

Sharkey being Sharkey, he quickly realized helping himself get through hard times wasn’t gonna be enough if his neighbors were hurting. They would come to him for help and he would either have to help them (and he would; he was a teddy bear inside) or be an asshole. So he started helping people around town do things to help themselves. He helped Grandpappy and several others plant orchards or even single trees. He helped insulate a lot of houses. And so on and so forth. He also bought a buttload of shortwave radios with solar batteries in case things ever got really bad. Sharkey was not exactly a survivalist; we’d one of those around, before the fever. Jed Hudson was his name. He lived in a bunker and expected world war three to happen any day, but it was the fever that killed him. Sharkey was just practical and determined to keep going no matter what happened.

After the fever it was Sharkey and a few others who got us organized and kept things together. Sharkey was elected Mayor of Elvis. It hardly mattered that he lived outside of town. His father and grandfather had both been mayor at one point or another. It was easier to get things done when it became obvious things weren’t going back the way they had been. Someone came up with the idea of apprenticing kids to the doc and the midwife –Widow Harrison I think –and Sharkey seized on it, then expanded it to include just about anyone with any kind of practical knowledge. He even convinced the Amish to take some of the boys on as apprentices. When we started having trouble with drifters and bandits he formed the militia. Things like that.
Sharkey taught me just about everything I know. I’m not just talking about practical things like how to kill a deer or use a compass. He taught me the really important things: honor, justice, ethics. The kind of things more of us should have. He treated all of his adopted kids and his nephew like blood, and we grew up thinking of ourselves as one big family. Which is why we all hung together even after we were grown.

In the evening of the fourth day I walked up to see Sharkey. It was a perfect summer evening. The heat of the day had passed and there were fireflies twinkling everywhere. He was sitting on the back porch sipping a glass of ice tea. He didn’t yet have the strength to do much more than hobble back and forth from his room to the porch or the hammock. I leaned against the porch railing and pillowed my head on my arms. “How you doin’ tonight?”

“Better’n I was. I’d be better still if those two mother hens would leave me alone for a hour.”

I smiled. Mary Ellen and Jane fussed over their father constantly. “At least you haven’t spent half the day hoeing corn and the other half trying to figure out the guts of a washer.”

“There is that.”

We were silent for a while. “I reckon I need to go after the boys.”

“Ah reckon so. Someone has to. I can’t. Jim’s too young, Amanda’s with child and Todd doesn’t have the sense.”

Todd was a good man. But he was also a very big nerd, and the first time he saw some interesting doohickey he liked he’d forget all about the boys in his haste to get it home and get it working. Even as Sharkey and me were talking most of the family was inside watching a movie on an old VHS machine he’d fixed up.

“When you fixin’ to leave?” Sharkey asked after sipping some more tea.

“First light.”

“Things are bad out there.”

“I know.”

“There’s worse things in this world than death, Edna Jean, and if you go out there’s a bigger chance of them happenin’.”

“I know. Sir. They could happen to the boys too. Family takes care of family.”

Sharkey nodded. “You scared, girl?”

“Yessir.”

“Good. Fear’ll keep you alive out there. What are you planning to take?”

We sat and talked for a long while. When I left he asked me to stop back by on my way out. It was nearly midnight when I headed back to our house. Most of the family was sleeping on the back porch so I slipped in the front way. I stayed up late packing and when I finally lay down I couldn’t get to sleep.

A couple of hours before dawn I finally gave up. I dressed and had breakfast before preparing to head to Sharkey’s. I’d said my goodbyes to everyone before I went up there the night before. But to my surprise Maria appeared in the kitchen just before I stepped out the door.

“You leave now?” She asked. I nodded.

“Come with me first,” She said and beckoned.

Maria was Catholic, like most of the migrants from down south. Or at least she said she was. I never heard her praying to Jesus or his father, much less the Holy Ghost. She did an awful lot of praying to the Virgin Mary, though. Day and night. She wore a Virgin of Guadaloupe pendant that her mother had given her when she was a girl. It never left her neck. She clutched that pendant now as she led me through the house to a small room at the back. It was too big to be a closet and too small to be much of anything else, and Maria and her girls had converted it into a shrine to Mary. The walls were lined with purple velvet, there was a nice rug on the floor, and there was an altar with a large statute of Mary taken from some defunct church or other. Some of Maria’s homemade incense was burning on the altar. The cat lay next to the statute, giving me one of those looks cats can give, the kind that make your hair stand on end.

“I pray to her,” Maria told me as she looked at the statute. “I pray to her all night to bring you and the boys home safe. And she say –she say,” Maria clutched at the pendant. “She say I should give you this. It will keep you safe, she says.”

Before I had time to realize what she was about, she took the pendant off and fastened it around my neck. “Maria, I can’t-”

“Hush,” she said and patted the pendant. “See you soon.” She hugged me.

Oh great. What if I didn’t make it back?

I managed to get out of the house before anyone else was up but as I walked off I heard the baby crying. The dogs followed me all the way to the property line and then Sharkey’s dogs took over as my informal escort. When I got to Sharkey’s it was still dark. There was a light on in his study. That alone was unusual. We tried not to use the electric lights. They drained the batteries too much. Sharkey’s study had once been his father’s and his grandfather’s before that, and their imprint was still all over everything. Civil War crap filled half the room. Books, statutes, flags, even the uniforms his ancestors had worn in the war. One for the North and one for the South.

Sharkey’s family never did anything by halves.

His imprint was all over the study too, course. He had solar power blueprints tacked on the walls and detailed maps of the entire area. Memorabilia from the marines was scattered about here and there. He looked up and grunted when I slipped in. “’Bout time you got here.”

“Maria wanted to pray over me.”

“She think Jesus is going to keep you safe?”

“Not Jesus. Mary.”

Suddenly Sharkey grinned. “A mother is more likely to do that, isn’t she? Have a seat. I got some things for you.”

I took a seat across from the old man. He wasn’t looking too good. He was nearly gaunt. What was wrong with him? And why hadn’t the Doc been to see him? He gave me a bunch of things, mostly trade goods. There were several bottles of liquor, including the one Tulu had given him. We’d both agreed that one was too valuable to drink. There were a carton of old smokes and some old jewelry. He also gave me a thick roll of greenbacks and some gold and silver coins.
“Lord only knows what they’re usin’ for money out there, but hopefully these will help. Take these too.” He handed me one of the two pairs of night-vision goggles we had. “They’ll be more use out there than here. And I want you to have this.”

It was then that he gave me his prized knife, a real Jim Bowie type that had never to my knowledge left his side. I stared at it. “Sharkey-”

“It’s yours now. I don’t want it back. I was gonna give it to one of mine but they clearly don’t want it. And as far as I am concerned you ARE one of mine.”

Wordlessly I slipped the sheath onto my belt. Sharkey looked at me for a long moment. “You’ve grown up, Edna Jean. I’m proud of you. You should know that.”

I felt my ears burn. “Thank you. Sir.”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me anymore. You’re not a child, now.” He was a silent for a long moment. “You know something may have all ready happened to those idiot boys.”
“Yes.”
“And it might not be an accident.”
“I know that, too.”
“There won’t be any proper way to bring the ones who done it to justice if that happens. What do you plan to do?”
“Take care of it.”
Sharkey nodded. “Good.”

I tucked the last of the trade goods into my backpack. “That it?”
“Except for one more thing. Be careful. I’d kind of like to see you again.”
I grinned. “What makes you think I wanna see you again, you old coot?”
“I’m not a coot, you nitwit.”
“Then you’re a codger instead.”
“Lunkhead.”
“Jarhead.”
He grinned. “You better make it back. I’ll miss you.”

To my surprise most of the family was waiting outside when I came out. Mary Ellen put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “You didn’t think we’d let you sneak off like the boys did you?” Before I could reply she threw her arms about me and kissed my cheek. “Be careful,” She told me. “I want y’all back safe. Okay?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You better. Todd wanted to go too but he doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose. You do.”
My ears burned again.

Finally I got away, with Sharkey’s help. I headed north by northwest, cutting cross-country to reach the road that eventually would hit old highway 64. The road turned southwest to meet the highway. The boys would have reached Huntsville by now if nothing had happened. By the crow’s route that was only fifty miles or so away, but I wasn’t following the crow. I was following two idiot boys who couldn’t read a compass if their lives depended on it and I had to follow their tracks if I had any hope of finding them. Anything could have happened to them in between here and there.

Tim and Bobby Earl had planned the simplest route. They cut across familiar country to the old road and highway 64, then skirting Fayetteville (more ‘cause it was out of the way than anything, I was sure) by going down 275 ‘til it met up with 231, and taking that south to Huntsville, where they could join the interstate. I was sure they were walking on the road, too, instead of paralleling it, which is what I did.

It was another hot day and we had still had no rain. I drank as little water as I could and only stopped twice. Mary Ellen and Maria had given me some of their bread and cornbread, respectively, and I ate a piece each of that by lunch. In the late afternoon I found their first campsite, sited just off the road. It showed all the signs of being built by someone who’d had their training in fire prevention and was in the right spot. The boys were taking their time, walking leisurely on their little vacation, while what I was doing was more of a forced march. It started raining towards evening, a light sprinkling that nevertheless made sleeping outside an unpleasant prospect, so I holed up in an old pharmacy at a crossroads on the highway. All day I had been watching but had seen no one. The few tiny towns I had passed through had been deserted and I had seen no sign of the boys.

The pharmacy had been looted, of course. They all had. Some of them by us, of course. But I still took the time to search. All the good drugs were long gone but I found a few bottles of aspirin and some first aid supplies and stuffed them in my pack.

The second day was similar. I found their second campsite in the morning and kept on going. Today I actually ran into some people. There were a few living on farms or old homesteads just off the highway. They were friendly, as long as I kept my distance. One old man swore he had seen the boys. I showed him the most recent polaroid of the two and he confirmed it. I gave him the last of the cornbread as a thank-you and thanked God I’d brought that picture.

Todd’s passion for electronics actually had some use. Who knew?

As it drew near to evening again I came across an old, broken down farmhouse just off the side of the road. There was a large patch of corn growing out back and a fence around what I assumed was a garden. I decided to approach the house and as I got close an old woman came out of the screen door, a shotgun in her hands. A very young boy peeked out behind her.
“That’s far enough, drifter,” she said, leveling the gun at me.

I stopped. “I’m no drifter, ma’am. I’m just passing through.”
“Whatcha want?”
“I’m lookin’ for two idiot boys who up and ran away from home.”
The shotgun lowered just a bit. “Two, you said? What’d they look like?”

“I have a picture.” I took it out of my breast pocket and held it up. The old woman squinted. “I can’t see that. They ‘round sixteen?”
“Yes’m.”
“Hmm, they spent the night with me a few days ago. Had some fool notion about going to the ocean.”
“Yes’m, I reckon they did. I’m on my way to fetch ‘em home.”

“Hmm. Reckon someone needs to before they get hurt. You’ll not get much farther today, boy.” She looked at me closely. “You been washed in the Blood?”
“Yes’m.”
It was perfectly true. Mama Jo wanted me to be baptized, so I did. It made her happy, so what did I care?
She lowered the gun. “Come on in. I’m Etsell.”

“Ed.” She let me come in and have dinner with them. They had plenty, she said. But I still insisted on paying them with some of the smokes. She wouldn’t take any of the liquor and a bit later I found out why. I don’t think she ever realized I was a woman. Which was fine, since I was trying to pass. It wasn’t hard. Not for me. I’m as tall as most men and about as flat-chested and even then I was only a bit more pretty than the average mule.

The boy was two. He was her great-grandson. They’d lived there alone since her granddaughter died in childbirth. The place wasn’t hers. They had found it while wandering after the fever. They made out pretty good, she said, and I wondered how until she showed me the still after her boy was asleep.

“My grandpappy made moonshine durin’ prohibition.” She told me. “Never stopped. His still kept the family fed durin’ the Depression. The first one, that is. He taught me how to run it when I ‘twasn’t much older than my boy and I ‘elped ‘im with it ‘til he died. We were in West Virginia in those days. My Daddy was a coal miner. Then the bastard evil coal company decided to blow up our mountain aways back. ‘Etsell,’ my grandpappy told me. ‘When times get hard, liquor is money. Anyone who can make it is gonna make out just fine. Times have been good since you wer born, but they’ll get bad again. Mark my words. You remember how to make this and you’ll do just fine.’ I never forgot, and when times got hard, I made myself a still. Folks come from as far as Fayetteville for my whiskey.”

It was good whiskey, I had to admit. She let me have a glass. “Haven’t you had any trouble?”
“Oh some. They always let me alone when they try my whiskey. No one wants to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Or even harass her much. I might poison their next jug, after all.” She laughed.

The next morning before I left she looked at me critically. “You mixed, ain’t you, boy?”
There was only one thing that question could mean and there was no sense denying it. “Yes’m. My father was half black.”
“Hmm. Well, yer light enough to pass. It don’t bother me, mind. One of my girls married a colored boy. Nicest of the lot. But you be careful, ya hear? The white sheets are in charge over ‘round Fayetteville and they’ve taken to stringin’ up colored folk. I told your brother too, but I don’t think he believed me.”

That would be just like Tim. It didn’t surprise me that the Klan was back, only that they’d taken so long. I wondered how long it would take them to realize they were outnumbered now that we’d had so many Hispanic refugees from Mexico’s collapse move in.

The old woman and little Neil (after Neil Armstrong, she told me, so that someone would be alive for a while to remember we once went to the moon) hugged me before I left. I went on, trying not to worry about them. Etsell had to be nearly ninety, and the odds of her living until Neil grew up were slim. I’d offered for them to come live with us and she said she’d think about it. It was more mouths to feed, sure, but as she said, liquor is money. Neither of them should be alive, and yet they were.

That’s the thing about survival. You can’t always tell who is going to make it when something goes down. Sharkey told me that for years before the troubles people had been predicting it and some of them took outright glee in predicting all the people who were going to die. Survival of the fittest, and all that. Only to them ‘fittest’ meant ‘strongest’ and they were wrong. Dead wrong.

Oh, they were right about a lot of people. Insulin dependent diabetics, people who’d had organ transplants, others who were drug dependent all started dying as drugs became less and less available. But there were plenty who died who anyone would think should live. A lot of strong young men and others. The fever got some of them but a lot of people just seemed to give up. Something in them snapped, and they laid down and died. Or killed themselves, fast or slow with drink or drugs. Or got themselves killed.

There were also a lot of people who lived who should have died. Like Widow Harrison. When the troubles started she was two hundred pounds overweight and borderline diabetic. After the fever she managed to lose weight and get healthy. In her case it might have been sheer spite and a desire not to miss any gossip.

Or Lucius Hatchett. He was put in a wheelchair by a carnival ride when he was a teenager. His wife died of the fever and they lived so far out no one thought to check on them. Two years later I was hiking over by their farm and stumbled upon him, thin as a rail but alive, dragging himself down the rows of his garden weeding it. Of course, once I found him people started helping out and by the time Tim and Bobby ran off he was not only healthy but remarried to one of the migrants and had two kids.

Sometimes survival just boils down to what Mama Jo would call the soul and I would call the human spirit. How strong you are often has nothing to do with your body. It has to do with your spirit and your no-how, and a bit of luck. We had an advantage down our way much of the country lacked. In the South most of us were only two generations or less off the land. That meant the knowledge of how to do it was still in living memory. It also meant some of us fought the changes tooth and nail for a while, but we got through it.

It was the grannies, mainly. Old southern women who’d been through everything and lived to tell the tale. They’d seen hard times before and when things started getting bad they did what needed to be done. They went out and started or expanded their gardens. When times got worse they expanded them again. They began to organize, first amongst each other and then reaching out. They held canning bees and quilting bees and cooking classes. They roped the grandpas in, and young mothers desperate for any way to feed their kids. Then they reached out to the kids. Grandkids really, their own or someone elses. It’s a lot easier to train a ten year old than a thirty year old. Nothin’ against the older person, but that’s the way it is. It was those old grannies who got a lot of us through.

Mama Jo was one of them. She took care of all of us kids and Sharkey too, though he’d deny it. When the Doc told her she had cancer she looked him in the eye and said “I ain’t got time to die right now. I got kids to feed.” He gave her six months and she lasted nearly three years, and took care of us right up to the end. Etsell was another one. A man might have the luxury of giving up, but as long as there are kids to feed and diapers to change most women will keep on going. Especially the old women. There is something about the quiet strength of an old woman who’s outlived her husband and some of her children that no young man can ever hope to match, no matter how strong his back.

I have a temporary (sort of) farm

2009-02-28T00:51:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine is going through a rather nasty divorce, and while it is terrible, she is happier than she has been in a long time. Her husband got caught cheating in a big way, and in the state of Alabama his ass is hers (particularly the part by his wallet). She’s getting to keep the house, which includes the very large garden space her husband used for his (now pretty much defunct) pepper business. So, she is renting the space to me for the growing season so I can grow vegetables for market. All she is charging me is some free veggies and the extra water. This, obviously, is grand news.

I’ve also been working on my serial this week. I am working nights, so I’ve been too exhausted to edit anything, much less get it posted. It is not the best things I’ve ever written, certainly, but I’m enjoying it.

Part Three -Tulu and Mary Ellen

2009-02-23T15:14:00.005-06:00

(This is coming a lot faster than I thought it would. It is also turning out to be much longer than I expected. I'm all ready working on Part 5!)

Part Three
Tulu was a drifter. There were a lot of drifters in those days. The troubles put a lot of people on the move. We had people come through from as far north as New York City and as far south as Colombia. Most of those who came through our area were men. Some young, some not. There were some women and a few families. Most of them were harmless but some stole, or worse. Most all of them begged. If we had the food to spare we’d give them a meal. One. After that, if they were willing to work we would trade food for work. Some of them stayed and became members of the community. Most moved on.

Tulu was different. He came back two, sometimes three times a year. He wasn’t looking for a place to settle down. The old marine liked to wander. It was the war, Sharkey said. It did that to some people. Back in the old days they might’ve been able to treat him for PTSD and make him ‘normal’ again, but even then he would have probably been just another homeless person. He had been in Sharkey’s unit at some point and Sharkey still felt responsible for his boys even all these years later.

The old drifter always camped in the same spot, under an overhanging bank down by the creek that ran by Elvis. He only came into town to trade with Jim Bo and hardly spoke to anyone. He didn’t much care for people. He never begged, never stole, and almost didn’t drink. He was also the best source of information we had found for what was going on outside the area.

“Hail the camp!” I shouted loudly as I made my way down the bank. Tulu was generally harmless but if you startled him he was likely to shoot.

“Is that you, Ed?” Tulu called back in his damn refined Yankee accent. He was a Chicago native, though his parents originally came from somewhere in Asia. “I knew you or Sharkey would be around soon.”

By this time I was close enough to see him squatting by his campfire, working on some soup. “It’s me, Tulu. How goes it?”

“Better, if you brought something for the pot.”

I grinned and tossed a package of beef from Jim Bo’s at him. He caught it deftly, smiling. “Knew you wouldn’t let me down. Not Sharkey’s girl.”

That Sharkey was not my birth father had never seemed to register with Tulu. I finished climbing down the bank and joined him at the fire while he began cutting up the raw meat.
“Where you been, Tulu?”

“Here and there. On walk-about.”

“Got any news?”

“Yes.”

He was silent for a while. You didn’t press Tulu. He would tell you what you needed to know in his own good time. Well, maybe not everyone. But he would tell us.

“Where’s Sharkey?”

“Sick. He’ll come round to see you in a day or two if yer still here and he’s better.”

Tulu grunted in reply. Finally he finished with the beef and got it into the soup pot. He went to the creek to wash his hands. When he came back he dug a bottle out of his pack and tossed it in my direction. “For Sharkey. His birthday present. Sorry it’s late.”

I turned the bottle around to read the label and nearly dropped it in shock. Whiskey, ol’ Jack. And not the cheap Jack either; this was the premium stuff. “Hell’s bells, Tulu, where’d you find this?”

“I came down from Lynchburg.”

“I thought it’d all be gone by now.”

“There’s some left, if you know where to look.”

That was a damn valuable gift. In those days liquor was money. Especially good liquor. But Tulu knew that. I put the bottle in my backpack. “Thanks, Tulu. I know he’ll be happy. He’s always liked Jack.”

Tulu’s only reply was another grunt. He picked up a stick and began poking at the dirt with it. Finally he spoke. “I headed west this time. I wanted to see the old river again. The Mississippi, that is. I worked on tugboats over that way a long time ago before I joined up. The river’s still dirty but it’s cleaner than I’ve ever seen it. Maybe all that’s happened has been good for something. There’s still trade going up and down, too. I hitched a ride on an old paddleboat that’s been put back in service. A few things are going up and down. Mostly food, paper, that kind of thing. There’s some man in Louisiana calling himself their Governor, but of what I don’t know. Not with Orleans gone and Baton Rouge next. There’s tolls at every town on the river and on quite a few of the roads as well.

“Memphis is a mess. No one’s in charge there these days. Not even pretending. There’s no power and no running water. They’ve got sewage in the streets. It’s the damn eighteenth century, there. Malaria is back, too. You should know that.”

I sucked in my breath. If it had reached Memphis –coming up the river, no doubt –how long would it be before it reached our neck of the woods? I would have to stop back by the Doc’s.
“Anything else?” I asked finally.

He shrugged. “I made it upriver almost to St. Louie. Word came down that there was a cholera epidemic in that old burg and I cut back east. Cut back by Nashville.”

He was silent again. “How are things otherwise? The camps still there?” Labor camps, refugee camps, or ‘displaced person’ camps, call ‘em what you would, they were no place to be.

Tulu started. “Oh yeah. There still there. I skirted the ones around Nashville. They’re holding together up there but the city’s been split in two or three. Some places have held together and some have fallen apart, like Memphis. Some are ruled by gangs and some aren’t ruled at all. I ran into a guy who said he’d walked east from L.A., trying to reach family in Georgia. He said the black and latino gangs are still fighting out there. Over a piece of desert with no water!” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Whoever wins that fight is going to get the worst booby prize in history. This guy said he left after the third time a mayor got killed for trying to stop the gangs fighting. I’ve heard some places still have power but I haven’t seen it. Of course, I skirt around most of the cities. It’s bad in the smaller places but not that bad.” Suddenly he grinned. “I stopped in this one river town in Missouri. The one in charge there is this little old black woman. She’s got the strongest personality of anyone I’ve ever met, bar none. She keeps those people in line, believe me!”

“Oh, I believe it. I know southern-”

“-women” We finished together, and laughed, for real this time. Especially the grannies, I thought to myself. Don’t fuck with them, and they won’t beat you to death with the nearest stick. Tulu pulled another bottle of whiskey, this one much cheaper, out of his pack and took a swig. He offered it to me.

“No thanks.” I didn’t think he had anything but there was no since taking chances.

He shrugged and put it back in his pack. “I keep meeting people who say there’s man in D.C. –or what’s left of it –calling himself President, but I certainly didn’t vote for him and I doubt he rules over much more than Virginia and Maryland. Maybe part of Carolina. I think I’ll head that way next and see what’s up. Maybe there is something left of this country. God knows enough of us gave enough of ourselves defending it.” His voice was bitter. His eyes stared into his fire, far away.

“You be careful.”

“I will. Wait, I almost forgot.” He pulled an old baggie out of his shirt pocket and handed it to me. “For the doc.”

It was filled with seeds. “What are these?”

“Poppy seeds.”

“Why would the Doc want to grow flowers?”

“They’re opium poppies, you nitwit. After all the time I spent in ‘Stan I’d recognize them anywhere. I expect he’ll have some use for them. You know where I got them?”

“Where?”

“Jeremiah Rhoades’ land. He’s growing them. I don’t know why, but it can’t be good.”

I cursed. “He gave them to you?”

“Hell no. I stole them. That man is terrified of you, by the way. He has been ever since that fight at the Saddleback.”

I was surprised that Tulu knew about that, but I shouldn’t have been. It was a local legend. “He shouldn’t have killed my dog.”

“Worst mistake he ever made.” Tulu agreed.

I pocketed the seeds and thanked him, then took my leave. I had a few other stops to make, mostly minor trades, and it was nearly suppertime when I made it home. Well before I made it to the house two of the dogs came running out to meet me, barking joyously rather than in warning. Nothing larger than a squirrel came on our property without the dogs knowing about us, and letting us know. They were better security any human could be.

There was an unholy banging noise coming from the open windows of the house. The smaller kids were in the yard playing and Maria and the older ones were in the summer kitchen making dinner. I didn’t see Tim anywhere. Maria pushed open one of the screens and leaned out. “Careful, Eddie, Beth lost her mind.” She tapped the side of her head. “The baby sickness.”

I stopped, and blinked. “Okay.” I wondered what that was (not morning sickness, surely) and decided against trying to find out. Maria’s English wasn’t good enough and my Spanish wasn’t either. We’d both end up confused. The kids might know. They were fluent in both languages.

Little Andrea was sleeping peacefully on the back porch when I got there, oblivious to all the hubbub. The first thing I noticed was that all of the ceiling fans were off and the fridge in the kitchen was unplugged. Secondly I noticed a hose running across the kitchen floor, out the door, and down towards the pond. The banging sound became much louder when I stepped inside. It was coming from the laundry room off the kitchen. I found Beth inside, crying and beating the side of the old washer with a wrench. Her little boy stood in the doorway, watching with wide eyes.

“Beth?” I called uncertainly. “What’s wrong?”

Beth stopped in mid-swing and looked up at me. Her eyes were red from crying. “I don’t miss the radio,” she told me. “I don’t miss the tv or the lights. I don’t even miss the air conditioning or the microwave much. But. I. Just. Want. A. Working. Washer.” With each word she hit the washer again. It was collecting an impressive array of dents.

“Beth? We don’t have running water-”

“I carried water in from the well.”

That stopped me for a moment. Carrying water would still be less work than washing the clothes by hand. We’d had it so easy, once. Push a button and an hour later you had clean clothing. “What were you going to do with the dirty water?”

“We have a pond, Eddie. That’s what the hose is for. But it won’t work. It won’t work!” Her voice scaled up higher and approached outright hysteria.

“The washer up at Sharkey’s still works-”

Right away I knew I’d stepped in it. She brandished the wrench at me. “I don’t want to have to walk a quarter-mile to wash my clothes! I just want clean clothes.” She burst into tears again.

I sighed. Clearly this fell under the heading of ‘Things Eddie Must Fix Because She Is The “Man” Of The House'. I would have to find someway to get it working. Keeping Beth happy was too important. My heart ached again for Joey, who’d been as much a brother to me as a friend. He could have gotten it working as easily as me and he would know just how to calm Beth down. There were ways to run the washer without taking juice form the panels. Pedal power, maybe. That would give the kids a way to burn off some energy. Especially Tim.

Where was that boy?

I hugged Beth and gently took the wrench out of her hand. “I’ll fix it. I promise. Tomorrow, when the light’s better. Okay?”

Beth nodded and wiped her eyes.

The screen door banged and Callie, one of the kids who lived at Sharkey’s came running in. “Eddie! Mary Ellen wants you. She said come quick. Tim’s done something’ again.”

Dear Jesus, what foolish thing had the boy up and done now?

It was still light when I got down the road to Sharkey’s. It was June, after all. Sharkey’s damn horse was grazing contentedly in a pasture near the road. She was still the only horse we had. The Amish and the Cory’s were breeding them as fast as they could but things like that take time. Their stock had been hit by the fever too, which is another reason I think it was the flu.

Having only one horse was fine with me. I didn’t trust anything that big with a mind of its own.

Jane was in the field by the road, sitting on a blanket under a parasol and reading. She was dressed in what I think was a fair approximation of a Victorian lady’s outfit, gloves and all. I had long since eased being surprised at anything she wore. As long as she did her fair share of the work no one cared.

She was different, was Jane. She had been born Mary Ellen’s little brother Bobby Joe. But Bobby Joe hated being a boy the way most folks would hate being turned into a monkey. He spent half his childhood in tears and the other half angry. Finally one day when he was about ten (I was thirteen or fourteen, then, I think), he went crying to his father because he wanted to wear a dress and Mama Jo wouldn’t let him. Sharkey, at his most pragmatic, shrugged and gave the boy a dress. It didn’t matter to him what the kid wore or what he wanted to call himself. There were too many more important things. Thus Bobby Joe became Jane and to my knowledge never wore pants again. Joey and me only had to fight two kids in school before they stopped bothering her about it. Mama Jo, good Christian woman that she was, threw a fit at first but it soon became obvious even to her that her precious grandson was a lot happier being a girl.

Today Jane had a poultice wrapped around her cheek. I winced. “Bad tooth?”

She looked up from the book and nodded. “Doc says I need to go see the dentist in Blackberry.” She sounded scared and I didn’t blame her. Not only was seeing the dentist no cake walk, but Jeremiah tried to make trouble the last time she went over there.

“I’ll go with you.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

Jane’s relief was obvious. “Thank you. Be careful. Mary Ellen’s in one of her moods again.”
She picked up the book again as I moved on. Little Women. I shook my head. How had any of us managed to survive this long?

Sharkey was pretending to sleep in a hammock by the garden. He was pale and had lost more weight. I tried not to worry about that. If he was very sick surely the Doc would’ve been up. He opened one eye and winked at me. I felt myself relax. Whatever it was it couldn’t be too bad if Sharkey wasn’t upset about it.

Mary Ellen and Todd lived with their kids and Bobby Joe in one of the trailers. She must have been watching for me from the kitchen for as soon as my feet hit the porch she came flying out the back door, braids bouncing. Mary Ellen was a small woman with a big personality. Her features were too strong to be called pretty but she was the most beautiful woman I ever knew. She had deep black hair that she loved to braid with ribbons. Tonight they were braided with ribbons the same emerald green as her eyes. She still had quite the figure, despite having had three children (including a set of twins), and the red dress she was wearing showed enough of it to thoroughly distract me from the reason I had came.

“About time you got here!” She snapped. “What took you so long? I tell you we have an emergency and what do you do? Stroll up here like you’re taking a walk?”

“Now Mary Ellen-”

“Don’t you patronize me, Eddie! I’m no little girl you can pat on the head and send on her way. Well? What do you have to say for yourself? ”

Oh hell. She really was in one of her moods. When she got like that anything I said was going to get me in trouble. It took forever for me to figure out how Todd stayed out of trouble when she was like that. He did it by simply keeping his mouth shut.

That’s a skill I’ve never managed to master.

“Callie never said it was an emergency!” I protested desperately. “She said Tim had done something stupid and I figered if it was bad, she’d ‘ve said. ‘Sides, Beth was hormonal-”

“Beth was hormonal? Like you’ve never had that particular problem. You pretending to be a man now? As far as that fool brother of yours is concerned, yes it’s bad. Worse’n it’s ever been before. Come in.” She opened the screen door. I moved to go in and she stopped me and then held her hand out.

I stared at her blankly. “What?”

“Your gun. You know I don’t let guns in my house. Give it.”
“Mary Ellen-”

“Give it, Edna Jean.”
Hell, she really was pissed if she called me Edna, much less Edna Jean. Reluctantly I handed over the handgun I kept tucked in my waistband. She sat it on a table just inside the door. Todd’s shotgun and rifle were there as well. Then she held out her hand again. “I want the other one too.”

I managed not to roll my eyes as I gave her the gun I carried in my boot.

“That’s it?”

“That’s all my guns.” I decided mentioning my knives would not be a good idea.

“How’d you get so paranoid, Eddie?” She sounded exasperated.

“Ask your father. He made me that way.”

Mary Ellen leaned out the door and yelled loud enough for Sharkey to hear. “Daddy! Me and you are going to have a talking-to later.”

Sharkey raised a hand in a friendly acknowledgment. He looked like he was trying not to laugh.

I expected to see Tim and possibly Bobby sitting at the kitchen table, looking sheepish. It was a surprise when they weren’t there. Todd was there though, looking slightly grim but also as if he too was trying not to laugh. On the table in front of him was a mapbook –the large kind that would fill your lap –and a note. He shoved them at me. “We found this on Bobby’s bed. The note was sticking out of the top."

The mapbook was open to Alabama. Someone had taken a pink highlighter and traced a route from our region in Tennessee all the way to the coast near Panama City. The note was in Tim’s handwriting and addressed to me.
Sis, Bobby and me decided to take a walk. We want to see the ocean while we still can. We’ll be back in time for school to start. I promise. See you soon. Love, Tim.
P.S. Please don’t be too mad.

“Well?” Mary Ellen demanded when I’d had time to read the note. “I told you it was bad. What are you going to do?”

I stood staring at the note for a moment. It took some time for it to sink just how stupid my little brother had been this time. Anger started welling up and then abruptly it changed to humor. I laughed.

Mary Ellen was taken aback. “Why are you laughing? This is serious!”

I looked at Todd. A smile was playing around his lips and he was clearly trying not to laugh too. “How much food they take, Todd?”

“About four days worth.”

“Guns?”

“Nope.”

“What else?”

“A couple of knives, some camping gear, water bottles, some rope. A tent. That’s about it. And my polaroid and most of the film.” He sounded disgusted and well he should be. Todd had a passion for archaic machines and had kept that camera going far longer than it should have.

Of course they had taken a camera. To take pictures of the beach, no doubt.

Stupid gits. No guns, no trading supplies, and only a few days worth of food. Yep, they were going to get real far like that. And the idiots were planning to take the road the entire way. The road, in those days!

“Well?” Mary Ellen repeated. “Aren’t you going after them?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

This was clearly not the answer she expected. “Well why in Jesus’ name not? You know those boys can’t take care of themselves out there.”

“I know, but there’s no need to go after ‘em. They’ll be back.” Todd nodded his agreement.

Mary Ellen opened her mouth and before she could get going I rushed on. “Think, Mary Ellen. Those two ain’t never spent a night away from home before. Remember when they tried camping? They didn’t even last the full night, and that was in the field!” Less than half the night, if the full truth were told. I’d sat up with Sharkey that night, drinking and waiting on them.

“They were younger then-”

“Mary Ellen, it was LAST YEAR. Look, they’ll probably come draggin’ in ‘bout supper time tomorrow, or even later tonight, tails between their legs. And no harm done.”

Mary Ellen glared at me. “You- You are just as bad as Daddy! That’s what he said. And here I thought you, at least, would have the sense to go after them!”

That stung some but I pushed it aside. “I will if they’re not back in a day or two.”

“You had better.” She looked at me with those flashing green eyes. “I don’t want to lose my cousin or Tim.”

“Neither do I. I promise I’ll go after ‘em if need be and fetch them back.” I would’ve promised a lot more to her than to track down a couple of idiot boys I’d go after anyway. Looking back, I should have saddled the horse and went after them then and there. I could have brought them home in the middle of the night and been done with it. Except the stupid pups probably would‘ve tried again. And I really did think they would be back.

They didn’t come back the next day. One day stretched into two, and then three, and on the fourth day it became obvious I was going to have to go after them.

Part Two -Elvis

2009-02-20T07:56:00.006-06:00

(Here is part two of my ongoing serial. Feel free to post comments, and point out any problems. I'm still editing it.)

Part Two

I slipped into the world quietly in Huntsville, Alabama about the time the first troubles began. Ah, who am I kidding? I’ve always been about as subtle as a forest fire and my birth was no different. My parents had planned a nice, quiet birth at a birthing center across the line in Tennessee. That was before my mother started hemorrhaging one afternoon three weeks before her due date. So I arrived by emergency C-section at the local hospital. Family legend has it that my normally mild, executive father, confronted with this unexpected emergency, completely freaked. Emergencies do that people. They either bring out the best or the worst in everybody. In my father’s case it was probably the best. He picked his wife up –somehow- put her in his sports car, and drove down Highway 53 and Jordan Lane like all the demons of hell were after him. A man who never broke the speed limit suddenly turned into a NASCAR driver.

When they arrived at the hospital they were searched, of course. A bleeding pregnant woman shows up and you search her before letting her into the ER. It wasn’t like they needed to; Huntsville wasn’t Detroit or L.A., or even Atlanta. It was one of those things they did because they could. Things were like that back then. I’m not supposed to know about that, of course, and I wouldn’t if Grandpappy Thompson had not gone on about it every time I saw him until the day he died. He was an old coot, was Grandpappy. True southern born redneck. He didn’t forgive his daughter for marrying a black man (even one who was mixed) until I was born. He served in ‘Nam and to him anyone he didn’t like was a ‘damn commie’. He had more guns than God (not uncommon in our area) and was always worried ‘someone from the gummat’ was going to try and take them. It never happened, and even if it had, the only one of his that was registered was the one he carried in his waistband. He and Grandma had a huge fight in the parking lot of the hospital over whether or not he should leave that gun in the truck. She won, and it was a good thing since they (naturally) were searched too. Grandpappy nearly got arrested for talking back to the cops. I’m not supposed to know that, either.

I was healthy, despite being premature. I guess I was in a hurry to come into the world. My childhood was happy, I suppose. I don’t remember much of it. We were sheltered from most of the dislocations that took place during that time period. My mother was a housewife who worked part-time once I started school but my father was a high-level executive at one of the defense contractors in town. I don’t remember what his title was or which company he worked for, but he traveled a lot. He also made a lot of money, which is what sheltered us as things began to deteriorate. We had a big house in Harvest that was always warm in winter and cool in the summer. I had a giant bedroom and more toys than I could count.

I was a stubborn, strong-willed child who severely tried my parents. I was a tomboy from the time I could walk and resisted any and all efforts to turn me into a lady. I was my mother’s sorrow. Grandma Davis thought it was funny and whenever I would come to her house she let me climb trees and run wild with the neighborhood boys. Grandpappy Thompson was as happy as he could be that he had a grandchild who liked to go fishing and camping with him. He took me fishing for the first time when I was two and camping when I was four. I was seven when he taught me to shoot. Whenever I was on their farm in Elvis I kept Grandma busy patching me up.
All through my childhood there were problems. There was war and rumors of war. The economy got worse and worse, with periods of stability in between dislocations. We were hardly affected but as I got older I couldn’t help but notice them. Shortages started at some point and just kept happening but it never affected us at home. Papa could just pay more for whatever we needed. Including gas, when it started running short. I first noticed the problems at school when more and more kids showed up without some or all of their supplies. Mother would often take bags of school supplies and give them to my teachers and more’n once she rounded up clothing and even shoes for some of the kids who couldn’t afford them or find them. When her part-time job ended (the business folded, I think) she devoted all her efforts to charity.

I was ten when the fever came through. It was the flu, I think. The public health system had been overstrained for years but it completely collapsed when that epidemic began. The stories are that it turned into a full-blown pandemic but I’ve no way of knowing if that’s the case. When it began Papa drove Mother and me up to the farm in Elvis. Grandpappy had died the summer before in a car accident and Papa said Grandma could use the help. Mother was very pregnant with Tim. Papa dropped us off and went back to Huntsville, and to work.

That was the last time I ever saw him. One of his colleagues called when he passed away of the fever.

Mother gave birth to Tim two weeks later and he was about a month old when the fever made it to Elvis. It hit hard. Isolation helped some. When it reached Elvis a lot of people just stayed on their farms or in their homes until it was over. A lot of people did the same in the cities. It made it harder to get the fever but also harder to get treatment. About sixty percent of the people around our parts got the fever, and about half of those who got it died. Most of pneumonia. I’ve no way of knowing if it was that way everywhere or if it was worse in Elvis. We didn’t have much healthcare to speak of and it was impossible to get to the hospital in Fayetteville, much less Huntsville.

I was the first to get sick in our family. While I was recovering Mother got sick and passed away. Grandma didn’t tell me until I was well. Tim never got it. A few days after I was back on my feet Grandma passed away. Not of the fever; she never got sick. Her heart just gave out, I think. It had been bad for years and she’d been off her meds for weeks. The power was out for some reason but I managed to get the emergency radio going. Things were bad. They gave a lot of numbers I didn’t understand and can’t remember. I do remember they said the president had not gotten it and was still in charge. I remember wondering why I should care about someone I didn’t even know when my parents and Grandma were gone forever. For a couple of days I managed okay on my own with Tim. But everything in the fridge went bad, we ran out of formula and diapers, and I didn’t know what to do about Grandma. So finally I bundled us up (it got really cold in winter at times, in those days) and walked down the road to Sharkey’s and Mama Jo’s. They’d always been really good friends with my grandparents but I hadn’t seen them in days. Mama Jo opened the door, took one look at us, and sat about feeding both of us while Sharkey –missing a foot though he was –went and buried Grandma.

The power came back on a few weeks later. Several months after that it went off again and stayed off. Why I don’t know.

But all of that was a long time before Tim decided he wanted to see the ocean.

When Tim didn’t show up early that morning I assumed he and Bobby Earl had gone fishing. We were taking things easy for a few days since the planting was done and I had told him to just be back for evening chores. They even left a note on Sharkey’s table that said that’s where they were so no one would look for them.

I had business in Elvis that day. Part of it was ours and part of it was Sharkey’s. He was feeling poorly and had asked me to go in his stead. He often had me run errands or attend to other business for him. I think he trusted me even more than Todd, who was his son-in-law. I know he had taught me things he never Todd.

Beth and Maria were sitting on the porch drinking tea when I left. It was shortly after dawn. Beth was nursing the baby. Her daughter really had slipped quietly into the world, naturally and without any complications, only two days after Tim told me he wanted to go see the ocean. “Leaving all ready?” She called when I stepped out.

“Have to.” I grunted in reply. My backpack was full of trade goods and I had a basket of eggs tied to my belt. “I want to back by supper.”

“You be careful,” Maria told me firmly. “Bring back some blackberries, no?”

“If there are any.” It was early yet, but you never knew. “You have a gun handy?”

In response, Beth lifted the corner of the afghan on the porch swing next to her enough to reveal the butt of the rifle concealed there. I nodded. It had been some time since we’d had any trouble but I didn’t want to risk anything happening to any of my family.

It was another clear, cloudless day. Nice enough for traveling, but worrisome since this made it a week since we’d had rain. We didn’t need another drought. Elvis was three miles from the farm by the road and two-thirds of that cross-country. Blackberry was northwest of Elvis another five miles up the old road. Our Amish neighbors lived juxtaposed in between the two and slightly further west. I took the road but kept an eye out for trouble.

As I walked I scanned the sky for contrails. It was an old habit of mine, one I still haven’t broken. I suppose my fascination with airplanes is due to Papa. When I was a small child he was always traveling and my mother and I would see him off or pick him up at the airport whenever possible. I always wanted to go somewhere in a plane and never did. Suddenly I understood Tim’s fascination with the ocean a little bit more.

Little did I know he and Bobby Earl were heading southwest at that very moment.

There were several other places on the way from ours to town. Some were occupied and some were not. I passed the Heckert place first. They were on my left. Their winter wheat was doing poorly. It didn’t look like it was going to come to harvest and that was worrisome. Only two other families still grew wheat. Their garden was looking good at least, and they had a trial patch of corn this year. It was a different kind than I had seen before and I made a mental note to ask them where they had gotten the seed. I wondered how they made it on their own. There were only three of them, and they were too proud to ask for help. The McCrays were next. They grew the famous blackberries, some cattle, and lots of sweet potatoes as well as a huge garden. In the old days the big blackberry patch had been a pick-your-own farm and people came from all over, even as far as Huntsville and Chattanooga, to do just that. The entire extended family lived there now –what was left of it –as well as some others they had taken in. The blackberries were not in yet. The last really big plot was the old Smith place. Old man Smith and his wife had both died of the fevere and none of their kids had ever shown up to claim it. The year after some of the Hispanic migrants had moved in. There was trouble over that at first, but Sharkey had handled it with his usual finesse. They were good neighbors and had brought lots of seed for peppers, corn, and other traditional vegetables. Without them a lot of people might have starved. When the state militia tried to evict them on one of their periodic run throughs the entire town swore they owned the place legitimately and had lived there for two generations. It had been years since that militia came through, and no one missed them much. The town militia handled trouble just fine, thank you very much.

Elvis had never been a big town. It had once had another name, before the King’s time, but whatever it was I never found out or have long since forgotten. Suburbanization had never reached it from either Huntsville or Chattanooga, much less Nashville. There had been about five hundred people in the town when the flu came through, and now there were less than three. There might have been a thousand people in the whole region when all this happened. It may sound like a lot but there were more in the subdivision I lived in during my childhood.
My first stop was the medical clinic. Elvis had never rated more than a single doctor’s office, but now it was basically a clinic. It was one of the few buildings that still had any power. Most of the solar panels we had scrounged up went to ensure that. Doctor ‘the Doc’ Hatcher used to practice up near Winchester way but now kept closer to home. His wife had once been a chemistry prof but now she spent her time testing water and helping her husband make what few medicines we head.

Shekina, one of the apprentices, poked her dark head out of the clinic door as I neared.

“I thought that was you, Ms. Davis! How are you?”

“It’s Eddie, Shekina, I’ve told you.” I replied, laughing.

“My momma says to respect my elders, and that it’s Miss, Missus, and Mister when it’s not sir or ma’am.”

“You’re eighteen now, ‘Kina. That means you’re an adult. Call me Ed or Eddie.”

“Long as you won’t tell my momma.”

“Deal.” I entered the clinic as she held the door open for me. It was noticeably cooler inside. The building was brick, with a full basement and the best insulation in town. “The doc in?”

“Nah, Rory Cratchett broke his leg in a bad way and he and Bobby Joe went to fetch him. He asked me to stay in case anyone else came in. What do you need? Has your brother done something stupid again?”

“Not that I know of. I just came to deliver these.” I had a sack of sweet potatoes and assorted salad veggies slung over my shoulder. She accepted them graciously. The Doc always needed food. They didn’t have time to grow or raise much of their own.

Shekina insisted I have a cold glass of water before I left. “Why didn’t you radio ahead on the shortwave? I would have made you breakfast. I’m sure you haven’t eaten yet.”

“I didn’t want to waste the power. And I had some grits and eggs before I left.” I took my leave shortly after that before she had a chance to really start talking. Shekina could talk your ears off.
There were a lot of empty buildings in Elvis in those days. Some people had combined housing to make things easier. Others simply belonged to those who had passed away or left. One old building had been converted into the schoolhouse that was now closed for the summer. Widow Harrison was sitting on her front porch as I passed by, fanning herself and looking for gossip.

Some things never change.

“Mornin’ Ms. Davis! How are you?” She called.

“Good, Mrs. Harrison. And you?”

“I’m good. You found yourself a man yet?”

“No ma’am.”

“My boy’s still single.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am.”

“You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

“I know.”

“You have time to sit and talk?”

“’Fraid not today, ma’am.”

“Pity.”

I moved on, trying not to mutter to myself in her sight. She was the biggest gossip in town. I dared not tell her I had no intention of ever ‘finding myself a man’. Now if I had been a man myself, and Mary Ellen had not married Todd –I pushed the thought away. Such things might have been possible once but not now. Things had changed.

Mary and her husband Jim Bo ran the grocery and dry goods store. Their old big box store had long been shut down but they operated out of an old convenience store next door. They had enough power for some refrigeration cases and a couple of fans. They sold all kinds of things out of their store, and the old one had been converted into a warehouse that held even more. You could buy just about anything you wanted if you had the credit but some things –papers, ink pens, ammo –had to be requested.

Jim Bo was behind the counter when I came in and greeted me enthusiastically. “What can I do for you, Ed?”

“You can give me a beer to start with, you old codger, and don’t bug me about the credits. You know I’m good for it.”

The old man laughed. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever known who likes a good brew.”

“I’m not an ordinary woman, Jim.”

“True.” Jim Bo took a beer out of the case behind him, unscrewed the cap, and handed it to me. It was an old twenty-ounce soda bottle. The once red label had long since faded, but some of the letters were still visible. I took a long swig and let it go easy down my throat. “Good stuff. How does Mike do it?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care, as long as he keeps doing it.”
We both laughed. “Where’s Mary today?”

“Out and about. She went to see several friends. Said she reckoned I could handle the store on my own for one morning.”

“I reckon she’s right.”
“Hope so, otherwise she’ll be right pissed off. What can I do for you?”

“Eggs, to begin with.” I set the egg basket on the counter. Jim Bo counted and examined the eggs with the eye of an expert. “Twenty-four, eh? That’s quite a lot.”

“We’ve got a lot of hens now. They’re all fresh.”

“I believe you. These are nice. This’ll get you twelve credits.”

“Done. I also have some of Maria’s homemade cornbread.”

Jim Bo perked up and he gazed longingly at the parcel I pulled from my backpack. “That’ll get you six more. But I’m not going to sell that. I don’t know how she does it.”
“The jalapenos, I think.”

“Hmm. Gary’s still not remarried. Tell her that, would you? I wouldn’t mind having her for a daughter-in-law. Anything else?”

“No, but I have a list.”

“Hmm. Thought so.”

We bargained through it. Mary was a stickler on prices but Jim Bo liked to barter as much as I did. We had good credit, so a baby brush and some bottles was no problem. There were a few other things, including some butter, and when we were done we still had plenty of credits left. Jim Bo tallied up the purchases and marked them in the book. “Pick them up on your way out?”

“Sure. I got things to do.” While I was nursing my beer and looking around the store I couldn’t help but notice some pretty red ribbon he had on a shelf. Jim Bo noticed my gaze. “You should get that for her. She likes red.”

“Who?” I asked innocently.

“You know.”

“’Fraid not.”

He gave me a look. “Half the town knows, Eddie. And most don’t care. Those that do ain’t gonna say anything. Not to you.”

“Oh shut up.”

I bought the ribbon.

Pastor Smith was entering the shop as I left. He gave me a semi-dirty look. I returned it. “Haven’t seen you at church lately, Edna Jean.”

“Nope.”

“We gonna see you soon?”

“Nope.”

“Mama Jo would like you to come to church.”

“Mama Jo is dead.”

“She’s in heaven with Jesus. Don’t you want ta join her one day?”

“Not any time soon.”

“Jesus loves you too.”

“If you say so, Pastor.”

Pastor Joe was the only pastor left in Elvis in those days. There had once been three. He was annoying as all hell. Not as annoying as the Mormon missionaries who came through from time to time, but still. The last time the latter showed up I nearly ran them off at gunpoint. I still haven’t decided which annoys me more: dead guys comin’ back to life or salamanders holdin’ the keys to heaven.

Both are about equally likely.

The Saddleback was my next stop. The bar was still under the same old bar keep. Sallie had never shut down for long, even during the flu. When the trucks stopped coming she just bought moonshine. Every Saturday some of the locals played and people gathered to dance and drink.
The bar was as much a general hangout as anything in those days. It was bright enough in the day with all the windows open and at night there were lanterns. There was a town militia meeting there that day. Sharkey was Captain and I was his chief deputy. The militia was formed a few years after the fever to help keep order. It had been Sharkey’s idea, of course. Well, him and some others who had military experience. Service was about as voluntary as you could get but most of the men and quite a few of the women were in it. I joined as soon as I could, on my sixteenth birthday. It was a loose structure, more along the lines of the old National Guard than regular service. We communicated by shortwave most of the time and got together once a month to exchange reports.

The meeting was short. All had been quiet lately. Even Jeremiah had been lying low, and that worried me some. The people of Blackberry didn’t like him anymore than we did but they weren’t as well organized and if he decided to take full control over there he could.

“He’s too busy trading that rot gut and pot to cause any trouble right now,” Joe Cratchett, Rory’s son, said.

“Trading where?” I asked.

Joe shrugged. “Outside the area, somewhere.”

“What is he trading it for?” I pressed him.

“Does it matter?”
“If it’s ammo and guns, then yeah, I’d say it matters.”

Joe grinned. “Eddie, from all we can tell he’s trading it for food. Lazy sum a bitch won’t grow ‘is own!”

There was general laughter at that. The meeting over, we all had a beer. As I was leaving Joe caught up to me and whispered in my ear. “Thought you’d like to know, ole Tulu is back.”

“He is?”

“Yep. Saw ‘im yesterday. We traded for some spices. He had some cinnamon from somewhere or other.”

“Same spot as usual?”

“Yep. Thought you’d like to know.”

“Thanks.” I had other things to do, but this couldn’t be put off. If Tulu was here, then I needed to see him right away. I put my backpack on and headed down to the creek.

Spring is Coming

2009-02-19T16:08:00.000-06:00

Narcissus, jonquil, paper-white, daffodil
It gives my heart such a thrill
To see you in bloom
On a cold winter’s noon

Together with the lowly crocus
The hyacinth and lovely iris
You are flowers fit for a king
And the heralds of another spring
-(Daffodil, a poem I wrote)

I am not a fan of winter. I know it is necessary and I try to grin and bear it, but there is always a part of me that looks forward to pulling out the box with the shorts and tank tops. By the middle of February I am ready for spring and I start looking around for the harbingers. We had a week of warm weather here and it is now cold again, but that is not enough to stop the daffodils. No sir and no ma’am –they are blooming big time. My own are not in bloom yet, but they are the kind that tend to bloom in the middle of March. Everywhere I go I see the pretty yellow and white flowers, nodding their heads in defiance of the cold. Yesterday I discovered the first tiny yellow flowers on my forsythia bushes. All the joints are swelling and soon they too will be in full bloom. And this morning I discovered the first hardy, determined little purple hyacinth blooming in the back yard.

It has been a pretty hard winter. But the Wheel always turns, and spring is coming.

In other news, I have gathered a few hundred dollars towards getting a piece of land. It is not what I need, but it is a start. And I have added several more things to my crafts website. Some of my soaps are up there now. Check them out: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6869280

The next part of Eddie’s story will be posted in a day or two.

Part One

2009-02-15T14:03:00.004-06:00

I've been wanting to try my hand at writing some post-peak and otherwise futuristic fiction for a while now, and I finally got around to it. This is my first crack at it, so keep that in mind. This is the first part of what will be a many-part serial. Please post any comments. It is a work in progress.

Before I post the story below I want to make a couple of comments. First, I do not necessarily agree with all of the main character's views. In fact, I disagree with several of them. Writing fiction would be really boring if you only wrote about people you always agreed with.

Secondly, many of the places listed in this story are real. They say 'write what you know' so I have. This story is set in the Deep South, right around the Alabama/Tennessee line and in places in Alabama. Hence the vernacular and cultural refrences. I am from the South, so keep that in mind before flaming me for stereotyping or making fun of Southeners. Also, as I said many of the places are real. A few have had their names changed, and I have denoted this by an asterik after the names the first time they appear. Everywhere else is real.

The setting is sometime later in this century. You can guess just when. I will post at least one update a week to this until its done. Unless, that is, I get an avalache of comments telling me how awful it is.
Anyway, here goes.

Part One
Every story must have a beginning, and this one is no exception. I suppose the proper place to begin is with an introduction, but if the truth is to be told, I do not want to tell this story at all. Why? There seems to be no point. For posterity, Mary Ellen would tell me if she were here. But it seems to me that most of our “posterity” couldn’t give a rat’s ass about my life, or its story. It is their own lives, and their own stories, that they will be concerned with. But Mary Ellen is still nagging me to tell this story, so I guess I will. For her, if for no one else. Yes, she’s dead and has been these past twenty years and more, but she’s still nagging me. She nagged on me for fifty years in life and you would think that would be enough, but no. She still nags me even though she’s dead and gone. I may sound cross about it but I’m not. I’d give both my legs and my arms too if she could still be here to nag me. It never really bothered me, though I groused about it enough at the time. Still do. Sometimes I think I hear her calling me, you know. Usually when I am about to drop off for a nap or when I’m trying to get to sleep at night. I’ll be almost asleep and then I will hear her voice and jerk awake. I look around, expecting to see her walk through the door, and only then do I remember she is long gone.

What was that? Oh, the story. Have some respect for your elders, young man. Kids these days. (Laughs.) No, sorry. I don’t mean that. Every generation from the cave men on down has railed against the younger. It’s the way of the world, I suppose. But I at my age I’ve earned the right to ramble if I wish. I’ve outlived all of my contemporaries. Far outlived, in most cases. I guess I’m just too stubborn to die. When I was a kid my grandpappy used to say I was as ornery as any mule ever born, and it’s true. Believe you me. I’ve known a lot of mules in my time.

But where was I? Oh, the story. I’ve got a lot of stories. Mary Ellen wanted me to tell them all, and have them written down. That’s your job, boy. I’ll do the tellin’ and you do the writin’. I’m running out of time, I suppose, and I promised Mary Ellen on her deathbed that I would do this. It sure took me long enough to get around to it. (Laughs again.) I’ll start with the first one, I suppose, and I can work enough of the back story into that to give you the picture.

But first things first. In case anyone ever reads this who actually gives a hoot, I am Edna Jean Davis, and I am a hundred and three years old, but back then I was still young…

Approximately 50 miles north and east of Huntsville, Alabama, near Elvis* and Blackberry* Tennessee.
“I want to see the ocean.”

The remark came out of the blue one warm, late spring day. It was hot, despite the fact that we were not yet into June. Every year it seemed like the heat came sooner and left later. We were on our grandparent’s land, planting sweet potatoes, my brother Tim and I, when he made this odd remark. Tim was always making odd remarks. He always had his nose buried in a book or his head up in the clouds instead of on the ground where it belonged. Had I known how much trouble that simple sounding remark would cause, I would probably have turned around and clocked him then and there. I should point out that Tim was my brother by blood and not just by raising. Not that it matters, but I still haven’t figured out how our parents managed to produce two children as different as the two of us.

“Ed?” Tim called when I didn’t answer after a moment. “Did you hear me? I said I want see the ocean.”

I felt a surge of irritation towards the boy and choked it down. He was only sixteen –ten years younger than I –after all, and all boys were prone to make stupid remarks occasionally. Particularly when they were between fifteen and twenty. Not that I hadn’t made plenty of stupid remarks in my time, but nothing like teenage boys are prone to do. That Tim was more prone to do it than most was just a function of his personality. Suddenly I realized that this one was probably my fault. How many times had I told him of the trips our family had taken to Gulf Shores and Panama Beach when I was little?

We were almost finished with the sweet potatoes. Tim had just finished putting the last starts in the last row, and I was close behind him with the hoe, which I used to fill in the trench. One person could have handled the job but it was easier and faster with two. You learned to minimize labor when you had to grow all your own food.

Finally I stopped working for a moment. I took my hat off with my free hand and transferred it awkwardly to the hand that held the hoe. Then I took my handkerchief out of my front pocket and wiped the sweat from my brow. After that I took a long swig from the water bottle at my belt. I took my time, rolling the water around my mouth to wet my parched tongue before I finally swallowed.

Tim was still looking at me expectantly.

There was no help for it. “Yes.” I said finally. “I heard you.”

“Well?” He replied. “Do you have anything to say?”

“Like what?” I let a bit of my annoyance show as I resumed hoeing. “So you want to see the ocean. Great. I want to ride in an airplane. Both are about as likely to happen. And so what?”

“That’s not true. The ocean is still there, but no one has an airplane anymore. Or if they do they don’t have any fuel.”

He had me there, I had to admit. It had been at least five years since I had seen a contrail. Maybe six or seven. I tried to remember when the last time had been and gave up. It hardly mattered.

Tim was still talking. “We could still get to the beach. It’s not that far, maybe not as far as it used to be with the way sea level has been rising.”
“We’re hundreds of miles from the ocean, Tim. You’d have to walk. You don’t even like walking to Elvis. And who knows what’s between here and there these days?” I was thinking of all the rumors about Huntsville and Birmingham, in particular, but did not say what I was thinking aloud. Maybe I should have. But then, Tim had always been the sort who thought no one would ever try to hurt him. I doubt he would have listened.

“So? We could do it in a summer. Me and Bobby were thinking-”

“Hold it right there,” I stopped hoeing again and gave him The Look. You know the kind a parent turns on a child who is in trouble. Tim was my son as much as my brother, as I had most of the raising of him. “Timothy Joseph Davis the Second, I don’t give a rat’s furry ass what you and Robert Earl have been thinking. Put it out of your mind right now.”

“But Eddie-”

“Don’t ‘But Eddie’ me. The last time you two got to thinking together you both got hurt and I got to drag your butt to Sharkey’s on a litter and then walk all the way to Elvis to get the Doc. No more ‘buts’. Stop thinkin’ whatever it is you’ve been thinkin’. Now get yerself over to that well and get the water to do the sweet potatoes. Ya hear?”

“Yes’m.” He muttered, almost too low to hear.

“What was that?”

“Yes ma’am.” Tim repeated, this time much louder.

“That’s better. Now get on with you.”

Tim turned and shuffled off, muttering rebelliously to himself. Only a teenager could manage to look that sulky. I finished planting the sweet potatoes and headed back to the house. Tim passed me on the way, a full watering can in each hand. He glared at me as I passed. “Aren’t you going to help?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going up to Sharkey’s. Water the tomatoes and beans when you’re done with the potatoes.”

The boy said some words as I moved off, none of them very nice. I chose to ignore them. He was still small enough for me to wash his mouth out with soap if I chose but he was getting close enough to being a man to speak his own piece. ’Sides, I knew it would help him to cool off and the sooner he cooled off the sooner he would get back to work and wear himself out enough to get the foolish notions out of his head.

Walk to the beach, indeed.

Maria and her daughters were in the strawberry patch picking the last of the berries. They waved and called “Hola!” as I neared. I took off my hat and waved back. “Hola! How are the berries?”

“Good, good!” Maria assured me, as her children chattered at me in a strange patois of English and Spanish that I had gradually gotten used to. She had seven girls, though only two were hers by birth. She and Miguel had had four of their own, counting the boy, until the fever that had also taken my parents. Miguel too had been carried off that winter, along with many others. Including the parents of her adopted girls. Like Sharkey she had taken in as many of the orphaned children as she could care for. Three of the girls weren’t even Hispanic, and the other two were Guatemalan instead of Mexican.

That hardly mattered, either. We were well past the time of the riots.

Twelve people shared my grandparent’s house back then. At one point we’d all been crammed into Sharkey and Mama Jo’s place like a basketful of puppies but as we’d all grown we’d felt the need to spread out. The day I turned eighteen Sharkey handed me the deed to the land and house. “It’s yours now.” He said simply. “I took care of it like I promised but now it’s yours.”

I looked at it and back at him. “What the hell am I supposed to do with it?”

Sharkey shrugged. “Move over there with some of the folks? You won’t have to walk so far to tend the fields and we need the room.”

So we did.

Beth was sitting on the back porch, sewing. Her feet were propped up on an ottoman and she had a glass of peppermint tea at her elbow. Cold, since we had enough power from the solar panels to run the fridge and ceiling fans, if not the air conditioner. A fan was turning lazily overhead. She was so big with child she could hardly walk. Her two-year-old slept on the porch swing nearby. The boy had his thumb in his mouth. He was the spitting image of his papa, and I was glad for Beth’s sake. Joey had been killed by a stray bullet over the winter.

A supposedly stray bullet. He had been on his way back from visiting the Amish community and cut a little too close to Blackberry. Jeremiah and his crew knew Joey and Beth lived with me, and he might have been trying to send Sharkey and me a message. But I had no proof, and I wasn’t about to do anything without proof.

No matter how much I wanted to.

“You all right?” I asked as I came up the porch steps.

Beth nodded, smiling. “I’m fine. Sister Ruth is coming out to check on me this afternoon. She reckons to stay here until the baby is born. That all right with you?”

I nodded. The unassuming young Amish midwife was always welcome, and I certainly didn’t want to have to try and get the truck going or ride Sharkey’s damn horse pell-for-broke in the middle of the night to fetch her. The Amish didn’t have any of the shortwaves. One of our girls was her latest apprentice, just as another was apprenticing with the Doc. There were certain skills we daren’t lose. “The Doc’ll be on call, I take it?”

“He’s taught her fine how to do a Caesarean, Eddie.”

I jutted my chin out in my most stubborn manner. “I still want the Doc on call.”

“Fine. But I’ll be okay. I’ve done this before. What do you think?” She held up her work for my inspection. It was a tiny dress, just the right size for a newborn girl. I stared at it in bewilderment.

“Hell Beth, we have enough baby clothes for all of Tennessee and half of ‘Bama between what we’ve got here and the stockpile up at Elvis. What are you making more for?”

She shrugged, still smiling. “It’s a new baby. I figure she should have at least one new outfit.”

“Your call. Not mine. I’m going over to Sharkey’s. Keep an eye on Tim for me, would you?”

“Sure. What’s he up to now?”

“Jesus only knows. Not me.”

“Well, tomorrow’s Monday so he’ll be back in school and out of mischief then.”

Frankly, I thought having so much school was part of his problem. Sharkey may have taught me everything else he knew, but he somehow infected Tim with his love of books. I stopped inside long enough to have a glass of tea and then walked the quarter-mile over to Sharkey’s. There weren’t as many people packed into the house and the two trailers as there had once been but there was still plenty of people about, most of them around my age or even younger. Most of the household was out working before the heat really sat in for the day. Sharkey had gone into town for a trustee’s meeting and Mary Ellen had gone with him. But Todd, Mary Ellen’s husband, was there and I explained what Tim’s latest foolish notion was. He rolled his eyes.

“Those two! They’re the devil’s own children, I swear. We’ll keep an eye on Bobby, don’t worry, if ya’ll will keep an eye on Timmy. They’ll get it outta their heads soon enough.”

I nodded, and that was the last I thought of the incident, save for keeping a closer eye on Tim for a few days. Two weeks later I had forgotten about it completely. So when he asked to sleepover at Bobby’s I didn’t hesitate to say yes. School was out for the year and he’d been good all week, so I didn’t have any reason to say no.

The trouble was, he didn’t come back the next morning.

Crafting

2009-02-13T17:33:00.000-06:00

I have not spoken much of my crafting here. Perhaps I should, for we are going to need more skilled craftspeople if we are to live sustainably in the future. The ages of importing everything and extreme specialization are just about over. More and more people are going to need to start making more of their own goods, and perhaps selling the excess.

I have always been an arts and crafts type person. I like creating things of all sorts. Everything from my writing to more traditional crafts. I am also extremely sensitive to a wide range of chemicals, ranging from bleach to the artificial scents used by the beauty industry. I can not even walk down the cleaning aisle in a store or by a bath store without getting a headache. A few years ago I started making my own soap and lotion and lately I have started selling it at various local craft fairs. I make other things too, but these are currently the only things that I can actually sell. They are all natural, of course.

Now I have made a website on Etsy for my things. I am ridiculously proud of this. (Warning: Luddite playing with technology. Stand back. This could get ugly.) The story of getting it up and running could fill several pages. I had to borrow a digital camera, take the pictures, and then find a way to transfer the pictures to my computer. This was more difficult than it sounds, for the camera does not have a USB cable and my computer would not read the card. The lady I borrowed it from has had the flu going through her household so I could not come over to use her computer. After much searching, I finally found someone who had a computer that could actually read this card. It is a new format and apparently, no computer older than a few months can read it. But it gets even better. My friend’s computer is one of those new mini laptops. No CD drive. My memory stick wasn’t large enough. So, she has emailed me the photos over the past few days. One at a time. And I have spent hours getting it up and running. There’s not a lot there yet, but there will be soon. Check it out: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6869280
(As I said, I'm ridiculous proud of this.)

What are they going to eat?

2009-02-09T08:27:00.001-06:00

What are they going to eat?

Several of my friends have a problem. At least, I consider it to be a problem. They are picky eaters. I mean, really picky eaters. Most of them won’t eat soup. Or any salad more complex than the standard Caesar. They won’t eat greens. Or beans. Or squash. Most of their meals come from a drive thru. My best friend also has that strange almost disorder where she can’t stand it when different foods are touching. (Hence the reason she won’t eat soup: too many different foods mixed up.)

The next segment of my generation, who are currently between about 14 and 21, are even worse. Every single thing the majority of them eat comes from a drive thru, a box, or a bag. They’ve never seen raw meat, much less a chicken. They’ve never eaten a carrot. They know what peanut butter is but not peanuts. Step down the age ladder a bit more, and you see the same patterns, only even worse. Not too long ago I heard a six-year-old, when asked where a tomato comes from, proudly proclaim that they come from a certain big box store based in Arkansas.

I don’t think I need to go in-depth into the problems facing our world. Every one who reads this blog is certainly aware of them. But here’s a short list: economic depression, climate change, topsoil depletion, peak oil, peak water, drought, genetic engineering, and the breakdown of the industrial food system. This last is what concerns me most. Anyone with eyes to see can tell that our system of food production is slowly breaking down. This is only going to accelerate as time wears on and these other problems become worse. Relocalization is not really an option. It is going to be forced on us sooner rather than later. All of our food production is going to have to be done closer to home. Before many more years have passed there will be no more McDonald’s, no more Wendy’s or Subway or Burger King. There will be no more 3,000 mile Caesar Salads or chicken mcnuggets from a bag. No more corn chips, cheezdoodles, and soda pop.

Which has me seriously worried. Not so much for myself. I can grow food. I can find food –I know most of the local edible plants. I can even hunt if I get hungry enough. Oh, I wouldn’t want to, but I could and would. Not so most of my friends and the others my age and younger. Which leads me to a very important question:

What are they going to eat?

We are talking about people to whom food comes from a can. They could not recognize a carrot plant, or an okra plant, and wouldn’t know what to do with a carrot or some okra if they had it. They might recognize a tomato plant, if it had a red ripe tomato on it, but that is about the extent of their knowledge. Most of them wouldn’t know a pecan if one hit them on the head (quite literally, as that is often what happens). We have an entire generation and half of another one, with very few exceptions, who do not know what real food is. They do not know what it looks like or tastes like, how to grow it or how to cook it.

As the growth economy and the industrial food system continues their contraction and conditions deteriorate further, all those things mentioned above are going to slowly disappear. What are these children and young adults going to do? Are they slowly going to transition to squash and beans and soup, will they riot in the streets demanding their cheez doodles back, or are they going to go hungry? This is not an idle concern, especially as so many of those in this category are children and they are totally dependent on their parents, who have trained them to like this food (which they probably also eat) and who also do not have the skills necessary to grow or cook real food.

And none of this takes into account the very addictive properties of MSG. A major dietary shift coupled with withdrawal? That’s a recipe for disaster.

If you know someone who falls into this category and you have any influence over them at all, you can start trying to get them used to ‘real food’ now. Start slow. Invite him/her over to dinner if the person is a young adult and serve real food. For children, have some real snacks out the next time they come over. It is often necessary to eat a new food several times before adjustment takes place. At the very least, introducing these young people to real food now might help them to make the adjustment later. As for the rest…the Goddess help us. We are going to need it.

Odds and Ends

2009-02-06T07:45:00.001-06:00

The weather here has been absolutely crazy for the past three weeks or so. It generally is crazy to one extent or another these days, but it has been much worse. It will start with a really nice day or two or three –mid 50s, even 60s. Then we have a bad cold spell for about a week. When I say bad, I mean lows in the teens or single digits and highs in the 20s or 30s. Then it will slowly warm up and we will have another day or two of really nice weather. Then the cycle repeats. We are in our third or fourth round of this. The night before last the low was 12 with a windchill of 5 and the high was, oh, around 32 or so. Today and the next few days are going to be in the 50s and 60s. Sunday the temp is going to be 67 –and next week it is projected to cool down again. Does this seem to be completely ridiculous to anyone else?

There is a reason it is called ‘climate change’ and not just ‘global warming’. But I am beginning to wonder if we have shut down the North Atlantic Current and that might be plunging us into a temporary miniature ice age. I hope not, but it a possibility that some researchers have been warning against.

I ran out of frozen blueberries this week. I froze 15 pints last summer. Note to self: stop eating so many blueberries! LOL. I now have a website for my crafts but it is not completely up and running yet. I will post a link in a few days when I have it ready.

On a much more somber note, there have been three high-profile suicides around here in the past week. Two of them jumped off bridges into the river, and the third jumped off an overpass onto the highway. It makes me wonder how many more there have been that did not make the news. The financial crisis is resulting in a very human toll, and one that will only get worse as time goes on.

Here is a scary news report from China:
China Declares Drought Emergency
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7871964.stm
I don’t think I need to point out that this will be a disaster.

Corporate Psychopaths and Sociopaths: The Peanut Butter Killer

2009-02-02T08:06:00.000-06:00

Corporate Psychopaths and Sociopaths: The Peanut Butter Killer
psychopath psy·cho·path (sī'kə-pāth')n. A person with an antisocial personality disorder, especially one manifested in perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior.
sociopath [(soh-see-uh-path, soh-shee-uh-path)]
Someone whose social behavior is extremely abnormal. Sociopaths are interested only in their personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behavior on others. (Compare psychopath.)
(Both definitions from Dictionary.com)

The headlines have been everywhere. There is a massive recall of peanut butter and peanut butter products underway, courtesy of a salmonella outbreak from a peanut butter plant in Georgia. When I was at the store last night my receipt had a huge list of things on it that have been recalled.

More than 500 people have been made sick. Eight have died. But it gets worse. This same company has knowingly shipped products contaminated with salmonella over the past eighteen months. Let me repeat that: this company has knowingly shipped contaminated products, resulting in multiple deaths and illnesses. (Sources: NPR, the AP, etc.)

Let’s change things for a moment. Let’s assume that a single person was responsible for all this. What would the headlines say then? Not ‘peanut recall widens’ or ‘FDA investigation expands’. No, they would read something along the lines of: “Police Hunt for Peanut Butter Killer”. This person would be labeled a psychopath or sociopath, and rightly so. He or she would be charged with murder, or at least manslaughter.

But what will happen to this company? A fine, possibly some lawsuits. Then they will probably declare bankruptcy (to get around the fine and lawsuits) and be right back to manufacturing in a few months. A few people will lose their jobs. But that will be about it.

Does this make sense to anyone? It certainly does not make sense to me. Corporations are legally considered to be persons. They have all the rights of people. But none of the responsibilities. A person kills another person, and we scream “murder!”. But a corporation kills someone, and it is a ‘regrettable accident’. And yet, in this case as in many others, the incident was not an accident at all. It was a direct result of actions knowingly taken. The results could be foreseen. The corporation and its managers simply did not care. What is the definition of a psychopath again? A sociopath? I should think that if we could morph these companies into actual people we would quickly lock them all away.

This has got to STOP. We can not keep granting personhood to non-entities. This is what caused the Exxon Valdez spill, this is what caused the coal ash spill in Tennessee, and this is what killed 8 people. Other factions of our culture are also complicit, yes, but if these companies did not have personhood they could be held accountable. And they need to be.

Crow Attack

2009-01-30T08:03:00.000-06:00

I saw something incredible Wednesday morning. A group of crows has taken up residence in a stand of trees not too far from the back of my house. I have always been a bit fascinated by crows. I am not sure why, but they are very interesting birds. In our culture they are often associated with death and are considered morbid. I do not understand why this should be so because death is as natural a process as any other –but then, there are many things about our culture which I do not understand. My religion often pictures crows with the Goddess-as-Crone or the Goddess-as-Warrior.

Crows are always up to something. They are almost always doing something worth watching. Until Wednesday I had never seen them defend their nest. I had heard about this before, of course, and read about, but I had never seen it. It is one of those things you read about and think –no, that can’t be true.

Wednesday morning I went outside with the dogs. It was just after dawn. There was plenty of light but the sun had not yet rose over the mountain. The dogs went about their morning routine and I am watching them when suddenly this law “caw!” goes out. I look up and towards the stand of trees where the crows are nesting. I see nothing at first. “CAW!” went the sentry, louder and more demanding this time. Suddenly there was a great disturbance, and then an entire flock of crows starts screaming. Then they take wing and descend en masse to one area, cawing and screaming. I could not make out what the disturbance was, but I could see them through the winter bare trees. The next thing I know, the crows are doing some incredible aerobatics and chasing something through the trees. A few moments later it was over, and the crows had settled back onto their roosts. Occasionally one would caw and another would answer, but the intruder did not come back.

The whole episode only lasted a few minutes. But it was amazing to watch. Maybe there’s a lesson in there about community we humans could emulate? ;-)

A Bone To Pick

2009-01-27T18:30:00.001-06:00

(Note: the following is an open letter to our new president. It should be noted that I have no illusions Mr. Obama will actually read it, but I have a bone to pick and I intend to pick it.)

Mr. Obama,
Congratulations on your new job. I hope you are enjoying living in the White House. Has the reality of your new life set in yet? If not it should be soon. I am writing this letter in the vain attempt to help you see the light on the topic below. I know this attempt will be futile, but I have often been described as a ‘rat terrier with a bone’ when I get an idea into my head. So here goes.

First, let me say that I voted for you. Twice, in fact. Once in the primary and then again in the general election. This was not because I am enchanted with you, as so many are, but because I felt you were the best choice among the candidates. I will be the first to admit that I do not have high expectations of politicians. In fact, I have only three. I expect all politicians to breathe, take up far too much space and resources, and lie. I fully expect you will do all three during your tenure in the White House. That comes with the territory. Despite my low expectations I have decided to give you a chance and see what comes of your time in office before judging you. You certainly have gotten off to a better start than the shrub you replaced. I still intend to give you a chance but this does not mean you are going to get a free pass from me. Hardly. I will look at everything you do and scrutinize it. And I must say I have all ready found something that has caused me serious annoyance. More than annoyance; it made me downright angry.

I am not talking about those of your cabinet picks that have terrified so many liberals and progressives. I am not talking about your stance on Israel. Nor your stimulus package. Nor am I speaking of the new head of the Department of the Treasury. I am not happy about a man who could not pay his own taxes being put in charge of the IRS, but it was not my call. I presume you are intelligent enough to know that placing a man like Geithner at Treasury is akin to putting a fox in charge of guarding the chicken coop. I am also assuming you are wise enough in the ways of the world to know that there will be many Americans who are tired of paying taxes who look at this and think if he does not have to pay his taxes, then they should not as well. I also assume these people will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, unlike Geithner. Such is politics and life in the current climate.

No, I am not talking about any of these things. The issue on my mind goes back to your inauguration. You made a speech that day, one that was very good overall, but there was one line in that speech that just does not sit well with me. Even after a week, I still can not swallow it. That one line is the entire reason for this letter. The line was this: We shall not apologize for our way of life, nor waver in its defense.

Mr. Obama, this line irked me for one not-so-simple reason. You see, what you and many others fail to grasp, is that the way of life you were talking about –that prevalent in America today –is the problem. I know that you may not understand why I say this so please bear with me for a few moments.

I will admit that this way of life has produced some incredible things. We put men on the moon, for the sake of the one we both claim to hold most high. (That we call that one by different names hardly matters; I should think whatever is out there is big enough to encompass all of our different viewpoints.) Antibiotics were an incredible invention. Compact discs are amazing. Open heart surgery, organ transplants, all these are great.

But any open accounting must consider both sides of the ledger, and when you apply that to the lifestyle you refuse to apologize for, the picture darkens considerably. Our planet is warming, Mr. Obama, and is becoming increasingly inhospitable to human life. This is a direct consequence of America’s way of life. Ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising. Check out this video from Antarctica: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1_8pG53-eM

That way of life you are so proud of has caused the deforestation of vast regions of the planet and the extinction of countless species. Over 200 hundred species go into that dark night every single day. Entire mountains have been leveled to power our ‘non-negotiable way of life’. The waste from nuclear power plants will be with us for the next 100,000 years. Iraq and Afghanistan are covered with depleted uranium shells. That is a really great gift for the coming generations.

Our oceans are slowly turning to plastic, and marine life is dying in droves. Speaking of which, have you seen the warnings about overfishing? The last ever order of fish and chips will be served during our lifetimes. Pollution has increased to the point where comparisons to the past are no longer valid. Expensive water treatments are now absolutely necessary in many areas of the world, including here in the U.S. That Blackberry you are so proud of? It will last a few years and then spend the rest of eternity leaching heavy metals into the environment and poisoning people who live downstream. The creation of that little device also had a heavy impact on the area where it was created and the parts where mined, and that will go on for the next, oh, umpteen generations.

We are having problems finding places to park our garbage. The entire world is on the verge of a freshwater crisis. In a few short years there are going to be wars over water. Over water, Mr. Obama. There are dead zones in every major ocean. Our topsoils are washing down rivers. Do you know how important topsoil is? Try eating without it.

Every bit of this horror show is a direct result of our way of life. But it gets even worse. The obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer epidemics in this country are also direct results of our lifestyle. Our overconsumption of resources is also keeping resources from other areas of the world, causing much suffering and even death.

This does not paint a pretty picture. But it gets even worse if you stop to think about it. No matter how hard we try or how hard we work, we can not clean this all up. Not in our lifetimes. Not in our children’s children’s children’s lifetimes. Cleaning up this mess will be the work of many, many generations.

And that, in the end, will be the final legacy of this way of life you will not apologize for: we will bequeath a hot, hungry, thirsty, depleted and very dirty world to our descendants for the next hundred thousand years. That’s one hell of a legacy, Mr. Obama, and not a good one.

Maybe there’s a good reason you won’t apologize. If you started, how would you ever be able to stop?

Asking for help

2009-01-20T12:16:00.001-06:00

I have mentioned before that my goal is to eventually own a small piece of land and start my own small organic farm. One to two acres is my goal. My resolution for this year is to come up with the money to buy my land by the end of the year. That means I need from 5,000 to 8,000 dollars (maybe less if real estate prices keep crashing, hah). I’m pretty sure that I could come up with a thousand, maybe two. More than that would be out of the question unless I get a very good job soon. That does not look like it is going to happen, and my part time jobs barely make ends meet. Getting a mortgage in the current climate is not going to happen, and with things deteriorating the way they are I doubt I have more than another year, maybe two, to get things set up if I am going to do so. Unfortunately there are no foundations or programs (yet) to help young farmers get set up. This despite the fact that we need many more young small farmers in this country.

So I’ve decided to get over my considerable pride and ask for help. This is not an easy thing for me to do. I have always been fairly self-sufficient. Even as a young child I mostly took care of myself. Granted, I didn’t have much choice as my parents could not in the least be considered the ‘nurturing’ type. My father was never around much and my mother was severely mentally ill and not capable of taking care of herself, much less her children. Asking for help for anything is very hard for me. I sometimes think my task in this life is to learn to live in community more.

I am going to be doing a number of things this year to try and raise extra money. But I am also going to do something now that goes against my very nature. I am asking for donations. I know that times are tough in many areas and are probably going to get worse. But if you are among the lucky few who still have some extra money, and you would like to help a young farmer get set up, please consider donating a few bucks. If for some reason you do wish to donate, you can go to paypal. My account is europa59rs@yahoo.com. I am a verified merchant. I promise that any money given will be used only for this purpose. I am not going to become an aggressive panhandler –I promise this will be the only post you’ll ever see where I ask for money –but I will provide updates on my progress towards the goal. I will also give regular updates on what else is going on and how things are moving along. When I get closer to my goal I will try and offer ‘shares’ of future output to some local people. My regular readers know that I am a poet, and if you give $10 I’ll even write you a custom poem (on a subject of your choice, with a few exceptions) as a thank you.

When and if I succeed in getting my land, I am going to do my best to feed not only myself but as many others as possible. I shall also do my best to help others get set up and learn to grow food as well. These are skills we are all going to need in the coming days.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and if I have offended anyone (aside from myself and my own sense of propriety, that is), you have my apologies. And Happy Inauguration day.

Cats and their toys

2009-01-19T13:30:00.003-06:00

Last night my cat was playing in the kitchen with one of her mice. You know -one of the stuffed cotton ones that are ubiquitous in pet stores. She has, oh, at least a dozen of them. A short time later I come back into the kitchen to see her in front of the stove with her paw underneath and a determined expression on her face. Her tongue was actually sticking out a little bit. It was quite clear what had happened: the mouse had gotten under the stove and she was trying to fish it out. I watch for a moment. After a bit she gives up and saunters off with one of those 'I meant to do that' looks.

I decided to help her out and so pulled the pan drawer out from the stove so I could get the mouse. Um, make that mice. Until last night I had not ever pulled out that drawer. I started pulling out mice, and balls, and fish, and things with feathers on them that I don't even remember buying. I gave up when the count reached a dozen and just tossed them over the kitchen floor. A very happy kitty pounced on the mice and began to play.

Two hours later I walk back in, and most of the mice are gone. A certain kitty is sitting by the stove, looking at me expectantly.
Cats. Lol.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Tales from the land of the odd

2009-01-18T10:36:00.001-06:00

Here’s some examples of the kind of craziness currently running around where I am:

On Friday I bought toilet paper at the store. This is a regular occurrence, as you might imagine. I have not yet gotten to the point where I can nix the toilet paper. Last year at this time the brand of toilet paper I buy was $0.98 for a package of six rolls. Over the past year the price has gradually climbed to $1.27 for the same package. But now something else has changed. They have thinned the paper itself dramatically –to the point where it now takes a handful to equal one or two sheets of the old stuff. It is now the crappiest toilet paper I have ever seen. (Bad pun intended.)

Second incident. I was fired from one of my odd jobs doing yard work a few weeks back. This work was for an old-school aristocratic woman who was basically the boss from hell. I only kept working for her as long as I did because I needed the money. She only had one real complaint (aside from the fact that sometimes when she called me, the phone went to voicemail because, gasp, I was unable to answer the phone): I did not have all the leaves raked and bagged before Thanksgiving. She wants someone who can work on a tighter schedule than that. Well, that is fine. I understand. Except for one thing: The vast majority of her leaves did not even come down until the week right before Christmas! All the leaves around here were late to fall this year, but apparently nature is supposed to work on her schedule too. ;-)

Final incident. Last week I attended a talk by the head of the local food bank. His talk was on the increasing need for food donations and so on. (By the way, before the economy started tanking they all ready serviced nearly 10% of the area’s population. That number has increased dramatically.) A good portion of his talk was concerned with the intense desire of the food bank to start handing out healthier food because most of what they get is junk food. He put out a call for people to donate healthy food. After the talk, I asked him about the possibility of some of the gardeners in the area (myself included) donating fresh, excess produce next year). He refused point blank because ‘it is too hard to distribute’. They welcome produce, but only of the canned or frozen variety (store bought of course). How is this helping the people? More and more people are going hungry and the industrial food system is breaking down. And yet this madness persists.

My Garden

2009-01-16T17:37:00.000-06:00

I realized recently that I have never adequately described my garden on here, so I thought it was about time I did. I live on less than 1/5 of an acre. Part of that includes a house and a bunch of (very) tall shade trees. Much of the remainder is unsuitable for cultivation due to a steep slope. When I moved here I wasn’t exactly thinking about gardening. ;-)

My garden beds are mostly in the back, save for a few herbs in the front. I garden in raised beds. That is pretty much the only option I have to prevent erosion as much of the yard slopes gently. The beds are constructed or untreated timber and are each four feet wide. Most of them are 8 feet long, save for one that is 24 feet. I’ve been intending to extend the others but it has not happened yet. The beds were originally filled with a mixture of topsoil and humus, and that has since been amended with fertilizer, manure, etc. I prepared the beds by two different methods. The first was a variation on the double-dig method first promoted by Ecology Action. In this method, before I ever put the beds themselves down, I dug up the sod and loosened the soil down to a depth of about eight inches with my garden fork and spade. The second method was a much simpler (and less time consuming) method I read about in another book. In this method, I left the originally sod in place, but put down cardboard and newspaper before building and filling the beds. The difference in productivity was obvious from the very first season –the former method outdid the latter by almost 2 to 1 in health of the plants and yield. The original soil was good old Alabama clay. It’s fertile, but thick and hard to work with. And stony. I like to say I dug my weight in rocks out of the beds I double dug and that is probably about accurate. I was lucky enough to have a neutral pH so I did not need to add anything to alter it.

What else do I have? Two fruit trees. One is a Golden Delicious apple tree. It has yet to bear and may not, as it’s infected with cedar apple rust from a cedar tree my neighbors planted. The other is a Belle of Georgia peach tree. I got my first peach from it last year, and that was by far the best peach I have ever eaten. I also have some blackberry bushes and a few flower beds. All told, I have less than one-fifth of my area under cultivation (that is about 4% of an acre) and I am able to dramatically cut my food bill because of it. I am about at the limit of expansion possibilities here because of the slope.

So that’s my garden.

Seed Catalogs

2009-01-13T19:39:00.003-06:00

It's that time of the year again. Seed catalogs have been pouring into my mailbox over the past few weeks. I'm a sucker for them. During this time of the year I will spend hours poring over them, a pen in hand, dreaming of growing green things while the landscape outside is cold and dreary. I have all ready gotten nine seed catalogs this year. Of course, I do not order from that many companies but I seem to have a talent for getting on gardening mailing lists. Here are my favorite seed companies:
Bountiful Gardens, out of Willits, Ca -they are part of Ecology Action, which does research into Sustainable Gardening. They are not a big seed house, but their products are affordable and the quality is high. All of their products are open-pollinated.

Territorial Seed out of Cottage Grove, Oregon -They have a huge selection, but some of their things are hybrids. I've had good luck with the things I've tried.

Seeds of Change -all organic, the corporate 'good guy'. They have a lot of nice offerings you can't get elsewhere, especially not organically.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds -all open-pollinated and the owner started it when he was in his teens.

Southern Exposure Seed Catalog -a worker owned collective focusing on producing seeds for the Southeast U.S. I had problems with some of their seeds last year, but that might be a fluke as everyone else I know has had good luck.

This is what I would like to grow this year:
Pole Beans
Dry Beans
Corn
Carrots
Beets
Brussel Sprouts
Broccoli
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Collards
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Garlic
Onions
Kale
Lettuce/Salad mixes
Beetberry
Mustard
Melons
Watermelons
Okra
Parsnips
Parsley
Peas
Peppers -Sweet and hot
Sweet Potatoes
Pumpkins
Radishes
Turnips
Spinach
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash -yellow crookneck, zucchini, and scallop at least
Winter Squash -butternet, acron, and vegetable spaghetti
Tomatoes -several kinds, including yellow pear, roma, and cherokee purple (three of my favorites)
More herbs

Is that enough? Lol. But with my situation, I probably will not grow anything.

Options

2009-01-12T09:00:00.001-06:00

I have been looking long and hard at my options for moving forward in the past few months. For some time I have been considering a move to a different region of the country and I have finally concluded that it is not going to happen. I would have a very hard time supporting myself in either the northwest or the northeast, and I would have to give up all hope of ever owning my own land. I could buy an entire farm here for the price of an acre or two in most places. I’m also a child of summer and am not sure I could live someplace where winter temps often dip into the minus scale. And yes, there are bad things here in the south but there are good things too –we have incredible forests and mountains. Some of the prettiest country in the world is within reach of my home. And I do have something of a support system here, as evidenced by all the help I received when my car finally bit the dust last month. So I’ve decided to dig here. I know this land and the people.

But that only covers part of the story. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I want to own my own land. Not much –an acre or two. I want to run an organic intensive farm and grow most of my own food as well. Give me my small piece of land and I can make it bloom. I feel like I am running out of time to make this happen as the economic crisis deepens and the world spins into collapse. I have the feeling that this year and possibly next are going to be the last years anything works ‘normally’. I can buy an acre or two here for between 5 and 8k –not pocket change, but not out of reach either. That’s good land, too. The question is, how can I get that money? My current house isn’t likely to sell anytime soon, given the economy, and I am having trouble maintaining my current state as things are. Any month things could slip. A mortgage for the plot of land isn’t an option, given my income. I could come up with a thousand, but not much more.

So I’m asking for advice and suggestions. All help is appreciated.

Doing what we can

2009-01-11T09:19:00.001-06:00

“I can’t save the world. I don’t even want to try. I don’t even care if I save one person. I just want to get my degree and make more money than god.”
“You told them that?” I asked, astonished.
“Yes. Why not?”
“And they admitted you?”
“Yes. They don’t care. They all went into the medicine for the money too. Someday, if I make it all the way to being a cardiac surgeon, I’ll make upwards of a million dollars a year, drive a Porsche, and live in a high-rise luxury condo. How much money are you going to make in whatever rinky-dink little job you have?” (Said as if the difference in our future net worths was all that mattered about us.)

The above is from a conversation with a classmate several years ago. I was a freshmen in college, she was a senior who had just returned from her admissions interview at one of the finest medical colleges in the country. They had admitted her on the spot. This girl came from an upper middle class family and had decided to come to our little school to ‘save money for med school’ rather than take a full scholarship to an ivy league school. Or so she said. Really, she came there so that she could lord it over other students who weren’t as bright and/or as well off. (She never liked me because I was even smarter than she was, and as a freshmen was in some of the same classes, so she deliberately tried to aw me and put me down. It was just like high school all over again.) She made no secret of the fact that she was going into medicine, and hopefully cardiac surgery, so that she could become very wealthy. Now, I picked my major over money as well but I had a different goal –enough money to keep a roof over my head, food on the table, and give to charity. Being wealthy was not even on the list.

Years later, that conversation still haunts me. Why? Because of this part. “I can’t save the world.” She said. And even then, I was thinking. “You could at least try.” I was laboring under no assumptions that any one person could actually save the world. Even then, I knew better. I grew up in hell itself, and clawed my way out by the skin on my teeth. That kind of upbringing tends to strip away many of our cherished illusions. And yet, I was less cynical than someone who had been infinitely more sheltered than myself.

No, I can’t save the world. Neither can she. Or you. Or anyone else. None of us, by ourselves, can save the world. But all of us together? Or a large number of us? If everyone in the world, or even the majority of us, joined together, then yes, we could save the world. I will be the first to admit that that is not likely to happen. Not anytime soon, at any rate. But does that mean that there is nothing we can do? That we are doomed to failure, to watching the world crumble and burn before our eyes? Hardly.

I am reminded of an old, old parable. I first heard it when I was a small child. It will periodically be passed around on email lists. It goes something like this: There has been a great storm at sea. Much damage has been done to the sea, and the creatures that live there. On the morning after the storm passes the beach is littered with jetsam and flotsam. Among the storm debris are many thousands of starfish who have been flung from the water. They lay on the sand, futilely trying to return to the water and slowly dying. A man comes walking along the shore. Every time he sees a starfish, he picks it up and flings it back into the waves. Another man comes walking down the beach. He watches the first man in silence for sometime, as more and more starfish are tossed back into the water. Finally, he approaches the man and asks him “Brother, why do you trouble yourself this way? Why do you do this? You can not possibly save them all.” The other man is silent for a moment. Then he says softly. “No, I can not.” He picks up another starfish and flings it back into the water. “But I saved that one.” He walks on, and continues in his lonely job. The other man stares after him, perplexed.

This story is more than a simple parable. It illustrates two different ways of looking at the world. One man sees the world as so flawed nothing can be done to save it. Why bother to do anything? You can’t save them all. The other man also recognizes the problems inherent in the world. He knows he can not save all the starfish. But instead of despairing, he walks down to the beach and beings throwing starfish back into the water. No, he can not save them all. But by his efforts, some of them will be saved and a tragedy will be lessened.

There is a lesson in this for all of us. Who do we wish to be –the man who saves the starfish, or the one who looks on in confusion, humor, or despair? In these times this is far more than an academic question. Dark times are upon us and a Shadow is spreading through the world. What is happening is not easy to bear and what is coming will be even worse. Even when it is all over, in perhaps our grandchildren’s lifetimes, there will still be much work to do. All the ills of industrial civilization will still need to be cleaned up. There will probably be even more devastation before it is over, as the coal ash spill in Tennessee proves. There is an area up there right now that is doing an adequate impression of Mordor. There will be even more such in the times to come.

How do we respond to this? In despair, or hopelessness? Or, like the first man, by picking up the nearest starfish? We can not do everything. Nor can we save everything. But if we try, perhaps more will be saved than would otherwise be the case. Perhaps we can do something. If enough of us band together, perhaps we can even save the world.

The choice is ours.

Um, hello?

2009-01-07T07:41:00.002-06:00

I'll be back with a longer post in a couple of days, but I wanted to post this quickly. NPR did something that was rather funny in a gallows sort of humor way. Their first story in the business news section was the rapid increase in unemployment nationwide and how this has crashed computer systems in some states.
Their second story? A piece about a tech convention and all the new gadget we just have to buy.
Um, hello? Anyone home? And this is from the best member of the mainstream media. We need to wake up.

You're not that (bleep) special

2008-12-30T16:48:00.001-06:00

I know I said that I would not post this week, but I have an axe to grind and some frustration to vent before I take it out on someone who does not deserve it. And no, the novel isn’t done yet.

Here is what I would like to say to all the New Age/Pagan/Wiccan/Progressive and even Christians who believe that everything we will becomes reality, that we can merely ‘think’ things into being, that the universe manifests your desires, the Lord will provide, or that The Secret works: get over yourselves. Now.

I am not saying that attitude is not important, or beliefs, or any of that. I am merely saying that the universe/God/whatever does not exist to help you out and fulfill your every whim. What brought this little rant on? The large number of people who, while trying to be helpful with my current transportation situation, have told me to help ‘think a car into being’ or ‘throw my desire and need into the universe and the universe will provide’ or a dozen similar iterations of such poppycock.

Let’s look at this for a moment. Let’s assume it works. Okay, the universe manifests anything you desire if you want it or need it badly enough. Okay, fine. Let’s run with that. Now, unless I have the statistics off (they are probably considerably higher than the last time I looked) 25,000 people died of starvation yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Another 20,000 died from dehydration or diseases stemming from dirty water. Countless thousands more were murdered, raped, tortured, all of the above, or had other unspeakable acts committed against them. A significant number of these were innocent children. Now, I’m assuming that every one of these people were fervently wishing/praying/hoping for food, water, or safety until the very end. I could be wrong, but hey, what do I know? Clearly, the universe did not manifest these things for them.

And yet, according to this theory, it will work for me. Here I sit, typing on a computer with internet access in the richest country in the history of the planet. I have a roof over my head (however tenuously), food in my belly, clean water to drink, even electricity. And the universe/God/whatever will provide me with a luxury like a car and not give a two-year-old a drink of water? I don’t think so.

What are we really saying here? That some people are better, more deserving, more worthy or special than others? Now we’re getting somewhere. Because if I am better than that two-year-old, or more worthy, or deserving, than of course the universe would prefer me to that baby.

Um, no. I don’t think so. Furthermore, I don’t have a right to so much as ask. Here’s a newsflash to all of those people above: You’re not that f**king special. Get over yourself.

Taking a break for a few days

2008-12-27T05:04:00.001-06:00

The blog is going to be quiet for the next week. There's a double reason for this. The first is that I am taking a mid-winter break. The second is that I am going to try and finish this draft of my novel by my (self-imposed) deadline of New Year's. Wish me luck, and feel free to yell if I post.

My car died this morning

2008-12-22T09:53:00.000-06:00

My car died this morning. In a flurry of smoke and sparks. I mean it is D-E-A-D, dead. Stick a fork in it. All it needs is a few shotgun holes in the side to complete the effect, which, if I was in the country, it would probably have at this point. (Discharging a gun within the city limits is illegal, which is stupid. If it’s my car and my gun, f*** off as far as I’m concerned.) It’s an old Oldsmobile, 18 with 110,000 miles on it. My last American car was a Ford and it too died at 18 with about the same number of miles on it. This is why I hate American cars: they are pieces of sh*t. I know at least thirty people with Japanese cars older than this one and at least twice the miles which are still running fine. I know one girl who has one (a Toyota I think, but I’m not sure) with over 400,000 miles on it and all she’s replaced is the transmission.

Oh, I could fix the car. But replacing the transmission alone would be a minimum of $1500 bucks and it has other problems. Like the massive oil leak, the bad shocks, the non-working heat, ac and defroster, and most of the electronics. The car is d-e-a-d. Now I have to figure out how to get to work this week…

Deep in the Dark of the Longest Night

2008-12-21T09:15:00.003-06:00

Deep in the dark of the longest night
We keep our vigil by candlelight
Waiting to sing to the newborn sun
The universe will birth when the night is done

See the sun arising,
See the sun arising;
Darkness is gone!

Yesterday was the winter solstice, a High Holy day for pagans, and last night was the longest night of they year. I did not stay up all night as is the old custom, primarily for two reasons: I am still recovering from being very ill, and staying up all night by yourself is much different than doing so in a group of celebrants. At 6:04 this morning CST the sun reached its farthest point on the ecliptic and began its long journey back. From that moment on, there will be a little more light and a little less darkness every day until the Summer Solstice. Then the cycle will repeat, every year as it has done since the dawn of time and will continue to do until the end of time.

The sun returned in two ways this morning. First, the Solstice of course. Second, the weather has been really bad here for the past three weeks. It has been raining almost every day, and even when it hasn’t been, the sky has still been overcast. The only times it has been clear is at night. But when I rose this morning, the sky was clear of all save a few wisps of cloud. The newborn sun arose, a ball of liquid fire over the mountain. Despite the chill I ate my breakfast on the front porch, basking in the light. Welcome back, Ra! Apollo! Pan!

This is also the first day of winter, the time of the great cold and darkness. The Crone is in her full majesty right now –the old woman who holds all the wisdom of age, who guards the gates of Death and the keys to every world. The time of cold is upon us, the time of endings and transitions, the time of dark and cold. But, the Light is returning and each day spring will be a little bit closer, and the time will soon come when the maiden, newly born again, will frolic in fields of flowers and new grass.

This Solstice is a bit bitter sweet, for winter and the time of darkness has not just come to the world in the form of the ancient cycle of seasons. Our culture, our world, has also entered a time of darkness and we have not yet reached the longest night. Things are shifting, changing. Everything that once seemed secure is starting to shift. The moorings are coming loose. Deep in the corners, in the shadows, the whispers are beginning, the dreaded word that sends chills up the spine: depression. I heard them yesterday, even at the Solstice celebration. You can see the worry on peoples face, in the way they hold their bodies and clutch at their purses. I only made a quarter of what I usually make at the annual solstice fair. Part of that was the weather –it was pouring rain all day –but part of it must be attributed to the economy. Even here, in one of the most recession proof areas of the country, the affects are being felt. Stores are closing, people are being laid off, the discounts are amazing. And people are starting to worry.

You have no idea, I want to tell them. We are not facing a depression. We are facing a complete change in our way of life. Oil is almost gone. So are numerous other resources. We have built our entire way of life on a house of cards, a giant Ponzi scheme that has to come crashing down. We have forgotten the first rule of the natural world: Everything is interconnected, and when you touch one thing, you touch all things. We have also forgotten the second rule: Everything has a price. Everything. We’ve gotten away with not paying any prices for so long that we think there are not any. But there are, and the bill is beginning to come due. There must be a day of reckoning. And while that day may last more like a century or two, come it will. The first stirrings are being felt now, like the first leaves to drop in autumn. More will come.

It is going to be a long, long night and a rough winter. Much will change. Much will be destroyed. But, dawn will come. It always does. The Light will return.

One planet is turning
Circle on her path around the Sun
Earth Mother is Calling her children home
Light is returning, although this is the darkest hour
No one can hold back the dawn
Let’s keep it burning
Let’s keep the light of hope alive
Make safe the journey through the storm

Ostentatious Displays of Wealth

2008-12-17T08:18:00.000-06:00

One of the more, um, interesting aspects of living in the south is that ostentatious displays of wealth are not considered tacky. This has a long history, going back to the days of plantations and the Lord of the Manor. Keep in mind the south was settled by some of the biggest losers in the old world who were eager to ‘get theirs’. The displays toned down during the War (that being the Civil War, to you northerners) and the Depression, but came back each time. I fully expect them to disappear again soon. In a severe recession/depression, such displays are stupid and dangerous. But in the meantime, I still have to put up with displays like the one I witnessed on Sunday.

Sunday afternoon is house shopping day around these parts, and yes, people are still looking and buying. We haven’t really been hit yet. Unless the government goes out of business, we’re fairly well insulated. So I usually have to clear out with the dogs come Sunday afternoon. The cat stays and tells off anyone who comes to look at the house. (She is Siamese when I please, she is Siamese when I don’t please…) So, this week I went to a nearby coffee shop. I’m not a big fan of coffee shops –overpriced coffee not being appealing to someone in my financial situation. But this one is a local store and as much of a community center and hang-out spot as a coffee shop. They also allow you to bring your dogs out on their terrace and patio.

And I will admit, I had another reason for going there: I have a huge crush on one of the baristas there. She is incredibly beautiful, smart, funny. You know the type: the ones you know instinctively are out of your league but can’t help but fall for anyway. Well, lo and behold, I was lucky and she was working. The shop has this new rule that says you have to buy something to hang out there and while I don’t much care for that, she was working so I decided to stay, and hang out inside for a bit. I had to pay a buck fifty for a cup of hot chocolate. Yeah, I shouldn’t have done it, but trying telling that to my hormones. It’s cheaper than asking her out to dinner. At least it was good hot chocolate. And she gave me whipped cream and didn’t charge me for it.

So anyway, I sitting there sipping my overpriced cup of hot chocolate and trying to think of something (anything, but preferably something that wouldn’t make me sound like a moron) that I could say to this girl when an SUV pulls into the parking lot. This was one of those fancy ones –the kind that costs more than a lot of houses. A woman and her daughters come in. They are dressing in designer clothing. The woman has enough jewelry on her hands to buy my house, including a ruby that would choke a horse. They come in, acting like they own the place (which I know for a fact they don’t) and proceed to not only flaunt their wealth (the ruby was a Christmas gift and she made sure to shove it under everyone’s nose) but treat the staff and others present like absolute crap. Obviously, these people do not care about any ‘recession’ and how its affecting ‘the little people’.

I had to resist the urge to fling my hot chocolate in the woman’s face. Hey, I’m human. I’m not sure if the impulse was motivated mostly by the display or by the way she was treating the girl I’m crushing on and probably never will. So here’s one good thing that may come out of this: less annoying rich people.

What will we do?

2008-12-11T14:52:00.001-06:00

What will we do?

What will we do
When the last car dies
And the last bus runs out of fuel?
When the last phone goes dead
And the last radio crackles and falls silent?
When the last tv flickers off
And the last dvd is broken?
When the grid goes down
And all the distractions end?
Perhaps, perhaps, we shall leave
Our stifling, confining, limiting abodes
And go across the hall or the dead concrete jungle
To knock on a neighbor’s door
Perhaps we shall say ‘Hi, how are you?
I do not know you, but maybe we could sit and chat?’
Perhaps the neighbor will say ‘I suppose,
But I was just about to have dinner. It’s just rice,
But at least it’s something.’
And maybe we shall say ‘I have some beans,
How about we eat together?’
Then perhaps we shall sit and talk and dine together
And watch our children play, who have never met
Then perhaps we shall start to realize
How bad the old world was
And start to build something new
Together.

Christmas Gifts

2008-12-10T17:39:00.000-06:00

I got a $25 gift card from work for Christmas. I was very surprised and pleased by this, what with the economy being the way it is and the fact that I am a very part time employee. This card was to a very well-known big box store, but I could care less. Now, in other times I would have used this card to buy something I really want –a book or a CD, but not necessarily something I need. Not anymore. As soon as I got it I started figuring out what I could get from the list of things I need with that card. I think I did fairly well, and it is a sign of how desperate retailers are that I was able to do this. Here’s what I bought:
-A large grannyware stockpot that I will use for everything from making stew to jam.
-A very nice bread pan to replace the one that broke a while back.
-A 1/2 gallon glass container for food storage
-A large tin of my favorite holiday spiced tea
And all I had to pay was a bit in change. I keep staring at that stockpot and wishing it is spring. Strawberry jam, anyone?

Sorry about the lack of new posts

2008-12-07T07:57:00.001-06:00

Especially longer ones. I've been sick for about a week and a half. While I'm on the mend now, I'm nowhere back to normal. I'll return as soon as possible.

Purging

2008-12-01T08:09:00.002-06:00

But first things first -it's snowing! Not a lot, but it is still surprising. None of it is sticking and it is slowly converting into slushy ice but waking up to find snow coming out of the sky here in Alabama is a momentous event. It has snowed twice here in the past six years, both time in the deepest part of winter. We have all ready been having a harder winter than usual and this is just icing on the cake.

Back to the actual subject of the post. I am slowly purging everything I don't need and that isn't actually useful. For instance, I am getting rid of most of my dvds. I will keep a few -my favority movies, but that is it. I've never owned a lot of them but when I am done I will only have a handful. I am also getting rid of my old playstation. It still works, but I haven't played it in years so why am I still hauling it around?

Some things I am not purging include my books (save for a very few) and my cds (I will give up my cds when they turn into expensive coasters and nothing else). It feels good to be letting go of the excess.

Brrr...

2008-11-23T08:01:00.000-06:00

Winter has arrived and with a vengeance. Last year I was picking tomatoes up until the 7th of January –granted, these were from the plants that were up against the south side of my house, but still. Not this year. We had a record low Friday night and it has been in the twenties or lower for the past five nights and that is expected to continue for the next few days. Tomorrow we are going to have a lot of rain and then it will freeze again in the night which means…ice. A bit, at least.

My winter garden does not like this cold. The mustards and collards are fine, but I may have lost the lettuce and the chard. Why is the chard such a big deal? This chard I grow is tough –incredibly so. It takes heat, cold, drought, flooding rain, and everything in between. But it might not have been able to withstand this long cold snap. I’m waiting to see if it comes back before I make any judgments.

In broader economic news, I was watching the news at work yesterday morning and this two-bit pinhead of an economic pundit comes and starts talking about how people need to pare down their budgets for the tough times (true) but then says, basically, it’s going to be survival of the fittest and if you can’t make it, tough. Go crawl off in a corner somewhere and die. I am so sick of that attitude. It is the worst kind of the snobbish, I-am-better-than-you nonsense that has permeated this country for the past couple of generations. But I have news for these people: if enough people end up hungry, homeless, out of work and so forth, and that attitude is still prevailing among the powers that be, the situation will be solved the same way it has been historically: by pitchforks and torches, or the modern equivalent thereof.

Incident

2008-11-18T19:54:00.001-06:00

I’ve been debating about whether or not to write about this. It doesn’t specifically pertain to the main topics of this blog, but it is indirectly related. After much thought I decided to go ahead and write about it. An incident occurred yesterday that had left me much shaken and I am just now getting over it.

I have long postulated that as things got worse there would be an increase in the incidence of hate crimes, harassment, and other things relating to protected categories. Crime in general tends to go up during bad times. I have lived in the south all my life and have only experienced direct discrimination for being a lesbian once and until yesterday had never actually experienced a problem because of my religion. I’ve heard stories about both and know they happen, and I’ve also heard by word of mouth that the number of such incidents is on the rise.

I have been very open about my beliefs on this blog, but before I go any further I want to be sure it is made clear that I do not care what anyone else believes in. You can be a Christian, Buddhist, atheist, Jew, or a worshipper of a two-headed purple polka-dotted space alien named Zeus from the planet Nylon for all I care. I am cool with it as long as two stipulations are met: the first is that you don’t harm anyone (if you have a religion that promotes ritual human sacrifice, for instance, you and I are going to have a problem) and the second is that you respect my right to do the same. Don’t try to force me to convert, discriminate against me, start a holy war or otherwise try to impose your belief system and we are fine.

What happened was this: I wear my pentagram just about everywhere (save work). It is a large part of who I am, and that symbol means a lot to me, in the same way that a crucifix means a lot to Christians. I was walking my dog and this guy starts talking to me. He’s a little crazy anyway and he sees my pentagram and recognizes it. Now, nine out of ten people never notice it and the ones that do usually have no idea what it means. But then you get the nuts who thinks it’s a symbol of Satanism. This guy was one of these. So he starts shouting at me and ranting on about the devil and Satan and hell and all of this crap and he starts following me. He followed me halfway home. I nearly had to mace him. (Yes, I carry mace and I’m thinking of getting a gun and a permit –I have no problems with self-defense, and this being Alabama, its easy to do.)

The incident left me a bit shaken, and very, very angry. I do not care if this man believes in Christ, hell, the devil or the afore-mentioned Zeus, but I have the right to be left the fu*k alone to believe whatever I care to believe. I was telling someone about this today and she suggested I should stop wearing the pentagram because it is ‘not prudent’ and ‘might offend’ someone. I do not care whether or not it is prudent or if someone gets offended. If someone gets offended, that is their problem and not mine; they need to deal with their own insecurities. As far as prudence –I’ve spent too much of my life on my knees and crawling through muck to please others. I will not hide who and what I am. I am my own person and intend to remain that way. The most important thing in this world is freedom and I intend to keep mine. I’ll pay whatever price I have to, but I will do so. As Patrick Henry once said ‘give me liberty or give me death!’ And, to quote someone else I’ve read on the blogosphere ‘I’ll die on my feet before I live on my knees’.

Thank Goodness for Senators with sense

2008-11-17T18:10:00.001-06:00

Like Senator Shelby. I do not like Senator Shelby. I do not try to hide the fact; he and I disagree on almost everything and I have voted against him ever since I became eligible.

But he has shown a remarkable amount of sense since this financial crisis started. He voted against the first bailout and is engineering the stalemate to keep the automakers from getting bailed out. For that I am grateful; we do not, under any circumstances, need to bail out Detroit. They are dead men (companies) walking. Who's going to buy their products anyway, in a bad economy with credit frozen?

What do I think we should do instead? Start directing money towards rebuilding infrastructure and the railroads. Those are projects with a future.

Winter has arrived

2008-11-17T08:05:00.000-06:00

Winter has arrived. Old Man Winter and The Crone are making themselves known. We’ve had hard frost the past two nights and it is going to be one cold week –an Alberta Clipper is coming through tonight. I sleep more in the winter, partly because of the dark and partly because of the cold. We are just over a month from the winter solstice and then the light will start coming back.

My garden is all tucked in for winter and has been for some time. I have some cleaning up to do, but that is it. Just about everything is taking a well-deserved nap. My greens, however, are not –we can grow certain greens year round here if we get them in the ground soon enough. Spinach, collards, cabbage, mustard, chard, lettuce –all survive our winters just fine. Some of them stop growing for a bit if it gets too cold, but they resume as soon as it warms up. Part of the purpose of getting them in the ground early is so they get big enough for you to keep picking if they hibernate.

Winter is my least favorite time of the year, but still I love it. I love the nippy air, the frost on the windows in the morning. Hot apple cider and hot tea, soup, and pumpkin pie. Time off from my gardening to do other things, cuddling on the couch with all my animals in the evening (who needs heat when you have pets, lol). Parties and festivals, bundling up and the chance for snow.

Last night I made a healthy dinner –baked chicken, mashed potatoes and mixed greens from the garden. Tonight I’ll take some of the leftover chicken and make chicken soup, then I’ll freeze the rest of the meat (sans enough to have leftovers from last night tomorrow) so I have a ready source of cooked meat the next time I decide to make chicken soup or a chicken pot pie.

The funny thing is, winter is here and two of my rose bushes are still blooming. They are on the south side of my house where it is sheltered. Usually they bloom until the first week of December. They are gorgeous, but completely out of season. Oh well.

Jobs and Randoms Thoughts

2008-11-15T01:30:00.001-06:00

I’ve had a pretty rough week. I was offered and then lost two jobs this week. The first I had to turn down; it turned out to be a high-pressure sales job and there is no way I could do the 100 mile (each way) commute they wanted me to do. It was well-paying, but that was all that could be said for it. The second job was a part-time temporary holiday job for minimum wage at a well-known department store. They offered me the job and then changed their mind when they found out I had some blemishes on my credit. (No? I’ve been out of work for a while and I’ve had credit issues…surprise, surprise.) They don’t hire people with blemishes on their credit. I almost told them what I thought of that, but then thought better of it.

Their dress code made me think even more about telling them off. What kind of company requires you to manicure your nails? Oh, and they allow fashionable open-toed shoes, but they forbid socks and demand you have your feet pedicured if you wear them. Um, yeah, okay…am I the only one who thanks this is completely crazy?

Look, I am not a lazy person. I am perfectly willing to put in a good day’s work. But I need the job first. And I also would like to be treated like a human being and not a robot or a slave. Is that too much to ask? Apparently.

I have been reading a lot of books on pagan theology. As anyone who has read this blog for a while knows, I am a devout pagan. I do not belong to any of the traditional paths; rather, I am an eclectic who goes my own way, in religion as everything else. Part of my problem with most of the ‘traditional’ paths, and with many of my fellow pagans in general (and this is not meant as an insult) is that many of them tend to be…rather fruity. Let me give you a couple of examples. First, one of the most well-known leaders of the pagan community looks completely crazy, and I am not talking about clothing –this person has that wide-eyed half there look of the meth addicts I see at the treatment center. This person’s writings often only help to emphasize that. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that, but if you want people to take you seriously, this is who your leaders are? Secondly, I was recently reading something by another well-known leader in the pagan community. She was talking about the Goddess Artemis. But during this discussion the author emphasized that Artemis’ bow was used only for marksmanship; that she never actually hunted or hurt anything with it. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. Artemis, the great huntress. Artemis, the warrior. Um, yeah right. In the real myths she not only used that bow, she was the greatest hunter in the world, called on by hunters everywhere to help them. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with that. Too many people in the pagan community, among others, tend to change everything to conform to their own political beliefs and agendas. There are also people who are on ego trips, just like in every other movement. (Often they are one and the same.)

So I follow my own path. I mention this for two reasons: one, is that I have been thinking about it a lot lately, and about how to make a viable earth-centered religion that appeals to more than just the fringes. If we are going to grow as a religion –which is an oft-hoped for wish among pagans –and, I firmly believe, if civilization is going to survive, we need to re-develop a reverence for the earth. Secondly, I get tired of people talking about how they like pagan ideas but how all pagans are fruit loops and I just want to point out that is not the case.

Student Loan Hell

2008-11-12T10:46:00.002-06:00

So my student loan provider finally realized I'm not in school and wants me to start making payments. Nearly $300 a month. Um, yeah right. What have they been smoking?
I'm not even making that much right now. So I call them up and tell them I'm going to need a hardship forebearance. That will work for part of my loans, they say, but not for one of them. To get this other loan into forebearance I have to fill out a special application and pay a $50 fee, and oh yeah, the forebearance is only for three months.

I told them to send me an application, and I will send it back to them without the fee and with a note that says "Hi, I'm broke and living out of my car. I'm on food stamps. I don't have the money for your stinking fee. If I had $50, I would go to the grocery store. So, you can either give me the forebearance or mark me default status. Your choice. And oh yeah, you can blow me."

Okay, so I'm not living out of my car yet, but there's a good chance I will be by the time they finally send me that damn application. And I probably won't tell them to blow me; that would be uncouth as hell for a priestess to say, but just writing it down made me feel better. ;-)

A restoration of faith

2008-11-11T07:05:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I started a temp job. The job itself isn’t the greatest but it would be money. Would be, because it won’t work out. I discovered yesterday that instead of working around here they want me to drive 100 miles to and from. Um no, that is not going to work.

But this post isn’t about that. Yesterday on the way home from the training station I had a flat tire. There was a nail in the tire. I all ready wasn’t feeling well because I hadn’t had enough sleep and several bad things had happened, so this was not very good. To say the least. To make matters worse, I can’t get the wheel off because my car has wheel locks and I had no wheel key. (I did not even know the car had wheel locks until this.) So I go to the nearby tire repair shop to see if I can borrow a wheel key, promising to bring the wheel into them to repair. No die. They tell me they can’t do that and I’ll have to have the car towed in.

Um, yeah right. Thanks a lot, you (bleeped). So I go back and am trying to figure out how to break the lock when this older black gentleman pulls up in an old but very well-cared for car. He asks if he can help and I explain the problem. Well, this man drives a similar car and has a wheel key in his trunk. Not only that, but he’s an amateur mechanic and has a trunk full of tools. So, he gets the wheel off and then repairs it for me, right there in the service station parking lot. He fills it up and puts it back on and doesn’t charge me anything. Not all people are bad and selfish, even in these times. I knew that, but it helps to be reminded.
I’ve rarely seen anything quite like that. Some days, things just happen to restore my faith in humanity. That was one of them.
And, whomever you are that helped me, thank you. And Goddess bless.

Famine is coming

2008-11-10T07:07:00.000-06:00

Famine is coming.

I understand hunger. I understand it bone-deep, in the way that only someone who has been hungry can understand it. My childhood was spent in extreme poverty and only rarely did we have enough to eat. I sometimes joke that my small size is due to childhood malnourishment. Going to bed hungry was so common an occurrence that it went unremakred upon. When I started school the free lunch (and later, when they started the program) the free breakfast were often the only meals I had. I have eaten out of trashcans. I have lived off of food stamps and donations and dented cans pulled out of the garbage and fish caught from a nearby pond and been happy to get the meal. To make matters even worse, my mother was not all there. That is an understatement. She was bipolar and borderline schizophrenic. She sometimes thought it was fun to get food and eat it in front of us. Particularly me, as I was the scapegoat in our very dysfunctional family.

So I understand hunger. It affects me in ways most people in the so-called developed world can not fathom. When I read that 25,000 people a day die of hunger (or did before the numbers started climbing this year), I feel that in my gut. I know what that means and what it is like to be that close to the edge. When I saw Gone With The Wind in high school the one time I empathized with Scarlett in the entire movie was when she swore she would never be hungry again. I understand that feeling.

The food crisis this year has horrified me. I know, deep down what it means: starvation. It is going to get so much worse next year. Early this year food agencies warned that without record harvests there would be famine next year. We did not get record harvests. Not only that, but next years crops are going to go down even more. When I read stories like the one discussing the impact of the credit crisis on farming, which states that wheat alone is going to go down by 4% (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aox4ZwDlWkvQ&refer=home) I get a chill. It gets worse when I read about the water supplies in California being cut by 85% next year. A lot of food comes from California. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081031/ap_on_re_us/california_water#full) Then I read about grain shipments stalling due to credit problems and wheat rust and climate change and I get physically sick.

All of this adds up to one thing: famine. Massive, widespread famine. The developed world has no concept of famine. We have not experienced it since the 1930s. The few remaining survivors remember it and the lessons it taught; I think my adopted grandmother could live off her food supplies for 6 months without leaving her apartment. But most people have no idea what famine is, no concept of it. If this gets too bad, they might learn. The number of hungry in this country is all ready going up. NPR said yesterday morning that almost 30 million people in this country are on food stamps. That’s about 10% of the population, folks. What is going to happen with the economy crashing, food prices going up, and food supplies going down? The answer should be obvious: shortages and hunger. Famine.

I can not explain how badly this scares me. I have been down this road and I know where it leads. Famine is coming, and trouble will follow on its heels.

Of course, I could be wrong. We could end up with bumper crops next year and everything will be fine. The Easter Bunny could also be real. If I’m wrong, I’ll be the first to celebrate.

I’ll leave off today with the words to Famine Song, a song I have performed many times with my choir:

Famine Song
arr. Matt Culloton (b. 1976)
Ease my spirit, ease my soul,
please free my hands from this barren soil,
ease my mother, ease my child,
Earth and sky be reconciled.
Rain, rain, rain.
Weave, my mother, weave, my child,
weave your baskets of rushes wild.
Out of heat, under sun, comes the hunger to ev’ry one.
Famine’s teeth, famine’s claw on the sands of Africa.

California

2008-11-09T08:24:00.000-06:00

First, let’s get it out of the way and say that yes, I am incredibly pissed off by prop 8.

That said, this post has nothing to do with prop 8.

California is in trouble. Big trouble. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I expect California to be shedding population by this time next year. There are several reasons for this:
1.) The foreclosure crisis. Google ‘tent cities’ or ‘car sleepers’ and see how many people out there are living in tents and cars. Eventually some of them are going to figure out that the cost of living is lower in other parts of the country and get together the funds to leave.
2.) The rest of the economic mess. California’s budget crisis is deepening, and there are almost certainly going to be massive spending cuts in the months to come. Bankruptcy is a possibility, as is tax increases. Also, job losses are going to throw a lot of people out of work.
3.) Last, and most important, word has come down that water deliveries to just 15% of the amount requested. That’s an 85% cut. In one year. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081031/ap_on_re_us/california_water#full) This could cause rationing and shortfalls in cities and on farms. Let me rephrase that: it almost certainly will cause rationing and shortfalls, with the current drought and population levels.

How many people are going to stand for this? And for how long? It is eventually going to occur to at least some of them that others places are NOT a desert and might be better places to live.
As for the rest…eventually they’ll have to get used to living in a desert, with the attendant water problems.

Dixie Died Last Night

2008-11-05T07:43:00.000-06:00

The Old Confederacy finally went down in flames. It did not go out with a bang or even with a whimper. It just sat down quietly and died. For those of us in the Deep South, particularly those of us raised here, last night was a monumental night. The world changed, tilted, and ended up topsy turvy. I am, of course, speaking of the election of Barack Obama as President. You see, no matter what side of the issue you are on, the election of a black man as President has rocked the South.

Virginia and Florida turned blue last night. North Carolina, Missouri and Georgia are too close to call at this point. Unprecedented numbers of minority and young voters turned out to vote yesterday. There was a sea of young and non-white faces at my polling station yesterday. It has long been said that this day would never come, that Dixie could never get over their prejudice to this extent. We still bear the scars of slavery, of segregation, of racial hatred and civil rights violations. The reminders are everywhere, from the Civil War battlefield markers to the ‘Colored’ signs that still hangs in some bus stations.

But last night, the Old Confederacy died. It cracked into a thousand pieces, courtesy of a charismatic black man from Hawaii. Oh, there will still be prejudice. And there will be a backlash from the white supremacists. But the tide has turned, and as the older generation dies off the younger will grow never knowing any different.

You should have seen the parties last night, both here and around the south. They took to the streets in Atlanta, Florida and other places. There was an impromptu rally in front of the White House itself. You could see the future there –a mixture of white, black, and brown faces that represented the future of this country. Then you could look at the Biltmore in Phoenix and see the past in the McCain crowd –a solid mass of well-to-do white people. Rather angry after the results came in, at that.

History was made last night. Dixie died, and the future was born.

Building Community

2008-11-01T18:02:00.002-05:00

Building community doesn't have to be hard. Sometimes it is as simple as baking a cake for a friend's birthday. That is what I did today and I'll be taking it to her shortly. Now, I should note that sine this is her 50th birthday, and this is also the season of Halloween, I can't help but be a little naughty. I'm trying to decide whether to only put 50 candles on the cake, or put all the ones I have on it. That would be, oh let's see, if my math is right...144. Insert evil cackle and emoticon depicting devil horns.
(I should note that my friend is a particularly good sport and will get a good laugh out of it, or I wouldn't even consider it.)

Religion and Worldviews

2008-10-29T20:43:00.000-05:00

Jack Frost came through last night. He just swung through, but it was enough to necessitate the frantic end-of-season rush to bring all the plants in. Our ‘official’ first frost date is October 31, so we didn’t miss the mark by too much this year. Some of my tomato vines are blackened but most of them seem to have come through just fine. Of course, I picked all the tomatoes that were ripe or had any chance to ripen on a windowsill and brought them inside yesterday. Many of the trees had not turned as of yesterday and this morning there was an entirely new riot of color to greet my eyes when the sun came up.

Friday is Halloween, also known as Hallowmas or Samhain to pagans. Traditionally it is the New Year in most pagan religions. As a child I always thought the year should begin either in fall or spring –starting it in the dead of winter just seemed, well, stupid. I guess it should be obvious that I have always had earth-centered leanings. This is the time of the year when many pagans avoid the news and most of us cringe at the sensationalist news stories cooked up by the media about the ‘evil witches’ and our ‘Satanic rites’. For the record, we are hardly evil and we are not Satanists, nor are Satanists Pagan in any sense of the word. One of the core values of all forms of paganism is reverence for life, whereas Satanism is just the opposite, and is also pretty much a deliberate bastardization of Christianity.
Okay, rant over. ;-)

I mention this because I have been thinking about religion a lot lately. Specifically, about how it influences our worldview and our outlook on life. Sunday my adopted grandmother dragged me out to see Religulous, Bill Maher’s new flick about religion. It was a decent movie and I will give him credit for that, though I must admit I disliked his harsh style many times. But I also must find fault with it for several reasons. First, he views religion as a neurological disorder and I can not agree with him on that point, but I will discuss that more in a moment. Secondly, he falls into the trap he (rightly) accuses many of the religious of falling into: that of thinking there is only one right way, and it is his way. His call for an end to religion at the end of the movie could be seen as the secular analog of inciting a holy war. Not that he meant for that to happen of course, but neither did many of the people who have done such things in the past. Third, he focuses only on the Abrahamic traditions and there are many other religions in the world that do not share the attributes common to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Finally, he doesn’t seem to realize that people can be just as bad in a world without religion as in a world with it. Secular, intelligent people can and have committed atrocities against their fellow humans. Many of them had very rational-sounding reasons for doing so. Eugenics, anyone? People have tried to base racism, sexism, and every other ism you can name in science. Taking God out of the equation would not change that. Especially as we would immediately create new gods.

But I would like to get back to the first point. Calling religion a neurological disorder is just prejudice, pure and simple. I have heard pious people claim the same about atheists. Let’s get down to the basics for a moment. What is religion? Religion is metaphor, religion is a set of stories that form our view of the world. As human beings, we think in stories. It is impossible for them to escape them. We are constantly writing our own stories –our life stories, the stories of the people around us, and all of these are shaped by our view of the world, which is in turn shaped by the stories we believe about the big things: life and death. This is what religion is, when you boil down to it. As Reverend Forrest Church has often wrote, “religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die”. We use these stories to explain the big mysteries of life, why we are here, why we must die, and what happens to us after we die.

What then, is atheism or agnosticism? Well, it is just another kind of story. Humans can not live, can not function without some sort of story. Nonbelievers do not believe in nothing, after all. Everyone believes in something. What most of them believe in, or so I have observed, is the Myth of Progress –that all of history is a straight line shooting from the beginning of evolution up to the fish that crawled out of the water, to the monkey that climbed down out of the trees, to western civilization and from us out to the stars. They may not be conscious of this myth, but most believe in it. (By the way, I agree with John Michael Greer that progress is the dominant religion of America today.) All believe in the theory of evolution.

Let’s stop for a moment so I can make one thing clear: I am not claiming that evolution is or is not real, or that God/dess/Spirit is or is not real. I could be up all night (probably several nights) listing the arguments for and against each position and it still wouldn’t make any difference. For now I am just concentrating on their role as a story that shapes our minds and worldviews. I will, however, state that I have a pet theory as to why many people can not accept atheism and the theory of evolution: this may sound crazy to the nonbelievers who read my blog, but that theory is well…rather cold and heartless. Most people just can not accept the idea that we come from muck and return to muck and that is all there is to it. Most people need to think that there is something more, that there is a reason to all of this. As humans we like to think on big, grand scales, especially about the things we can not begin to comprehend.

Moving on, if we look at the world today we can see that there are a number of problems, all caused by various forces. I will not deny that religion is a cause of many of them, but religion has also done great good. Let us take it as a given for a moment that religion shapes our worldview and that this latter motivates many of our actions. It is therefore easy to lay many of the world’s problems at the feet of religion, but is it all religion, or merely certain types? I am going to introduce two theological concepts now. The first is the idea of immanence versus transcendence. Each phrase is a different way of looking at God and the divine. The first is the concept that divinity is inherent in everything, that God is all around us and even in each one of us. This is a minority position among the world’s religions. The second, and more common stance, is the belief that God/divinity is a distant, inscrutable force, the old man sitting far away in heaven. Under the first system of belief, God is present in every leaf of every tree while in the second he is somewhere far, far away. This is a very old theological divide but one that I think is crucial to understanding how we got where we are today: It is a whole lot harder to trash your world and destroy your fellows when you see all of them as divine.

The second concept is that of monotheism versus polytheism. I am not just speaking of belief in the number of deities here. I am speaking of entire worldviews, as Margot Adler pointed out in her seminal work, Drawing Down the Moon. Monotheism does not just mean a belief in one god; monotheism also encompasses a belief in one right way of doing things, one right way of being in the world, one right way, period. Polytheism, on the other hand, is a worldview that allows for many different paths and ways of being, for many different beliefs in the divine. Polytheism, it should be noted, encompasses monotheism but not the other way around. Because monotheism is insistent that there is One Right Way it is easy for it to fall into the path of “I’m right and you’re not, therefore I’m better than you” and to “convert or die” and on to holy wars. It is hard for polytheists to wage holy wars because they see many possible paths as right.

I believe these two concepts are the root causes of our problems today. The belief that God is entirely transcendent has led many of us to devalue nature and the world we live in today, and the firm belief that we are right has led us to reject all other paths and come into constant conflict with those on other paths. I am not calling for a return to a belief in an entirely immanent God or suggesting we should all return to believing in the Roman pantheon. Rather, I think things would get much better in this world if we could see the Divine in the trees we clear cut and realize that maybe our neighbors aren’t going to roast in hell for eternity for believing differently than we do.

My own faith has only two fundamental laws, two main tenets that I try to cleave to at all cost. The first is simply: Do not harm. It sounds easy, but it isn’t. The second, and more important, is There is no one right way. These are the words I try to live by.

My fevered imagination

2008-10-29T07:27:00.003-05:00

So, I've been accused of having an overactive imagination. It's true and I freely admit that. The night before last I had the most incredibly weird, kick-ass dream I've had in quite some time. It was in full color and seemed just like real life.

I was me, but not-me, as often happens in dreams. Well, not-me was riding a motorcycle (btw, I have never been on a bike) and gets hit by a bus or a train or something. Long story short, I die and wind up in "Heaven". Only I don't quite go in. I'm sitting there, outside the pearly gates on a cloud, and who should walk up? God. Only God is Coyote. So, not being the type to accept death lying down, so to speak, I start arguing with him. There I am, sitting on a cloud, arguing with a talking dog about how I should not be dead yet, damnit. Finally I succeed in convincing him to send me back. He does warn me, saying 'I won't like it' and that I'll have to 'take what's available'. I'm a little suspicious, because this is Coyote were talking about, but I tell him where to put his warning. Besides, presumably my body is available, right?

Next thing I know, I wake up. I'm laying on my back in the middle of the woods next to a large rock outcropping. As I pick myself up, I realize that I must have fallen off of it. But I am completely unhurt. When I'm standing up I notice that the world is a lot farther away than usual. Then I look at my arms and they are much larger than usual. A quick inspection reveals that holy crap, batman! I'm a man. I yell 'Coyote!' as loud as I can and hear an evil chuckle far away.

The next thing I notice is that I'm in the middle of a jungle, not a forest. Soon enough, some friends come looking for me. They were worried about me, but I'm okay. I have a different name of course. I go back with them to the village, where apparently I am a blacksmith. A bit of time passes and I have a lot of trouble adjusting to being a man, living on what is obviously a different planet and mideval to boot, and a blacksmith.

Then things really get bad. Green lizards show up and try to take over everything and enslave everyone. Guess what? In my new body I'm the great-great-great grandson of some great hero or other, so guess who gets picked to save the day? I then spent the rest of the dream running around with a glowing sword, a thief, and a talking dolphin (hey it was a dream) fighting evil green lizards. I woke up when I damn near fell off the bed while swinging the sword.

What does this have to do with anything? Nothing, of course, but it was one of those things I felt the need to share. Btw, I'm copyrighting this. There has to be a story in there somewhere. ;-)

Too Much Stuff

2008-10-27T07:21:00.000-05:00

Last week I worked a temp job as a nanny for a really lovely couple here in town. I really like these two; they are some of the nicest people I have ever known. They are upper-upper middle class; I mention that because it is relevant to the post. Not rich by the standards of hedge fund managers, but truly wealthy by my standards.

I think I have too much stuff. I’m working on paring it down now. I also think most Americans have far too much stuff. But while working for them, I got an inkling of just how overloaded some people are. If I have too much stuff, they really do. They have at least seven full sets of china. Nice china. Not everyday kind of china, the kind even they use for company and holidays. They also have at least four sets of everyday dishes. And that’s just for starters. What is this obsessive need to accumulate stuff that most Americans seem to have? Where does it come from? I would say it comes from two sources. The first is the never-ending advertising that says we have to have more things. The second, I believe, is a deep-seated, unconscious insecurity that many of us feel. I think this is do to the lack of community, of true friends and family, that so many of us share. I think we try to fill this void with things as a way to substitute for them. And therein lies the rub: there are some things you simple can not make substitutions for. We try at our peril.

Here Comes Jack Frost!

2008-10-19T08:02:00.000-05:00

Well, not quite, though it did get down into the upper 40s here last night. All the trees are turning and there is a riot of color on ‘my’ mountain. The leaves aren’t quite as good as the past couple of years, and I’ve been told that is because the drought has broken this year. Apparently, leaves are brighter in drought years. But they are still gorgeous.

When it first gets cold, I react the same way most native Southerners do: with complete and utter horror. What is this strange temperature? What happened to my heat? But then I adjust and I find that I like it when the mornings are a bit nippy and that I sleep better when the nights are cool. I started the process of unpacking my winter wardrobe and packing up my summer clothes this morning. My bed is covered in sweaters, each one of them adored. The question is, which shall I wear first? Yes, I am a clothes horse. Last night I made chicken and dumplings to celebrate the turning of the seasons. I made them the old-fashioned way: slow-simmering from scratch.

One of the other good things about the fall is that when the temperatures cool down, the cold-weather vegetables really begin to shine. I had my first really good fall salad with the dumplings last night. Red leaf lettuce, swiss chard, nuts, dried cranberries and ranch dressing. It was incredible.

This is the time of the year between the frantic bustle of the harvest and the slow pace of winter. Things are busy, but less so than in August and September. I have more time to write but am not overwhelmed with free time. Samhain is on the horizon and with it the new year. We are beginning to deepen into the dark half of the wheel. The mess in our world is also deepening but I am unafraid; the dark must always precede the dawn, and winter the spring.

Peace, and blessed be!

Preparing for winter

2008-10-11T07:51:00.000-05:00

This has been a busy week around here. Winter is coming and fast. Right now it is hard to tell autumn is even here –the nights have a crisp feeling but the days are still climbing into the 80s. Yes, this is the South after all. It wasn’t this bad, once upon a time. I’m in northern Alabama, not down by the coast. But things have changed over the past years as the climate has began warming up. The trees are turning and they are a glorious sight. Reds and gold everywhere this year! Even my 12-inch high crabapple, still in a pot, has beautiful leaves.

I have been busy tucking my garden in for the winter. This primarily means mulching. I’ve got a lot of pruning to do as well but I can’t seem to find my pruning shears. The fall garden is doing well –lettuce, mustard, collards and cabbage. This year I am growing the prettiest lettuce I have ever seen. It is called firecracker and it is the deepest, most intense red I have ever seen on a plant. Just looking at it is a joy.

Pretty soon it will be time to give up the ghost, pack away my summer clothes and bring out my winter ones. No more short-shorts and tank tops until mid-April. But that is perfectly okay; winter is just another part of the cycle. I actually like winter because it gives me a chance to slow down and catch up on my reading. I do wish it would get a mite bit colder here than it does –I would love to see snow! I mean a real good snowfall, not the dusting we get once every couple of years. I’ve never seen more than an inch of snow and that just the once. I have this recurring dream in the winter where I wake up and there is snow up to the windowsills. Ah well, you can’t have everything and I wouldn’t know what to do with that much snow!

I hope everyone’s preparations for winter are going well.

Watching the world tank

2008-10-06T13:46:00.000-05:00

I know that is wrong of me to watch the 700 point drop in the Dow today with glee, but I am human after all and just can’t help it. After being forced to watch the looting of the lower classes and the pillaging of the earth for so long, it feels good to view what may finally be the unraveling of it all. Yes, I am well aware of the pain and hardship that will result from this and feel guilty over my feelings, but as I said, I am merely human. My dog may think differently, but I know better. ;-)

Autumn is here in the southeast. We had our first ‘cold’ spell last week. It got down into the 40s at night –and yes, here that is considered cold. Then it rocketed back up into the 90s a day or two later. I harvested my last watermelons just before the snap hit. One was slightly overripe and one slightly underripe, but the latter was edible. There is a secret to harvesting watermelons at just the right time and I still haven’t gotten it quite down. As I sat there eating that watermelon (these are small watermelons, I should point out) it occurred to me that it doesn’t much matter what happens on Wall Street as long as I have a roof over my head and food on the table.

For those who are reading this and are thinking of last minute just-in-case preparations to make, here are some things to consider getting:
-Vitamins. These are invaluable in a crisis situation.
-Toothbrushes and toothpaste. Huh? Yes, I wrote that correctly. Dental hygiene is important, especially when you can’t get to a dentist. A minor annoyance right now (like an abscessed tooth) can quickly become fatal without treatment. The best thing to do is not to let it happen to begin with.
-Baking supplies. Never underestimate the value of a chocolate chip cookie when the world has gone to pot.
-Alcohol (the drinkable kind). Even if you don’t drink, alcohol = money in most crises.
-More rice and beans. You can donate them to the food pantry later if you don’t use them.

My Situation

2008-09-30T10:41:00.000-05:00

I’ve been putting this post off but it’s time I sat down to write it. In this post I’m going to describe my current situation. But first, a little background.
I was the third person in my family to finish high school and the first to go to college. I come from a background of abject poverty. We lived on the streets off and on throughout my childhood and I know what its like to eat out of a garbage can. I was determined that I was going to climb out of all of that, make it to the middle class and generally have a good life. When I started college and came to choose a major I chose engineering. Not because I liked engineering (I really didn’t) or because I have any aptitude for the subject (trust me, I don’t) but because engineers get paid a lot of money. Had I followed my heart’s desire I would probably have ended up with a combined degree in English and History or Sociology or all three. But, those fields don’t pay. Engineering did. That was foremost on my list of requirements because I wanted, above all else, to be financially secure. I didn’t want a big house and a big car (though those were nice); I just wanted to know I’d always have a roof over my head and food on the table. And some pretty clothes to wear. Hey, I can be as vain as the next gal. ;-)

I got through college, somehow. It took several years. I worked and also depended on scholarships, grants, and loans. How I survived my senior year of engineering school I’ve no idea. I have no talent for and no real interest in fluid mechanics or anything else like that. But I was determined and I worked hard. I graduated Magna Cum Laude. Not bad for someone who should rightly have been an English major. I also graduated at a younger age than most of my class because I finished high school early.

Then the real fun begin. Corporate work. Cubicles. Fluorescent lights. I can not describe how much I hated the workspace. It was second only to the work. Both nearly gave me a nervous breakdown before it was over. When I chose engineering I specialized in aerospace, thinking it would be cool to work on the next mission to the moon. Ha ha, NASA wasn’t going back to the moon anytime soon and getting a job there? Good luck with that. Another thing they don’t tell you in engineering school is that pretty much all the real engineering jobs have been outsourced because we don’t build anything in this country anymore. What’s left? Mostly software and programming. That’s right, you study bridge building for four years and end up debugging programs.

My first job wasn’t too bad. It was actually part of a NASA contract. I had a window and could go outside. I still hated it but I could tolerate it. And, I loved the money. I was making more money every two weeks than I had ever seen. I won’t lie and say I was super responsible with it, because I wasn’t. I didn’t go hog wild –but I had no idea how to handle being suddenly middle class. Growing up I was more worried about finding dinner and dodging stray bullets at school than learning how to balance a checkbook. But, I did okay and managed to save a little.

My mother died about this time. No condolences, please. That was a ‘good riddance’ event. At her funeral I was struck by the almost overwhelming desire to kick her casket. Long story. But she had life insurance so I came into a little bit of money. Not as much as my brothers, who refused to help pay for her funeral (thanks a lot, assholes) but some. Only good thing the woman ever did for me. And I was making good money, so I decided to buy a house if I could.

At twenty-one this is a really bad idea. But I was really, really sick of apartments. Looking back I know that anyone who would give a mortgage to a kid my age was out of their mind. But, this was the middle of the housing bubble after all. No, I did not get one of those subprime loans. I was actually pretty smart about it. I got a very conservative FHA loan. And the payments were and are about six hundred a month –roughly what a decent apartment costs in this area. In the past few years I have made a lot of improvements –planted fruit trees, the garden, berry bushes. This was also the time I started becoming more aware of all the problems in the world and looked into things like Peak Oil and Voluntary Simplicity.

My job went from bad to worse. First I got transferred to another facility. This one was a complex of big auditoriums, layer after layer of cube mazes stacked on top of another. No windows in any of the buildings. They discouraged going outside to eat lunch. You couldn’t go anywhere at lunch because it was twenty minutes from the nearest restaurant. I constantly felt like an ant in an anthill or a rat in a maze. Then I lost my job. Or rather, I was fired. They put me on assignment I couldn’t do in good conscience. I can’t discuss it. The bottom line is, I refused and they fired me. That was the end of my engineering career. Once you’ve got a black mark like that on your record there’s no getting another job in the corporate world, certainly not in the same field. Believe me, I tried.

That was well over a year ago. Since then I’ve worked a variety of jobs and tried my hand at graduate school. I’ve kept things together until now thanks to income, savings, and financial assistance. But at the moment I’m no longer in grad school (I dropped out) and my job is a PRN position that pays only $6.82 an hour. I work other odd jobs of course, but I’m bringing in only about three hundred dollars a month. To put it mildly, I’m not making ends meet. My house is up for sale but I really doubt it will sell at this point. I’m considering renting out a room but I’ve done that before and it didn’t work out well (to put it mildly) so I’m hesitant to try it again. I have nowhere to go if I lose the house so I don’t know what I’ll do.
So, that is the situation I find myself in.

Monday Update

2008-09-29T10:57:00.001-05:00

We are still having gas shortages here in the southeast. The worst places seem to be the Carolinas, followed by the larger metros like Atlanta and Nashville. There is gas locally, but not as much as usual and most stations are out of at least one grade. Many are still out entirely. I shall have to get gas tomorrow and I’m not looking forward to it. One thing is for sure: if it comes down to camping out to get gas, I’ll just stay home. Today is my last work day for a while, so hey, I can do it.

The area I live in is going to suffer severely from the effects of Peak Oil. This is your typical car-centered metropolitan area, complete with suburban bedroom communities. There is a small urban core but everything else has pretty much been built since 1950. The whole area has about 250,000 people in it, which is 200,000 more than I’d like locally. I don’t live in the city per se –I live on the outer periphery. But I am lucky in that the nearest grocery stores in only 7 miles from my house –most people live farther away. There are strict zoning laws and everything is kept separated. How long that will go on remains to be seen.

I still have not found a full-time job. My little PRN job at six bucks an hour has given me a lot of hours this past week, but that won’t last and the amount of money I make is almost laughable. All told, between that and my odd jobs I’m bringing in about three hundred bucks a month. Not nearly enough to support a household. Or even part of one, here. My house hasn’t sold and at this point I doubt it will do so. The credit markets have frozen and pretty much everyone is running scared. As well they should be.

It is time for all of us to begin making alternative arrangements.

Light and Darkness

2008-09-22T11:02:00.001-05:00

Today is the fall equinox, also known as Mabon in the pagan tradition. Yes, this is another one of my crazy religious posts, but please bear with me. I do have a point. ;-)

In the pagan tradition there are eight holy days: the two equinoxes, the two solstices, and the four cross-quarter days between them. The half of the year that lies between Ostara (the spring equinox) and Mabon is known as the light half of the year; the other half is known as the dark half of the year. On the equinox day and night –light and darkness –are precisely balance. Every day from here until the winter solstice each day will get a little bit shorter and the night will be a little bit longer. After the solstice the reverse will be true, until day and night are again in balance on Ostara. After that, day will overtake night until the longest day is reached on the summer solstice. Days will then grow shorter until we reach Mabon again and the cycle will repeat.

This is the sacred balance: that light and darkness must, on the whole, be equal. If this balance goes out of true, then problems will inevitably result. This may seem a strange thing to say, as in our culture we are thought that light is good and darkness is bad. But it is true nonetheless. Please note I am not talking about good and evil here. While evil can –and should be –seen as dark, there is nothing inherently evil about darkness. In fact, darkness is as sacred as light. Darkness and light are both necessary halves of the whole.

The womb is dark, as is the ground in which we plant our seeds. Winter and death are dark. We grow in the light and reach for the sun, then slowly decline and die. This is the pattern that has existed for time untold, the pattern that must exist for life to go on. Light and darkness, light and darkness.

Winter is necessary. Without winter, without the dark half of the year, then the earth can not rest. All life springs from darkness and all life returns to darkness. Without the cycle of death and decay new birth becomes impossible. This too is something we have forgotten in our culture –we cling to the light, believing that all darkness is evil and avoid death and other problems as long as possible. We have forgotten that everything flows in a pattern, that there is a cycle that repeats endlessly. The wheel does not stop turning just because we wish it to. The rules that apply to all of life also apply to countries, to nations, to everything that exists under the sun. ‘To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.’

Once more winter is coming. We entered the dark half of the year only a few minutes ago. I performed my ritual and came inside to write this essay. Not only is winter coming for the year, but for the culture in which we live. Do not fear the winter. Or the dark. These are not things to be feared. They are natural parts of life. Without winter there can be no spring. Without darkness there can be no light.

May the winter be mild, and may the spring to come be glorious.

Blessed be.

The Higher Toll

2008-09-21T12:36:00.000-05:00

All the converging crises of the world at large are together going to claim a very high number of victims. I do not refer here to death alone, but to abject impoverishment and other such ills. This number will be higher than it absolutely has to be. We could all band together to confront these crises, care for each other, and help in the long transition to a more sustainable society. Doing this would undoubtedly reduce the casualty list by a substantial amount, possibly even to the natural attrition rate. But we won’t. Not collectively, at any rate. There are any number of reasons for this and I see no reason to list them here, as I’m certain most people can come up with the list on their own. In many cases we will not even do this on a smaller scale, and that I think is the great tragedy –because it doesn’t need to be that way.

Many people speak of community and its importance in the coming era. Few people speak of what that really means or how to go about building one. Perhaps because we do not know how. It is this lack of community that will cause the higher toll as we move into this new paradigm. There are two specific aspects of this –barriers to building community, if you will –that I wish to discuss. In some ways they apply worldwide, but primarily to America. This is after all my homeland and the only culture I know deeply.

1.) Attitudes. Surprised to see this? We have a strange culture in this country, one that teaches us to look down on others who aren’t as favored as we are in some way, rather than seeing ourselves as lucky. Thus, as more and more people become squeezed and get knocked off a cliff the ones who are doing all right will, for the most part, look down their noses and complain about how the unfortunate one should have done this or that differently. Until it becomes their own turn to be tossed off the cliff.

This also applies to those who believe in being prepared for peak oil and so forth. I’ve noticed an attitude of “we’ve always been frugal so we’re okay” among many that also manages to imply a sense of superiority over those who haven’t been frugal. The same with the preparedness camps. All of this is well and good –until things get rocky. Say your roof starts leaking in a few years and you can no longer afford to have it fixed. That young man next door to you who hasn’t had a clue these past few years and loves McDonald’s might be a roofer. What if you get pregnant and can no longer afford the doctor? You haven’t prepared for that. But the hippy-dippy new age non-Christian woman who lives down the road from you and wears weird clothes may be a licensed midwife.
This is what I mean: these attitudes will help keep us apart from one another, help prevent us from banding together during the crises.

2.) The self-sufficiency up-by-your-bootstraps mythos. I bet that raised a lot of hackles. There’s nothing wrong with self-sufficiency –to a point. But, like anything else, it can go to far. We have been ingrained with a belief that everyone should be completely independent. Every person, every family for themselves. You either make it on your own or you fall on your own, and tough. This is barely possible in an expanding industrial society and only then if you have enough money to pay for everything you can’t do on your own. In any other society –including the transitional one we have now –attempting to do this is not only madness, it can actually be suicidal.

No one person or one family can do everything. Yet we have been taught that needing help is shameful and so many of us will not ask for it when we need it. Many others will look down on those who do ask. One person may be able to eke out a barely subsistence level existence –but a town can build a bridge. As we transition down the back side of Hubbert’s peak more and more people are going to be unable to make it. We all ready have the beginnings of this in the tent cities and slums of the world. It is spreading and will only get worse. Bands of people working together can help ease the transition and pull each other away from the cliff.

The problem will lie in how our cultural conditioning will attempt to keep us each thinking and trying to make it on our own. And this is what will make the toll far higher than it needs to be.

United we can make it. But divide us and we may all come down. It is time to retire phrases like “self-made man” and “up by your bootstraps” which were never very true anyway, and bring back older phrases, such as: one for all, and all for one.

Garden Report

2008-09-18T07:13:00.000-05:00

So, the majority of the gardening year is over. I am not planting a fall garden because I am trying to move. How has my garden done this year?

Tomatoes: I planted several kinds of tomatoes. The Brandywine and Arkansas Traveler did not do well, but I think this was due to the location as much as anything. My Cherokee Purple got hit by a weedeater. The Romas did well, as always. My German Johnson Pink also did really well. A lot of people think these are ugly tomatoes, but I love them. And the taste can't be beaten. The golden nugget did the same as last year -a sudden burst of heavenly tomatoes and then nothing. My yellow pears are doing wonderfully. The only problem with them is that they are VERY prone to cracking, so I will need to stake them next year.

Peppers -I grew three kinds of peppers. Cayenne, sweet bannana, and bell. All did grew. I'm still getting peppers.

Eggplants -my japenese eggplants did okay, but I discovered that I still don't much care for eggplant, except grilled.

Pole beasn -serious problems. The vines grew well and produced plenty of beans but they were pretty much inedible. This was supposed to be the same variety as last year's though from a different seedhouse, but they look nothing like them.

Summer Squash -also serious problems. I had some bad seed and after replatning 3 times I got hit by squash borers at the worst possible moment. I still got some, but not much. I will be using a different seed house next year.

Watermelons -yum.

Pumpkins -still coming in.

Cabbage -going well.

Carrots -going well.

That's the garden report. I hope next year's is even better!

The Five Themes of the 21st Century

2008-09-16T15:59:00.000-05:00

I am working to simplify my life and make it more sustainable for many reasons. Foremost among these is that I believe it is the right thing to do. I feel that the lifestyle most of us in the west lead today is not only unsustainable but immoral. There are also many reasons for the latter: inequitable distribution of resources, outright oppression of others to get what we want, and the wanton destruction of our environment. These things are anathema to me not only on the grounds of basic decency and morality but also religiously. My religion treats the Earth and all of its creatures as sacred.

There is also another reason for my attempts at simplification and sustainability and if you have read many of my posts and essays you will all ready know what it is: namely, that we have no choice. Peak oil and climate change, together with population overshoot and environmental degradation are going to force it on us. This will not be an apocalypse, though it may feel that way to those caught up in it and I will be the first to admit that the death of family or oneself is certainly a personal apocalypse, but I am referring to the overarching society and all of humanity. Everything is connected and everything runs in cycles. Societies, peoples, and individuals all have seasons. Summer follows spring, then comes fall, then winter and finally spring arrives again. What we are witnessing now is the autumn of a society, a way of life, an era in history. Not the end of history or the human race, merely an autumn. Winter is coming and it will be harsh and cold, but at the end, spring will come once again.

When trying to decipher an uncertain future or to make personal decisions it always helps to step back and take a look at the big picture. I have always been a bit of a big picture person –not surprising that, since I have a talent for organizing and coordinating. Now I am going to take a look at the really big picture, the themes that will almost certainly shape the twenty-first century as we head into autumn. These will affect different people at different times and in different locations, as well as to varying degrees, but I think that, looking back from the year 2100 these will seem to be the overriding themes of the whole century. Not that I expect to be around in the year 2100 –though I hope to be; that would be pretty cool, after all –but I expect some of my children and grandchildren to be. That this century will be different than the last goes without saying –the 20th century was the height of industrial society, the summer if you will, and now comes the long slow fall into autumn and winter. I can’t say if spring will have come by the year 2100, but I certainly hope it will be on the way.

1.) Peak Energy. I expect energy per capita to peak at some point early in this century and then begin to decline as depletion takes its inevitable toll on fossil fuels. How fast this will happen is up in the air and no, I don’t expect that the entire world will be dark by the year 2100 –I expect some areas, particularly those with hydro power or solar power, will still have power. But starting soon we will no longer have the equivalent of hundreds of slaves at our disposal, energy-wise. Sooner or later this century a mile will again be a long way away.

2.) Depopulation. Notice I didn’t say ‘die-off’; the concepts are different. The latter generally means a sudden, catastrophic collapse of the population over a very short period of time. The former means a slower, gradual process of attrition. This will happen by a combination of factors that will vary from place to place: old age, malnutrition, disease, war, environmental degradation. I sincerely hope the majority of the attrition will be due to old age but I am not certain. We have seriously overshot our carrying capacity on this planet and our numbers are going to go down one way or another. Nature bats last –and the grim reaper runs the bases.

3.) Migration. There is going to be an awful lot of migration during this century. Entire populations will be on the move. People will move from arid regions to wetter regions, from very cold regions to warmer ones, from really hot regions to cooler ones, from areas torn by strife and natural disaster to those at peace. This will create a lot of problems and no doubt governments will try to maintain their ‘border security’ but I expect these measures will be in vain. Desperate people are not easily stopped. Particularly when there are large numbers of them.

4.) Climate change impacts. Climate changes are all ready happening. The arctic sea ice has reached a new record low again this year –and it will only get worse; soon, the entire arctic will be ice free in the summer. Hurricanes are intensifying and getting larger (Ike anyone? It was the size of Texas!). Droughts, wildfires, and other natural disasters are happening all over and more often. These things will only happen more often and get worse as this century wears on –lending to the migration mentioned above and to war.

5.) War. Iraq may be the first resource war, but it won’t be the last. As resources get scarcer, climate change hits hard, and more people migrate I expect there will be more wars fought across the world. I hope these don’t become too bad or there aren’t too many of them, but I don’t see them not happening.

Winter may be coming, but so is spring. Remember that when times get tough.

A Report From On the Ground in Alabama

2008-09-14T09:06:00.000-05:00

We haven't been hit by Ike. Yet. It is supposed to be coming through tomorrow. But we are feeling the effects.
About 75% of all the gas stations in my town are out of gas. The ones that have it are strictly rationing it and selling it for as much as $4.65 a gallon. I paid $3.55 on Thursday.

The damage reports from the refineries are not in yet, but the ones shut down by Gustav are just now re-opening and there was a lot more disruption from Ike. It may be days before the gas starts flowing again. This means a lot of people are going to have problems getting to work this week, and some of the delivery trucks may not make it to the stores. Depending on how this goes, it may well turn out to be a dress rehearsal for PO.

Katrina was not this bad. Prices went up and a few stations ran out -some stayed out of gas for a couple of weeks. But not nearly this many.

Gas Shortages

2008-09-12T07:32:00.000-05:00

We are having gas shortages here, though you won't see it on the local news. I had heard about them but had not encountered them until I went to get gas for the first time since Hurrican Gustav. When you live in the south, you fill up before a hurricane and I had done so. Yesterday I discovered that most gas stations have several empty pumps and they are limiting you to ten gallons each.

Yet oil is going down. Can anyone say 'election season'?

Decision Making Part Three

2008-09-11T10:18:00.000-05:00

I’m going to do an example of the kind of decision-making list is useful in this installment. This is going to be a list of the advantages and disadvantages of living in various parts of the country. I am going to focus on the southeast because I know it best but I will start with a brief list of the other areas in the country.

Southwest: There are no real advantages here and lots of disadvantages. I can’t emphasize this strongly enough: if you live in the southwest, please move.

Northwest
Advantages: abundant water, some good farmland, mild climate
Disadvantages: will probably take in a lot of people from the southwest, climate change will raise the coastline, proximity to the coast may be a problem later in this century if people do start fleeing Japan and Asia en masse. (Btw, one side note: about Kunstler’s famous pirate line, there are more pirates in the world now than ever before and that will only increase on the downside of Hubbert’s peak, but they will be around every coast and quite a few navigable lakes and rivers.

Upper and Eastern Midwest
This is Ohio, Wisconsin, and the like
Advantages: Not overly populated, lots of good farmland, large numbers of farmers who know how to farm non-industrially, lots of water.
Disadvantages: the rust belt, several collapsed or collapsing cities, pollution from the industrial age in many lakes and rivers, severe cold in the winter.

Most of the Midwest
Kansas, Nebraska and the like
Advantages: low population, lots of space
Disadvantages: Currently industrial farmland, naturally arid land, future of rainfall is severely in doubt. A century from now most people who live on the plains will probably live like the Indians of old. In other words, hunter gatherers and nomadic peoples, not farmers. It will be exceedingly hard to farm a natural desert without input from the Ogllala aquifer (which is running dry).

Northeast
Advantages: lots of good farmland that still is not paved over, lots of navigable waterways, large Amish population, good network of small towns still there.
Disadvantages: harsh winter weather, the entire northeast metropolis corridor (who is going to feed all those people?), the cost of living there right now is pretty high.

The Southeast
This list is going to be personalized. I am considering relocating, and this is one of the things I am looking at.
Advantages: lots of space, lots of arable land, the cost of living is extremely low compared to most of the country. If you own a piece of property outright you can live for almost nothing. There are lots of navigable waterways, lots of wilderness. It’s a very beautiful area. Property taxes are negligible on most places. It does get cold in the winter but not all that cold and not for very long so heating bills are really low. I have lived in various parts of the South my entire life and in a lot of ways I love this area. I have friends here.

Disadvantages:
Heat –and lots of it. I live in the northern part of Alabama, and the highs pretty much stay above ninety the entire summer, and with high humidity to boot.
Climate change projections –the projections disagree on whether the south will get wetter or drier and the reality will probably be different for each region, but it will get hotter. Subtropical and probably tropical heat eventually.
Agriculture –most agriculture is industrial but we do have a good population of Amish and Mennonites. The problem lies in that it will be increasingly hard to grow many of the staple crops here as the century wears on and climate changes starts to kick in.
Water –wetter or drier is up in the air, but pumping water and wells are a big challenge. We’ve had a multi-year drought and most wells are dry right now. Without electric pumping there would hardly be any water to go around.
Size –you could fit a lot of the northeastern states into Alabama alone. It’s that big. This means everything is spread out. Vastly so. I have friends who live a forty-five minute drive away and are not only in the same county, but the same town. This is not uncommon.
Bugs –and lots of them. Maybe you don’t see this as a disadvantage but consider what pests do to crops. Last year I had an invasion of some sort of caterpillar that ate half the leaves on my redbud tree literally overnight. It’s a small tree, but still. This year its spiders. Lots and lots of spiders of all kinds. They are everywhere. You have no idea how much I hate spiders. Plus, there are the usual bugs: fire ants, black ants, aphids, mosquitos. And with bugs come…
Diseases –mosquito-borne illnesses will become more common as the climate heats up and controls die off. Tropical illnesses are projected to make a comeback in this are within ten years. We’re talking malaria at the very least. That was a major problem here up until about 1950 or so and it will come back, particularly in Louisiana, coastal Virginia and other such areas. Other diseases will creep in too –dengue fever, yellow fever, etc. West Nile is all ready here. The Deep South will become depopulated if for no other reason than disease. If it becomes a desert that will only make matters worse.
Government –ok, I hate to put this one in here but I have to. The same government that makes property taxes low also will not put money into schools, roads etc. We have an almost feudal system here in Alabama and there are no apologies for it. Food is taxed; poor people pay 11% of their incomes while the rich pay 4%. Income taxes started at $4,000 for a family of four until last year; that has now been raised to $12,000. We have no way of directly petitioning the legislature save by voting on its members. Control is so centralized that when Mobile wanted to spray for mosquitoes they had to get a constitutional amendment to do it. No, that’s not a joke.
Culture, or rather certain aspects of culture. There are a lot of good things in Southern culture. There are also a lot of bad things. Hyper-patriotism. Sexism. Racism. Extreme homophobia. Religions that run toward the anti-tolerant, bible-thumping, we are right and you are going to hell lot. There are literally dozens of such churches in the county I live in with over 5,000 members and hundreds of smaller ones. Now, I have no problem with them believing what they want –my first rule of life is live and let live. I do have a significant problem with them trying to make me conform to their rules, however. I am a lesbian and a pagan and such am a serious target. (I am also multi-racial, but that is not obvious as I am white enough to pass.) If I had kids here I would have to worry about them be taken away for the sole reason that I am a lesbian. I constantly have to worry about hate crimes. This is only going to get worse as times worsen.

There you have it. That is the list. If you have read this far, it is probably easy to see why I am considering relocating. To make such a list work properly you need to scale each item and value it, and then add up the values to see what wins. To tell the truth, the main reason I am considering relocating are climate change and the cultural issues. I truly do love the south land. The Smokies, the forests, the mountains, these are all things I love. I am a pagan, after all. ;-) But there are other factors to consider. Where I could have a good life and have kids, for one. Most importantly, where I will have the best chance of surviving the coming crises.

I am not sure Dixie is it.

A Dark Night of the Soul

2008-09-10T19:36:00.000-05:00

“OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
-Invictus, William Ernest Henley

“I stood under a tall oak tree, asked the goddess to shelter me
Wrapped me up in ancient green, ancient green
All my tears, all my tears, all my tears, River’s gon’a wash away”
-Ancient Green, Unknown

The first quote above is one of my favorite poems, the second one of my favorite songs. I am having a dark night of the soul. Everything seems to have gone crazy. The world is nuts and getting worse. Is there anywhere out there where love still exists? Where mercy, kindness, and compassion have not been forgotten? Is there anyplace where community still exists, where people actually care for one another?

If so, I have never seen it. My family of origin could have been the poster child for dysfunctional and abusive. I am afraid it does not exist. The world is so full of Darkness. I fear there is no more Light left. How can you call good things back into a world where thousands die of starvation by the day, where it is impossible to count the number of wars that are being waged as I write, where we are quickly destroying the planet itself? The pain I feel is immense, both for me and for the world around me.

World Made By Hand

2008-09-08T07:37:00.000-05:00

I finally got the chance to read World Made by Hand, Kunstler’s latest work. Unlike most of his work it is fiction. It is a pretty awful novel, all and all. Oh –don’t get me wrong; compared to most of the works in this genre it is practically Shakespeare. But overall it is pretty bad. I spent a good part of the novel trying to think of how to rewrite it. It is not nearly as sharp or as witty as his non-fiction.

To start with, Kunstler, as always, is a racist, sexist pig. I read his columns and books because he is pretty dead on about most of the energy issues and such we are facing. But I don’t think we would get along well if we ever met. In fact, I think I would have to exercise all my self-control to keep from strangling the man. First, the sexism: gender roles have reverted in full force and no one minds. No one even argues. Women quietly return to the kitchen. They don’t even come to the city council meetings anymore, with the exception of the pastor’s wife, who is there to ‘stand by her man’. It is quite obvious this the way he thinks things should be. Kunstler sees women as good for cleaning, cooking, and bedding and not much else. Men are all big and strong. In his worldview of even the modern world, there is no such thing as petite, effeminate man or a strong, burly woman. No man is good at ‘womanly things’ and no woman is good at ‘manly things’. Of course, the reality is much more complex. He obviously has never met the bouncer at the local gay bar, for instance; she is an older woman but I think most special forces dudes would think twice before challenging her. I’ve known men who are smaller than I am and women who are master carpenters.

Second, for the racism part: Kunstler makes it explicit –not just clear –that there are no people of color in this town and that this is a good thing. He also mentions hordes and gang riots and street wars several times and these are always portrayed as black vs. white or latino vs. white. He even compares the low-life Wayne Karp and his group of thugs to the Iroquois, thereby spending a good deal of the book insulting one of the most dignified, gentle, and civilized people that have ever lived. (Who were the basis for the U.S. Constitution, by the way.) I am not quite certain he thinks women and people of color are quite human. He also insults Southerners pretty thoroughly; he has no understanding at all of Southern culture.

So, does this book have any redeeming qualities? Yes, I think so. If you ignore the more terrible elements and the flawed writing there is a pretty good picture of life in part of the twenty-first century. No power, no air conditioning, no fast food, eating more and working hard but also more community. One of the reasons I read Kunstler is that he has an eerie habit of being prescient about the future. I think this book contains a lot of good foreshadowing about what life will be like in many places later this century.

I’m not sure about the timing of this book. As I read it I looked for clues. The best I can figure is that it is set in the 2015-2025 timeframe. I draw this conclusion based on the best guess that the narrator is about fifty and the pastor about sixty. This is the feeling I get; it could be a little off. Other clues are the music and such they hear and recognize. This leads me to conclude that the narrator is a member of generation X and about ten years older than myself. (I am smack on the border of X and Y, depending on whose analysis your reading I could be on either side. Which one I claim depends on what mood I’m in. ;-) )

The other clue is this: a 95 year old woman dies in the course of the novel, and it states that she was a nurse in the second world war. For that to be the case, she would need to have been born no later than 1927, assuming she became a nurse straight out of high school in 1945. That gives her a date of death no later than 2022. The year before I will be fifty. Gulp.

Is this a realistic time frame? I don’t know. In the book the crises were speeded up by a couple of well-placed nukes. That could very well happen. As could any number of other things. The downside of Hubbert’s slope is a slippery critter, and we may well slide down a lot faster than we climbed up. Also, this checks with my gut and what I said in my last post: that my grandchildren will hardly know fossil fuels. Even if I had a child today I would not be a grandmother by 2022, but I would be old enough to be. And if my first child is born in, say five years (assuming I have a child), then I could be a grandmother by 2033 or so. I think he may have sped up the timeframe a bit, but I also think this is a fairly good estimate.

All in all, I think you should read the book. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. ;-)

Decision Making, Part Two

2008-09-05T10:38:00.000-05:00

Okay, in part one I talked about the first rule of decision making in uncertain times: hedge your bets. This goes double (or even triple) for anyone who has children, particularly underage children. I listed the things you need to worry about: food, water, shelter, community and security. That’s it. Let me reiterate that a little more forcefully: don’t worry about your pension, don’t worry about healthcare. If things improve or don’t get any worse, they’ll be there. If things start getting really bad they won’t. Trying to protect them will only divert valuable resources away from keeping the things that do matter. Like food.

I also said I would take my best shot at prognosticating the future in this piece. That’s a risky business. But it doesn’t take a Nostradomus to look at the fact and read trendlines. So the first thing I am going to do is lay out a few facts and look at them.
Fact One: Fossil fuels are finite. They will run out.
Fact Two: Our entire civilization is based on fossil fuels, as well as on the massive use of other nonrenewable resources and the use of renewable resources at rates too great to be sustained.
Fact Three: Global warming is real and the effects are starting to be felt. Among these effects will be a progressive drying of arid and semi-arid areas while wetter areas will tend to get more wet. (That’s according to the best projections I’ve seen.)
Fact Four: Our economy is a house of cards.
Fact Five: We have seriously overshot our carrying capacity on this planet and, thanks to said overshoot, are currently degrading our environment severely.
Fact Six: No combination of alternative fuels will allow us to keep operating our civilization in the way to which we have become accustomed.

There are those who would argue with some of these, but they are all well supported by the evidence.
If you doubt fact six, take a look at fact two again. The problem is not just energy, and even if it was, all the alternative fuels depend on a fossil-fuel based infrastructure to make them work.

Okay, I’m going to start with facts one and two. Fossil fuels will run out. Period. All right, I’ll give a nod to the tech buffs and say that technically they won’t run out because we can’t extract every last drop, we will just run out of the ability to extract meaningful amounts. Satisfied? I didn’t think so. There are different kinds of fossil fuels and of course they will run out at different rates. The three most important are natural gas, oil, and coal.
1.) Natural gas is used for heating and electricity generation primarily. The U.S. peaked in natural gas production several years ago and production has been going down since. North America as a whole has also peaked but production hasn’t dropped too much yet. In twenty years there won’t be much meaningful NG production on the continent and what there is will be expensive. Importing NG is a tricky proposition at best. There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which is no one wants to blow up a port (and hence a city) when the inevitable accident happens.
2.) Oil is the biggie. Oil is used in literally everything in our society, from driving to work to the food we eat to the clothes we wear. It has a thousand different names and you it many of them every day. Not just gasoline but medication, plumbing, your electronics, everything in your life is either made directly from oil or has oil embedded in it at some point. Oil has either peaked or will do so shortly. This includes all the forms of oil: liquid, sands, shale, etc. We are either on the plateau of the peak or will reach it shortly and after that it is all downhill. Oil production will decline inexorably every year. You can drill anywhere you want but it won’t change that fact. In fifty years most people won’t have access to oil; in another century there won’t be any meaningful production to speak of. Oh, some I’m sure but not a lot.
3.) Coal is the other biggie. Coal is used to provide most of our electricity and also a lot of people’s heat. But there’s no problem with coal, is there? We have enough to last several centuries. Actually, no. According to the recent projections (see Richard Heinburg) coal will peak in, at most, 50 years and decline from there. Probably less as we attempt to substitute oil for coal.

So let’s see what we have right now: the entire underlying infrastructure of industrial civilization is going to disappear within the next century.
But no problem…none of us will be here in a 100 years. It will be our kids’ problem, right? No, because the effects of the depletion are all ready being felt and will only get worse. By the time I am a grandmother fossil fuels will not play a meaningful role in most people’s lives; by the time my future granddaughter has grandchildren of her own, they will be a distant memory. That’s what will happen in the next hundred years: fossil fuels will go from being an integral part of our lives to being a distant memory.

Even if we had an unlimited supply of fossil fuels, we are running out of everything else needed to sustain industrial civilization: water, topsoil, metals, wood, every single resource has been depleted. Nor can we say we weren’t warned. The Limits to Growth was dead on, right down to the timeframe effects would first be felt: 2000-2010. Let’s add in the effects of the other four facts and it is quite obvious that the next 100 years are going to be interesting. In the sense of the old Chinese curse, that is.

It should be obvious that some major crises and a lot of upheavals are going to be coming our way. And I’m talking about the next twenty years here. No, barring a nuclear war or an asteroid strike civilization will not collapse overnight but we are going to be facing crises. I expect that in the short term most cities will contract and densify while their populations expand. Why? Because a lot of people are not going to be able to afford gas over the next few years and are going to move inward where they don’t have to pay so much for transportation. This is all ready happening. At the same time, food prices are going up, as are utility bills. Climate change will begin to be felt. The economy will keep teetering and many of the jobs people move to the city for will disappear. At the same time, some manufacturing jobs may move back and so things may even out for a while.

The cities will have to change as things get worse. I expect most of the high-rises will either be abandoned or be taken down for scrap. These huge buildings are completely dependent on fossil fuels for everything –power, heating, cooling, ventilation, elevators. As utility prices climb or become sporadic it will make these behemoths less and less attractive as places to live and work. Most don’t even have opening windows. Sure, you could convert the windows but only at great expensive. Now let’s imagine what happens when the power goes or the elevators can no longer be maintained. Do you want to walk 30 or 40 stories one-way to your apartment or job everyday? If you try to stay in the city avoid the high-rises if you can.

As I said before, long-term I think the cities will lose population. Population numbers will decline everywhere (as they always do in the decline of a society), but people will move out of a lot of cities over next 100 years. Oh, the cities will still be there and people will still live in them–most cities are sited where they are for a reason and that will continue to be true. But as fossil-powered agriculture decline, more people are going to have to get involved in agriculture in some fashion. We’ll have enough oil to power industrial agriculture for some time, but what about the tools and machines? Will we have the parts and such to maintain them? The transition will not happen all at once but over time and at different rates in different areas.

Farmers need to have access to land, so this will result in more leaving the city centers. More farmers also means more of the people necessary to support them –blacksmiths, carpenters, general merchants, even pastors. Basically, entire villages. No, I’m not suggesting this many people are going to decamp from a city en masse and move to the country. Many of them are all ready there and others will transition over time. Plus, the flip side of the coin of most cities gaining population over the short term means that our rural population will continue to decline for a while. Eventually the pattern will reverse as people need to become more involved in food production. This is an organic process, not a mechanical one. I fully expect the suburbs ringing most cities will eventually evolve into small farming villages and many small towns will be revitalized. Others will be abandoned completely as they discover they are too far from the city centers or have other disadvantages.

I am not going to try and tell anyone where to live. Far from it. Each possible type of location –farm, small town, small, medium, or large city –has its own problems and advantages, as does each specific location. I’m going to list some advantages of each kind. If you are interested in my own biases, here they are: I don’t like cities. I think they are dirty, smelly, and crowded. I prefer elbow room. That said, I understand the allure and the appeal. I have visited big cities many times and like the convenience and the range of options. They are just not places I personally would want to live. Your mileage may vary. Okay, here are the lists.

Crime: Everyone mentions this, so I put it at the top. Crime will go up everywhere during the coming downturn, as will hate crimes. I do not believe the marauding hordes will ever come to pass but cities are much more prone to riots and gang violence than rural areas. But rural areas are much more prone to drugs (believe it or not) and burglaries and those living there have less capability of calling for help. Plus, hate crimes can be higher in rural areas, at least here in the south.

Power: this is a big one. If and when the grid starts to go down, guess who will lose it first? That’s right, the rural areas. On the other hand, guess who will have higher bills while it does last? The city. And if your city is like mine, they’ll evict you if you can’t pay your power bills.

Shipping: Cities win hands down on this. People in cities will have access to reliable shipping of goods and services and mail for longer than those in the country.

Transportation: Cities win again, thanks to the nearness of most things and mass transit. At least most cities –Houston and its sibs are obvious exceptions.

Population –it should be obvious that more people live in the cities than small towns and the country. This can be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on how you look at it. There’s more and more diverse people in a city, but they also have to have services. You may know everyone in a small town but you won’t in a city. If a disease breaks out its more likely to hit the city harder, given the close proximity of such a large number of people. Remember this also: until the early 1900s, most American cities were not nice place to live. Crowded tenements, filthy air, open-air sewers. We may be returning to those days for all but the rich.

Food –there’s more land in small towns and on farms to grow food, so they will probably have more while the city has shortfalls. Yes, some will be sent to the city but can you imagine feeding NYC’s teeming millions from the surrounding farms? Some people will grow food in the cities themselves of course, but the question is how much.

Water –it depends. Cities will be able to pay for processing and such longer, but small towns may be able to depend on cisterns or local streams.

Community –it also depends greatly on the type of small town or city.

Economics –diversified economies are the key. Any town or city that depends on only one industry –be it tourism or manufacturing –is going to be hurting in the years ahead. Small, isolated tourist towns are going to hurt as badly as Detroit and will probably hemorrhage population the same way. The only thing I feel comfortable predicting about any specific location is this: the Southwest will not do well. There is not enough water there to keep the current population going at even subsistence levels when the underlying base of fossil fuels begins to give way. A lot of people will be moving out of those areas, driven by need rather than desire.

So…how does all of this pertain to decision making in risky times? These are some of the variables you have to play with in making your decisions. This is not actuarial science; there are no risk tables to go to. All we can do is make the best decision possible and hope. And remember the cardinal rule: hedge your bets.

I’ll post more next time.

Rain, Rain, and more rain

2008-08-26T07:54:00.002-05:00

Fay is moving through my area. We got a few of the outer rain bands on Sunday, and then the rain began on earnest about noon yesterday. It still hasn't stopped and isn't supposed to until after midnight tonight. It is coming down at just the right rate; not to fast and not too slow. The ground, still parched from the drought, is absorbing it. I could see the trees perk up when the first rain came through on Sunday. The drought isn't as bad this year as it has been the last two; it seems to be breaking up slowly but surely. Which is a good thing.

One thing that has struck me the past couple of days is the number of people complaining about the rain. Everywhere I go, somone is complaining and wishing it was over and sunny again. Even people who should know better, like my pagan meeting group and a bunch of environmentalists I know. We're in a drought and they are complaining about rain. No, we're not getting it like they did in Florida -four inches or so is what the forecasters say. And yet people are complaining.

This the measure of how disconnected we have become from the world -that we complain about the rain in the middle of a drought. We need this rain, some of us desperately, but people are just complaining but it puts a crimp in their plans. Admittedly, I used to not care much for rainy days either. I thought they were cold and depressing. Now I welcome the rain -for what it does for me, my land, my garden, and the earth itself. I went outside earlier and just stood, letting the light rain was over me, and felt completely content.

Mockingbirds

2008-08-21T07:39:00.000-05:00

Mockingbird, Mockingbird, what are you?
Mockingbird, Mockingbird, how do you do?
Mockingbird, Mockingbird, singing your song
Mockingbird, Mockingbrid, can I sing along?

My backyard had been invaded by mockingbirds this year. There are at least five around on a regular basis and more that stop by to eat at the bird feeders. I’ve had two babies live in the backyard until they were ready to move into the trees. They are always out there singing and love to mock me whenever I come out. They’ll me when I do something they don’t like and follow me around the yard, hopping through the tree branches. I found a mockingbird feather the other day, beautiful and completely intact. It’s a very great honor to receive such a gift from one of our feathered friends. Mockingbird’s are supposed to remind us to listen to our inner voice. I wonder what mine is trying to tell me, lol.

In other news, the Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a rough winter ahead. They are at least as good as the local weatherman with their forecasting, and often better. This will be a catastrophe if it happens and I see every sign of them being right –we are all ready moving into autumn here and it is very, very early. Read the article here:
http://news.mainetoday.com/updates/031815.html

Decision Making, Part One

2008-08-15T10:56:00.000-05:00

First things first. The stock market has rallied the past few days and oil has declined sharply, so everything is back to normal and life is good again right? Um, not quite. But you wouldn’t know that from the cheerleading in the press. I’m beginning to think that all of the media and the financial sector are on massive amounts of Prozac and are sipping Vodka in their coffee mugs, to boot. Things are –well, not good. When I look around and see what’s happening I can’t help but come to the conclusion that life as we know is rapidly going into its inevitable collapse. By rapid I do not mean overnight –the collapse of societies is measured in generations, but there are always sharp downward inflection points. I have conflicting emotions over this: part of me grieves for what will be lost, including those people who will not be able to adapt, are dependent on the system, or just get caught in the confusion. And part of me wants to cheer, because I feel that it’s about time things change and I long ago came to the conclusion that changes were never going to occur until the system as we know it comes down.

I promised this post because I have been thinking about the subject a lot, as I’m sure many of you have. After I promised to write I realized I had no idea how to do so. So this post will be an attempt to sort out my own thinking on the subject as well as a general discussion. It will probably get pretty long, so bear with me.

First, I want to discuss the process of decision making in general. There are several different ways for anyone to make a decision. I’ll use the list from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_making) since it is as good as any other: listing the pros and cons, random methods (such as a coin toss), accept the first option that appears decent, divination (prayer, tarot), ask an expert, or by calculating the expected value of each option. All of us use one of these methods for most of our decisions, but we may not be conscious of it. Most decisions are made rapidly without any conscious deliberation. Do I want the popsicles or should I save the money? If you don’t slow down and force yourself to think your unconscious or your gut will make the decision.

All the formal methods of decision making, however, have inherent in them two assumptions which I find to be highly flawed: first, that humans are rational, and second, that the situation in which the decision is made is known and stable. Despite what economists might pretend we humans are NOT rational. Not most of the time, at any rate. Our decisions and actions tend to be biased and based primarily on our emotions. A book on this subject just came out called Predictably Irrational. Any attempt at rational decision making must be prepared to overcome one’s own desires, emotions, and internal biases. All of these are going to attempt to lean you towards the decision you want to make, not necessarily the one you should make. This fact makes the very foundation of all our economic theory start to crumble, or at least get a little shaky. Most people don’t realize they are not behaving rationally and therefore will make no attempt to do so, and even those who do see the problems will be clouded by their own biases.

The second assumption inherent in systems of decision making is even more dangerous in a situation like ours: it assumes the situation is known and stable. I think even a casual glance at what is happening in our world today will tell you that our situation is in no way stable. Everything has become more volatile –from food and energy to the geopolitical arena. If our relationship with Russia keeps devolving there’s even a chance we could find ourselves in the midst of nuclear war. (At which point I will be running for the hills with my bug out bag and my dogs –I live in a high target area.)

Our situation also is not fully known. How bad will things get? And how fast? Has oil all ready peaked as the data seems to indicate or do we have a few more years? How fast will depletion occur? Are we going into the second Great Depression? (On this question I am heeding the advice of my elders: everyone I know who is 85+ believes we are on the cusp of Depression the Sequel and that things now are just like they were when that started.) When will the effects of global warming really be felt and how bad will they be?

In times like ours all the normal modes of decision making fly out the window. They are almost totally inadequate. It can be tempting to just throw up your hands and let luck and the diving sort it out. Many will do so. A church down the road from me has a sign up that says PUSH –Pray Until Something Happens. Now, I have nothing against prayer; I am very spiritual and somewhat religious person and pray on a regular basis. But if prayer is all you do in a situation like this, to use Southern vernacular, you just might find yerself in a heap o’ trouble. One of my neighbors lost her job and just prayed for God to send her a new one. What ended up happening was that the repo man came to foreclose on her house.

So are there things you can do if you’re not comfortable with just hoping for the best? Of course. I grew up in a very bad situation. My family was homeless on and off throughout my childhood and we always lived in very bad areas. One of the things I still carry with me is this –make decisions that leave you with lots of options. Try not to back yourself into a corner where you’ve limited your options and don’t have any backups. This can be as simple as stocking up now so if there is a panic you’re taken care of.

Given the situation as it is we need to focus on the basics. What do you need to survive?
Shelter, food, water, community, and security. I’m going to go through these one by one. First, we’re trained to immediately assume we’ll buy all these things with money earned from a job. But will that be true in twenty years? Eventually the global economy is going to go away as cheap fossil fuels do so. Oh, we’ll still have some trade. Coffee, chocolate, and other high-value items will still be shipped around. But you won’t get grapes from Chile in January anymore. Like it or not, economies are going to relocalize. Food –and everything else –will be produced much more locally. Do you think you’re job will still be around? If not, what will you do? How will you do it? Start thinking about this NOW.

Shelter –where do you live now? Apartment, house, farm? Do you own it outright, have a mortgage, or rent? Is this place sustainable? If you own it, can you imagine yourself staying there and adapting? If you have a mortgage or rent ask yourself what will happen if you lose all or a significant portion of your income. Can you still make the payments? Is there anything you can do in that situation? Take in boarders or relatives? If you think you will lose your home, start thinking of alternatives NOW. Don’t wait until the eviction notices start arriving. What can you do and where can you go? Relatives, friends, a lower-cost place? Maybe you rent and would like to own but can’t afford it on your own. Okay, so what are the options here? Perhaps you could go in with several friends and buy a large house outright. I know several people who have done this and with careful planning it can work out. There are also other considerations –those high-rise apartments are great, but you can’t grow food in them. And what happens when your job goes down the drain with the rest of the economy?

Food and water –how do you get your food now, and can you see that continuing? If you see a short-term interruption coming, stock up now so you won’t go hungry. But what about the longer term? Do you think you’ll still be able to get your staples and treats at your local big box store in another twenty years? If not, what will you do? Most people don’t like to hear this, but in traditional societies most people have some kind of connection to agriculture and food growing. Maybe it’s just a kitchen garden, but they have it. So you need to look either at sourcing your own food locally or producing your own food. If you try to buy locally remember that it can cost more now and eventually a lot more people are going to try and get local food (or need to get local food) and this will drive the price up. Will you still be able to afford it then? If you decide to learn to grow food, start now. It takes ten years to master a new skill. If you wait until you need to learn you might starve to death before you get your first good harvest. Don’t have a yard? Start with pots or apply for an allotment. Also consider relocating to someplace where you will have access to land, at least a small yard. In traditional societies wealth is often defined by its connection to the land –if you had land you could more easily take care of yourself and your own needs. Water is also key. How do you get your water now? Can that continue indefinitely? If the city supply gets shut off, what do you do? Can you harvest rainwater?

Community –this one is big as well. You can’t live on your own without cheap fossil fuels (or even with them, unless you are fairly well off). Every person is going to need to learn to give and receive help. You might not be able to fix the driveway but can sew clothing (or vice versa). Systems of mutual dependence, trust, and barter will need to be built back up. These take time. Look at where you are now. Do you have any sort of community? Is there the possibility of building one? Are these the sort of people you want to spend the rest of your life with? If not you need to make arrangements. Also, look at your childcare situation if you have children. Is this sustainable? The elderly and disabled are going to depend on communities to survive, as are children. In traditional societies the former two often played key roles –they often looked after children while the parents farmed or what have you, and they made necessary items like blankets. Could your parents move in or nearby and help with the kids?

Security –I don’t think we’ll have the raging hordes so beloved of doomers. But crime will go up as things get worse. (As will hate crimes, so if you’re a target, take measures now to protect yourself.) I’m not going to say go out and get a gun, though that is an option. But at least take measures to secure home as well as possible and learn to be alert. Also consider getting a dog. Yes, they take up resources but most burglars pass up houses with dogs and even if they don’t you’ll have a low-tech, eminently sustainable alarm system. ;-) My dogs alert me when anyone comes near the property –they don’t even have to set foot on it.
Yes, there are a lot of questions here and not many answers. That’s because each person’s situation is going to be very unique. In part two I’ll look at my own situation and do my best at prognosticating the future.

Autumn is in the air

2008-08-15T07:59:00.002-05:00

The morning's are crisp and there is that fall smell in the air. It is early yet for this region but you can't mistake that smell and the feeling that just says "autumn". I thought I was imagining it until a friend said the same thing.

Right now is the time of harvest, of storage, of preparing for winter. Every instinct myself and every other wild creature contains is screaming "winter is coming -prepare, prepare, prepare!" Winter may not be as bad here as in the north but it does get cold. I am hurrying around like a busy squirrel gathering acrons and preparing for the winter.

My garden is in full production mode. I can't keep up with the number of tomatoes I'm getting. My squash crop was pretty much a bust this year -I'm thinking I got some bad seeds. But my pumpkins and watermelons are fine, and the pole beans are so exuberant they nearly choke me every time I go out to get beans. I had my best garlic and onion harvest ever. I've dried a bunch of tomatoes this week for winter soups and pastas. The hum-hum of the dehydrator may give me a headache but it certainly lessens my anxiety about the coming winter and the state of our world.

I hope everyone's fall preparations are going well!

Winners and Losers

2008-08-03T08:31:00.002-05:00

I was berated the other day for leaving the corporate world and my well-paying engineering job. According to the person berating me, I should grit my teeth and go back to engineering for a couple of years and all my problems would disappear. Okay, first that would never happen. I doubt I could go back it I wanted to; I was fired from my last job for "ethical reasons" which is a fancy way of saying I refused an assignment. The ethical problem, from my point of view, was on their end and I refused to participate. I can't say more than that. I have a black mark on my record and that can't be erased, plus most of the jobs around here do similar things to that company. In addition, my last stint in the corporate world left me severly ill physically -I developed numerous ills I won't go into -and made me so depressed I seriously considered suicide. Six months back in a cube writing computer programs -if I lasted that long -would leave me fit for the looney bin.

But let's ignore all of that for the moment. It's the assumption underneath the rant that I want to explore. According to our culture we are all either winners or losers. The winners make it in the corporate world, make lots of money, and generally leave the rest of us in the dust. All the rest of humanity are losers. We have only two function in life: to produce items for consumption and to consume. If we can't do one or the other, preferably both, we are trash and should be disposed of accordingly.

So let's look at the balance sheet. I couldn't hack it in the corporate world. So, I'm a loser. I make very little in the way of traditonal 'consumables'. And I consume very little. So, not only am I a loser but I'm also trash. Gee, thanks for the compliment.

Nothing else about me matters? Not my gardening skills, or my writing, or my caretaking skills? All that I am and will ever be can be boiled down to the amount in my bank account. Or so our culture would have us believe.

I don't buy it. I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous. More than that, it's bull****. A person's worth can't be measured by money, or production, or consumption. To try is not only ridiculous, but wrong. This is one of the problems with our culture. No, indeed I think this is the main problem in our culture: that we judge everything according to its worth in dollars. If something can't be measured in money or if its value is low, its worthless. In order to repair our culture and our world we need to not only destroy that worldview, but turn it on its head: the most important things in the world are thost that can not be measured, that can not be appraised, that are worth the least in monetary terms. I am talking about love, about friendship, kindness, caring, clean air and water, healthy ecosystems, the love of the cat sitting on my desk batting at my arm. THOSE are the things that matter, and when we value them, then we will be truly on the way to chagning the world.

Happy Lammas!

2008-08-02T19:24:00.003-05:00

I'm still working on the post I promised, but I don't want to let the blog die while I do so.

Today (or yesterday, depending on which calendar you're using) is Lammas. For those not familiar with Pagan holidays, Lammas is the festival of first harvest. It occurs midway between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox. This is the time of the year when the first of the harvest's bounty is coming in. In the ancient cultures of Europe Lammas was celebrated with large festivals and a general holiday.

In honor of the holiday I made a rather elaborate meal tonight: rotini with garlic, onions, two types of peppers (bell and sweet bannana), eggplant and squash in homemade pesto sauce. I had corn on the cob as a side dish and blueberries for dessert. Every bit of this meal with the exception of the pasta, the oil, the pine nuts and the butter for the corn came from either my garden, the farmer's market, or a pick-ur-own farm. And the pine nuts were a gift from a friend. (Hey, you think I'm going to pay $9 bucks for a small bag of nuts? Not hardly.)

A local meal for a celebration of the local harvest.

Happy Lammas!

Is localvorism anti-feminist?

2008-07-14T12:20:00.000-05:00

I promise this will be my last post before the essay I promised. But this is something I really want to address, both because I’ve seen this several times now and because our sermon at church yesterday was on localvorism and someone raised this question. The basic premise is that being a localvore may be anti-feminist because it tends to require more work to get and prepare food and thus more time in the kitchen. This is, of course, what women have long sought to escape. You can read a blog post on this subject here: http://www.lilith.org/blog/?p=23

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that not only is eating locally NOT anti-feminist, it is probably the most feminist diet one can eat, and maybe the most feminist thing one can do. I’ll get into the reasons for this as I go through the essay, but first I’m going to take the points in the above post and refute them one by one.

First, as regards winter fruits and vegetables: you don’t eat the same ones as you do in summer. You don’t buy strawberries in December. You buy apples instead. In the place of summer squash you buy winter squash. Secondly, if you want to eat strawberries in December you buy them in May or June –whenever your local season is –and can, freeze or dry them for use in the winter months. This is how our ancestors ate for thousands of years, all the way up to the 1950s when widespread refrigeration and cheap oil made it possible to buy California strawberries in Wisconsin in January.

Second, it doesn’t cost that much more to eat locally, especially if you grow your own or go to u-pick farms. In fact, it can be cheaper. I can pick blueberries here for about a dollar a pint, versus buying them for 2.5 to 3 times that, even now when they’re in season. I have nine pints of frozen blueberries in my freezer that should last me nearly a year.

Next Lilith wants to know if we “can actually cut convenience out of their diets entirely without sacrificing the freedoms that come with not being chained to the stove all day?” There are two points to make about this –the first is that no one says you have to give up all conveniences –I still use my fridge, freezer, and microwave, for instance. The second, and more important, is what freedoms are you giving up? She says she could never work, full-time, get married, or have kids if she would do this all the time. Okay, that’s patent nonsense –there are a lot of married, working moms who are also committed localvores.

Again, I have to ask what freedoms you’re giving up and also what the trade-offs are. Everything has trade-offs; there’s no perfect solution here. To eat locally you do have to spend more time acquiring and preparing food. There’s no way around that. Are the freedoms you’re giving up the right to watch TV for an hour a day? The ability to take your kids to three or four activities a week? That may be okay for you or not. But suppose you don’t eat locally. What are you giving up then?

That question may seem counter-intuitive to some. After all, don’t you get anything? Can’t you eat anything and get it from anywhere? You can eat dinner out every night and have fruit out of season, sure. But it’s going to cost you. The first thing it will cost you is money. As I pointed out previously, it often costs less money to eat locally than not. The second thing it is going to cost you is time. You have to earn that money, after all. And the more money you need, the more you have to work. Maybe you love your job and if so, that’s great. But most jobs in this country frankly suck. The feminist movement liberated us from the kitchen; the corporations made sure we had no choice but to become their serfs. Some success. Where’s the freedom in that? The third thing you’re going to give up is health. Convenience foods are not nearly as healthy as whole, unprocessed food. They are the biggest source of bad health in this country.

But let’s get back to the previous point. Freedom. What is freedom? The right to make your own choices. The right to do what you want and not be dependent on others for your choices. If you depend on the corporate system for food, you are in effect depending on them for everything. Why? Think about it for a moment. Food is basic. Food is the most necessary thing for someone to have. If you don’t have food, you will starve to death. Period. If you have to depend on someone else for food, then you are at their mercy. If you can’t meet their price or they can’t deliver the food, tough. So sorry. A lot of people claim they are not beholden to the corporate system, that they have escaped it. But guess where they still get their food?

Food and food security are not just basic to freedom; they ARE freedom. Throughout history, the first thing a conquering army did to help vanquish the civilians was destroy their food supply. From the Romans, to the English settlers in America, the militias would burn the granaries or the fields to starve the populace into submission. How can you rebel or shrug off a system when you are dependent on it? The answer is that you can’t. So, not eating locally not only does not give you more freedom, it gives you much less. When you are in charge of your own food supply, when you eat locally, when you grow your own, then you cut the most vital link between you and the system that is destroying both you and the country. Which gives you more freedom? And which, therefore, is more feminist?

My very first peach!

2008-07-13T18:42:00.000-05:00

When I moved here a few years ago one of the very first things I did was plant two fruit trees, one an apple and one a peach. Both were self-pollinating varieties of course. Now, it’s almost impossible to overstate how much I love peaches –they are just about my favorite fruit and one of the best things about the South. (Ok, nearly the best thing about the South.) I have tended these trees carefully the past few years but knew I couldn’t really expect any sort of crop until next year.

I had a lot of flowers on my peach tree this year but none of them seemed to develop into anything. Most of them I took off myself because many of the trees branches are not yet strong enough to support fruit. Well, sometimes life throws you a delicious curve ball.

Late yesterday afternoon I was leaving the house and happened to glance up at my peach tree. The late afternoon sun shone on it in such a manner that the leaves were highlighted and I saw something pink against one of the branches. I thought it was probably a trick of the light and went on because I was in a hurry. Naturally, I forgot to check it out when I got back home.

Fast forward to today. I got home about the same time I left yesterday and as I’m getting out of the car I look up and see the same flash of pink. No, I think it can’t be. Can it? So I traipse across the yard, packages and all, and look up. There, ten feet in the air, hangs a perfect ripe peach. I let out a yell that could have waken the dead, dropped everything in my hands, and did a silly little dance in the yard that had all my neighbors staring. They must really think I’m nuts now, after dancing in the yard with a silly grin plastered all over my face.

After the discovery I proceeded to go through heroics to get to the peach. I had to bring out the stepladder, step it up on the lawn –which slopes by the way –and stand at the very edge of my reach to get at it. I knew it was ripe before I ever touched it; it had that perfect pink blush peaches get when they are at their peak. It was firm to the touch and came off with just a gentle twist. As soon as I got on the ground I smelled it. That heavenly aroma alone was worth waiting for. Then I bit into it and stood there on the lawn, juice running down my chin, completely lost.

This, I thought, is heaven. This is what life should be. I don’t need an IPhone and an Xbox to make me happy –just a tree and a peach will do it.

A Few Ruminations

2008-07-09T13:25:00.002-05:00

I’ve been watching the unfolding events of the past few weeks and keep shaking my head. It truly does seem like the wheels are coming off the wagon, sometimes. But every time I think our society couldn’t get any more crazy, it does. I heard today that they are talking about giving cholesterol lowering drugs to children as young as eight, and screening those as young as two. And get this –there are now summer camps devoted to shopping. Shopping. Um. Hello? Is anyone out there? Ship to Mission Control –what the **** is going on down there? Did someone let loose some Martian microbes, or just drop a bottle of vodka in the coffee pot?

Now I don’t claim to have all the answers (far from it) but when you start giving those kinds of drugs to kids (most of whom will be overweight, according to the report I heard) instead of giving them a stalk of broccoli and a basketball, and when we start sending them to camps to train them to be good little consumers, something has gone wrong somewhere and we are in deep kimchee. (With apologies to my Korean friends; I love kimchee; I just wouldn’t want to be dropped into a huge bowl of the stuff.)

From what I’ve seen, most of the public doesn’t yet see two major aspects of the problems facing us. The first is that all of the crises we face are interrelated. These are not separate problems. The problems with energy, food, the environment, politics, climate change, cultural problems –all are so intertwined that trying to separate them out is like trying to undo a bunch of knotted ropes and in this case you can’t even see all of the strands. Everything really is interconnected –but especially so in this instance. To make matters worse, every one of these problems feeds back into the others, positively or negatively and the effects are non-linear and thus not easily modeled.

The second aspect most people miss is that this is not a temporary crisis. Pretty much everybody expects this to blow over in a month or two, a year at most. Most people have no clue that what we are at the beginning of a major shift in the world. There may be a temporary recovery but the forces at play have built to such an extent that a long-term return to the status quo is out of the question. Nor do people want to be told this; try explaining this to someone and watch how quickly they do the grown-up version of putting their hands over their ears and shouting “I’m not listening!” On the one hand this reaction is perfectly understandable –who wants to face the end of their way of life? But on the other hand it is utterly frustrating. I find there are times when I want to take someone by the shoulders, shake him or her so hard I hear teeth rattle, and say “What is wrong with you?” Wake up all ready! Yo! We’ve fallen off the edge of the map and here there be dragons! Either head for the lifeboats or find a sword, but bloody hell man, do something!

Back in my saner moments I realize most people (myself not excluded) are busy just trying to survive, without any ability to look further into the future than the next paycheck. Everything is so uncertain right now that it’s hard to make any plans. Every choice could be the wrong one. In this kind of climate, it’s easy to sit and wait and pray.

The trick, as always, is to find a way to face the future head-on –uncertainty and all. There’s going to be a lot of problems in the next few years, probably the next few decades or centuries. But it won’t be all bad. And, in the end, perhaps something better will emerge than the crazy, consumerist culture of destruction we have now.

In my next post I’m going to discuss my own process of decision making in the midst of chaos.

Until then, blessed be.

Interesting Tomato Problem

2008-07-07T09:03:00.002-05:00

I had an interesting tomato problem this week. I was watering a friend's garden while she was out of town and she told me to pick any produce that was right while she was gone, which of course did. Among many other things I got several tomatoes. One of these had the problem. It was a paste tomato, a roma I think. I'm one of those who will eat small tomatoes -particularly paste, cherry, and plum -whole as a snack. Now, this tomato was at the peak of ripeness. It was blemish free and had no markings, cracks, or anything else wrong with it. I've rarely seen such a perfect tomato -particularly from an organic garden. But when I bit into this tomato, it had mold growing inside.

Has anyone ever heard of this? If so, what causes it?

I'm Published!

2008-07-01T06:43:00.001-05:00

My novella (well, the first part anyway) appears in this months issue of Fantasy Gazetter. You can find it here if you're interested: http://www.fantasygazetteer.com/ My story is Crossroads.
Woohoo!

2 million

2008-06-30T18:06:00.000-05:00

I heard on NBC nightly news last night that 2 million people are expected to 'fall behind on their mortgage payments' next year. I guess that's the new euphemism for being foreclosed on. Add that to the one million + who are going to have lost their houses over this year, and that's 3 million people. Ok, that's probably a low ball estimate but even if its accurate, 3 million is 1% of the population of this country! That's a recipe for disaster.Or rebellion.

Crisis Update

2008-06-29T16:23:00.002-05:00

I write this update just about every month for a newsletter I run, and I thought this month I'd post it here as well.

CRISIS UPDATE
Unless you’ve been living (or hiding –hey, I for one would understand! And if you’ve got any room, would you like a roommate?) under a rock for the past few months you might have noticed that the world has plunged into multiple crises. One each for energy, the food supply, the economy, and the environment. These are separate but intertwined crises which each have multiple effects on the others. I’m not going to call them the Four Crises of Doom as some less optimistic (yes, its possible) commentators have but I will note that they bear an odd resemblance to a certain set of horsemen Americans have tried to forget about over the past century or so. Jokes aside, this is serious stuff, and I’m going to attempt to give an update on each of these crises over the next few paragraphs so we can get a good idea where we stand.

Food –let’s start with the basics. Food is as basic as you get. There is nothing more vital than food. And it’s getting harder to come by. Prices are skyrocketing and supplies are running short. Earlier this year a report came out that said we’d need record crops this year to prevent famine. Guess what folks? That’s not going to happen. Not only is the U.S. hit hard by floods and all manner of whacked out weather but Australia lost 90% of its harvest to drought, and Africa is expected to lose virtually all –that’s right ALL –of its wheat harvest to the stem rust that has now also blown into Iran and Pakistan and is expected to debut in India and China soon, followed by the U.S. in a few more years. One report projected that if the U.S. can’t get some of the flooded fields replanted and some kind of harvest uptick we may run OUT of corn before the harvest in 2009. And we’ve added something like 70 million people to the planet in the past year. Not good. This is a recipe for disaster folks. A lot of people are going to die. Some selected food headlines:
Floods cause food prices to surge: He’s wrong about one thing. The corn growing season isn’t young; most places that are flooded absolutely have to replant by July 4th to have any hope of a harvest –and the fields have to be dry for at least 10 days before they can plant. Let’s do the math: we were on schedule to produce 11.7 billion bushels of corn this year (out of a needed 12.5 billion). Reduce that by 15% and you get roughly 9.95 billion bushels, for a total shortfall of 2.55 BILLION bushels of corn. Of course, that assumes the harvest is only down by 15%. Given the weather so far this year, that’s a bet I wouldn’t want to take. So, what’s going to give? Oh yeah, and Australia’s harvest is down too.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article4186944.ece
One Billion Hungry: It bears repeating: one billion hungry. And if they don’t get fed, eventually they’ll die. The death certificate may not read starvation; it rarely does and instead reads pneumonia or some other condition that wouldn’t be fatal if you weren’t starving, but lack of food will be the reason. One billion people. If this doesn’t get straightened out soon, I see a LOT of dead people.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article4064650.ece
Food Supply Must Double by 2030: Oh yeah, that’s going to happen. We’ll never hit the 9 billion population number; we can’t keep feeding what we’ve got now.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article4056801.ece
U.S. Has NO Grain reserves left: Or anything else for that matter.
http://standeyo.com/NEWS/08_Food_Water/080606.no.grain.reserves.html
Hunger in the U.S.: This last line is worth remembering: “It's not dignified, but we are hungry, and hunger is ugly."
http://www.counterpunch.org/colson06182008.html
With Hunger Comes Anger: And this is only the start. Governments are going to fall over this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
How far is the U.S. from food shortages and riots? A good article but now outdated: we had our first ‘food riot’ last week over free food vouchers in Minnesota.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/04/12/18492403.php

Energy –This is our second horsem –er, crisis. (I promise, I’ll stop.) Oil has peaked. That’s just the plain out truth, folks. Denial can only go on so much longer. We’re on the bumpy plateau where output is relatively steady while demand keeps climbing. Any day now we’ll tip down on the other side. Prices have gone up so far because demand has out run supply. Demand destruction has been taking place for a couple of years now; I’ve seen pictures of countries that have gone dark because their electricity was generated by oil and they stopped being able to afford the oil a while back. What’s going to happen when output starts noticeably shrinking and no matter how much we drill we can’t get it back up to what it was? Remember peak oil doesn’t mean that we’re out of oil –it means we’re at half a tank and the half that’s left is harder to get at, more expensive, and more ecologically destructive. Thus supply will keep going down and demand will be forced to match. Tar sands won’t save us; not only do they require almost as much energy to extract the oil as you get out of the oil, but they require massive inputs of water and natural gas. The former is hard to come by in the locations of the tar sands and the latter has peaked too. Uh-oh. Drilling off shore won’t save us; no 200,000 b/d field is going to replace mighty Cantarell, which is crashing so hard and fast Mexico might be out of oil to export next year. Not only that, but the U.S. alone uses 21 million barrels a day and the world, 84 million. Divide 200,000 into one of those figure and what do you get? Spare change.
Heating oil. Heating oil comes from oil. It’s about $4.50 a gallon right now. People may freeze to death in the northeast this winter because they can’t afford to heat their houses. Others may turn to electric space heaters which some project could bring down the entire northeast electrical grid. Why? Not only is it all ready at capacity, but its as antiquated as a Ford Model-T. (As are all the grid in the U.S. btw, which is one of the main problems with electric cars.) Hydrogen cars are a joke. Natural gas has peaked, and most of what’s left on the continent is in Canada –how long will they keep sending it to us when they need it to heat their own homes? Next we’ll be invading Canada.
Electricity. Most electricity in this country comes from coal, natural gas, nuclear, or oil. Aside from the problems with nuclear it requires massive amounts of water. They almost had to shut the nuke plants here in the southeast down last summer because the drought had lowered the water tables so much. But at least we have enough coal to last a lot longer –right? Right???? I hate to break it to you, but we don’t have nearly as much in the way of coal reserves as we’ve been led to believe. A report I read not too long ago suggest that coal may peak in as little as 30 years. That ‘peak’ word is going to become a four letter word soon, huh? That’s what happens when you base your society on non-renewable resources. Basically we’re…nah, I won’t say it. You get the idea. Some recent headlines on energy:
The U.S. at $200 a barrel oil: A good look at the impacts of oil at $200 a barrel. (Here’s a hint: it ain’t pretty. It’s also just about inevitable.)
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-oil28-2008jun28,0,5808547,full.story
OIL: Problems, problems, and more problems Check this out: China imported 25% more oil in May, oil production fell last year, oil stockpiles dropped in the U.S. for the 4th week in a row. Can anyone spell higher prices?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aeEdT.gCehSQ&refer=home
$150 a barrel oil, happy 4th of July: Analysts are now saying oil will hit $150 a barrel by July 4th. Others are also predicting $200 a barrel by New Year’s. I see even more dead people.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080606.woilole0606/BNStory/Front
Coal in the U.S.: From Richard Heinberg. http://globalpublicmedia.com/museletter_194_coal_in_the_united_states

Credit and the Economy –ok, the globalized economy is going down the tubes. That’s the way it is and there won’t be any changing it. A lot of this is due to the rising price of oil. The projections I’ve seen suggest the airlines will be dead (at least for ordinary folks) within two years with oil this high, much less higher. Not only do we have the housing collapse, but we have the beginnings of what may be a greater depression than the ‘great’ depression. A lot of people are going to lose their jobs and/or their homes. Some manufacturing is starting to shift back to the U.S. because the shipping costs bite. Paradoxically, other jobs are starting to be off-shored precisely because they don’t have any shipping costs, and these are the jobs that have always been ‘safe’ before: engineering, accounting, management, etc. A lot of people are going to be in a race to see whose finances collapse first: theirs or the banks.

Climate –Climate change is rapidly becoming an out and out crisis. Sea level is rising at an inch a year, the weather’s gone completely crazy in many places, and temp’s are going up, up, up. This one is only going to get worse . Buckle up, folks. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. Projections range from a rainy day at the park to Armageddon; the reality will be somewhere in between but probably slightly closer to the latter. Some relevant headlines:
North Pole May Be Ice Free This Summer: So long to the polar bears (and thanks for all the fish).
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/weather/06/27/north.pole.melting/index.html
Oceans warming 50% faster than thought: This partly explains the higher than anticipated sea level rise. Of course, the rest is explained by the faster than anticipated glacial and ice cap melt.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/06/18/scisea118.xml

Rain

2008-06-29T13:25:00.000-05:00

Rain.
It’s been raining here a lot yesterday and today. Not a harsh rain; a nice gentle soaking rain. We needed it so badly. The land seems to be singing today, as flowers open under the gentle caress of water droplets and butterflies frolic in the pauses between showers.

Rain is one of the differences between a natural society and an industrial society. A natural society welcomes rain, rejoices in it, because the people know that without the rain they –and the land –can not live. We depend on the rain for so much. Even when there is too much and a flood occurs, a natural society recognizes this as a natural process and one that must happen. Most natural societies simply don’t build in flood plains, or if they do, recognize that they will be flooded occasionally.

Industrial societies, on the other hand, view rain as a nuisance, something we can’t yet control, that hampers our preferred activities such as washing the car (hello, its rain) or fishing. All of nature is treated like that: as something outside of ourselves that should be tamed and controlled. We do not recognize that we are a part of the natural world and seek to dominate it, to bend it to our will. But one can not escape the natural world; even in space there are natural forces to be dealt with. And nature always has the last word. Somewhere Mark Twain is laughing at our arrogance in the Midwest right now, to think we can tame what can not be tamed. He got what so many in industrial societies never do understand: that we are part of the great circle, not outside of it.

Collapse Hitting Home

2008-06-27T19:18:00.001-05:00

The slow moving collapse of western society is finally hitting home. Two weeks ago my neighbor across the street got foreclosed on. A sheriff’s deputy and a goon squad showed up early in the morning with the foreclosure notice and an immediate eviction notice. There not required to give you any time to vacate the premises here, so they didn’t. The deputy gave her the notice and the goons started hauling her and her son’s things to the curb. She still hasn’t got a permanent place to live.

Three of my neighbors moved out today. Just on my street. I know that it’s moving season but that’s a little excessive. Two of them left in a big hurry and left a bunch of stuff behind. A partial list of the things I got off the curb at one house (incidentally next door to the one across from me where the foreclosure happened): two big bags of garden soil, several good shelves, a nice expensive looking coffee table, a TV, a printer (still in the box!), and an unopened bag of charcoal.

More and more homeless are appearing on the streets. The missions and shelters here are overwhelmed. The food pantries are running on empty. As soon as something comes in it goes right back out again. Food prices are skyrocketing right along with the price of gas. And this is only the first of the shocks on the long road down from the Age of Oil.

How am I coping? Mostly by storing food. Don’t laugh. It’s an utterly practical endeavor. Today I froze a bunch of things. One pint each of blueberries and blackberries, half a pint each of raspberries and plums and a bunch of apples, grapefruits, and tomatoes that were given to me. I froze rather than dried the last because there weren’t enough to dry or can and the tomatoes were all ready too ripe.

Another incident happened today that is worth mentioning. I was preparing to leave home to go clean a house and had just checked my mail. I was walking back to the car when suddenly I saw a hawk come winging out of the forest. The hawk is one of my spirit guides. This hawk flew out of the forest and over the neighborhood, then swung back towards me. For several minutes it hovered above me, circling over my head. It was maybe twenty feet in the air. Then with a cry it went on hunting. I watched it for several minutes before it went out of sight and then I went on my way. What it means I have no idea, save that I felt much more relaxed and peaceful after that. Maybe it was trying to tell me something I remember my great aunt saying when I was very young, before she died: this too shall pass.

To The Last Drop

2008-06-23T07:38:00.002-05:00

So, let's look at how desperate our country is for oil. We've invaded one country to get their supplies. There's sabre rattling over Iran, and I doubt its because of their nuclear program (which all the intelligence says can't make a bomb anyhow). There's a move to drill in the most environmentally sensitive areas of the world, where the slightest mistake (perhaps even just the mere presence of such equipment) would be an utter disaster. We've created an ecological nightmare out of Alberta and some want to repeat that in North Dakota. None of this even takes into account the disaster (and ecological travesty) that is ethanol, both sugar and corn based. And for what? A thick black liquid that is the biological remains of long-dead algal blooms.

A liquid which is also poisonous, which heats the planet, which destroys the enviornment whenever it gets loose and is just nasty in every sense of the word.

Can anyone say addiction? This is the classic behavior of an addict. We will do anything we need to -kill, destroy property, sell off everything we own, even foul our own nests -just to get another fix of this nasty black liquid. What is wrong with us? Can't we see what we are doing?

I have to get to work. I have to go to the store. I have to take the kids to soccer practice, or band, or ballet. And all of that requires that I use gasoline made from oil. That is the refrain we tell ourselves. And yet -look at the results of this lifestyle that is 'non-negotiable'. This lifestyle is destroying the very planet on which we depend for our lives, and our children's lives.

But it is non-negotiable? Again, I bring up the addiction argument. Only an addict would risk their children's very lives for their own selfish short-term comfort. For that is, in the end, what we are doing. When our actions are phrased in such a fashion, it is hard to argue that going to the store everyday or band camp is a requirement. It is hard to see what we are doing as anything but a crime and a sin. I do not use those labels lightly, as I have been accused of "sinning" so many times for doing nothing to hurt anybody that I could vomit. In my book, the only 'sin' is something that harms another. And that is just what we are doing. We are harming ourselves, our planet, our children, by this addiction to oil. And when someone points out that we are addicted we act like spoiled children and scream about our 'right' to use the oil, how we 'need' it, and how no one should be able to say otherwise.

Nor am I any better than anyone else in this race. I too am still addicted to fossil fuels. But its time to break the addiction. Its time to stop this madness. For ourselves, for our planet, and for our children. After all, in the final analysis it will be them we answer too. How are we going to explain this to them?

This Year's Garden

2008-06-18T07:45:00.002-05:00

Between the food, credit, and energy crisis, gardening makes more sense than ever this year. Here's what's growing in my garden right now:
Three kinds of summer squash: zucchini, yellow crookneck, and white patty pan
Two kinds of garlic and two kinds of onions
Swiss chard
Cabbage
Pole beans, almost ready to harvest
Three kinds of peppers: Green bell, cayenne and sweet bananna. I harvested my first cayenne peppers last week.
Ichiban eggplants.
Several tomatoes: Yellow Brandywine, Arkansas Traveler, Roma, Cherokee Purple, German Johnson Pink, Yellow Pear, and Gold Nugget. I've all ready harvested some of the Gold Nugget and the Romas are coming into production.
I'm about to put in my pumpkins and watermelons.

One weird outlier: I have a corn plant growing out of the middle of one of my compost heaps. Its nearly as tall as I am now, and I don't have the heart to cut it down. Yes, I'm weird.

Speaking of weird, we've had weird weather all year. Warm, cold, warm, cold. The first couple of weeks of June were in the upper 90s here. Now, we've always had a few days in June over ninety, maybe even one or two in a row. But two weeks in the upper 90s???? Now it's cooled off, and last night the temps drifted down to the lower 50s. Climate change, anyone?

Signs

2008-06-12T20:10:00.000-05:00

I haven’t written for a while. It’s always easy to get out of the habit of posting, and I am really bad about it. Signs of the ongoing decline of our society are all around us, from the $4+ gas to the number of foreclosures.

My neighbor across the street was foreclosed on today. She’s a single mom, lost her job a couple of months ago and has been having a hard time. She’s been trying to make arrangements with the bank to give her a bit of time but this morning the sheriff showed up, foreclosure and eviction notice in hand, with the goon squad at his heels. Here they aren’t required to give you any time to vacate the premises –not 24 hours, not 48, not 72, and certainly not 30 days as in some places. No, they can order you to leave immediately and have goons enforce it. Which was what they did. Several big guys simply went in once the sheriff handed her the paper and began throwing all their stuff out on the lawn. They were none to gentle about it either –broke a bunch of stuff. What kind of society have we become that allows such callousness without a second thought?

Strawberries

2008-05-03T10:01:00.001-05:00

Strawberries.
Strawberries fresh, strawberries plain
Strawberries with milk, strawberries with cream
Strawberries in pudding and strawberries in pie
Strawberries in bread, oh my!
Take some and freeze ‘em
Take some more and can ‘em
Make them into jam
Even have some with ham!

It’s strawberry season again. For the next month I’ll eat myself just about sick on them. Then I’ll go on to blackberries, then raspberries, blueberries, peaches, plums, apples, and so on through the year until next May rolls around. I don’t have a favorite fruit, but if I did, strawberries would be at or near the top of the list.

I had my first real strawberry in a year yesterday. Not that I haven’t had a couple over the winter, mind you. At parties and such I tried a strawberry or two. But those were lifeless, almost tasteless strawberries. Real strawberries aren’t the size of your palm and aren’t bred for shipping. They are bred for taste and come from down the road or your own back yard. Real strawberries come in all shapes and sizes and taste like, well, strawberries. The taste of each varies too, depending on the size and the plant, the soil and water, and a hundred other variables. Here’s a secret about strawberries: the sweetest ones are often the smallest. The best ones are often no bigger than the top of my little finger. And the bigger ones are usually the tart ones. Here’s another secret: both are required for good jam. I’ll be making my yearly jam in a few days.

I’m off to pick strawberries!