Red State Green

This is a series about learning to feed yourself. The idea for this came from this post. You might want to read both of those first to see where I’m coming from before you comment.

1. Learn to garden
2. Stock up
3. Find out who your neighbors are <– we are here
4. Find local food sources (within 25 miles)
5. Learn to cook
6. Think about your meat sources (this is optional, of course, for you vegans out there, but think of it as a ‘bonus’ should your carnivore friends have a question)

Knowing your neighbors

I didn’t say ‘meeting your neighbors’ (although that’s the first step) or even ‘liking your neighbors’. I said ‘knowing’ them.

There are neighbors in a physical, live-next-door sense, people who live in your town, and those who live in your region. There are communities you’re in online, if you’ve been online any length of time. Some of you are in multiple ‘communities’. Each of those has value, and can help enormously in learning the skills you need, as well as when times get difficult.

I’m in a Yahoo group about environmental issues, and there are people there from hard Right to hard Left, and everything in between. It gets quite heated at times. However, one man made a comment on this subject I thought very interesting. He gave me permission to use it:

I think I’ve had some unrealistic notions about how “community” is supposed to work. There are people here I wouldn’t invite to dinner, and others I’d be thrilled to have living next door, and a whole bunch more I have no opinions about one way or another. But even if I don’t think I like you much (and how often have my first impressions been proven wrong?), that doesn’t mean we don’t need each other, nor does it diminish the importance of either of us to the community as a whole. Community, as I understand it, isn’t about warm fuzzy feelings and all of us being bestest-friends-forever. It’s about hanging together through the storms that life (or an angry planet) throws up at us, depending on our collective wisdom for those things we can’t provide for ourselves as individuals. That’s a whole lot easier if we remember to train our most rigorous impulses on ourselves exclusively and be generous with everyone else.

–Mark Barnett

There’s a lot of good stuff in this quote:

• You can work with people even if you don’t like them
• Your neighbors know how to do things you don’t
• Having an extra set of hands or someone to watch your back or even just someone to work with is of value
• Be kind to others and strict with yourself, if at all.

The second point is a very important one. Remember those skills I referred to? One person can’t know how to do everything. It’s impossible. But a group has skills far beyond even the individuals in it, because if no one knows how to do something, you can get together, brainstorm and figure it out.

But if you know who lives around you, you’ll know who knows how to grow watermelon, for example. Maybe someone else is really good at baking, and can teach you how. There might be another person you meet who knows a good place to buy something you’re looking to stock up on. And you can teach them too.

Knowing your neighbors has value in other ways. If you know someone, and you know how to do something (like feed yourself), you’ll be more likely to talk about what you’re doing. They’re likely to be interested and make efforts in the same direction. One less person hungry if something does happen.

Sounds like a good thing to me.

I’ll have to say, though, that this isn’t my strong point. I’m glad Mark doesn’t think I have to be ‘bestest friends’ with my neighbors, because honestly I’m a bit of a misanthrope. But it’s a skill to be learned just like anything else. So I’m saying hello to people who walk by when I’m out gardening, and talking to my neighbors, and so far it’s been a good experience.

I’m discovering that finding local food sources is a big way to meet people in your area who are already interested in feeding themselves. After all, they’re doing it. I’ll talk more about that next time. Stay tuned.