The doldrums
Well, it’s been more of the hot lately, but I think I’ve been reading the news too much. Gas prices, foreclosures, homelessness, food supply issues … all on the rise. And none of the candidates seems to have a clue.
For me, it just reinforces my feelings that we need to become self-reliant, take care of our own properties, our own food supply, our own families, and stop waiting for ‘the government’ to ’save us’.
Anyway, enough of the politics. A few things *have* happened while I moped around 
Planted: carrots, sunchokes
Harvested: the first of the blackberries (!), peas, more shallots
Preserved: Froze the snow peas. The shallots and garlic are all curing out on the porch. I’m saving out the biggest ones to plant in a bit.
Resource management: Cleaned out the rabbit bins and composted the litter. Shredded up more old phone book for new litter (we are the mother lode of old phone books, there are several phone book companies here, who each think we need two or three a year). Plucked both the bunnies! They seem way more comfortable, and I have some lovely wool to spin, once I learn to spin better …
Preparations: Well, I bought a case of organic locally-grown peaches from the co-op. When they get here in a few weeks, I plan on canning most of them (one of my sons loves canned peaches, and I’m sick of buying them — not anywhere near locally grown — at Wal-Mart). I’ve never canned peaches before, so it should be fun.
More local: put my order in at the co-op, actually remembered to order things I forgot to last month like bacon (we’ve come to the end of the piggie’s bacon so I have to order it again). Once a month buying makes you plan a bit more. It’s good to do.
Well, that’s all from here. Hope you’re having a good day.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Not to focus on the negative things too much, but I’ve been struggling with these things myself quite a bit. I guess my take on the solution is a little different, though. Maybe it’s a little too idealistic, but I think things are going to be very rough indeed if we can’t rely on our neighbors to some extent. We can’t all be good at everything, and the whole point of civilization is to minimize the risks of one person having a bad harvest (or whatever) and being wiped out.
From my perspective, it seems like we need to focus more on building strong communities that have thriving local economies…that extend beyond simply growing food. Incidentally, that helps de-compound the carbon and energy intensity of these aspects of life, too.
June 4th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
What are your ideas to do that?
June 9th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Sorry for the late reply, but:
Growing local food is a good start, and it helps us imagine what else we can do locally. I think that decentralized energy production is also important, as is reclaiming our retail sector. Anything that can help trap more money locally will help, come to that. In the process, I think we can rediscover our neighbors and start to build trust in the people around us.
I live in an area where most of the people I meet aren’t from around here - I’m not either, so I can’t claim special position there. But it strikes me that I also see a lot of police go whizzing by, and the sheriff’s helicopter is always circling overhead…and we live on the “good” side of town. I don’t know my neighbors, and the houses around me are constantly turning over, because this is a “starter” neighborhood, a stepping stone for most. We don’t have much within walking distance, and we don’t have sidewalks in the neighborhood. These are all symptomatic of a society that doesn’t value its communities anymore, in my opinion.
If we’re going to build high walls against he hordes to come, then maybe we’d better reconsider that, is all I’m saying.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I never said anything about building walls against ‘hordes’. Where did you get the idea that I advocated that?