Inside Outside
One very interesting aspect to living here, at least for now, is the amount of time I now spend outside. Even when I’m inside I’m not really. I still have to go outside to pee or poop or get water or wash a dish. I’m always outside. I’m inside to sleep or if it is raining or when I’m cooking. Sometimes I eat outside, sometimes inside depending on the weather and time of day. Breakfast is usually inside but lunch and dinner, on hot days, is usually outside. It is as though I’m somewhere between camping and living in a house. I do have access to electricity and the cabin is water proof but it is far from living in a standard dwelling. It is a very different kind of life and I love it. I’ve never felt more connected to the life around me.
Walking, gardening, and eating catfish
A slow day today. Started off with the usual green tea with chocolate mint from the garden and a breakfast of peanut butter and strawberry preserves. I don’t have (and don’t want to use) a refrigerator so I’ve been eating a streak of these sandwiches so that I can finish off the preserves before they start to mold. I keep the jar in a small cooler with a bit of well water which keeps it fairly cool on hot days and I’ll probably dig a small, improvised root cellar which is a 4 foot hole dug in a shady area with a well sealed container placed inside it. When I start canning my own I’ll make a point of using the smallest possible jar for that reason. Eventually we’ll put in a proper root cellar too.
After breakfast I took a walk with the excellent medicinal plant book, Peterson Field Guide: Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants and Herbs. We’re surrounded by food and medicine, we just have to know which plants are good for what as well as what parts of the plant and how to prepare. I’ve started learning and will also start harvesting for winter and out of season use. I think I’ll be starting with Mullein and Wild Rose hips. The Mullein leaves and flowers can be harvested for use in tea as an expectorant, demulcent, anti-spasmodic, and diuretic which can be useful in treating chest colds, bronchitis, asthma, coughs, and kidney infections. A word of caution though, the leaves contain rotenone and coumarin and should be used with caution. The rose hips are the little red fruits after flowering and can be made into a tea very high in vitamin C, I’ll probably mix that with mint from the garden. I’m no longer drinking orange juice so that will make a nice supplement to my diet.
The half-way point of my walk was a visit to the grandparents. As is almost always the case granny offered food: grilled cheese and potato salad. A very tasty treat! I also retrieved a bag of frozen catfish* for dinner. Freezing fish is likely the only thing I’ll be needing a freezer for so I’ll just borrow a bit of space since it won’t be much. I’ve got three relatives all within walking distance so I can spread it out if I end up having a lot. I’m thinking I also need to learn how to smoke fish for longer term storage though I’m not sure how long it can be stored even when smoked. The best thing would be to eat it fresh but when it is cold and the lake is frozen that will not likely be an option.
After the walk and before eating the catfish I worked a bit on preparing a couple of new keyhole beds in the zone 1** garden of annual veggies just outside my cabin door. Back in 60s-90s this land was used as a hunting and fishing club so there were little weekend trailers scattered about and my cabin sits on one of those sites which means it sits on a bed of gravel and rock. Fun, fun. I’ll be raking and digging that rock out into a thin path from the door to the road. The site has been unused for at least a decade which means there’s a nice layer of composted leaves built up which I’m separating out from the rock. The resulting beds will initially be planted with lettuce, spinach, carrots, and radishes for a late summer and fall crop.
*Folks that know me personally probably know that I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 years and may be wondering why I’m eating catfish. A big part of my decision to become a vegetarian was based on the energy aspects of diet. It generally takes less energy to eat a plant only diet. Another aspect of the energy equation is transport and there are other concerns such as whether the food is being exported from a country where people do not have enough food due to the production of cash crops for export. When I decided to move here to create a life based on permaculture principles I knew that it also meant that I would begin harvesting the mature fish from the lake. It is an excellent protein source which is available in great abundance within 100 yards of my front door.
**For folks new to permaculture, when a site is designed it is viewed as zones. The house or living structure is Zone 0 and the area immediately outside the doorways is Zone 1. This is the area most often and conveniently accessed so this is where we try to plant the annual vegetables that need the most attention and which are likely to get harvested often.
FISA Amendments Act Legalizes Lawlessness
The folks at Irregular Times have done a fantastic job covering the FISA Amendments Act: FISA Amendments Act Legalizes Lawlessness:
“We’ve written a lot about the FISA Amendments Act this year. There’s quite a bit to learn if you really want to understand the law, and what makes it such a danger to the survival of democracy and liberty in the United States. The issues can seem overwhelming.
That’s just what the supporters of the FISA Amendments Act are counting on, though. They’ve tried to make the law so complex that Americans become deterred from even trying to understand it.
Don’t fall for that trick. At its core, understanding the FISA Amendments Act is quite simple. All you need to know about the FISA Amendments Act in order to understand its essential nature is one thing:
The FISA Amendments Act allows the White House to break the law on spying."
I strongly suggest reading the rest of the post.
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American Politics, Politics, Privacy, Spying, FISA
Days of little chores
After working at a frenzied pace from early May through mid June, first with the cabin and then with the garden, I’m finding now that I have more days with free time for little projects. On Monday I watered the seven fruit trees each with a full 5 gallon bucket hauled from the lake, moved a wood pile to clear a space for 3 new keyhole garden beds near the cabin, finished the gate on my garden fence by adding chicken wire to the bottom 24 inches. Tuesday I finally finished the last bit of painting on the exterior of the cabin, put up a bit of trim to prepare for the gutter, and stained the front door. Wednesday I planted four potatoes, thinned/transplanted chard, and installed the gutter. Thursday I emptied the outhouse collection bucket into the long-term humanure compost, hand washed a small load of laundry, made a grass collection attachment for my gas-less reel mower, and cut a bit of grass.
I fully expect that life after the oil crash will consist primarily of such work as this. At least I hope so because it is a peaceful and healthy life. I have no illusions that for most of us it will also include much difficulty and struggle especially in the first years of adaption. For some it will likely include a much higher level of violence as panic and desperation set in. No one can know the exact details but we can contemplate and we can do our best to prepare.
Technorati Tags:
Composting, Conservation, Food Production, Natural Resources, Oil, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Permaculture, Primitive Living, Self Reliance
Rain Barrel Nerd
You know you are a total nerd when the highlight of your day is a brief rainstorm that fills your rain barrel half way. With the new (actually 20+ years old and re-used) gutter all the rain is now directed to the barrel and our five minutes of heavy rain just now filled it to half. Sweet. I can’t wait to get the others and hook them up into a proper series. I’d like to put in 10 but I may only be able to fit 8 or 9 which would still be a nice bit of water to have around. Given that this barrel would have filled in just 10 minutes I’d estimate that 8 barrels will easily fill in less than two hours with a fairly hard rain, much less if the rain were as heavy as what we just had. Maybe I need 20 barrels?
My expectations of a future shaped by climate change and peak energy is that we must become very efficient at harvesting and using/conserving fresh water. It seems to me that we can expect increasingly erratic weather with periods of extreme drought and wet far beyond what we’ve seen in the past. Combine that with the myriad issues related to agriculture and peak energy and you have lots of trouble in regards to a steady food supply.
If I can harvest and store 1650 gallons of water for use during drought then I will… guess I need 30 barrels!
Humanure!!
We've started our permaculture project!! Our site is about 110 miles south of St. Louis, Missouri on about 300 acres total with a lake. We'll be using just a few acres, probably less than 5 to start with.
We spent the first weekend of work accomplishing our first goal: building an outhouse for collecting human manure for composting. When this picture was taken we were one day into the project. 95% of the materials used were recycled from abandoned or tornado damaged structures. The only thing we purchased was a bit of siding and roofing material.
We'll also add a gutter and rain barrel for collecting rain water for washing hands. The structure is nestled in with a few cedar and dogwood trees so a good bit of shade. My current plan is to mound up large creek rocks near the treated wood base and then soil further out from the rock and plant with a variety of shade wildflowers like Sweet Willam.
A note about permaculture and composting human waste. For a lot of folks the subject of human waste is taboo. From the perspective of permaculture, it is what it is: the natural by-product of human life which can and should be recycled back into the local ecosystem. We won't be spreading this raw manure onto crops because it does indeed contain a variety of bacteria that should not be near food. A five gallon bucket is used to collect the manure and it is then composted in a special long-term compost pile for 2-4 years to ensure that it is safe to use. In all likelihood it will be used for fruit and nut trees, berry vines, and bushes in our forest garden.
Next on the project list: Utility shed and after that a series of small cabins. Some family will be using cabins for vacationing initially with plans for longer term residence later. I'll likely be living on-site much of the year starting in the fall. Composting has already begun and the garden as well as forest garden will be developed in stages starting this fall. Spring of 09 will be focused on the full development of the garden as well as a new chicken coop for 5-10 chickens and a bee hive.
This is just the beginning of our project but given the general state of energy and climate change on the planet, I'm glad to have it started. I have no doubt that peak oil has arrived and, as fate would have it, the effects of climate change seem to be rapidly accelerating at the same time. It is well past the time that we begin building local communities of people willing to see a life beyond suburbia.
Why won't CNN cover Bush and Co. Torture?
The Irregular Times officially covers Bush and Co. torture better than CNN and other corporate media... and they do it from the bathroom. Video: I Can Cover Torture Better Than CNN from my Bathroom!: "
Another day dawns in which the New York Times utterly fails to cover the fact that George W. Bush not only knew of but came out and said ‘I approved’ of the use of torture by the United States government. 18 square inches devoted to dancing nuns? That’s news the paper finds ‘fit to print.’ But not the involvement of the president in a conspiracy to commit torture.
On the television, CNN has devoted not one minute, not one second to the news that your president is at the head of a criminal torture conspiracy. This has so driven me to distraction that I’ve decided I could generate better news coverage from my own bathroom:
BNN: the Bathroom News Network. Yes, it’s unpolished. No, there are no tympanies. But it’s not dirty if it’s true.
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George Bush, US Terrorism, War, Torture, War Crimes
Sharp-shinned Hawk
This Sharp-shinned Hawk landed on one of the perches in my feeding area… maybe 15 feet away. Beautiful bird and my first chance to photograph a bird of prey. After landing he just calmly looked around for some dinner, maybe 40 seconds and then flew away. I must say, he is welcome back anytime!! I was stunned by his presence and keep replaying the moment in my mind because it did not seem real. I think this visit made my year!!
Rockets, Hamsters, Presidents, and a planet at the brink
Consider this part two of my previous post… this is what I woke up thinking about it 4am. Yes, I’m talented.
The likelihood that the next president and congress will do anything to meaningfully deal with peak energy and climate change? I think we’ll see a team of genius hamsters send a rocket to the moon first.
Technorati Tags:
American Politics, Barack Obama, An Inconvenient Truth, Capitalism, Carbon, Climate Change, Conservation, Consumerism, Consumption, Ecology, Energy, Energy Conservation, Energy Crisis, Energy Shortage, Environment, Environmentalism, Fossil Fuels, Global Warming, Natural Resources, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Politics, Recession, Sustainable Development
Our planet needs a global recession
Just popping in to offer up a thought about the current thinking regarding climate change and the economy in relation to current political discourse and media. It is generally accepted thinking that economic recession is bad. It is also now generally accepted that climate change is a serious global problem which needs to be addressed in a very serious manner by governments and citizens.
Let me point out the hard truth which will never be uttered by any candidate for U.S. president, not even Barack Obama who seems to have a great deal of support of liberals and progressives in the U.S. No current Democratic or Republican candidate is even close. If we are going to solve the climate crisis we must reduce our carbon emissions immediately and let me be clear by what I mean by reduce and immediately. I mean that we need a reduction of 50% by yesterday and 90% by tomorrow. We need a global economic recession because we need an immediate end to economic growth. We need an end to a global economy that is based on ever increasing consumption and which promotes consumerism as a way of life. It is not what most people want to hear and it is not what a candidate will say if they want to get elected. But it is the truth.
Our level of public and political discussion regarding climate change and natural resources reflects our thinking on the issues and it is purely delusional. The time for making gradual but serious changes to our way of life was 1990. In 2008 we have runaway climate change and a planet of 7 billion people which has reached peak energy production.
Buckle up for a very rough ride.
Noam Chomsky on Obama
"When I was driving home the other day and listening to NPR - my masochist streak - they happened to have a long segment on Barack Obama. It was very favorable, really enthusiastic. Here is a new star rising in the political firmament. I was listening to see if the report would say anything about his position on issues - any issue. Nothing. It was just about his image. I think they may have had a couple words about him being in favor of doing something about the climate. What are his positions? It doesn't matter. You read his articles. It's the same. He gives hope. He looks right into your eyes when you talk to him. That's what's considered significant. Not 'Should we control our own resources? Should we nationalize our resources? Should we have water for people? Should we have health care systems? Should we stop carrying out aggression?' No. That's not mentioned. Because our electoral system, our political system, has been driven to such a low level that issues are completely marginalized. You're not supposed to know the information about the candidates."--Chomsky, What We Say Goes
(Via Good Times and Bad Times in Lost America.)
Technorati Tags:
Obama, American Politics, Chomsky, Politics
Enchanted Planet Images
My new site for my growing set of image galleries: Enchanted Planet Images. I think with this new year I’m going to weed through my growing collection of accounts and weed a few out. Given my desire to limit and reduce my carbon footprint, it would seem that I really should eliminate accounts on servers that I do not need, this being one of them. I think I’ve been averaging less than 10 hits a day for this blog for many months. I’ve not been very consistent about posting so I’m not surprised. For the amount that I write the blog I’ve set up at Enchanted Planet Images should probably be adequate. So, if you are one my very few subscribers/readers you may want to change your bookmark.
Happy New Year and let’s all hope for a recession. The planet could sure use one. In fact, economic slowdown should be the prime goal of a society concerned about conserving resource usage and slowing climate change.
Technorati Tags:
Climate Change, Conservation, Environment, Environmentalism, Photography, Recession
Growing Native
My first YouTube video, an export of a Keynote presentation about growing a native wildflower garden for habitat. An excellent way to reduce usage of water and fossil fuels by replacing grass with plants that are native to an area and better suited to that environment. No need for fertilization and less use of water after seedlings are established because the plants are usually satisfied by normal rainfall.
Fall Light
This was taken a few weeks ago. There's no doubt that the fall weather was very late to arrive this year. We had mostly green leaves on trees up to the end of October. I suspect we will see very little snow this winter just as we've seen very little in the past four... far less than in years past. It is way too warm.
Summer Ends
Northern Sea Oats in my garden.
It seems that fall may finally be arriving with a bit of cool weather. As I write this 95% of our trees are still very green. It's October 10th and we're just beginning to see fall color. The past few weeks have seen most days into the low 90s or upper 80s. Scary.
Like much of the midwest and southeast we've had a summer of severe drought so I'm doubtful that we'll have as much color as we've had in other years.
An eco-friendly way of dealing with fall leaves
Four years ago I moved from the big city to five acres in the country. I soon discovered that many country folk have a nasty fall habit: they burn their leaves. At least in this part of the country it seems to be the universal method for fall yard maintenance. Given the current state of climate change burning leaves is a real no-no. As an avid gardener I’ve always made it a point to compost leaves so that all that organic matter is returned to the soil which completes the natural cycle.
Here is a tip for more easily managing fall leaves that is based on moving them rather than burning them. If you’ve got a big yard in a rural setting chances are you have a place where you can store a big pile of leaves for the winter so that they have a chance to decompose and not be in your way. The method is simple and requires a tarp and a rake. If you’ve got two people a bigger tarp will work better. Simply lay the tarp down and rake the leaves onto it. When you’ve got a huge pile fold the tarp over forming a big leaf taco and drag it to your compost or out of the way area. Repeat until finished. That’s it. You’ll get some exercise and will add zero emissions to the atmosphere.
Using this method is as fast as burning and much faster than bagging leaves or raking them into a wheel barrow. It may not be as fast as one of those fancy lawnmower-based leaf mulcher/vacuums but it produces zero pollution. Gas mowers are terribly inefficient at burning gas and produce gobs of CO2 (Carbon dioxide), much more than a car, because they do nothing with the emissions produced… they just spit it all out. So the gas mower/vacuum method should be avoided.
