Whole-y Wheat!

I went grocery shopping today. I don't do it often, but I broke down and went. Mostly veggies.

And you know what? I was out of whole wheat flour, so I had to buy some. $5.19 for a 5 lb bag of whole wheat flour. I sure wish Costco sold giant bags of whole wheat flour, but they don't - at least mine doesn't.

I'm not going to rant and rave - at least, at this point, I can afford flour that expensive without really noticing. But I know there are a lot of people out there who can't. Instead of buying whole wheat flour, they'll switch to the less nutritious kind (the bleached white flour). They'll have to start buying more of the cheapest stuff in the store, which is the least nutritious stuff. It's scary. Our society will be forced to survive on spaghettios and corn chips.

We are in for some really rough weather folks. I joke about it, but that's just because it's too scary NOT to joke.

Burning of Blueberry fields

Also in Today's Boston Globe is an article about Blueberry farmers having trouble burning their fields due to the high cost of fuel. Apparently, in order to properly manage wild blueberries, you need to either mow or burn your fields. The photo in the article is a striking one - like a fire breathing tractor.

It occurred to me while reading the article: they are using fuel to burn their crops? Let's see... they put fuel into their tractors, drive around their field and use even more fuel to force a flame to come out and burn their fields. With all this dry weather we had, is that really necessary? Seems somehow extravagant to me. With all the brushfires we had last week, maybe they should be driving around spraying water instead?

932 gallons of fuel to burn 13 acres of blueberries. That's nearly 72 acres of fuel for an acre! I have an acre of land, roughly square and roughly open. I cannot imagine somehow using 72 gallons of fuel on it in ANY way - let alone pouring 72 gallons of fuel on the land and lighting it up (although I'm sure they use more of a flame-torch approach). Especially during the past two weeks when the whole place would have gone up with one match. There's no WAY that's an efficient use of fuel.

I'm sorry, but its very difficult to feel for their fuel pinch. 72 gallons of fuel an acre. Is that guy nuts?

Nevermind the issue with particulates in the atmosphere. Burning DOES have some positive effects on the soil, but maybe they could do it a little more intelligently. Maybe burn every 5 or 6 years and then mow in between. That guy would have saved some $3,000 in fuel. I bet it costs the same amount to drive the tractor to burn as it does to drive the tractor to mow.

My favorite part of the article is the guy who is apparently a bit smarter - because of the high cost of fuel, he is now mowing 80% of his fields and is only burning the places that are difficult to mow (physically) or have pest problems. At least SOMEBODY is thinking.

The article also mentioned that the prices of fertilizer are going up... Maybe articles like this will make people realize that fertilizers are petroleum based, and that crap is going into your food, and then into your body, where it is stored in your fat cells. For you athletes - when you burn that fat, the fertilizers and pesticides interfere with your cell's ability to create energy.

Maybe I don't need to be supporting the Maine Blueberry growers after all...

Aquifer in Public Trust

I'll admit I'm a bit fanatical about water and water usage. I studied Hydrogeology in school (and very much enjoyed it), and have worked as a hydrogeologist. I also lived in San Antonio, TX and spent 6 months in Las Vegas - both places where water conservation is taken seriously (in theory, unless you are a big employer or own a golf course).

So when I moved back to Massachusetts, I was struck by how completely unregulated our aquifers are. Most of the water for the most populated area of the state (including Boston) come from a series of reservoirs in the western part of the state via the MWRA pipe line. The MWRA (Massachusetts Water Resource Authority) serves 2.5 million people in 50 water communities, and also handles sewage systems for those communities. I currently live outside the MWRA service area, and I also grew up outside of the service area.

The MWRA does a fairly good job of supplying quality drinking water to the people it serves. The Quabbin Reservoir, located in the western part of the state, was built starting in 1930 and completed in 1939. The building of the Quabbin necessitated the abandonment of four towns, and the damming of the Swift River. It was a massive operation - they had to remove buildings, cemetaries, businesses, a railroad line and relocate all of the residents. This has always seemed very sad to me, although I can see the importance of the project and why it was necessary. At this point, the woods and area surrounding the Quabbin are mostly accessible only via foot traffic in order to protect the water supply. It is a beautiful area.

The MWRA is a publicly owned water system, so no one (in theory) is making money off of the water system. There's nothing really wrong with the MWRA, that I can see, although I'm sure, like any agency, it has its issues. My concern is that the MWRA isn't doing enough to push water conservation. Granted, the Quabbin has plenty of water. But it would be far better to conserve while we can than get into trouble later on. With climate change already occurring, it is difficult to tell what the future might bring, and it would be wise to conserve while we still have plentiful good quality drinking water.

However, I live outside the MWRA service area. We, like many of the towns around us, get our water supplied through residential drinking water wells, which means the local aquifer level is important to me, and I share an aquifer with my neighbors although we each have our own well. I have one neighbor who is fanatical about maintaining a perfect (and large) lawn. They water it regularly - in the middle of the day. Drives me nuts. There are 2 golf courses in town, which also use a ridiculous amount of water, although it's possible they have larger wells that are drawing from a deeper or different aquifer. It's hard to tell - as far as I know, our town has no listing or map of well information (I did go looking for information once...). There is no oversight at all, and as far as I know, no rules regarding water usage or withdrawl rates. Which is fine now - there appears to plenty of water right now. Which is exactly why we should be thinking of this right now, before it becomes an issue.

I was encouraged to read in the Boston Globe today an article about a bill recently passed in Vermont regarding Aquifers in the State of Vermont. If Governor Douglas signs this bill into law, all aquifers in the State of Vermont would be declared a public trust, which would necessitate a state permit for large water withdrawls. This wouldn't do anything about my crazy neighbor and their lawn, but it is a step in the right direction, and puts someone in control of the aquifers, instead of being a complete free for all. The law would also acknowledge that the groundwater in VT is owned by the people of the state, and that the groundwater must be managed by the state as such.

It's a step in the right direction.

In San Antonio, TX, there is the Edwards Aquifer Authority, which protects and manages supply for 1.7 million people - including agricultural (farming and/or ranching), residential and manufacturing uses. The Aquifer is 180 miles long. On the main page of their website, they have today's aquifer level, as well as the 10 day average. This information is also printed in the daily newspaper. There are laws regarding water usage - such as no watering between 10 am and 4 pm, and they can ticket people who waste water by watering their sidewalks/driveways or letting the water run down their street from their property. The Edwards Aquifer Authority also has different action levels based on different aquifer levels, and the information is all right there on the website.

While Massachusetts is in a very different climate than that of south-central Texas, the concept should be the same: the aquifers are a resource for the people, and need to be protected as such. It's a shared resource, and we shouldn't let this resource be a free-for-all until its too late. There are some protections for our aquifer currently under the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection, but the DEP also deals with a great many other issues, and we should have regional aquifer authorities that place the quality and quantity of our aquifers above everything else they do. Perhaps as a subset of the DEP. Maybe this should only apply in the western and central portions of the state, where people actually directly get water from the aquifer they live on top of. But right now, the only local political entity that has any oversight over our drinking water wells is the board of health - and from what I can tell, there is no cohesive organization of that data in my town. If there was a water quality issue, it would be very difficult to determine who is affected in what areas. If wells started to run dry, the only answer would be "go drill a deeper one" (not cheap), which places the burden on the homeowner, and ignores that there may be someone nearby using a larger amount of water than is reasonable, and your well may run dry as a result of their actions.

It's finally raining...

... a little too much. Half an inch today. One to two inches tonight. A quarter to a half-inch tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong, we need the rain. But a 2-day long down pour while everyone is planting their fields isn't a great thing, really. I had to go out and buy some straw (not hay, which contains seeds and will import weeds) to lay on my garden in order to keep the soil from washing away (see my previous post as to why THATS a concern).

Which brought me back to the cover crop idea. Last fall, I planted my first cover crop on half of my garden. The idea of a cover crop is this: it fixes nitrogen, keeps the soil in place, keep the soil slightly warmer (better insulation), and keeps the soil aerated. All of which improves the soil structure. Additionally, during normal growth patterns of a cover crop, organic matter is created via the root system growing on a daily basis. Roots, apparently, are much like our skin in that it regenerates on a regular basis - some of it dies and falls off as new skin is created, and it just keeps cycling through. This is what happens to the roots of cover crops, as well, which is one way that cover crops "fix" nitrogen into the soil.

If the soil is better insulated and better aerated through the use of cover crops, there is the added benefit of increased worm activity in the soil, which also goes great lengths to improving the structure of the soil. The worms (and other bugs) are able to be active later into the fall and earlier in the spring than if the soil had been wiped clean with the fall clean up.

So last fall, I planted (perhaps a little too heavily) a cover crop of winter rye. I spent about $4 on the seed, I think, and put minimal effort into planting it correctly (I threw the seed down, scratched up the soil with a garden rake briefly, and watered occasionally during dry spells). The winter rye had enough time to germinate and get some green growth prior to onset of winter. This spring, as the snow was melting off, I noticed two things: 1) the green parts were still green, UNDER the snow and 2) those areas where I planted the cover crop melted first.

I planted the beans and the peas last week in one of the winter rye areas. For now, I just hoed up a row IN the winter rye, and turned under those areas, leaving the areas in between the rows covered with the winter rye, which was growing so well I didn't have the heart to get rid of it all (it's about a foot high now). My theory is that the winter rye, will prevent unwanted weeds from growing, thus saving me much work while further adding to the soil. I may have to go through and trim it soon, or I may have to hoe it under. I'm supposed to hoe it under, but I hate directions. Winter rye, apparently, will grow to about 5 feet tall, which will definitely cause some issues with water/nutrient use and will compete with the vegetables.

BUT there are other summer-type cover crops, including alfalfa and clovers, which will perform the same function. My basic plan is this: to plant varieties of these two plants in strategic areas. Alfalfa along the road, likely (where I am years away from being able to get anything to grow at all) and in areas where I hope to garden next year, low growing clover IN the garden between the rows and taller clover in the butterfly garden.

Once nice thing about the clover is that it will attract bees, which will be good for the plants and, well, the bees (which are having a terrible time lately).

One drawback is that I'm not sure how hard it will be to get rid of the clover once I introduce it to the garden. Maybe it'll die out over the winter. One can hope. I think if I cut it before it sets seed, I can stop it from reseeding for next year, and it'll die out. But thats a big IF.

All the good dirt

Yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to find an article titled "The Future of Dirt" on the front page of the Ideas section of the Boston Sunday Globe. Yet another sign that the rest of the world is starting to wake up. I can't remember the last time I looked at the Sunday paper and got that really happy feeling just because they are paying attention to something so fundamentally important.

For far too long has our society looked at dirt as something BAD, not something vital. All those vitamins & minerals that we need to live on come from dirt. Think about it. All your veggies contain what you need to survive because it draws them up from the soil. Unless, of course, we're talking about meat - but where do the cows get their nutrients which they then pass up to us? From the grass they graze (if they are so lucky) or from the grain that comes from, yes, yet more soil. A little thing called the food web - perhaps this is bringing back memories of a teacher & a chalkboard? It's a pretty basic concept, and we can't engineer our way out of it.

When we talk about something being "bad" we call it "dirty". When we talked about something messy (like my house), we call it "dirty." Makes it hard to realize consciously how very important good "dirt" is when we are giving it bad connotations all the time. But we can't live without. Cannot.

So what's going on with our soil? It's eroding. We are breaking down its natural structure and it's getting blown away, eroded by heavy rain, or rendered useless via poisoning. How? Heavy tilling, for one, breaks down the physical structure of soil, exposes more of the soil to the air (thereby releasing from the soil carbon dioxide & nitrous oxide - greenhouse gasses - into the atmosphere), and dries it out. Then it rains, or it gets windy, and it blows away. We over plant it, and we plant the same damn crops on it year after year (as in a factory farm growing corn for feed or biofuels), which sucks all the nutrients out of the soil, and leaves the soil prone to a pest infestation for that particular crop. So what then? We fertilize the soil heavily, and over time, the soil becomes salty and laden with petrochemicals. We heavily apply pesticides, which also accumulate in the soil, and prevent the soil critters (the good ones) from doing their job, and the soil further looses its structure. Over time, we might as well be trying to grow that corn in a sandbox for all the nutritional value left in it. (Surprise - you can't grow much in a sandbox).

Have you SEEN the pictures of how muddy the Mississippi River is (or perhaps with your own eyes)? Where do you think all that mud comes from? It's from our farm lands, our suburban areas, our urban run off. It's filling up the Gulf of Mexico and is creating "dead zones" where fish and other sea life cannot live.

The article mentioned above touched on the Farm Bill (which appears to be completely broken and tailored specifically to the needs of the factory farm and big agri-business, yet the masses don't care & couldn't be bothered), which while giving subsidies to large scale farms growing commodities like wheat and corn, but does not do a damn thing for farms practicing good soil conservation - like rotating their crops with alfalfa or soybeans or beans, which fix nitrogen INTO the soil as they grow.

How big of a problem is this? Even I was unaware of how BIG of an issue this is (or perhaps I had merely forgotten). It is estimated (in the globe article) that by 2050, people will have to survive (on average) on less than 1/10th of an acre per person of agricultural land. That is a downright scary picture, and should be keeping you up at night. We've already destroyed so much of our soil. In the northeast, we are lucky enough to live in a "stable" soil region (but our growing seasons is relatively short, and thus not well suited to large scale production agriculture). But most of the US, and most of the inhabited world live in areas that are defined as "degraded" or "very degraded". The deserts are spreading.

According to the wiki, an area of fertile soil the size of Ukraine is lost every year because of drought, deforestation, and climate change. In Africa, by 2025, they will only be able to feed 25% of it's population. The starvation, increased food costs, and rioting that we are seeing now are likely only just beginning.

This isn't a new idea or a new issue. But soil erosion is a long-term issue, not easily dealt with through temporary legislation or in just a few years of farming practice, and in general, humans have really short attention spans. It takes a great many many years to build up good soil. You can't hurry perfection.

We've all heard the current rumblings about the recession, and even perhaps a large scale depression. Remember the last major US depression? What was also occurring at that time? The dust bowl. Here's a great old-time informational video like you would have seen in the fourth grade, complete with warbly music. The wiki, as usual, has a lot of information spelled out for you.

During Roosevelt's 100 first days of his presidency, he started a major campaign to restore ecological balance in the U.S. It would be lovely to have a new president capable of such sweeping reform, but I am not holding my breath, and I think it is likely our very survival is going to be left up to individual citizens who are well informed. Which is why I write this blog (even though I'm pretty sure no one reads it) - just on the off chance that someone, somewhere, runs across it (possibly while looking for something else) and goes off to figure things out for themselves.

Stem Rust... good news keeps coming :-)

Stem rust. I've been hearing more and more mutterings about this recently. I have heard that Iran currently has it, and it would make a great biological weapon on our food security.

Here's the deal. Apparently a wheat stem rust (fungus) epidemic (Ug99) is poised to break out, and is already spreading across Africa, Asia & the Middle East. It started in Uganda in 1999 (hence the name) - not that long ago. It's not a theory - it's already happening. Ug99 is spread via the wind - the wiki page has a more in depth discussion of the life cycle of Ug99, but basically the fungus attacks the above-ground sections of the wheat plant, which decreases the ability of the wheat plant to reproduce.

In the past, stem rust has been a major cause of famines, according to this facisinating opinion piece in the New York Times by Norman E. Borlaug (Nobel Peace Prize winner 1970) titled "Stem Rust Never Sleeps." In the U.S. it caused major crop losses from 1903 to 1905 and from 1950 to 1954. Ug99 is poised to create a global wheat crop loss at a time when wheat stores are at their lowest since the 1940s, and during a time where not only has the world's population increased greatly, but a larger percentage of that population is relying on wheat & grains than they ever have in the past.

So how did "they" stop it from completely killing all of the wheat everywhere? Scientists developed a new kind of wheat - one that was resistant to the fungus and that produced a greater number of seeds. It worked for 50 years. But now, we need to develop a new kind of wheat, and we need the cooperation of the global science community to do it.

Here in lies the rub. As Americans, we have more or less alienated most of the global community (thanks, bush). If we came up with a new & better kind of wheat resistant to stem rust, what do you bet it would be met with skepticism? Let's say, for instance, we came up with the magical wheat and offered it to Iran in order to keep it's children from starving (in exchange for something, I am sure). Do you think they'd actually trust us? I'm not sure I trust us, so I don't really think I can expect a "foe" to trust us.

But that's beside the point. According to Borlaug, while the U.S. was at first very gung-ho on this issue, and provided funding for research & development, we have very suddenly made a 180 and have cut most of the funding. Thanks bush - way to go, man. This guy is AMAZING... in all the wrong ways. I can't wait to see what the history books have to say about him - if we survive that long.

We Can Solve It...

I don't know if you've seen the ads, but We Can Solve It seems to have invested heavily in ads on HGTV. This is Al's (as in Al Gore) newest attempt to get the ball rolling. I've joined, as have about a million other people (but only a million - there are 6 BILLION people in the world. Come ON!). A million is a mere drop in the bucket. As popular as "green" is today (have you looked at any of the sunday circulars? they all claim to be green - while trying to get you to buy more stuff and throw your old, yet perfectly functioning stuff into a landfill), you'd think there would be more people signing the petition.

Which leads me to the "draft Al Gore for the presidency" people. While I am an Al Gore Fan, it's time to admit that he is WAY more influential dealing solely with the climate issue. He can do much more for the us & the planet from the outside than he can while having to deal with the stupid-er issues of the day. Really, I'd rather have good ole Al doing his climate thing than, say, the annual easter egg hunt on the white house lawn. Let the figure head deal with that crap and install a "first hamster" or whatever pet he or she chooses.

Have you seen the TED talks? Al is too funny to be president. Beside that, if we all paid attention to ANY of the TED talks, we'd be far better off as a planet. I see Amy Tan has given a talk on creativity....

Rain Barrels at a good price (Mass. area)

I received the following email today from a friend on the re-localization group. For those of you in the Massachusetts area, this might be good information. I got one of these rain barrels last year - way better than the ones I had in Texas (these don't allow mosquitoes to breed & keep all the leaf crap out!). I liked mine so much, I've ordered a second for this year. Go get one. Seriously.

MassToss and MassDEP are offering rain barrels to help residents
conserve water, save money and reduce storm water run-off.
The average homeowner uses approximately 40 percent of water for
outdoor use. A one-inch rainfall on a 1,200 square foot roof will
yield more than 700 gallons of water. Using a rain barrel is an
excellent way to conserve some of this water. A quarter inch run-off
from an average roof will easily fill the barrel. If there are five
storms a season, that equals 275 gallons of free water. Rain barrel
use reduces the stress on municipal water systems during the summer
months and improves storm water management.

The rain barrels are made from 55-gallon blue plastic recycled
containers. The top does not come off, so no children or pets can get
in the barrel. It has a six-inch diameter inlet opening covered with
a screened louver to keep insects and debris out. The barrels have
two brass spigots, one to connect a hose for watering, and one for
overflow. A hose can be connected to the overflow spigot to redirect
the water away from the home. The barrels come with a five-foot hose
with a shutoff valve. Multiple barrels can be joined for additional
capacity.

The first 30 rain barrels ordered can be purchased at the subsidized
price of $56.50 using a MassDEP grant and state contract pricing,
which is considerably less than the retail price, upwards of $89. If
we sell more than 30, we can still offer a discounted price of
$66.50.

To order call 8770-977-3135, toll-free, or order online at
www.nerainbarrel.com.
You do not need to be a resident to purchase the barrels. Offer
expires May 22 for Devens-area pick-up.

Rain barrels will be delivered May 28 at the Devens DPW, 99 Buena
Vista St., Devens, from 3 to 6 p.m.

Adoption

Have you ever seriously wished as an adult to find out that you were, in fact, adopted and that somewhere your REAL family is wondering where you are?

I really kind of thought that by THIS point in my life, I would have progressed beyond this fantasy. But sure enough, as soon as we all get together, there it is again... that wondering... "Who ARE these people?"

It's amazing to think that with the same genes, and the same environment, I have turned out so very different from the rest of them. The ONE saving grace is that my younger niece is in many ways very much like me. Which makes me a wee bit worried for her. If the rest of the family can reduce me to near-tears at my age...how hard it is going to be for her in the coming years?

International Year of the Potato

No, I'm not kidding; it IS the International Year of the Potato. According to who? The United Nations.

I first heard about this from a guy in the relocalization group, who is a potato fan, and more or less instigated a giant potato buying order (my potatoes are now trying to sprout in my sunroom). When I heard about the year of the potato, I though "aww...how cute." Now, it dawns on me. The UN saw the writing on the wall with the rapid increase in rice and wheat prices. Remember the whole rice rioting thing that's been going on in various places? The UN's answer is potatoes.

Potatoes can grow just about anywhere, if you have a variety thats adapted to your climate. I had some serious potatoes growing in my cabinet this spring, for pete's sake (which I have since stuck in some dirt...and they continue to grow).

According to the UN's potato page, a third of the world's potato production occurs in China & India. 2005 saw a dramatic shift in the balance of world wide potato production with the developing nations outpacing the developed nations in potato production. The U.S. in #5 on the list of top potato producers with 19,460,119 tons; #1 is China with 79,366,428 tons (#2: Russia, #3: India, #4: Ukraine).

Interestingly, the U.S. has by far the highest potato yield per acre in the world with 16.49 tons/acre. Europe is the next contestant with 7.71 tons per acre, and the rest of the regions fall between Europe and the lowest-density producer Africa with 4.83 tons per acre. I imagine the density of yield is directly related to land value. In Europe and N. America, farmers really have to be able to get as much yield as possible out of what land they have in order to stay in business. In the other regions, there are likely still more areas to grow potatoes (outside of densely populated cities). I also wonder how much production density has to do with the type of economy that is in operation in the growing area. While the market-driven economy does have its draw backs, it does force farmers to squeeze all they can (for better or worse) out of their land.

Here's a neat little diagram on HOW potatoes grow. Here's the U.N.s fact sheet on potatoes, including nutritional content and how it will be a key player in solving the world's food shortage keeping the developing nations more stable.

Reuters did an interesting article on potatoes in mid-April. Potatoes are cheap, mostly due to a lack of a financial speculation market - most potatoes aren't exported. This makes farming them difficult on the farmers - they end up selling them cheaply, which means they have to grow and sell a very great many of them & it's labor intensive. BUT for us home gardeners, potatoes are perfect - the seed is cheap and it's nutritious. Less fat than wheat, good source of protein, half of your daily vitamin C intake. They keep pretty well too.

Update: Giant Trucks

After posting yesterday, I thought I might as well copy the State Police on some of it in email form & send it on to them (seemed to be better than just complaining). 18 hours later, this is the reply I received:

Good Morning:

My name is Captain Wicks, I am employed by the Mass State Police and I command the Traffic Programs Section. Mr. Chipman was kind enough to forward your concerns to me about truck traffic on Rte-290. I wish to thank you for this advisory and to tell you what I have done about this serious issue. I have contact the Troop C enforcement team, known as the CAT Team and asked them to conduct speed enforcement on Rte-290 west, between Berlin and Shrewsbury, focusing on speeding trucks and those displaying aggressive driving behavior.

Again thank you for contacting us with this important issue and please feel free to contact me if you do not see improvement.

Seems as though I've done what I can do. It's better than sitting on my couch & complaining. Let's hope that a) this actually happens and b) it's effective. If nothing else, maybe the state will make a little money (not off of me, though).

I love the internet.

Giant Trucks

We've all heard how the truckers are having trouble affording the gas to put in their trucks (which comes directly out of their paychecks, I believe). After taking a ride on I-290 from Berlin, MA to Worcester, MA and back, I've suddenly noticed a really scary indication that this situation is getting really bad.

While going UP the rolling hills on my route the majority of the trucks slow way down - to about 45 or 50 MPH (in a 65 MPH zone). Which is fine, really, except that as soon as they crest the hill, it appears they may shift the trucks into neutral and coast down the other side of the hill, and they keep gathering speed until gravity slows them down when the go up the next hill - from what I saw, they were getting up to about 80 MPH or so, perhaps more (there were no passenger vehicles going fast enough to pass them) at the bottom of each hill. In theory, this is fine. Except that there are other people using the roads - and the smart people worried about fuel economy/speeding tickets using cruise control. So you keep passing and getting passed by the same truck. Throw into the mix the slowing of cars getting off the highway at exit ramps, and people merging onto the highways. Or the odd person going 55 MPH or so. And suddenly on the down hills you have these giant out of control trucks (weaving in and out of traffic). I saw one guy doing this using all 3 travel lanes (trucks are prohibited from left lanes around here), narrowly missing other vehicles on the road, tailgating, etc. Literally weaving in and out of traffic like some punk kid in a lowered civic - only these are 18-wheelers with full loads.

This wasn't one or two trucks. These were MOST of the trucks, with the exception of one or two normal driving guys (one of which was UPS - maybe any "fuel surcharges" we are paying are keeping the UPS trucks from endangering other people).

I was reading in the paper yesterday that some big trucking companies are holding classes for drivers on how to maximize fuel economy (they're starting this NOW?) and are installing governors on the transmissions to keep the trucks from speeding (which decreased fuel economy). Seems like a good idea, based on what I saw today. Scary.

Funny... I kept hoping for one of the many state police vehicles to pull these guys over. Did they? Of course not...

What If They Are Right?

Ran across a great article by Michael Pollan in the New York Times yesterday (thanks to the re-localization email list). The whole thing is worth a read, even if you have to register (for free) to read it.

In the article, Pollan discusses why he finds the little things he does to reduce his carbon footprint important, despite these personal changes of habit/sacrifice being only one drop in a very large bucket. He also touches on the whole confusion about the carbon footprint - for instance - is growing a greenhouse tomato in New England (with head & fertilizer) any less energy intensive than importing an organically grown tomato from California? (From what I remember, there is no easy answer).

Naturally, one of the main thrusts of the article is about planting gardens - be them container gardens in the window sill to tilling up your lawn or buying a multi-acre farm. He brings up Wendell Berry, which is someone I have just recently discovered and am completely fascinated with, although I have yet to track down certain works of his (mainly because I am still trying to find time to finish Heinrich's "Mind of the Raven").

It was a good read, and I don't want to give it away. Go read it yourself.

Which brings me to my second thought - doom & gloom. It's easy to shrug and say "we'll come up with something" and "it'll never get THAT bad" when talking to believers of peak oil and those preparing for a post-carbon society. But it COULD be that bad - most people would just prefer not to think about it because it's too big to wrap their minds around. It's hard to accept what the climate scientists are telling us because no one knows what to do, what they can do, when things suddenly get very, very bad. It's very much like burying your head in the sand. And as far as "we'll come up with something" is concerned: well, biofuels were a great idea. Even I was on board at first. But then we stopped growing edible food and converted productive land into growing GMO-corn for ethanol production, and that has helped push world food prices higher while simultaneously not doing a damn thing to lower the cost of fuel. (I will however, say that at least we got the MTBE out of gasoline by replacing it with ethanol, which is at least not contaminating the drinking water as easily).

So... what if they doomsayers ARE right? What if? What if? I once read Into the Forest by Jean Hegland. The basic premise was that the oil and fuel dried up, and society (as we know it) collapses, and follows these two sisters living in the northern California woods 30 miles from the closest town. It was a good story, and I remember much of the book (a miracle for me - after several minor head injuries in the past, I swear my memory is not quite right). Kind of puts the whole "what if" scenario into perspective. Gardening, or the ability to know the wild, edible plants (hunter-gatherer style) is key to the two sisters' survival in the novel.

It's very hard to think about life in a post-carbon society without quickly coming to the conclusion that you just might, finally, be loosing your mind.

So... lets just say for a second that our energy supply becomes intermittent. We have power for a few days, then its out for a week. We have power for a few hours and then it goes out for a few hours. Let's say it's summer. Then let's think about all of the insulin-dependent diabetics out there - including two of my close family members. That insulin requires cool storage. I can live without a refridgerator easily enough. But my father cannot. What about the people who require dialysis, or a respirator, or any other sort of medical device that requires electricity to run and can't survive power interruptions? I know, I know, this is America. But think about it - much of the rest of the world is already living like this. At some point, this could easily happen as the oil dries up. As the countries that have it stop selling it to us and keeping it for themselves.

There are thousands of somewhat plausible (plausibility varies depending on what you know or who you talk to) scenarios you can mentally run through in order to keep you up at night. Thousands.

So I garden. This is my approach. I garden because I can, and because I find it fun to put these little itty-bitty seeds into soil, apply varying amounts of water, light & heat, and see what happens. It's one thing that I can do, that I know I can do, in the face of uncertainty. Not to mention that it saves gas (not driving to the store to buy veggies that have been imported from somewhere else), thus saving money. And I have control over what goes into my food. And who knows - with the climate changing, our growing season just might be getting longer. Might as well use it to my advantage.

Not My Imagination

It wasn't all in my head - we are dryer than normal. According to this Boston Globe article, we are running a little dryer than usual, with very low humidity levels. Of course, because of this, we're starting to have brush fires.

We went for a walk with the dog in the woods yesterday, and couldn't get over the feeling that it was a warm fall day, and bitter cold was coming soon.

I'm glad I've ordered a second rain barrel this year. Looks like it'll come in handy.

Yet more sun.

Ahhhh so. It's now April 19, 2008, and the forecast for today is 74 and sunny. Yesterday it was 80 and sunny. Day before that it was 75 and sunny. Day before THAT it was about 70 and sunny. It's been sunny & dry since the beginning of last week. Which is fine. It's GREAT. BUT (there's always a "but") - I'm a little worried that its too dry. I shouldn't have to be watering seedlings outside this time of year. The garden, instead of being a mushy boggy mess as it usually is this time of year, is actually, well, perfect. Which is wrong. I'm starting to worry about drought. And it's APRIL. We had a ton of snow, and then a ton of rain, and a huge melt. The rivers are still high/normal for this time of year. But still, in the back of my mind, I'm wondering if its a tad too dry & I'm concerned about this weather pattern holding (overall).

It's funny. We had a long warm/hot fall. Then winter came on very suddenly & intensely. And then it started to get warm around the end of February, and I started telling people that "this is it, winter is done." No one believed me. But it makes a little bit of sense, if this is a climate shift. I know, I know - one weird season does not indicate climate shift, much like how one warm year doesn't make global warming. I'm not saying it does. But I am wondering if the warm long falls and springs might become the new "norm" - and if so, is that SO bad, as long as we still get a few months of hard cold & a snowpack? We had record snows last winter, despite the late onset & early retreat of winter. It was plenty cold, and the plants that needed to go dormant, did.

I remember that 10 years ago, it wasn't that unusual to get a major snowstorm (measured in feet, not inches) in late April. I simply don't see that happening now.

My allergies are awful. Absolutely awful. I'm trying to not take anything (medicine) for any reason, and it's getting hard when I can't breathe so well and have headaches for days on end. A little rain might help that - the air is so DRY.

We picked up the Local group's potato order yesterday up in Maine. The potato warehouse was dark (not all dark, but definitely hard to see when coming in from daylight). It was about 55 degrees and humid. And suddenly I could breathe. It was great.

So these are the potato varieties that I'll be growing this year: All Blue & Butte. For the record, seed potatoes appear to be the small potatoes that were too small to be eating. I'm assuming they were treated with some sort of innoculant to have not sprouted by now. So now I have to try and get them to sprout. Judging from the issues I've had with store bought potatoes this spring, it should be fairly easy. We'll see. For now, they just look like potatoes.

200 pounds of potatoes was not all that impressive. I was expecting a giant civic-trunk FULL of potatoes...but no. Not even close. It was a little disappointing, really. Hopefully next year I'll have my own seed potatoes and we wont have to order many at all.

I might start planting other vegetables early this year. It seems to be warming up pretty early - theres no frost expected in the forecast for the next week - highs in the mid-60s and low-to-mid 70s. Lows in the 40s. The sun, I think, is plenty strong enough & the photo period is long enough. If I plant the seeds & then cover them to protect them, we might be OK.

BPA

An article in the Boston Globe today revealed that a US Agency has FINALLY come to the conclusion the bisphenol-A (BPA) - a chemical commonly found in polycarbonate plastics - and closely mimics estrogen. Why should we care? There is some evidence that it may produce early puberty in girls, and fetus and baby exposure to BPA may cause prostrate or breast cancer later on in life. BPA is used as antioxidants in food and cosmetics. It also may be linked to obesity and schizophrenia.

According to the article, BPA levels in adults aren't thought to be anything to worry about. I wonder whether that applies to woman who are pregnant or may become pregnant...

How best to avoid BPA, if you believe the research? Don't eat canned food - BPA is in the plastic that lines the cans. It's in PET plastics (soda & water bottles) - don't put hot liquids, acidic or basic substances in PET bottles; it's in PVC; and it's in some dental sealants.

Coca-cola products have a pH range of 2.5 -4.2. Coke classic has a pH pf 2.5... so if BPA is released from the PET when it comes in contact with an acidic liquid - guess what is in your soda? This is the point where I am very happy I don't drink soda. Or bottled water (I carry my own stainless steel canteen around).

The CDC has said that in a study of samples from adults in developed country, 95% of the samples contained measurable BPA. 95% of us are walking around with BPA in our systems. Not too surprising, but how many of those samples were from pregnant or nursing women?

How is infant formula sold? in a can... how to get that formula into the baby? a bottle...


The BPA issue isn't new. This is just the first time a US government agency has accepted that it may be unsafe. And then there was my surprise at finding the article in the Boston Globe, which - lets be honest - isn't the greatest of all newspapers. I think they are owned by the New York Times now. It's hard to respect a publication with such poor grammatical editing. But the dumbing down of America (if there is such a thing) is another topic for another time.


Post Script: I've just read in "Chews Wise" that Canada is supposed to BAN BPA this week. Yet another reason I wish I really HAD moved to Canada back when Bush was elected the first time around.

Doing a happy Sun Dance

It's sunny out. Yesterday was sunny. It's supposed to be sunny until maybe Monday. This is making me incredibly happy.

I ran across something interesting today in an email from the re-localization group: Blackle. It's a search engine. A google-powered search engine, only the background is black, which saves monitor/display energy. They have a little counter under the search bar that tallies the "watt hours saved". My only question is this: if it's just google, only with a black background, then why doesn't google go black? I believe I have a partial answer: 1) people would freak out if they went to google and it was suddenly looking very different, which might hurt google's business; and 2) the people with eye strain issues might really have a problem with it. It doesn't really bother my eyes until AFTER I follow a link, when suddenly the background is white again. But then again, I've been in the darkroom all day, which tends to give me headaches and cause eye strain anyway. The letters are nice and soft, though - not hard-edged, which seems to be a bit easier. I'm sure the letters are gray, not white, which helps a bit as well.

564,529.087 watt hours saved. what IS a watt hour? A Watt hour (Wh) is a unit of energy equivalent to one watt of power expended for one hour of time. Apparently, that's 3600 Joules (J) of energy. [A joule is one watt second (Ws). 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and POOF suddenly you're up to 3600 Ws or Joules or a Wh. Go figure.] A kilowatt hour (kWh) is 1000 J per second expended over an hour, or 3,600,000 J. So... a kWh is a 1000 Wh... all pretty simple.

so thats an energy savings of 564 kWh... the new boiler/powerplant system I'm looking into for the house generates 1.2 kW (not per hour, or per anything...). According to my latest utility bill, I pay about $0.10 per kWh - not including all the fees & add ons. And I use under 500 kWh per month (good to know, since I'm looking to Freewatt). Please note that I have spared you all the mental gymnastics that I went through yesterday in calculating how much propane we might use if we had a 95% efficient liquid propane boiler versus how much oil we use in our 83% efficient oil boiler. But here's the outcome: the oil boiler lost. Duh.

So basically, Blackle has offset my energy usage for the month since it went on line during that one-hour of no electricity thing a few weeks ago. Somehow, I am under impressed. Maybe they just need better exposure.

So I went to Blackle looking for a button to add to my tool bar. No button. I went to the support section of my browser to try and add Blackle as a search engine. No support. I went to the "about Blackle" section of the search page... and they suggested I reset my homepage to Blackle. For some reason, this really made me mad. I LIKE my home page, and I'm not going to reset it to Blackle.

So Blackle, at this point, seems like a good idea gone horribly under exposed, under promoted and under supported.

Pawtucket Red Sox

I went to the PawSox game today. It was a 12:05 start, and it was sunny & 63 down in Pawtucket. Beautiful. A friend & I sat on the grassy, basked in the sun, and watched the game. Completely relaxing.

Reasons why I prefer minor league games: it seems more baseball-ish. There are more kids. Tickets are $10 or less. You get closer to field & its more intimate. You can see everything & hear the players talking (I swear the outfielders from the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs were throwing grass at each other). You could have a picnic and watch the game. It reminds me of a game I saw in Cooperstown once - real baseball, the way it's supposed to be.

These guys aren't making ridiculous amounts of money, and it's nice to know that. They're on the road all the time, and I bet life is miserable for them at times, and yet they keep playing year after year.

Fenway is great. But you can't GET tickets. You can't enjoy the game because you can't see it, there are loud obnoxious people all around & they are all drunk. It's dirty, it smells bad, and its so loud it gives me a headache. The energy is different, thats true, and the big stars are there. But 'd rather watch the big games on TV at home.

I want to watch Bull Durham now. It struck me how easy it would be for someone to slip their phone number to a player (not that I ever would, but the availability of it is noticeable). How if I were to yell something mean, not only would the players have heard me, but so would the whole stadium, and I would be embarrassed. It's nice. In fact, one of the things you can be ejected for at McCoy Stadium is "Roudyism" - I didn't know that was a word, but they'll throw you out for it. Makes me happy.

Amtrak

I didn't post yesterday - I spent HOURS on Amtrak & Canada's VIA websites, trying to plan a trip. Hours. Lost about half of my day, really. I forgot to eat, even.

First off, for those of you who complain about Amtrak's website being difficult to use, you've obviously never tried to navigate VIAs website. Amtrak was a no-brainer in comparison.

To take a trip from coast to coast on Amtrak will take 3 full days one-way. We're planning a holiday trip next fall, as my sister-in-law will be back in the states briefly. We usually fly, but I have so turned off by the whole flying/airport experience, that the idea of traveling on a train for 3 days is actually appealing, if it means that I can avoid the airport, parking, traffic & delays. If we pack just right, we'll require no luggage, although there is a checked-luggage service (I'm not yet sure exactly what that means - whether they'll handle the transfers for you or not). There's an outside chance we might bring some snowboards, but its not likely.

I once took an around-the-country (kind of) trip on Amtrak when I was about 10. We went from Boston to SW Kentucky, up to Michigan and back to Boston. I thought it was great, but then again, I was 10.

The appeal of this trip is this: if I can convince someone (my neighbor, my mother, a friend) to drop us off at the local commuter rail, which is about 10 miles away, we can get door-to-door from our house to Tacoma with about 20 miles of car driving, which is really kind of cool when you consider it. To get to the airport, we have to drive an hour & on the other end of our trip, we have to drive 40 minutes from the airport to my in-laws. There is the hassle of getting to the airport, getting home from the airport, and the $80 or so for parking at the airport (IF you can find a spot) or the same amount for a shared-van service, which may or may not make you miss your flight. Then there is the traffic. The security lines. And the fear of falling out of the sky.

Which brings me to the gas mileage issue. Somewhere on their website - I can't find it now, of course- was a little table comparing the carbon emissions of train travel to the carbon emissions of air travel for traveling between a few cities. Apparently, the carbon emissions for rail travel were approximately half of what they are for air travel. There is no comparison to motor vehicle usage - which is even worse than air travel.

It'll be interesting. We've flown this route many times. Each time it's miserable in its own little way. We've driven cross country, although not directly from Boston to Tacoma, which always has its own set of stresses (and frequently involves dogs, which is fine, except when booking hotel rooms). My only concern is that there is no wireless service on the train. Which seems odd - if they could get wireless service, then my spouse could work during those 3 days of travel, cutting down on his vacation days required for the trip. He get's 6 weeks and can never use it all, so it's not THAT big of a deal. But still.

Amtrak vs. VIA: Amtrak made it relatively easy to plan trips as compared to VIA. The original thought was to take Amtrak out, and then take the train back through the Canadian Rockies on the way home. However, it looks to be roughly double to triple the cost for taking VIA back. And there was a bit of an issue getting from Toronto or Montreal back to Boston. All the maps SHOW routes going this way, but it's difficult to book, and the train schedules were off just enough to necessitate staying overnight not only in Toronto or Montreal, but also in Albany, which would turn the return trip into a 6-day trip, and much more expensive. Not really worth it, all things considered. So we'll take Amtrak both ways.

Cost: The cheapest flight I found on Orbitz for 2 people involved one layover, and a 6am departure from Boston (which means we'd have to either get up at 3 am, or stay over at the airport hotel - which adds $100), and the round trip tickets (alone) for two ended up being $100 less than the round trip tickets for 2 on Amtrak, including a roomette on the 2-day leg from Chicago to Seattle.

If we had decided we didn't want a roomette, it would have been several hundred dollars cheaper. But alas, I like to stretch out. The roomette also includes all meals (for the leg we order the roomette for), a picture window, 2 reclining seats (that turn into a bed), a bed that folds down from the wall, electrical outlets, climate control, a fold-down table, a small closet, bed linens & fresh towels, soap & shower anemities, bottled water, coffee, newspaper, and they'll make the bed at night, and fold it away during the day. No bathroom/shower in the room, though - those are shared facilities within the same car. We could upgrade to a proper bedroom, but that adds an additonal $250 each way, I think. Might be worth it though. A bedroom has all the stuff above, with the addition of a sink, a toilet & a shower, and an arm chair and a sofa. AND it holds 2 suitcases, not just 2 totes. But with a total additional cost of $250, it's probably not worth it. Maybe if I had small kids and didn't want to take them to the bathroom in the middle of the night - and if we had a baby, then diaper changes would be easier. Interestingly, there is a shared bathroom on the top floor of the superliner car, and a shower & changing area on the bottom of the car (with a baby changing area), as well as a luggage storage area. So I guess if you had a roomette, your luggage could go in there, although it's a shared area, and thats a little creepy.

So basically, as long as we don't mind adding 6 days to our trip, it looks like rail travel might fit our lifestyle better. I mentioned this to a friend, who replied I must be nuts. But then again, she's not fond of the outdoors, or any little inconvenience really, and has lived a very comfortable life (only child). Since we've car-camped our way across the country with 2 dogs, rail travel seems like a step up. No tent. No cold. They feed us, even if its bad food. No rain. Takes half the time compared to motor vehicle travel. No traffic. And we can BOTH nap when we want to - no one is driving.

You know it's spring when...

I spent all day in the yard. Or someones yard, anyway - some of it mine, some of it was someone else's. We clipped & dug up black raspberries from a woman in town who didn't want hers anymore. We took about 20 plants. We've planted 10 or so. They were just going to get composted, and now I have to either find room for the remainder that I took, or give them away.

We built a terrace for one set of the plants (4 or so) in the side of the septic system hill. When we dug the plants up, it didn't appear that the roots ran very deep or spread much via roots, so I think it'll be OK. We also planted a set between the yard and the street in an area of the yard that didn't get used but should be perfect for black raspberries. There were already some scraggly wild-sown raspberries growing there anyway. With the compost I added during planting, hopefully these guys will do better. Thus completes step one of my evil perennial fruit garden plan. Step two: find some blueberry bushes. I'm trying to remember whether I ordered some from the annual spring plant sale at the local soil conservation service - I have the paper work on my desk, but its all the way across the room and I am tired. Not used to this kind of work.

We also built an 8' x 4' raised bed in front of the garden. It's about 20" tall. I've put down a layer of newspaper to keep the grass out, and have overlain most of it with one-quarter inch "hardware cloth" - I'll finish the job once I get some more of the wire mesh. This should do a sufficient job of keeping voles out from the bed. Tomorrow or Monday I'll add some 1" PVC pipe sections to the inside of the frame, so that I can insert 1/2" PVC to create a hoop-like enclosure for netting support over the bed.

It was a busy day. It didn't rain much and in the afternoon the sun even came out a little bit. I got a mild sunburn. Amazing how little melatonin I have in my skin this time of year.

It's beyond official - spring is here. I spent all day out in the yard, and it was great.

Oh, and the broccoli seedlings have started to sprout. Wahoo! I'm resisting the urge to stand there & chant "go, go, go."

Weekend, baby!

And what have we planned for the big exciting weekend?

uh.... we'll be digging up some free blackberry and catnip plants from a "neighbor" (using the term loosely - aka 'someone in the same town') who has too many - this person is also a member of the relocalization group. We'll be doing this in the cold rain. Oh boy oh boy. and then we get to plant them here in the yard. In the rain.

I'd LIKE to go to a sugaring shack for some maple syrup. There's really no reason to do this - I can get perfectly good, locally produced maple syrup here (at the farm up the street), but for some reason I'd rather go and buy a giant vat of it directly from the producer. Their business keeps getting harder and harder. With global warming, the sugar maple trees will be inching northward (or the habitat will be - the trees wont actually we running away - but if they could, I bet they would). And with the spike in fuel costs, it's costing them much more to transport the sap from the trees to the sugaring shack and it's also costing them more to boil down the sap to syrup. If I think my woes with home heating are bad - these people are getting hit all over the place. And since I'd rather their farms keep on being nicely wooded maple syrup farms rather than McMansions, I'll go buy some syrup. But it's got to be Grade B syrup. It tastes better & I can use it in cooking.

We were going to combine the maple syrup trip with a hike up Mt. Monadnock, but honestly, I've gotten over the 'climb it because its there regardless of the weather' stage. We climbed Mt. Washington in some nasty weather a year and a half ago, and I've climber Monadnock in the snow. I want a nice, sunny day next time.

Which brings up the 3rd thing I need to do this weekend: buy new hiking boots. I've been putting it off for 2 years now. they leak. I've worn those boots for years, I've worn them to work on caves in Texas and cactus surveying in the Mojave. I've worn them to the sites I've worked on in New England. They been to Yosemite, to Olympic Nat'l park several times. Death Valley, Volcano NP, northern Mississippi, the California coast, Oregon... Everywhere I've visited or worked in the past 7 years or so. They are beat to hell and one day their leakiness will become some sort of an emergency. So new boots it is. I've been looking for months, and it's getting desperate. I need to break them in now so I can start training for a multi-day hike in mid-August (more on that later).

i heart pandora

I bought a new car recently - an SUV (I KNOW. tell me about it. I don't drive it much, but I still love it, despite the guilt and the stupidity of it. When we have kids next year, we don't want to have to leave the 2 80-lb dogs home, and we need AWD/4WD to get our asses out of the driveway in the winter. That, and our subaru - a 2005 Legacy Outback turned out to be a complete & giant piece of crap. So we bought a honda. At least its a ULEV, which the subi wasn't. And compared with the subi, the mileage is only slightly less.) Give me a little credit - the other car is civic that gets 36 mpg. And I DID quit work (more or less), so I'm not commuting, and my hubby drives only to the train station. Total combined mileage per week is about 100 miles for 2 adults. In suburbia.

Anyway... I bought an SUV. It comes with XM radio free for 3 months. Great and all - I can listen to any baseball game I want. We've had XM in the past, and took it out of all of our cars because we didn't listen to it. So I'm not sure I'll keep it. What I REALLY wish the car had come with was pandora. I had somehow forgetten all about Pandora, but was reaquainted with it about 5 minutes ago. Although I haven't visited in months, it remembered me. I know I've erased all my cookies & such since then. But it knew who I was, and had all my stations there. Creepy. But handy.

I also wish I could get pandora on my phone. Alas, technology is not as fancy as I'd like it to be.

Sigh...heating systems

I'm the first to admit I know very little about home heating systems. But it occurred to me today while reading crunchy chicken's "freeze yer buns wrap up" (which I completely missed, yet fully participated in by sheer frugality anyway) that with the money I spent on fuel oil this winter, I could have made a huge dent in paying for a new system thats more efficient & less scary.

What I currently have: a Well-McLain "gold" oil powered boiler from at least 1998 - currently rated at 83% efficient, which I doubt. My house has what is called "hydronic" heat - no separate hot water tank. What I would like to do is somehow incorporate a propane tankless hot water heater into this system, or just rip out the furnace, boiler & oil tank and convert to a propane boiler system.

Oh, oil heat, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways...

It's dirty, it's smelly, in my particular case it's unreliable, and it's recently very costly. I've spent a lot of time cleaning up sites contaminated with the very substance I have sitting in a 275-gallon tank in my basement. Seems wise, right, to let that stay? AND, my particular system has proved to be anything but reliable. I have anxiety attacks while on vacation over it - to the point where I don't really want to travel anymore (the system shut itself down once, in the winter, while I was gone, and the pipes froze in my bedroom, and burst... no major damage, but a giant PITA).

So if anyone knows of any good books regarding oil hydronic systems and how to incorporate a whole house instant hot water heater into the mix, by all means, comment away.

In the mean time, the hubby and I are headed to a geothermal heating and cooling seminar in preparation for the next house...

Community

I've just run across an interesting post on More Deliberate Everyday - a series of discussions on Wendell Berry, and references an interview from a book of interviews compiled by Professor Morris Allen Grubbs. Here's the excerpt that got me thinking:

"I mean the independence by which a person provides some of his own needs and which permits him to do what he sees to be right without the approval of a crowd. That's why Thomas Jefferson said you need to keep as many people as possible on the land. That's necessary for democracy. You need to keep people independent in the way that the ownership and care of a piece of land can make them.

If the ideals and aims of young people have lost energy, it's because they haven't the stability of a commitment to one place and one community. I think they're disposed to drift around until they find a suitable community. But no community is suitable. There's plenty wrong with them all. I could construct an airtight argument for not settling in my own community. The fact is that I'm spending my life constructing an argument for being here. [author's emphasis] "

There's a lot to think about in there. What resonated with me is the comment on drifting young people. I must be one of those people. Every time I visit a place, I become convinced that I want to move there. Every time I've been forced (thanks, military) to move somewhere against my will, I find out that it's usually a lot better than I had thought it would be.

Interestingly enough, when we went "home" (I have many places that I will at times refer to as home, which is an interesting concept in itself) to Kentucky for my Grandmothers funeral, I spent several weeks thinking about home. What makes a place home? It's where you learn skills, where you have memories of loved ones, where you know the smell of the changing weather, where the local dialect and idiosyncrasies are comfortable (even if simultaneously amusing). It's where you have a connection to.

The surprising part is that the fond memories that I have of rural western Kentucky are very similar to the memories that my husband has of rural Oahu. We had some long discussions about this, and came to the conclusion that it is the "rural" part of that statement which is so important. It was an "ah-hah" moment. We like rural places. We just didn't realize it.

During our discussions, we also realized that while we have these fond memories of rural life - summers with our grandparents - our children will not have that experience. Both of our parents live in suburbia (as do we, but we're more on the edge in a rural farming community that is currently changing). Both of our parents are the first generation to live where they live- my parents are about a thousand miles from where they grew up. My husband's parents are 2,600 miles from where they grew up. There is no depth of knowledge in these places, and I find it very sad. I'm sure that there are a great many families like ours with disjointed connections with place. It's hard to feel that need for community if your family has no history with a place. Our generation is the result of our parents drifting, and who, among my contemporaries, even thinks about community? I mentioned it to a friend the other day, and got a "what are you talking about" reaction - a complete blank stare followed by the unsettling feeling that she was questioning my mental stability.

The idea of community has been a common theme for me recently. Perhaps it has to do with the decision to have a child. Perhaps it's the re-localization group. Perhaps it's the passing of my grandmother and the drama that surrounded her funeral, or it could be what I am now referring to as "my wee-little cancer scare." At any rate, I've very suddenly realized how important community can be, and should be. I've considered going back to church (mainly for the yet to be conceived child) - I was raised a UU, so it's not quite as incongruous with my personality as you might think. I guess I'm finding that there is something that is missing, but instead of moving on to find it, I'm trying to built it where I am.


In More Deliberate Everyday, the author also posted another interview with Wendell Berry regarding old timers, and how they tell the same stories over and over again as a way to reaffirm their acquaintances from the past, and how the stories improve just a little bit with each telling. This is no small point - both my husband's & my grandparents were rural old timers in a farming community. No wonder we feel a connection with those rural places - we hung out with the old folks, and absorbed their connections, their stories. Which, in some cases, had grown to be preposterous.

So maybe we've ended up where we have not completely by accident, and maybe it shouldn't be so surprising that we're pretty happy here, despite my husbands long commute into the city everyday. Maybe I shouldn't be so shocked that we're actually considering staying here for a good long time. Have I just come to the conclusion that no place is fully suitable and the realization that I need to make do?


It occurs to me that I don't know who Wendell Berry is. Apparently, he's a Kentucky man, but from the north-central part of Kentucky, which might as well be a different planet from western Kentucky. He's a writer of various forms, but a common theme seems to deal with the connection on has to a place. He's also dealt with organic farming, and criticized industrial farming. An interesting guy, to say the least - go look at his wiki page for a better idea. I'm going to have to track down some of his work, I think.