I am not a Prepper.
I am not a Survivalist.
I AM NOT A DOOMER.
I REFUSE TO BE KILLING MYSELF TO KEEP MYSELF ALIVE.
I will not worry about every possible hazard we could face.
I will focus on the future I want to create.
I will steadfastly work towards achieving that future.
I will only worry about the things I can control and leave the rest up to higher powers.
I will follow the principle of ensuring that every function is covered by multiple elements and every element has multiple functions and trust in the resiliency of the system.
I BELIEVE IN MANY FUTURES WHERE PEOPLE HAVE HAPPY, HEALTHY, MEANINGFUL LIVES WITHOUT HAVING TO CONSUME NONRENEWABLE RESOURCES OR RENEWABLE RESOURCES AT AN UNSUSTAINABLE RATE.
I believe that entering such a future is purely a matter of choice, collectively and individually.
I believe that we can choose those futures at any time up to the point of extinction.
I believe that the sooner we choose such a future, the easier the transition will be, the more people will be able to make the transition, and the more comfortable and prosperous that future will be.
I call it The Long Ascent because in the end we will only choose one, but at this point there are many paths open. Where do you want to go?
Showing posts with label Personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal. Show all posts
Friday, October 26, 2012
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
The Death of Tyranny
One year ago today I started this blog. The choice of a date was purely a coincidence. Originally I intended it to use it as an entry in John Michael Greer's contest for short stories depicting a future of declining energy usage. However, I am not much of a fiction writer, but I do love writing essays, and for decades I've been crafting a vision in my head of a possible positive future with greatly reduced resource usage. I've slowly been revealing bits and pieces to you during this past year. Since today is a special day I wanted to share a special piece
Aaron Copland wrote a wonderful piece of music called "A Lincoln Portrait". No matter what you think of his actions, Lincoln did have a powerful way with words. My favorite quote is from the middle of the piece, from the Lincoln-Douglas debates of October 15, 1858:
Neither Lincoln nor Brandon Smith went far enough, though. They can be excused for only facing the most immediate struggles. However, that is not what this blog is about. One of the most important themes Daniel Quinn has in his classic book Ishmael is the story of the Takers and the Leavers. I don't want to go too far into that now, but the Takers are about, as Paul Wheaton so colorfully puts it, "making Mother Nature your personal bitch." The Leavers try to change things as little as possible. What Quinn misses is that there are two antonyms to "take". Not only do you have "take it or leave it", you have "give and take". So in addition to Leavers and Takers, you can have Givers. If you can manage to give back more than you take, there are no limits.
This brings us back to the tyrannical spirit. People are beginning to understand now that ethics does not just apply to how you treat other people. If you just take from Nature without ever giving back, you still have the same tyrannical spirit. IT DOES NOT WORK. IT HAS NEVER WORKED. IT WILL NEVER WORK. The difficulty is that the problems accumulate over generations. Unless you have the correct perspective, you may think it is working, like someone falling out of a building saying "See? I'm not dead!" as he passes every floor. Nature only has so much to give.
I just want to say here that I am saying this not as someone who has won the war over that tyrannical spirit within myself, over even as one who wins more battles than he loses. I just know that it is a fight that needs to be fought, and while I may frequently need to pick my battles, I always keep fighting.
Victor Hugo said, "There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come." I say there is nothing so dangerous as an idea whose time is about to pass. It is time for the very idea of tyranny to die. The thought that you can get something without giving something back must be extinguished. And it will be, whether it takes the deaths of 7 people or 7 billion. Like drawing money out of a bank account, if you take it out faster than you earn interest, it doesn't matter how large it was to begin with, eventually you must go broke. Nor does it matter how many #10 cans you store or how many cases of ammo you cache.
So what is the opposite of tyranny? Husbandry. From the bacteria in our guts and the fungi on our skin to the food webs in the rain forests and the oceans, we must care for all forms of life, helping them so that they may in turn help us. This is the only way we can survive. This is the way we will thrive. This is the Long Ascent.
Aaron Copland wrote a wonderful piece of music called "A Lincoln Portrait". No matter what you think of his actions, Lincoln did have a powerful way with words. My favorite quote is from the middle of the piece, from the Lincoln-Douglas debates of October 15, 1858:
When standing erect he was six feet four inches tall, and this is what he said.Brandon Smith wrote an excellent article a couple weeks back on Alt-Market entitled "How to Defeat Tyranny". Very importantly, he did not entitle it "How to Defeat a Tyrant". That is fairly easy. We have witnessed it at least twice in the past decade, in Iraq and Libya. But if you just get rid of one man another will frequently take his place. (My apologies to any other female dictators out there, but tyrants do tend to generally be men.) What Brandon talks about is defeating the spirit of tyranny. As such it is very much a spiritual striving, a crusade or jihad in the best senses of the words. As Lincoln said, if you want to force anyone to do your bidding so that you may benefit at his or her expense, you have a tyrannical spirit inside yourself.
He said: "It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. It is the same spirit that says 'you toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
Neither Lincoln nor Brandon Smith went far enough, though. They can be excused for only facing the most immediate struggles. However, that is not what this blog is about. One of the most important themes Daniel Quinn has in his classic book Ishmael is the story of the Takers and the Leavers. I don't want to go too far into that now, but the Takers are about, as Paul Wheaton so colorfully puts it, "making Mother Nature your personal bitch." The Leavers try to change things as little as possible. What Quinn misses is that there are two antonyms to "take". Not only do you have "take it or leave it", you have "give and take". So in addition to Leavers and Takers, you can have Givers. If you can manage to give back more than you take, there are no limits.
This brings us back to the tyrannical spirit. People are beginning to understand now that ethics does not just apply to how you treat other people. If you just take from Nature without ever giving back, you still have the same tyrannical spirit. IT DOES NOT WORK. IT HAS NEVER WORKED. IT WILL NEVER WORK. The difficulty is that the problems accumulate over generations. Unless you have the correct perspective, you may think it is working, like someone falling out of a building saying "See? I'm not dead!" as he passes every floor. Nature only has so much to give.
I just want to say here that I am saying this not as someone who has won the war over that tyrannical spirit within myself, over even as one who wins more battles than he loses. I just know that it is a fight that needs to be fought, and while I may frequently need to pick my battles, I always keep fighting.
Victor Hugo said, "There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come." I say there is nothing so dangerous as an idea whose time is about to pass. It is time for the very idea of tyranny to die. The thought that you can get something without giving something back must be extinguished. And it will be, whether it takes the deaths of 7 people or 7 billion. Like drawing money out of a bank account, if you take it out faster than you earn interest, it doesn't matter how large it was to begin with, eventually you must go broke. Nor does it matter how many #10 cans you store or how many cases of ammo you cache.
So what is the opposite of tyranny? Husbandry. From the bacteria in our guts and the fungi on our skin to the food webs in the rain forests and the oceans, we must care for all forms of life, helping them so that they may in turn help us. This is the only way we can survive. This is the way we will thrive. This is the Long Ascent.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Ripe Blackberries
You have never picked a ripe blackberry.
I have never picked a truly ripe blackberry.
No one, in the history of the world, has ever picked a truly ripe blackberry.
When a blackberry is allowed to fully ripen on the cane, the slightest bump will send it tumbling to the ground. If you approach it very carefully, and in one quick motion grasp both sides of the very ripe blackberry with equal pressure, you will be rewarded with a sweet sticky mess on your fingers. Licking off your fingers will make every other blackberry you have tasted pale in comparison.
There are two kickers, of course. Visually a truly ripe blackberry looks very much like an almost ripe blackberry, so you never really know when you will get one. Once the berry starts to dry out and look leathery, it is overripe. It still will make a decent tea, though. The other thing is that if you use gloves to protect your fingers from the prickles, the effect is not nearly the same.
The larger point is that you will never have this experience unless you are out there in the blackberry patch picking berries. Okay, maybe a really good friend will let you lick his or her fingers, but you still have to be out there with him or her. A pack of berries you buy will never have ones quite that ripe, even if you get them from a farmer's market. And while you can buy the blackberry bushes to plant, chances are good that if you live in an area where blackberries do well, some bird will come along and deposit the seeds naturally. Once you get a number of these, you will probably want to only keep the best and cut out the rest, as I have done.
On the Long Ascent, you can find, for free, simple pleasures that are better than any you can buy.
I have never picked a truly ripe blackberry.
No one, in the history of the world, has ever picked a truly ripe blackberry.
When a blackberry is allowed to fully ripen on the cane, the slightest bump will send it tumbling to the ground. If you approach it very carefully, and in one quick motion grasp both sides of the very ripe blackberry with equal pressure, you will be rewarded with a sweet sticky mess on your fingers. Licking off your fingers will make every other blackberry you have tasted pale in comparison.
There are two kickers, of course. Visually a truly ripe blackberry looks very much like an almost ripe blackberry, so you never really know when you will get one. Once the berry starts to dry out and look leathery, it is overripe. It still will make a decent tea, though. The other thing is that if you use gloves to protect your fingers from the prickles, the effect is not nearly the same.
The larger point is that you will never have this experience unless you are out there in the blackberry patch picking berries. Okay, maybe a really good friend will let you lick his or her fingers, but you still have to be out there with him or her. A pack of berries you buy will never have ones quite that ripe, even if you get them from a farmer's market. And while you can buy the blackberry bushes to plant, chances are good that if you live in an area where blackberries do well, some bird will come along and deposit the seeds naturally. Once you get a number of these, you will probably want to only keep the best and cut out the rest, as I have done.
On the Long Ascent, you can find, for free, simple pleasures that are better than any you can buy.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Human Potential
As I've said before, investing in yourself is one of the ultimate forms of savings. There is quite a large body of literature about self-improvement, of which I have read quite a bit. I'm going to share with you some of my favorites. Before I do that, however, I would like to turn it on its head. Improving yourself certainly is in your own self-interest. As we come off Hubbert's Mesa, we will not be able to rely on machines as much as we have. Necessarily we will have to rely on ourselves more. Making sure that everyone is living up to their full potential is the best way to resist collapse.
Now for my short list of the books I've found most helpful in improving myself:
Now for my short list of the books I've found most helpful in improving myself:
- Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz
- Getting Things Done / Making It All Work by David Allen
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- The NIV Student Bible [Zondervan]
This is the second self-help book I ever read, and the first I ever read deliberately. When my family went on a six-week long car trip the summer after sixth grade, I didn't think to bring anything to read. All I could find in our travel trailer was "Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About Energy but Were Too Weak to Ask" by Naura Hayden. This book was at the top of her list.
Back then cybernetics was still a relatively unknown word, and even to this day I'm not sure how many people understand that it is the science of goal-seeking. The basic point of this book is that we all have goal-seeking mechanisms in our psyches, but they are below our conscious awareness and beyond our direct conscious control. This book is about reprogramming ourselves by changing our self-image.
There are a multitude of "time management" books out there. In my opinion these are simply the best. What he describes is not a single system but rather the characteristics of successful systems. Getting Things Done is the simple how-to guide and is more appropriate for people looking for steps to follow. Making It All Work is the follow up that provides a more conceptual framework for people looking to design or tweak their own system.
This is the fundamental guide for creating value. Once you get the central theme, it can get a little repetitive, but that's to make sure that you do get the central theme. One of the important things that distinguishes this book from other books on getting rich is that it is completely independent of monetary and political systems. Even if you are just living with one other person on a deserted island, the concepts in this book will serve you well.
I think this is the latest version of the Bible we used when I took a two-year Bible study through CCO. I've looked at a lot of different editions of the Bible. The NIV translation is the one I've found easiest to read. In addition, I found the commentaries in the Student Bible were the most accessible to me when I was just starting out.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Going to Market
Tomorrow starts the new season for the Slippery Rock Community Farmer's Market (SRCFM). The theme for this season is "Grow by Growing". I'm particularly excited for the new season, as I have been preparing to participate as a vendor. This is a bit of a homecoming for me, as I attended regularly the first two years, mainly selling sprouts and pizzelles. If I recall correctly, it has already been ten years since we were in the unpaved parking lot behind the bank on the main corner of Slippery Rock. Most days I would come home with no more money in my pocket but with a lot of different produce.
This is the earliest it has ever started, and at the beginning they will be selling seedlings to raise funds for the market. I will have a few of my own seedlings to sell this year, although if I don't sell any, I'll go ahead and use them myself. (That is a major part of my "business plan", to literally "eat my losses". I won't expand beyond what I can use until I'm sure others want to buy my stuff.) I also have packaged up some biochar to sell; I've been holding back from using it myself in case people want to buy any. (Don't worry, I will give you the full details on biochar in a future post -- hopefully with pictures.)
I tried last year to get into selling at the farmer's market in a major way, to the extent of buying a 10x20 foot greenhouse. I knew my place was windy but didn't realize how major a problem it was until I found the twisted wreckage of the greenhouse lying next to my house, one side still attached to the ground. I realized then that I would need to focus on staying low to the ground. I've been building frames and planter boxes for that, a few of which I will have on display tomorrow if people want to order them. I've actually had decent success starting seedlings in the cheap plastic peat pellet greenhouses, surrounded by 2x6 frames with a lath lattice on top.
This may seem like shameless self-promotion, and to a certain extent so far it has been. But there is a larger trend here. At the organizational meetings for the SRCFM, there have been a lot of new faces -- not just new to Slippery Rock, new to any market. As the global economy deteriorates, and as food prices rise, more people are looking to make money by selling to their neighbors, and more people are looking to save money by buying from them. Cutting out all the processing, transportation, and middlemen is a win-win situation for both buyers and sellers, and it helps build local economies while lessening the risk of global shocks.
Going to the local market to buy locally grown food and locally produced goods will become more frequent on the Long Ascent.
This is the earliest it has ever started, and at the beginning they will be selling seedlings to raise funds for the market. I will have a few of my own seedlings to sell this year, although if I don't sell any, I'll go ahead and use them myself. (That is a major part of my "business plan", to literally "eat my losses". I won't expand beyond what I can use until I'm sure others want to buy my stuff.) I also have packaged up some biochar to sell; I've been holding back from using it myself in case people want to buy any. (Don't worry, I will give you the full details on biochar in a future post -- hopefully with pictures.)
I tried last year to get into selling at the farmer's market in a major way, to the extent of buying a 10x20 foot greenhouse. I knew my place was windy but didn't realize how major a problem it was until I found the twisted wreckage of the greenhouse lying next to my house, one side still attached to the ground. I realized then that I would need to focus on staying low to the ground. I've been building frames and planter boxes for that, a few of which I will have on display tomorrow if people want to order them. I've actually had decent success starting seedlings in the cheap plastic peat pellet greenhouses, surrounded by 2x6 frames with a lath lattice on top.
This may seem like shameless self-promotion, and to a certain extent so far it has been. But there is a larger trend here. At the organizational meetings for the SRCFM, there have been a lot of new faces -- not just new to Slippery Rock, new to any market. As the global economy deteriorates, and as food prices rise, more people are looking to make money by selling to their neighbors, and more people are looking to save money by buying from them. Cutting out all the processing, transportation, and middlemen is a win-win situation for both buyers and sellers, and it helps build local economies while lessening the risk of global shocks.
Going to the local market to buy locally grown food and locally produced goods will become more frequent on the Long Ascent.
Friday, April 13, 2012
A Penny Saved...
... is two or three pre-tax pennies earned.
Seriously.
If you work in the United States, you pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on the very first dollar you earn. (I'm not well-versed in the tax codes of other countries; some are better, some are worse.) Your employer pays an equal amount, too, and if you're self-employed, you get to pay both. That's almost 1/6 of your income off the top, unless you happen to earn more than the cap on Social Security taxes.
Next comes income taxes. If you're poor, you do get a break. You can earn almost $10,000 before you start paying federal income taxes. If you have children, you can do even better through the Earned Income Credit. But once you start earning more, you can end up paying up to 35% of your income to Uncle Sam. Add to that state income taxes of up to 11% (for Hawaiians who earn over $200,000).
If you spend what money is left, you may have to pay state and local sales taxes up to 9.45%. At least you get to see that. When I was in Poland, the 22% sales tax was included in the sticker price. Other countries hide their sales taxes as "value-added taxes" that the companies pay.
Of course, part of the money that you pay for stuff you buy goes to other peoples' wages, which gets taxed all over again. If the money goes to a corporation and generates any profits, they get taxed again; if it pays out a dividend to its stockholders, they get taxed once again on that.
Direct taxes are not the only issue. Other expenses are involved in having a job, such as commuting and having nice clothes. I have known several couples where they ended up better off financially when one person quit working and took care of the household.
Cutting expenses by doing more for ourselves will get us further on the Long Ascent.
Seriously.
If you work in the United States, you pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on the very first dollar you earn. (I'm not well-versed in the tax codes of other countries; some are better, some are worse.) Your employer pays an equal amount, too, and if you're self-employed, you get to pay both. That's almost 1/6 of your income off the top, unless you happen to earn more than the cap on Social Security taxes.
Next comes income taxes. If you're poor, you do get a break. You can earn almost $10,000 before you start paying federal income taxes. If you have children, you can do even better through the Earned Income Credit. But once you start earning more, you can end up paying up to 35% of your income to Uncle Sam. Add to that state income taxes of up to 11% (for Hawaiians who earn over $200,000).
If you spend what money is left, you may have to pay state and local sales taxes up to 9.45%. At least you get to see that. When I was in Poland, the 22% sales tax was included in the sticker price. Other countries hide their sales taxes as "value-added taxes" that the companies pay.
Of course, part of the money that you pay for stuff you buy goes to other peoples' wages, which gets taxed all over again. If the money goes to a corporation and generates any profits, they get taxed again; if it pays out a dividend to its stockholders, they get taxed once again on that.
Direct taxes are not the only issue. Other expenses are involved in having a job, such as commuting and having nice clothes. I have known several couples where they ended up better off financially when one person quit working and took care of the household.
Cutting expenses by doing more for ourselves will get us further on the Long Ascent.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Packing a Lunch
I packed a lunch today.
I packed a lunch yesterday.
I will very likely pack a lunch tomorrow.
I don't do anything fancy, usually just a sandwich with some kind of lunch meat and cheese -- ham or turkey and Swiss or American, roast beef and cheddar, garlic bologna and American -- usually with a leaf of lettuce, or a piece of fresh fruit on the side.
I pack my drinks, too. I make a fruit punch with 3 cups each orange and grape juices, 1 cup seltzer water, and 8 cups filtered water. I also make lemonade with 2/3 cup lemon juice, 2 teaspoons xylitol, 2 packets stevia, 4 tablespoons of organic sugar, and 7 cups water. I freeze them in plastic drink bottles filled 80% full. I'll pull one out and put it in my insulated lunch box the night before if I'm working in the morning or in the morning if I work in the evening. The other I'll put in right before going to work. That way I have one ready to drink right away, and the other stays cold the entire day.
Why am I telling you this? In part this is a response to Joel Caris's blog post on irrationality in food choices. In the office where I work we frequently don't have time to go get lunch. In previous years I would get so hungry I would just grab something from the vending machine. Consequently, I would always gain weight during our busy season. This year, in part by making sure I have something relatively good to eat when I do get hungry, I am actually losing weight (and not spending nearly as much on junk food).
Packing a lunch is a simple act, but it makes us look forward and gets us in the habit of preparing for the future. We are much better able to resist temptations if we have made allowances for our needs beforehand.
The Ascent will be Long, pack a lunch.
I packed a lunch yesterday.
I will very likely pack a lunch tomorrow.
I don't do anything fancy, usually just a sandwich with some kind of lunch meat and cheese -- ham or turkey and Swiss or American, roast beef and cheddar, garlic bologna and American -- usually with a leaf of lettuce, or a piece of fresh fruit on the side.
I pack my drinks, too. I make a fruit punch with 3 cups each orange and grape juices, 1 cup seltzer water, and 8 cups filtered water. I also make lemonade with 2/3 cup lemon juice, 2 teaspoons xylitol, 2 packets stevia, 4 tablespoons of organic sugar, and 7 cups water. I freeze them in plastic drink bottles filled 80% full. I'll pull one out and put it in my insulated lunch box the night before if I'm working in the morning or in the morning if I work in the evening. The other I'll put in right before going to work. That way I have one ready to drink right away, and the other stays cold the entire day.
Why am I telling you this? In part this is a response to Joel Caris's blog post on irrationality in food choices. In the office where I work we frequently don't have time to go get lunch. In previous years I would get so hungry I would just grab something from the vending machine. Consequently, I would always gain weight during our busy season. This year, in part by making sure I have something relatively good to eat when I do get hungry, I am actually losing weight (and not spending nearly as much on junk food).
Packing a lunch is a simple act, but it makes us look forward and gets us in the habit of preparing for the future. We are much better able to resist temptations if we have made allowances for our needs beforehand.
The Ascent will be Long, pack a lunch.
Friday, March 23, 2012
The Garden Path
And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there he put
the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made Jehovah God to
grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the
tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.... And Jehovah God took the man, and put
him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Genesis 2:8-9,15 (ASV)
The vernal equinox last Tuesday marked the official beginning of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. For me, this represents the beginning of the gardening season.
I have been an avid gardener for a very long time. When I was growing up, my father has a very large garden on the east end of our property. For a couple years the neighbor brought his tractor down and plowed it up in exchange for the use of the field on top of the hill on the south side of the house. Probably my earliest memory of a garden is hopping from one big clod to another in the freshly plowed garden.
It wasn't too many years later I actively became involved. Gurney's had a one-cent seed packet for kids. (Alas, I don't see it in their catalog anymore.) It was a huge collection of all different kinds of vegetables and flowers. With that variety, something was guaranteed to grow. In my case, I had a lot of success with some kind of black bean. I grew it for several years in a row, until I had a honey jar filled with them. It would not surprise me if it is still in my parent's house somewhere. (I wonder if they would still germinate.)
My next foray into gardening came after reading Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholemew. (If you've never gardened before, I highly recommend it and its successor, All New Square Foot Gardening, which has 10 major improvements.) Coming home for the summer from college, I thoroughly enjoyed putting together square beds with concrete blocks salvaged from an old basement on the property. I did enjoy some successes and had a number of learning opportunities.
Shortly afterwards I learned about John Jeavons Ecology Action and his biointensive methods. I especially like his perspective on grains and compost crops. I started developing my own variety of rye specifically to use its straw as a mulch.
Around the same time, I entered the Master of Science in Sustainable Systems program at Slippery Rock University. During my second semester there I took the Permaculture Design Course. I have been using those principles on my property ever since.
This year I'm coming full circle. I am taking the correspondence course for teaching Square Foot Gardening, and I've been making boxes and mixing soil accordingly. I wholeheartedly agree with Dorothy Frances Gurney's sentiment:
You don't need to enjoying gardening on the Long Ascent, but you'll be better off if you're close to and with someone who does.
The vernal equinox last Tuesday marked the official beginning of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. For me, this represents the beginning of the gardening season.
I have been an avid gardener for a very long time. When I was growing up, my father has a very large garden on the east end of our property. For a couple years the neighbor brought his tractor down and plowed it up in exchange for the use of the field on top of the hill on the south side of the house. Probably my earliest memory of a garden is hopping from one big clod to another in the freshly plowed garden.
It wasn't too many years later I actively became involved. Gurney's had a one-cent seed packet for kids. (Alas, I don't see it in their catalog anymore.) It was a huge collection of all different kinds of vegetables and flowers. With that variety, something was guaranteed to grow. In my case, I had a lot of success with some kind of black bean. I grew it for several years in a row, until I had a honey jar filled with them. It would not surprise me if it is still in my parent's house somewhere. (I wonder if they would still germinate.)
My next foray into gardening came after reading Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholemew. (If you've never gardened before, I highly recommend it and its successor, All New Square Foot Gardening, which has 10 major improvements.) Coming home for the summer from college, I thoroughly enjoyed putting together square beds with concrete blocks salvaged from an old basement on the property. I did enjoy some successes and had a number of learning opportunities.
Shortly afterwards I learned about John Jeavons Ecology Action and his biointensive methods. I especially like his perspective on grains and compost crops. I started developing my own variety of rye specifically to use its straw as a mulch.
Around the same time, I entered the Master of Science in Sustainable Systems program at Slippery Rock University. During my second semester there I took the Permaculture Design Course. I have been using those principles on my property ever since.
This year I'm coming full circle. I am taking the correspondence course for teaching Square Foot Gardening, and I've been making boxes and mixing soil accordingly. I wholeheartedly agree with Dorothy Frances Gurney's sentiment:
The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,--
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
The song of the birds for mirth,--
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
You don't need to enjoying gardening on the Long Ascent, but you'll be better off if you're close to and with someone who does.
Friday, March 9, 2012
My YouTube
Today I posted my first video to YouTube, on Winter Blackberry Care. Honestly, the production values are not that great. If you do have blackberries or other brambles, though, you may find watching it worth your while.
My primary interest in mentioning that here is not self-promotion, however. (It does come in a respectable second, though). I more want to comment on an interesting developing phenomemon. While there is a lot of silliness being posted to YouTube, more and more serious offerings are showing up there: how-to's, political commentary, financial advice, to name a few.
What makes this interesting is the ease of putting stuff out there. I spent $40 for the camera, $9 for the SD card, and a few dollars for the batteries. After a few minutes of filming and a little over an hour to upload, my video is out there for everyone to see. That level of access is relatively unprecedented.
There is a dark side to all this, too. I could have given all the same basic information in under a page of text, which would have only taken up a few kilobytes. If I wanted to be fancier, adding a few good pictures could have told all the details you can get from watching the video, at a cost of a couple megabytes at most. As a video, however, I uploaded over 300 megabytes (though I presume YouTube compressed it for download.)
Not only does the video take up more room, it is much harder to store it. As far as I know, there is no legitimate way to download the video from YouTube. Printing it out would also prove very difficult. If the information was presented in a text or PDF file, downloading and printing could both be fairly easy.
Of course this also means if you don't have access to the Internet, you don't have access to this information. While the Internet itself was supposedly designed to withstand a nuclear war, I'm sure there would be nowhere near the ease of connecting as there is today. For my little piece of gardening advice, that hardly matters. But if more and more people start relying on knowledge from the Internet, especially in the form of videos, there is the potential for great loss.
We can use technology on the Long Ascent, but we need to ask ourselves whether it is appropriate and what would happen if it wasn't available.
My primary interest in mentioning that here is not self-promotion, however. (It does come in a respectable second, though). I more want to comment on an interesting developing phenomemon. While there is a lot of silliness being posted to YouTube, more and more serious offerings are showing up there: how-to's, political commentary, financial advice, to name a few.
What makes this interesting is the ease of putting stuff out there. I spent $40 for the camera, $9 for the SD card, and a few dollars for the batteries. After a few minutes of filming and a little over an hour to upload, my video is out there for everyone to see. That level of access is relatively unprecedented.
There is a dark side to all this, too. I could have given all the same basic information in under a page of text, which would have only taken up a few kilobytes. If I wanted to be fancier, adding a few good pictures could have told all the details you can get from watching the video, at a cost of a couple megabytes at most. As a video, however, I uploaded over 300 megabytes (though I presume YouTube compressed it for download.)
Not only does the video take up more room, it is much harder to store it. As far as I know, there is no legitimate way to download the video from YouTube. Printing it out would also prove very difficult. If the information was presented in a text or PDF file, downloading and printing could both be fairly easy.
Of course this also means if you don't have access to the Internet, you don't have access to this information. While the Internet itself was supposedly designed to withstand a nuclear war, I'm sure there would be nowhere near the ease of connecting as there is today. For my little piece of gardening advice, that hardly matters. But if more and more people start relying on knowledge from the Internet, especially in the form of videos, there is the potential for great loss.
We can use technology on the Long Ascent, but we need to ask ourselves whether it is appropriate and what would happen if it wasn't available.
Friday, February 3, 2012
The Cheapest Bed Warmer
Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow again yesterday, so we are in for six more weeks of winter. One adjustment people are making on Hubbert's Mesa is turning down the thermostat to save money as energy prices rise. We bundle up as we move around during the day and pile on the blankets at night. However, the transition as we get into a cold bed can be jarring.
While this is mainly a matter of comfort, this is a practical matter too; you can waste a lot of time trying to fall asleep when you are too cold. Many solutions have been devised: electric blankets, hot water bottles, metal contraptions to put hot coals in, even putting blankets in a clothes dryer for a few minutes.
My method is one I haven't seen others use. I like to lie down on top of my blankets (and pajamas) while I'm fully dressed. For 20 to 30 minutes, I'll read, listen to podcasts, play with my latest iThingy, or type on my laptop. Then I'll quickly change for bed and get under the covers while they're still warm and cozy.
This is nothing major. But this solution is almost totally free (since I would spend my time doing those things anyway.) It is just another example of putting your pants on both legs at the same time. Small changes in behavior can be simpler and more effective than complicated technical solutions.
The more creatively we can solve our problems, the easier the Long Ascent will be.
While this is mainly a matter of comfort, this is a practical matter too; you can waste a lot of time trying to fall asleep when you are too cold. Many solutions have been devised: electric blankets, hot water bottles, metal contraptions to put hot coals in, even putting blankets in a clothes dryer for a few minutes.
My method is one I haven't seen others use. I like to lie down on top of my blankets (and pajamas) while I'm fully dressed. For 20 to 30 minutes, I'll read, listen to podcasts, play with my latest iThingy, or type on my laptop. Then I'll quickly change for bed and get under the covers while they're still warm and cozy.
This is nothing major. But this solution is almost totally free (since I would spend my time doing those things anyway.) It is just another example of putting your pants on both legs at the same time. Small changes in behavior can be simpler and more effective than complicated technical solutions.
The more creatively we can solve our problems, the easier the Long Ascent will be.
Friday, December 23, 2011
The Christmas Orange
Back in my youth (which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't that long ago), my family would hang out large stockings for each of us on Christmas Eve. We didn't have a fireplace, so we hung them on chests and curios in the dining room. (Ironically, after my sister and oldest brother moved out, my parents did put a wood-burning stove in that room.)
I vaguely remember getting small toys and lots of candy in my stocking. One thing that has stuck in my mind to this day was getting a fresh orange in my stocking, one that was just for me to enjoy; I didn't have to share it with anyone else. My family wasn't poor, but fresh oranges weren't something they stocked regularly in the small grocery store in my hometown. Apparently, though, enough people had the tradition of the Christmas orange that they were available at that time.
I still look forward to eating oranges at Christmas, since that seems to be around the time they start harvesting them in Florida and California. They are so readily available, though, that they aren't as special as they were in my youth.
What does this have to do with the Long Ascent? Well, the current state of affairs is representative of the Age of Profligacy. As we come down off Hubbert's Mesa, eating foods from far away will become more of a luxury. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Getting an orange for Christmas may again be a special occasion.
Sometimes on the Long Ascent, the joy is in the smallest details along the way.
I vaguely remember getting small toys and lots of candy in my stocking. One thing that has stuck in my mind to this day was getting a fresh orange in my stocking, one that was just for me to enjoy; I didn't have to share it with anyone else. My family wasn't poor, but fresh oranges weren't something they stocked regularly in the small grocery store in my hometown. Apparently, though, enough people had the tradition of the Christmas orange that they were available at that time.
I still look forward to eating oranges at Christmas, since that seems to be around the time they start harvesting them in Florida and California. They are so readily available, though, that they aren't as special as they were in my youth.
What does this have to do with the Long Ascent? Well, the current state of affairs is representative of the Age of Profligacy. As we come down off Hubbert's Mesa, eating foods from far away will become more of a luxury. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Getting an orange for Christmas may again be a special occasion.
Sometimes on the Long Ascent, the joy is in the smallest details along the way.
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