It's all about the garden

The collapse is underway, and there has been little more to add about that. Fuel prices reflecting export land model (ELM) has the rear of the bell curve collapsing faster than Hubbert could ever have expected. It's good to be aware of global warming but perhaps we would all be better served by trying to figure out a way to do without fuel, oil and cars at all. If we could do that, we would have some insulation, personally, from the complete transportation collapse that is on our door step.

I have been busy pursuing all those processes that might give me maximum flexibility in the uncertain, but certainly lesser energy future. A big part of that is providing that which will be not provided in our future - food and energy. So spring for me has been spent converting a field and old garden space into food production. My hope is to be able to feed the vegetable/starches part of the diet for two humans at least, working up to 8 humans eventually on 1/2 acre of land. I can see that 4000 sq ft may be a reasonable garden for feeding 4 people in Oregon's wet and then dry climate, but personally the doing of it is very labor intensive, time intensive and just plain wears me out.

The earth is a she. Why do I think that? Because I feel her when I till and plant and encourage the baby plants. I feel her like you feel a lover, like you feel your mother but never know it until she dies, and then only by her absence. I miss my mother. I miss that embracing acceptance, the durable love. Oddly I feel an attachment to the dirt I work and to the plants she gives me.

Gardening is too soft word for the process of raising food to eat to live. Gardening is Mr. Rogers in a tweed sweater encouraging a young cabbage to grow through kind words. Gardening is for modern man or woman. Gardening is about one tomato a year, a sprig of parsley. That was gardening before. It is not the food production of now and of the future. Gardening was about accent, now it is about substance. It was optional, now becoming mandatory.

That was my mindset anyway when I covered a thirty foot by forty foot area of semi abandoned but somewhat mowed flat soil and clay with cardboard and plastic last year. I could see future food feeding me and seven others. It was all math and size and production and a long to do list leading up to it. As most of you know, I came back early to Oregon this year to get into "production.

I felt a cold resistance to removing the card board and plastic. There are two garden plots and one area of fruit trees. I dug in the new trees, the soil was wet and heavy, the water table high, everything asleep, almost dead in heavy clay. I felt nothing but alone and wet and cold. I had to hand spade the small garden, and my back was so sore every day as I dug and hoed, slamming the hoe down into the unyeilding black wet muck. I planted onion bulbs, and soon peas and beets there. My back was sore every day.

The last month and one half has been a maelstrom of fence building, making a green house out of casa blanca, planting apple trees, blueberries, building new compost piles, tilling, digging, hoeing, planting. Recently I have been surprised to find that I seem to have entered into a contract. I planted she reluctantly gives me her babies, she yeilds. I understand that, the reluctance to bring forth, the offering of baby plants, waiting to see if I will water, weed and care for them. She questions my durability, my commitment to take and use the bounty that she provides. It is one thing to plant, another to reap.

Like most people, my life is buying food, or fast food and that's it. Now as the garden rows are visible and promising, I think of the ways in which I can meld that productive plenty to a lifestyle that is 8 feet wide and 22 feet long. But that is the nature of all enterprises. The contract is always drawn between parties that have yet to yeild, yet to perform and each must then rise.

The earth is rising, shit, burgening actually, and my new contract is to use that, to use the food, and to increase the fertility, to make the food that best that it can be to eat (the right nutrients and trace minerals), and most of all, to complete the many cycles of growth and decay. To do that I must constantly set aside what is easiest and work on that which is present in front of me.
For her part, the earth soothes my mind as I hoe, and bubbles delight up through me when I find new plants pushing up. Potatoes tight grimaced an a darker green than possible to the frightening visage of slasher movie zucchini come to pillage. Carrots are diffident in their small barely commited feather wisp, next to beans who are the only ones who can talk to the zucchini at all.
The corn masquerades as grass, nothing special it says to surrounding weeds, but holding coiled inside the code to tower over them all, and shade them to death. Only the beans and the zucchini are unimpressed. Floppy topped onions all hilled up, droopy leaved beets craving viagra, and radishes, already entering their final days, tall and proud and providing.
These all are the world under her control and my performance, sore back or not. The fecund earth is the real thing, our jobs and twitches and automatic responses, cream, no sugar, no jacket, no straw, these are the meaningless noise of "civilization."
I say all this to let you know that when your desparately trying to grow food there are rewards that might be unexpected, and connection that while unexpected is deep and good in unexpected ways.



It was the contract that has been drawn, an agreement that has grown up. Like an ugly dog who persists, I have been let in again, and now she has expectations of me. Who? The she that I have woken.

Rhizome

FBR is delayed because I'm traveling back to Oregon, actually in Oregon right now in Cave Junction. Once I land and get the garden fencing project underway I'll have more FBR.
I'm posting today because I was reading Archdruid and in the comments saw a brief discussion of Jeff Vail, who posts sometimes on The Oil Drum blog. He has a concept of independent family or groups who are self sufficient for their necessities, but interconnected via fairs and festivals for trade. He has five essays that are worth a look. See what you think. When you hit his home page click on Rhizome on the right navigation bar. I've aimed you at his homepage so you can get an idea of biases before delving into the essays. I think there is something there to really think about.

FBR chapter 6 scene 2

Foreign Body Reaction
Alan McNeill
Chapter 6 Scene 2

“Ouch, damn,” Mark cursed as he caught the inside of his forearm on the frame of the solar panel. He looked at the scratch, watching the blood begin to peak up through the abrasion.

The muscles of his right arm were burning from holding the Makita up so long. The panels were much more difficult to remove than he had expected. Getting all four of the 120 watt Kyocera solar panels off and loaded into the truck was taking much longer than he had planned.

The solar panels were rectangles about four feet long and a little less than that wide. Each was held by two screws on each side of the steel frame. The screws were anti tamper, theft resistant, stainless steel. They could be screwed in, were designed with a ramp that made it impossible to unscrew them.

That had not been a surprise, Mark had spotted that on his first exploration of the abandoned microwave site. He was drilling every single screw out, using his Mikita cordless. He had gone through two batteries so far, throwing the exhausted ones down off the roof of the microwave shack. Jasper had the battery charger plugged into an old inverter in the truck bed, and was recharging them as Mark worked.

'That poor truck battery!” thought Mark. But he knew their dying truck battery problem was nearly solved. The microwave tower site was remote enough that it had been designed with deep cycle battery bank to backup the grid supplied power. They were large batteries, six volts each, that required all of Mark's strength to lift into the back of the truck. They and the solar panels were crucial to keeping their little tribes small level of technology alive. Mark still hated doing this, this stealing, not from the social consciousness perspective, but only because it was taking too long, and it was making noise. He just knew that you could hear the Makita miles away from the hill top.

He disregarded his burning arm and got back to work.

“Should I go inside and see what else we could use?” asked Jasper from below.

“No, this is bad enough, the longer we are here the more likely we are to have company. We need to get out of here quick.”

“It would just take me a moment.”

“No. The more we do here, the more traces of us we leave, and the greater the danger of us being followed. No, the panels are enough.”

Jasper looked at him on the roof of the small hut, reaching up the pole, arms extended, holding the Makita as it drilled down to free yet another screw head.

Jasper was delighted by the cool drizzle that had enveloped the mountain top. It cut visibility and sound, which was a good idea while they stole the panels and batteries, but it also reduced what she could hear.

“I'm going to check around for a minute,” she called up to Mark, and with that,Jasper melted back through the cut steel woven wire fence into the forest that fringed the hill top.

Mark got the third panel released and carefully lifted it from the frame. He reached under the panel and used side cutters from his tool belt to clip the wires that exited out of the weather proof box. He was careful to save as much as the copper wire as he could. They would need that to wire later when they put the panels into service.

Mark looked at the remaining panel as he climbed down and swapped out the Mikita battery for another more charged one. He rubbed his shoulder and realized that he no longer worried too much about Jasper when she disappeared into the forest. She seemed natural and at peace when she moved between the boundaries of the two worlds, the one of the forest and the one of the tribe.

Jasper moved through the wet brush and debris and into the second growth fir that sheathed the lower mountain. She moved in a spiral down, checking the logging trails and skid roads, seeing how they rent through the top soil, exposing the red orange flesh of the mountain. It had been many years since the mountain was logged, and the second growth fir was a full young forest, but those orange scars still ran rust colored blood in the February rain. She saw the rabbit tracks, coyotes scat with it's telltale hair, owl droppings but no signs of tires or feet, other than their own.

Mark exhaled in relief as the last screw head snapped off. He just needed to get them loaded and start the truck and get out of here.

A click, a ratching snick, broke the silence.

Mark froze and turned slowly to see three men standing just outside the fence, next to the truck, grinning up at him.

“We'll help you load those panels for you, wouldn't want you to drop 'em with all the hard work you did in stealin 'em.”

"Thats OK, but thanks, I'm done and just leaving."

The three men were dressed in camouflage hunting gear, and all had machine pistols over their shoulders. The one doing the talking had a revolver pointed at Mark, casually almost, comfortable with the gun. Mark knew the man was comfortable with the weapon.

Fuck! he thought to himself, Jasper? Where is she? Shit.

“Sorry partner, we're going to have to take those panels and confiscate your truck. Hope you don't mind?” asked the one with the revolver. “See we all were thinking the same thing I guess. Great minds think alike right? But we had couldn't figure out a way to get them panels off of there without breakin' em. You coming along with good tools, well damn, that was plain fortuitous, wasn't it boys."

The other two men had moved out in an arc around Mark's position on the roof, each with their right hands resting on the machine pistols, still slung from their shoulders. Mark could see that they weren't to concerned with resistance from him, but still, they stood with their feet slightly apart, weight on the balls of their feet, ready to move a foot in any direction as they would bring their guns up. Ex-military, Mark bet. Trained. Fuck!.

The leader, the talker, leaned back against the truck as Mark handed the panels down, lit a cigarette and exhaled into the damp morning air.

He pointed to one of the two men. “Break that door open and lets see what we got.”

There was no mistaking it, thought Mark, these are trained soldiers. National Guard, Army, didn't matter Mark thought, the question now was how Ben and the others and Jasper would survive without the truck and all the equipment in it. It was their lifeline. But Mark understood of course, that they would find tools and panels, maybe, but they could only do that if they stayed alive. That was first. The only important thing now was to get them out of here before Jasper came back. That and stay alive himself if possible.

Mark was thinking calmly but he was sweating and his pulse was racing. He didn't fight the fear, just greeted it as an old friend. Fear always made him faster, and he doubted that these men could keep up with him in the woods if he could only get to outside the fence.

Mark heard the crash of the door as it gave up under a hard kick. The man was directly beneath him. The leader was still outside the fence leaning against the truck, but an easy shot from there would kill Mark as well as a closer shot. It wasn't more that fifteen yards away. The man who had taken the panels was carrying them now one at a time to the fence and pushing them through the hole.

Third soldier came out of the microwave hut and shook his head towards the leader.

He stood from the truck and holstered his weapon. Mark moved to the edge of the roof to get down, the slick corrugated metal made it hard to stay balanced.

“No, you just stay up there. You know I can't leave you to yap about seeing us right?”

Mark's head swiveled to the edge of the roof closer to the fence on the north side of the little compound.

“You won't make that jump. Besides, I can hit you running, or jumping or hell, even flying, as easy as just standing there. But maybe we can make a deal?

“What sort of deal?” answered Mark cautiously.

“Well,” drawled the man, “you weren't getting all this stuff just for you, right?”

Mark didn't answer.

“So I'm thinking you've been collecting stuff for a group of your people hiding up here in the mountains. Hell, its getting kind of crowded up here ain't it?” and he laughed.

“So why don't you bring us back to your place and we can join up. Me and the boys don't got the virus, and I'm guessing your group don't either, right? We can make a better team you see, we got the guns and the systems, you got food, maybe women?" he said unable to keep the learing tone from his voice.

Mark realized the man would take what he wanted if he found the others. Probably kill everyone, or worse, just kill Ben and him and take the women.

“Mark, I'm back!” shouted Jasper as she looping up the logging road, swinging her arms, laughing and bright, completely oblivious to the situation unfolding before her. Even stranger, she had stripped off her work clothes down to the leather short skirt she had sewed as her underwear and had only a small rabbit fur bra she had sewed tied around her breasts.

All three of the men spun at the sound of her voice, their hands on their weapons.

“Oh, jeez”, she said as she finally noticed the men. They all started towards her.

“Run Jasper, run!” screamed Mark.

Jasper screamed and ran off the road onto a deer trail, screaming the whole way. Mark jumped down between the north fence and the wall of the shed as bullets from the third man sprayed the roof where he had been standing moments before.

The leader and the other man were in hot and hard pursuit of the fleeing girl. They wasted no time racing behind her down the deer trail.

Mark cautiously peered around the corner of the building. The man who had shot at him was edging backwards towards the trail, but unwilling to leave the truck and Mark. He was pissed. He knew he wasn't going to get his share, again. His frustration and indecision kept his focus split and when he turned back to look at the trail again, hoping the other men would drag the girl back here for all of them to share, Mark rushed him.

He spun back, feeling the rush of Mark's attack, the machine pistol already sputtering, spraying, the dirt stitched as it worked up in an arc towards Mark. Mark slammed into the man before the arc could complete and bowled him over. Both men hit the ground hard with Mark grasping the man's right wrist, trying to keep the machine pistol away.

The man was well trained and broke Mark's hold on his arm slowly pushed the machine pistol up against Marks left side. Mark scramble to pull himself away, but inexorably the pistol moved and the man's finger tightened on the trigger.

In the woods the chase lasted only a few moments. They had cornered her easily. Jasper was pressed against a large black oak, spread with her arms clutching at the bark behind her, tears running down her face, chest heaving. The men advanced.

The leader motioned the other to hold back and he advanced slowly towards Jasper.

“Now, now little girl. You needn't cry. We're not going to hurt you. We just haven't seen many girls up here ya know and we wanted to look at you. We won't hurt you. Your safe now.”

Jasper sobbed louder, her eyes dialated with fear.

Quickly he stepped right into her space and kicked her feet out wider, so she couldn't take off on him. He grinned, reached out, and ripped off her fur top.

“My my, aren't these little titties sure pretty. Hey Roy, look here.”

Jasper slapped at his face with her left hand.

“Now now, we're just going to have a little fun, no reason to be hitting. What's your name?” he asked as he laid his weapon on the ground and began unbuckling his pants.”

Jasper didn't respond, but she stopped shaking, and she smiled tentatively at the man, and whispered something.

The leader leaned in, happy that she was going to make this easy. He sighed a long drawn out sigh and they fell to the ground together, her legs laid open under him.

Roy smiled, both embarassed and excited. He was hard as a rock and waited for his turn. The sound of gun fire echoed down the mountain. He turned and his last thought was that this was turning out to be a really good day with unexpected benefits.

A burning cramp, a deep pain, started at his right kidney and arced through him in a burst of pain, it hurt so bad and hard and fast it was like lightning and then, just nothing. He collapsed to the ground, his diaphragm and heart released from any further toil.

Jasper set off at a dead run. The knife dripping, she reached the clearing in just a few moments. She could see Mark rolling on the ground with the last soldier. The soldier was trying to bring his pistol around into Mark's side.

She slid through the fence like water through a hole, and flew to the man's back. She snapped his head back, and her blade, still not dry, but razor sharp severed the ligaments and arteries of his neck, from left to right, the arterial blood spraying out to paint Mark's face and clothing. She pulled back hard and felt the weakened vertebra part. For a moment she thought of taking his head off completely, because, well, he had almost hurt Mark. She growled and let the almost severed head remain on the body.

Mark felt the man tense as his head was snapped back, and the man's warm spray over him.

Jasper rolled the man off of Mark and smiled at him. Mark stared at her, blood spattered and half naked. Her skin glowed and she smiled at him with concern.

“Sorry they got in. They were already up the trail towards you before I found them. They were very quiet, I'm sorry I wasn't quicker. You alright? Are you hurt?”

Mark shook his head in disbelief. "I think I'm OK, but I want to wash this blood off. Where are the other men?"

"They won't hurt anyone now."

“Go get your clothes. Lets collect their weapons and ammunition and anything we can use. We'll take them with us in the back of the truck and throw them down a ravine. We have to make sure they were alone before we get to the rendezvous with Ben's group.

Mark didn't want her to see how shocked he was. Almost being shot was one thing, but Jasper, well, he didn't know what to think, except one this one thing.

Good thing she is on our side.

Site metamorphisis in contemplation

Hey chickies, its time for a change.

I believe, I think, I feel that I have lost many readers and friends with this blog as I have continued to prod and showcase the insanity that is leading us to an inevitable change in our world. I used write, "our uncertain future." I don't think that anything is uncertain now, but we do seem to sit at a Chinese restaurant with the menu of collapse and change from column A through column Z providing a plethora of choices.

Why did I begin this blog? Hubris? Because I think I'm so smart? Probably some of that, hell probably a lot of that. But my initial reason was to wake people up, hoping that each person who woke up to the problems ahead would bring their friends along and we would have pockets of people who were not going to be shocked back hard on their collective ass when Walmart was empty and interstate trucking was irregular, and the party was over, the party of free energy.

More important to me, I wanted to force, yes force, each reluctant, in-denial person into seeing what I see for a moment. Getting it, getting what? Getting that they and their fore bearers have created this horrible mess, that we, each of right now continue to destroy our beautiful planet, plunder resources, pollute what we don't eat or destroy, and over populate out of control until two hundreds species ;er day disappear.

After the WWII, in some towns around the holocaust camps, the allied soldiers made the local towns people - who were also "unaware," and in denial, come and tour the camps. That is what I have tried to make each of you do in your mind, to hold your head and not allow you to turn from it until you would finally scream, yea, we did it, and it is our nature and we will continue to do it until we eat it all and shit it out. I simply wanted you, or those who could, to break from denial, to witness what we have wrought. Since we cannot stop, it is our nature, at least we can shed a tear for what we might have been, here on earth.

To whatever degree I did or didn't accomplish those two goals, I am done with it. Those of you might read this, know what I think and know what I think each of us should do. To those who castigate me for having the arrogance to think I know what they should do, I apologize. For the friends that don't come around, OK, I understand, hell, it's all I talk about and it's depressing, hunh? Wait to you see what comes.

To my family I am sorry that I'm not living inside the bubble with all of you and I do get that you miss me being "normal."

So after the next FBR installment I'll start rearranging things. I'll put all the links to the old blog material on the aftershock site, and I'll put the better links on the right of the blog there too. then I will evaporate the blog, and I'll begin the development of the main www.heirloomseedsource.com. Possibly more people will be interested in how to choose heirloom seeds for their area than in the philosphy of collapse. I'll probably put bunny pictures up somewhere. Certainly in our future the knowledge of gardening without hybrid seeds is going to be more valuable than my observations of the collapse we're in now. Hell, even mainstream media is getting around to mentioning little bits, here and there, once in a while, but always near a column on how the economy and energy supplies and everything is going to improve in 200X.

I wish all of you well, and we all have many sources more eloquent than me to dip into what is happening behind the scenes. I personally have a pretty great life right now, as I'm somewhat more insulated against the changes that come than many. I know to many I have sounded like chicken little saying the sky is falling and from that some of you have deduced that I am a gloomy Gus. Actually I'm happy and laugh and nap and love the sun and walk and see flowers. I love my friends and I enjoy coffee in the morning and the sun on the Dome Rock mountains in Q.

Getting out of the bubble is coming alive and having real conversations and actually listening to people. Why bother? Because I want to remember. We are in freefall right now.I want a mental snapshot of how wonderful individuals often are.

I will miss the release I got from writing out my frustrations here, but it is time for me to concentrate on my own more gentle transition to tomorrow . I am looking forward to a wonderful summer of a big garden, fishing, and continuing talks and emails with friends who are also preparing in their ways for the huge change that is upon us.

Vios con Dios whatever your beliefs.

Margin Calls, pink sky and Gary arrived in Q

HI chickies,
I freaked when I saw how low gold and silver had dropped. That shows how perfectly self centered I am. A drop in Gold and Silver might indicate an increasing value in the dollar which would be good for everyone in slowing the rise of import prices. But my little bit of money and future are tied up in gold in silver, so I often have a divided, conflicted response to gold going down. Seeking comfort I read through the various posts of my links and saw that Archdruid has a post on just this topic, margin calls. This link goes to the top of his blog, thus is good only for a few days. It is an excellent easy read.

Gary arrived in Q late yesterday afternoon, tired, but all look pretty relaxed and happy to be out of the cold. How cold? We tried to start a fire with his cardboard from his cabinet in the fifth wheel. The paper and cardboard were not damp, but they had been frozen in the closet until they drove south three days ago. Erika tried to light the paper for about five minutes. I went and got a single piece of Q paper, and it burst into flame. That's how cold, even cardboard won't unfreeze.

I moved over to the 14 day free area and choose a flat spot for the work that Gary needs to do - putting his solar panels back up on the roof. Perhaps, if I'm not too lazy, and I'm very lazy after the packing La Casa Blanca and moving over here, I might get off my ass and take some pictures.