Ending and Beginning

Doomer Blogs

28 September 2009

I keep coming back to this same idea, sometimes it takes me weeks or months, but I always come back to it: the time spent reading about how financial/climate/peak oil doom is right around the corner is time wasted. What possible good can it do you? You’re not going to pick up on some late-breaking news story that will help you survive the apocalypse. Last-minute prep is not really possible except in a very very limited sense. You have to be living a local, sustainable lifestyle that won’t notice when the outside world goes to hell. You have to be ready all the time, because when and if a fast crash goes down, no more preparation will be possible.

I love reading blogs, but doomer blogs are a waste of time. And there are dozens of blogs that talk about people’s struggles to attain the kind of lifestyle I’m working to attain, blogs that can inspire and teach me.

And yet…I keep drifting back to the doom and gloom. Yes, there’s a part of me that wants to be told how bad it’s getting and how awful it’s going to be. And there’s a part of me that wants society to fail, that wants the world to return to a simpler, more honest place. I want all the investment bankers and other cheaters and smart guys to fail miserably. I want farming to be a high-status occupation. I want the world to be set right, and I think the way it is now is wrong in thousands of different ways.

Yes, I think I want all that, even though, truth be told, the chances of me successfully shepherding my family through that kind of breakdown are slight.

I’m hoping that writing this out and acknowledging that part of me wants the world to change in a dramatic way will help me to focus my energy, work on what is possible, and stop wasting time on doomer blogs. We’ll see.

Posted in Climate Change, Financial Meltdown, Peak Oil, TEOTWAWKI | Leave a Comment »

Getting ready

28 September 2009

Cut up and split some of the oak firewood that was too bit to fit in our stove, also some of the elm and maple from around the yard. Carried it with the wheelbarrow down to the greenhouse (aka solar kiln) and stacked it up high. It should finish drying there within the next couple of months.

Brought the sawbuck back into the greenhouse to dry it out so it doesn’t rot.

Our big white pine on the East side of the yard shed all its brown needles in the wind last night, so it’s looking all new and sparkling in today’s occasional sunshine. Raked up a bunch of the needles with help from G and D and dumped them in the garden. I’m not worried about occasional additions of pine needles making the soil too acid.

M picked a bunch of cherry tomatoes.

Yesterday, I cooked up a bunch of collards and kale in butter along with some ham and turkey spam and one of our red peppers in a frying pan on the stove. It was awesome. I’m finally figuring out how to cook and enjoy collards.

Posted in Burning wood, Gardening | Leave a Comment »

More Harvest

27 September 2009

Dug up another row of potatoes today — 2 down, 3 to go. The end result is quite disappointing, don’t even want to think about the ratio between pounds planted and pounds harvested. But I did just throw them on top of the sod, so I can’t complain.

Cut the heads off all the buckwheat today and put them in two paper bags and put them in the greenhouse. A cold front is coming through this evening accompanied by strong winds and some rain, so I figured they might be laying down on the ground by tomorrow. Need to pay attention to them and spread them out if possible to get them dried.

Still no frost predicted.

Posted in Gardening | Leave a Comment »

Coming to terms with 54

26 September 2009

I’m beginning to believe my age. I don’t think I’m 27 any more, and I’ve earned the right to my opinions. I’m not willing to hide any more, ’cause, ya know, there ain’t all that much left.

Posted in Aging | Leave a Comment »

The end is near

26 September 2009

Dug 20 gallons of coffee grounds (plus a few peels and rinds) into the garden. Between now and freeze-up I want to dig as much as possible into the garden. With the nitrogen in the coffee grounds, all that will be well decomposed by the Spring.

I want to make a strong effort to harvest from the garden this weekend. I don’t want to be pulling an all-nighter the night before a freeze. We have carrots and potatoes in the ground (although the first freeze won’t hurt them), kidney beans, watermelons, peppers, stevia, etc. to get inside.

I’m also trying to figure out how to harvest my little patch of buckwheat. The seeds are maybe 60% brown, so I want to do it soon, but with the rain of the last week they’re pretty soft. I’m hoping to get a few days of sun, then I’ll just cut off the tops of the plants by hand and bring them under cover — maybe into the greenhouse — to finish drying.

There’s the amaranth also.

Update — Got most of the rest of the kidney beans inside and shelled. They’re in the dehydrator now. We have maybe a quart total. Again, I’m struck by the herculean effort that would be required to grow enough food for self-sufficiency. If we’d been paying attention (I barely knew there were kidney beans in the garden, since we never had a plan and M planted them), we would have gotten all those beans inside before the rain of the last week. We had a dry, warm month that must have left them in near-perfect harvest condition if we’d been paying attention. As it is, there’s a fair amount of mold going on.

Cut the seed heads off the amaranth and put them in the greenhouse to finish drying. I don’t think they’re going to get any better sitting outside, and I’m sure we’re losing more grain off the heads the longer they stay out there. I still don’t know exactly what to do to get the seeds off the heads, but at least they’re contained and in a dry place now.