Local Food Gift Ideas

I get these “green” catalogues in the mail at work, and every time I browse through one I keep thinking, wait, if people were being really environmental, wouldn’t they, I don’t know, NOT buy all the random crap in this catalogue? I mean, really, a wicker meditation chair? Are you kidding me?

I still wish we could all get back to just giving oranges and bottles of wine for Christmas. I mean, I love that my parents use Christmas as an opportunity to help me pay for things I can’t afford on my own (like my pressurized canner), but aside from that, I kind of wish I could declare a moratorium on gift giving ASIDE from small useful things. Like bottles of wine. The worst possible thing about Christmas is when people buy each other mountains of useless plastic crap that comes in even more useless plastic wrapping. With that in mind, I recently sent out the following email to the local food listserv I manage:

Looking for a few ideas for holiday gifts for the local foodie in your life? Rather than fill up their stockings with more gadgets that will get discarded after only a few months of use, why not introduce your family and friends to the joys of local foods?

· Give the gift of a CSA membership to a farm such as Colchester Farm in Galena or Homestead Farm in Millington. A year’s share offers several months of weekly vegetables.
· Give a gift subscription to St. Brigid’s Farm’s Medley of Meats program. A six month subscription will provide you with a once monthly share of grass-fed beef.
· Rather than having a box of steaks shipped from who knows where, try packing your own box with steaks from St. Brigid’s, Crow Farm, Cedar Run, or Sassafras River beef.
· Put together a gift basket of fresh produce from the farmers’ market, and add in other local favorites like honey, soaps, jams, or a fresh loaf of bread.
· Instead of a gift basket from Bath and Body Works, try assembling a basket from locally made soaps or herbal products like those from Calico Fields Lavender. You can even buy online!
· Give gift certificates to restaurants that serve local foods, such as Brooks Tavern, the Imperial Hotel, the Village Bakery, Two Tree Restaurant in Millington or the Harbor House in Worton. Or try a gift certificate to a natural food store that sells local products, such as Chestertown Natural Foods. There are many restaurants and stores carrying local products, so do your research. I wouldn’t say no to a gift certificate to the famed Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore.
· For an extra special gift, consider a gift certificate to the Crow Farm B&B in Kennedyville. Stay in the beautiful, renovated historic farmhouse and take in the rural vistas while dining on fresh local foods!
· Remember to take a bottle of local wine or a six-pack of local beer to all your holiday gatherings, or give them as gifts! Bottles of specialty wines always make great gifts, especially for hostesses, and would be great paired with local cheese from Eve’s Cheese or Chapel Hill Creamery.
· Give cookbooks with a local food theme, such as the beautiful “Dishing Up Maryland” by Lucie Snodgrass. The book features profiles of many of the small family farms in Maryland, and then follows each with recipes from that farmer, using their products. Make sure you pick one up at a local book store!

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What I’m Thankful For

The passage of S. 510 has left me rather depressed, I will admit. Very depressed, in fact. I have been very prone thus far in my life to making lots of excuses for not doing the things I say I very much want to do, and now I have an even better one for not farming: S. 510! But let us talk no more today of that dreadful subject. I want to talk instead of the reason I will continue to make excuses for not farming and fight the good fight against encroaching government crackdown.

This past Thanksgiving, I was very thankful for raw milk. I was thankful for the thick mug of hot chocolate made with raw milk that I drank over the weekend. I love the way the cream rises to the top as the milk cools, so that there are swirls of white amid the deep brown of the cocoa. I love walking to my fridge at night and cutting off a hunk of raw milk white cheddar cheese, and standing in my kitchen, not really looking at the pile of dishes I haven’t done yet, and reveling in the salty smooth bite of a good cheese.

I love going to the farmers’ market, so much so that I will smile for the entire day, and so much so that I will go even when there is nothing I need to buy. This past Saturday, there was a Christmas parade, and over night the Christmas decorations had gone up in town, and there were wreaths and ribbons on all the lampposts, and one of the farmers was selling evergreen boughs. I bought a gallon of cider and a loaf of bread and later pulled off pieces of bread to enjoy with my cheese. I love that I can’t just “run” to the farmers’ market, as it takes me a good twenty minutes to say hi to everyone I know, and another twenty if I stop to talk to anyone. I love that I can walk up to someone and introduce myself and name several mutual acquaintances and within minutes we’re fast friends. I love that all those people are willing to stand out in the bitter cold for hours so I can buy some brussel sprouts. And that they love it too, and know what I bought last week, and will probably want this week, and ask after things they know are happening in my life.

I am so overjoyed that our local baker, who has until recently been selling his bread at the farmers’ market only, has finally opened his own bakery. When it opened, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I rushed down the block to go in and buy a loaf of bread, and was nearly in tears because I was so happy for him (and for me, now I can have croissants whenever I want). I loved the smell of bread baking. I was so in love with the loaf of bread I bought I almost didn’t want to cut it up for stuffing (but I’m still loving the stuffing leftovers, so all is well).

I loved making stuffing for Thanksgiving, because I loved all the ingredients so much. Bread from someone I hesitate to call an acquaintance, as I hesitate to call all the people I know in town acquaintances, because I care so deeply for them, even if I only see them for a few minutes a week at the farmers’ market. Apples and scallions from other farmers I know. And chicken broth made from a chicken I got from yet another farmer who I chat with every week, whose farm I have visited several times, who, even if I don’t always agree with him, I trust to give me a good chicken. And after I baked the chicken and fed it to my friends, the bones went in a pot with the fat and some other bits, and boiled and filled the whole house with the glorious smell of chicken, and I poured the liquid into a jar and froze it and pulled it back out for Thanksgiving and poured it over the stuffing knowing that the nutrients inherent in homemade chicken stock would nourish my family, as would the raw butter I put on top of the whole thing.

I loved that I was able to serve squash that a farmer had given me, just because they had too much. I loved that my cousin, who had until the day before Thanksgiving been farming in New York for the summer, brought home squash from the farm, carried it on the bus in fact, and made mashed squash with garam masala for dinner. He also brought me several enormous garlic bulbs, tied together with twine, looking almost too good to eat, and I almost cried over that too, because I missed him so much while he was gone over the summer and also because the garlic looked so gorgeous (and delicious), but mostly because I was so happy that he had spent the whole summer farming with people that he seemed to really get on with and that he looked so happy, finally.

I loved spending the entire day in the kitchen with another cousin, while we chatted and chopped and mixed and kneaded and our fourth and final cousin’s voice played on the stereo and we sang along in perfect(ish) harmony and we both missed her so much we could barely stand it, but with her voice playing it was almost like she was there, and I was so proud to have a cousin who is more like a sister with a voice that could make my heart break that it nearly did. And another cousin who is just like a sister who would spend the whole day with me in the kitchen talking about the best way to knead rolls, and why some fats are better than others, and how she showed her seventh grade class Food Inc. and talked to them about how whole foods are better than processed foods and I thought I would nearly pass out with the happiness that I have been so blessed with this amazing family.

And when we sat down to dinner, laughing and teasing and exclaiming over all the dishes, and we clinked glasses and toasted to another year of being together, and gave thanks to everyone who helped cook (almost everyone at the table), I looked down at all the foods on my plate, almost none of which had come from a store, and most especially had not come from a box or a can but from ingredients we had assembled and mixed and baked and served, and those foods would be so filling we’d all end up on the floor for a good hour after dinner, trying to recuperate, and gave thanks to all of the farmers who had provided the meal. All of the farmers who I could name, and see in my mind’s eye, and picture their farms as well, and feel each of their handshakes the first time we met, and the grins of their kids or their dogs or whoever made up their family, all of whom I knew as well, and who had spent the entire year out in the sun and rain and heat and cold to produce this food that graced our tables, and then had stood at the farmers’ market in the cold to sell it to me (or give it to me, in some cases). Because they wanted me and my family to be well fed, and that mattered enough to face all the obstacles.

And this morning when I woke up I remembered that S.510 had passed, and that it would probably become law, and nearly burst into tears again wondering how long it would be before all that was gone.

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Pretty Pictures on a Friday

I feel like I should have something exciting to say, because it’s Friday, but all I can think about is going to see Harry Potter tonight. Is that wrong? Does that contradict all my speeches about economy and small scale this and that?

So you’re getting a picture instead. Last Thursday, we played host to the podcaster extraordinaire, KMO, of the C-Realm podcast. He is on tour promoting his new book, Conversations on Collapse. And so we had a little gathering for him to speak about the book and the topics contained within. And that means… food!!

I of course forgot to take pictures while I was cooking. You can blame this on the fact that I was trying to prepare three dishes at the same time. I also forgot my camera, and had to rely on Ms. Zumba for the use of hers, as we were also gathering at her house. Because I made all fried foods (finger foods), my dishes were displayed in tupperware with paper towels. Not very attractive.

I made spring rolls for the first time:

They were quite delicious, and a lot easier than I thought they’d be. It took longer to chop up the cabbage than anything else. I used cabbage, carrots, peppers and scallions, all of which were briefly stir fried with some seasoning. I bought spring roll wrappers, which all the instructions I could find online said you should just be able to fold up, but I found I needed to brush them with a little water to soften them up first. All of my spring rolls were different sizes and kind of lumpy, but whatever. I’ll get better. And they tasted amazing.

I also made gobhi kofta, which is kind of a cauliflower dough, rolled into little logs and fried. They are usually served with a sauce, but the sauce didn’t really turn out, alas. So we just ate them as is, and they were still delicious. Kofta is an Indian dish that just means these little vegetable patty things, or logs, or sometimes they are more like balls. I’ve had them with all sorts of vegetables, and you could make them with almost anything.

Here is a picture of the whole display:

The other foods are beer battered broccoli (made by me), pumpkin (?) sushi and delicious, addictive kale chips made by Ms. Zumba. I am really going to have to try the kale chips this weekend, because I just couldn’t stop eating them. Yuuuuuuum.

So all in all a wonderful evening of eating well and talking about the collapse of civilization. Yay!

Also, I should mention that S. 510 did pass the Senate yesterday evening. I can find no indication yet of whether it passed with any of the amendments. Apparently it still has to be put to a final vote, one way or another. Both MD senators voted in favor. If you have a moment, and want to let them know your thoughts on the matter…

Update: apparently the amendment is attached to the bill, with some changes. Find out more on grist: Tester Amendment

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Still Working It Out

Sigh. It’s all well and good to read all these books on local foods, and then I get in my car and drive through the landscape and realize it’s not reality. Not yet, anyway. And maybe not in my lifetime.

The trouble of it is, this economic thing. There’s an endless conflict between what is right and what is “economical.” I want to get my chickens from someone I know. I want to trade for it with things I made. I want a personalized, local, economy. This means radically changing everything. I know this. But how do we get there? How do we get there if people don’t want to get there?

The book I’m reading talks about how entrepreneurs can make all this money by capitalizing on the wave of popularity the local foods movement is seeing. The conference I went to talked about how entrepreneurs could make all this money by capitalizing on the wave of popularity the local foods movement is seeing. I talk about this all the time. Oh yes, I’m always saying- specialty foods, value added products. Get out of commodities. But there are three main issues with this great sounding notion of transitioning people over to smaller scale, specialty agriculture. Yes, it creates jobs. Lots of them. And we need those. Yes, it helps preserve farms, and that’s another thing we need. It creates healthier foods. It connects people at least a little closer to the land. In some ways it reduces our dependence on fossil fuels. Sort of. But also:

1. The people who live nearest to the rural areas producing these foods can’t afford it. Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, most of the people getting involved in these new forms of farming are not necessarily from the areas where they’re starting these farms. I’m not from the eastern shore. I’m not from a farming family. It’s not across the board, but it does mean there are a lot of academic ideas in this new wave of “local food” agriculture, and that means it doesn’t always address the obvious: there are people that need to be fed. People who don’t have the money to pay $5 for a loaf of bread, or $6 for a gallon of milk. I barely have the money to pay $6 for a gallon of milk, and can only manage because I don’t have kids. And I have a much better income than the majority of people living in rural (or urban, for that matter) areas.
2. People don’t necessarily want those things. Let’s admit it. I get all these exciting ideas about growing currants and making black currant wine, but who the hell wants (or needs) black currant wine except a bunch of crazy middle class foodies like me? Most people need their basic sustenance. Most people don’t want any more than that. And all of those things are currently commodities for exactly that reason- so that people can afford them. We can ramble on about value added as much as we want, but when it comes down to it we’re only targeting a very small portion of the population with all these “specialty” crops we’re all going to make so much money on.
3. If you are growing these specialty crops to differentiate yourself, and you are doing so in a place like the eastern shore, there is a certain amount of the population you are going to get to buy your stuff, and that’s it. I was talking about it this morning: someone wants to start a community supported fishery, which will be an expensive prospect for those who join, and we were saying it’s a good thing they want to start it on the part of the shore where the people have money. So what happens when all these people get into specialty farming and max out the number of people who locally want to buy their products? Well, they start selling them to the urban areas on the other side of the bay, of course. To do that they need infrastructure- processing facilities, transportation, probably some kind of broker. All of that will end up being regulated. And where is the line that divides all that growth from the system we’re already running from? From the large scale industrial ag everyone’s always ranting against? Oh yes, people will start small scale. But then they’ll realize that people in Annapolis want their fancy cheeses, and that in order to get the people in Annapolis their fancy cheeses, they have to grow, and become mechanized, and go through the same supply chains as everyone else, and then where’s the difference? This is the same thing that happened to organics, and it’s why the word has no meaning now. It’s literally owned by the government. I don’t want them to own local, as well.

It’s not that it can’t be done. It’s just that we have to THINK about these things, and so far, it doesn’t seem like too many people are thinking about it. People get all kinds of excited about local foods, without pausing to think if local people even want local foods, educated or not. And about what we’re really trying to achieve here. Are we trying to create more jobs? Ok, then we’re on the right track by getting people into smaller scale, “specialty” agriculture, and by setting up processing facilities and the rest. Are we trying to preserve land from development, and maybe help the environment, and maybe produce somewhat healthier food for the people who can afford it? Great, we’re on the right track.

But do we want great food to be affordable for everyone? Do we want local to still mean your neighbors, and not someone who just happens to be in the same general region as you? Do we want control over how our food is produced, and a direct line from the farmer to our plate, without a lot of “infrastructure” in the middle?

Well, then. That’s something different.

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A Food-Laden Visit

While the blog posted automatically last week, I was busy eating. For once. One of my favorite people in the world, my sister-cousin Miss Clickclack herself, was staying at my house with her partner and I actually had people cooking food FOR me. It was amazing. I would get up every morning, do some work while they were still asleep, and emerge from my room to the delicious smells of something curious cooking on the stove, whether it was leftovers from the night before mixed with some new ingredients to spice them up, or some unusual combination I never would have thought of in my life. This is the thing I love most about cooking with two people who are just as into cooking as I am, and who like all the same foods. Never in my life would it have occurred to me to combine eggplant, broccoli, onions and black beans- with some kind of spice combination I couldn’t even puzzle out. But it was delicious.

I was I had taken more pictures, but I was too busy eating and playing endless games of Carcassonne (my new addiction) to remember to take too many. There’s just this one:

Of my plate just before I started to devour it, when it suddenly occurred to me there should be some evidence of the week. I only wish I had had the brains to turn off my work email for the week, so I hadn’t spent half the time worrying over whether the students were taking care of things or not. One of the things I have always loved about hanging out with my sister-cousin was the feeling of freedom, of not worrying about much of anything, and it has since occurred to me that this is likely more to do with usually being in Germany when I hang out with her than anything else. In Germany, I can’t even access the internet regularly, and when I do I very rarely fuss with work at all. Alas! That I allowed myself to be distracted.

None the less, it was an excellent week all around. I can’t even describe to you the simple joys of saying, “is this too much garlic?” And every time being answered, “no, put in more.” Only a true member of our family could tolerate the quantity of garlic that we consider normal for a dish: usually an entire bulb. And eating it raw is certainly not out of the question. We had a discussion about our love of garlic, and how it rarely occurs to us that this might be strange to some people (for example, that they may find it strange that we constantly smell strongly of garlic, a smell that we, garlic devourers that we are, rarely even notice except as a mild pleasant aroma that says: delicious). I will have to admit that clickclack’s tendency to eat raw onions as if they were apples was a little disconcerting, but all in all I’d say she’s a lot healthier for it (as I am for eating raw garlic).

I will heretofore attempt to list the wondrous things we ate last week, if my memory will permit:
– The most delicious pumpkin soup I have ever had in my life.
– Some kind of bizarre stew that I kind of wished I hadn’t made, though I have a good excuse: I had a terrible head cold and couldn’t smell a thing.
– Pad thai.
– Many interesting things made in pans: the aforementioned broccoli/black bean combo, some kind of potato/onion/eggplant(?) combo, more mysterious stir fries involving eggplants (of which there were many in my fridge).
– Several very typical German breakfasts, or at least the sort I’m used to: good hearty bread, blocks of cheese, spreads, butter, juice, coffee. I had to laugh as we hacked off pieces of bread from the loaf and arranged slices of cheese from the blocks on top, as this is something I have only ever seen Germans do. Americans are not accustomed to bread they have to slice themselves, or cheese that comes in a big lump.
– A very spicy pepper-onion-carrot combo, served with spaghetti squash and butter, green beans, and kale.
– Noodles! Well ok that one wasn’t terribly exciting, but we dumped lots of garlic over them so it counts.
– Loads of fresh apple cider, and some intriguing drink that included vodka, ginger beer, and cucumbers.
– Popcorn! Homemade of course. With nutritional yeast, butter, and lots of sea salt.

Sigh. It was a week of many things I love, and many things I constantly lament not having in my day-to-day life: having other people to cook with, having other people to eat the things I cook, having other people to help with the dishes (thank god for that), having other people to eat with, rarely having leftovers (and when there are leftovers, not being chastised for leaving them on the stove for a day or two until they disappear), eating ridiculous amounts of garlic, sharing a loaf of bread and cheese. I love having lots of people around. I love not having to eat alone. I love sitting up nights playing games and watching movies and talking and laughing and sitting on the porch. It is such a very very very immense shame that this week things are back to “normal”, that I am back to work, and that I will be eating dinner tonight alone.

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Local Food Talk (Things to Listen To)

C-Realm Podcast: Fatuous Inefficiency

Me talking about local foods! Me being snobby about tomatoes! What more can you ask for?

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Community or Death

I’m feeling dramatic lately, what can I say? Because I, like so many people my age, am again faced with the decision so common in this f-ed up society. Stay where I am, where unfortunately there are almost no career options, or move somewhere else where in theory there might be more than one place to get a job. No, I haven’t lost my job. It’s just decision making time in my world and, unsurprisingly, I find myself thinking about where my food comes from in the process.

Or more accurately, I should say, I find myself thinking about the people I get my food with. I never expected when I moved to this town over four years ago that I would stay at all. I’m usually terrible about making very close friends, and I tend to stay close to the places where I’ve made them. The trouble is, in this town I’ve not only made some of the closest friends of my life, I’ve found myself a member of an entire community. When my little sister was visiting last week we dashed into the market for a hunk of mozzarella, and she was terribly amused by the fact that every single person in the store knew me by name.

And that’s what I love so much about this town. We make the joke that you can never go to the farmer’s market just to get eggs: this simple task takes at least two hours. And it’s because when you go to the farmer’s market you run into everyone you know, and end up standing there chatting with them about one thing or another. I absolutely love that I know so many people. I absolutely love that I can’t go anywhere without running into someone I know. I love that on any particular night, if I am feeling social, I can walk to one of five or so neighbors’ houses and be guaranteed I will be invited in for a meal or at least a drink on the porch. I am so in love with this that the thought of moving away from this town caused me to burst into tears and mope around the house all day last Monday, a reaction that completely astonished me.

It shouldn’t, really. I have always been a homebody. I used to go on in high school about how I wanted to travel, but I think that was mostly a desire to get the hell away from my death trap of a hometown. Since then I have traveled, and I have lived other places, and I hated it. I was miserable as all hell. But since moving to this town I’ve been if not consistently happy (and who is, really), than happier on a more regular basis than I’ve been in my life. It’s hard not to be happy after going to the farmer’s market on a beautiful summer morning, and coming home to a loaf of bread and hand crafted cheese and locally fresh picked berries.

And now I have a network of people I can rely on- people who, if they aren’t exactly friends, certainly fall solidly under the category of “neighbors”- people who, if I needed it, I could call up for help on one thing or another. And people here do that. They help each other out, they do what is needed to make sure those around them stay afloat. It has taken me four years to become a part of this community, and now that I’m a member, I sure as hell don’t want to give it up for my life. It IS my life. That’s a startling realization for anyone who has grown up in this culture where it is simple as can be to pick up your “life”, pack it in a box, and start over somewhere else. We haven’t been taught to value the relationships that only come with being in the same place over an extended period of time. We haven’t been taught to become interdependent with our neighbors, because, well, if we did we wouldn’t be so dependent on stores to fulfill our needs. But here I am canning tomatoes and sharing produce and talking about going in together on a freezer with my friends, and my bike is in my neighbors’ garage and there’s a regular standing offer to trade services (web skills or sewing or whatever it may be) with the rest of them. And I’m thinking about giving this up? So I can potentially make more money somewhere else?

It’s the bind that really makes this whole society so untenable. If I want to farm, I need more money. If I want more money, I have to find a job that pays me a ridiculously larger sum than I make currently. But on the other hand, if I want to farm successfully, I need a market to sell to and a community of people willing to support me. But to make the money to start a farm, I have to abandon the community I’ve become a part of, and the network of farmers who would help me get started, to go somewhere where there are more jobs (if such a place even exists). This is such a ridiculous choice it just makes me fume. I want the other choice. I want to just smash the system that would put me in such a bind (and it’s not just me that’s in a bind, I know that for damn sure. It’s everyone under the age of 40, so far as I can tell). I want the way out that will mean the community really actually getting its act together to build what it wants- which is a functional local economy that can support the people who live here, rather than all of the young people abandoning ship to try and find jobs somewhere else. If we want to keep this area rural, we HAVE to find jobs for young people- and my suggestion is to find ways to get young people into farming, and make it profitable enough that they are willing to stay. This would create so many jobs we wouldn’t even be talking about building more bedroom communities as a means of temporarily employing people.

Some people might say I’m scared to leave home and move somewhere else. But in reality I listen to my friends saying they are so excited by the adventure of moving somewhere where they don’t know anyone and I can’t help thinking to myself, what, are they insane? And by insane I mean something along the lines of emotionally impoverished, or something similar. Every fiber of my being cries out for a community, for a social network where I can have a fulfilling, meaningful role. And I have been fortunate enough to find that, here. Now it’s my job to STAY here, and build the jobs I and all the others need so it will be possible for us to stay. Without one day ending up in thousands of dollars of debt. I’d like to have a hometown that my kids won’t want to run away from.

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Big Fat Hypocrite

I drive to work.
I haven’t changed all my lightbulbs.
I definitely haven’t checked the air pressure in my tires.
I often leave the water running while washing dishes.
I eat meat.
Oh yeah, and I want to have kids.

And I’ve stopped feeling guilty about it. I could make another list, one which would list all the things I have done (I have no air conditioning, I always unplug my computer at night, I always turn the lights off when I leave the room, and, oh yeah, I eat 90% locally and therefore have almost no trash). But there’s really no point. Because the truth of the matter is, while doing all of the above is a more responsible way to live, it’s not changing the world, and it’s not solving the real problem.

Listen to this podcast.
And then listen to it a couple more times for good measure. Think about it. If municipal water use in the US is only 20% of the total water use, with 80% therefore going to industrial and agricultural uses, me taking a twenty minute shower is not the problem. Seriously. There’s not even an argument there. Industry and industrial agriculture are the problem.

I hear things like this from students all the time, usually in the form of “but the lights are on in (insert name of academic building here) why should I turn them off in my dorm?” And I always answer the same way. Yes, it’s true that there’s a bigger problem. But that doesn’t absolve you from living responsibly. And this is true of water usage as well- industry is obviously a much bigger problem, but that doesn’t absolve me from living responsibly. I do try to conserve water as much as I can.

But I also don’t beat myself up over every little thing. I had a slurpee the other day and didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty (though I was pretty sure I felt my teeth rotting). I’m not environmental saint, and that’s not the point. The point here is that I accept that there are much bigger problems than me, and that ultimately I am a member of industrial civilization. It’s hard to accept. I don’t want to be associated with them in the slightest. I don’t associate, in many ways, because I sure as hell don’t want to be in other countries blowing things up, or drilling in the ocean, or any of the other million ridiculous and destructive things this idiot culture has decided to do. But I have to accept that I am still, unfortunately, a member. I really don’t have a choice. As I said last week, where the hell else can I go? (and as a reminder, go read this as well: Urban Scout: Hypocrisy vs. Rewilding)

And so yes, I stopped beating myself up over driving to work even though I could easily walk. You know what, it’s hard enough to get to work as it is. Really, what we should be working on, is ending the system that causes all this destruction in the first place. It’s going to be really hard for me to go get a slurpee if industrial civilization has crashed and 7-11 can no longer get the artificial sugar or the petroleum based cups or run the machine or exist in any functional way for that matter. But- and here’s where I always get stuck- what do I do in the meantime?

Try to live responsibly, for sure. And I try to take Derrick Jensen’s advice- doing what I do best, which is writing and organizing (and cooking and sewing)- because I know I personally don’t have the faintest clue how to bring down industrial civilization. But the other part of it is trying to find the people who do, and supporting them in their work. I was watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at lunch (there’s another industrial civilization member thing to do, DVDs are definitely bad for the environment) and thinking to myself how cheesy it sounds, but how spot on some of the comments on resistance in that book are. I’m not going to quote because I’m being lazy and don’t want to look it up, but the sentiment is that resistance is more effective when you aren’t alone. Alone, there’s no one to step up if you fail. Alone, you get caught up in your own head and don’t see the big picture. But with others, you have more skills than you alone could ever have, not to mention that working together you are more likely to see flaws in a plan that you would not catch yourself, and you are collectively more conscious than you would be otherwise (presuming you are starting with conscious people). Not to mention the support you can give one another- support that is absolutely necessary to function as a human being, much less a resistance fighter.

And so the final part of what I “do”- which is community building. But you already know that. I’ve been talking about it what- every day?

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Gifting All Around

I suppose for a bit I should attempt to be more cheerful. The thought of collapse really doesn’t depress me that much, though. I know I’m not the only one who feels that way, because I’ve been reading more and more lately where I find the same view expressed over and over again, and usually more eloquently than I’ve been doing it here.

But let’s talk for a moment about recent successes in community building. I’ve been lucky to rediscover in a sense two friends who had fallen a bit to the wayside in recent years, and even better to discover that they were right there with me in the whole concept of creating a workable community. It started with one of my community building posts a while back, when I mentioned I was up for bartering my sewing skills to anyone for anything I needed. Miss Zumba took me up, and we made a deal that I would hem her dress in exchange for… well, that was the issue. We couldn’t think of anything off hand that I needed.

No worries, I told her. Give it time, and something will come up. In the meantime you’ll just owe me.

We’ve been taught that this is a bad thing, owing people. I talked about this a little before. If I go to a store and buy something, I pay for it. And then I’m done. The relationship has ended, and I have no further responsibility to anyone involved in the making of the object. But if I make something and someone does not pay me for it, but “owes” me, we have a relationship. We have a bond that we aren’t going to be as quick to break, because we owe each other something. And I hope that doesn’t end there. I hope we can continue to owe each other things, because the minute we’ve “paid up,” that’s it. All relationship ends.

It’s in this way that money destroys community. There’s a fantastic article that helped me to understand this, since I have such a poor grasp on economics in general and don’t care to know any more than I do:
Reality Sandwich: Money: A New Beginning

But what else? We’re working on changing the regulations in our town so we’ll be able to have chickens in our yards (I can’t wait!). We’re working on educating everyone in the vicinity about raw milk. And we got a brilliant idea while talking about books the other night- we’re all going to catalogue our many, many books, and then start a library among ourselves. For too long we’ve been spending too much money on books, and unfortunately our small library doesn’t tend to delve into too many things like permaculture. There’s the inter library loan, which is great and all, but we also have each other. Out of this we’re also hoping to start tracking patterns- what books we’ve all read that shaped our thoughts, and got us to where we are now. Hopefully, out of that will come something of a curriculum, a guide so to speak of books to read that we can recommend to others who are looking to travel down a similar path. And the books that eventually we will be using to teach our own children, when we’re all working together to home school sometime in the future.

Suggestions welcome. Soon I’ll probably put up one of those spinning Amazon recommendation things, though really you should be borrowing books or, if nothing else, buying them from a local book store. Avoid Amazon, killer of relationships and small independent bookstores. Says the girl sharing her thoughts on community on the internet. Don’t think I haven’t realized the irony.

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Sustainable Farming (or not) Part 3

So now we’ve defined sustainability (flexibility, and the ability to adapt and change) and farming (using an area of land explicitly for the production of specific species), and it’s time to put them together. What do you get?

The handsome fella said something at dinner the other night that made me do a little internal happy dance, which was that my plan for the farm works well because it could work with really any number of people (within reason). It could be just me (though I would never want that). It could be the three of us who are planning on getting it started. It could be twenty, or fifty, or possibly up to 100 people, depending on what availability of land we have. Because it’s designed to be flexible. It’s the beauty of the kind of farming I want to do, which, apparently, is somewhere between horticulture and actual farming.

Imagine this: we start with lots of different kinds of fruit trees and some brambles (fruit that grows on shrubs, like blackberries and raspberries). That is the base on which the rest of the farm will grow, because that is what we’re going to use to make money. Then, rather than use pesticides, we’re going to try to use chickens- another person can manage that enterprise. Then if you’re going to have chickens really you should have some kind of grazer, in this case sheep, who also conveniently mow the aisles between the trees. Another person for the sheep. And then because sheep really like certain kinds of plants and because, hell, we can use the stuff growing between the aisles too, we throw in some vegetables and herbs between the trees. Another person. Then we decide we’re going to expand into more value added products, so we set up a barter with some neighbors for grains for flour (or for flour) for pies and baked goods, and grow any other ingredients we might need on the sidelines of the farm. Another person (or several. At least one of these people knows who he is!!!). And then we remember that certain very delicious varieties of mushrooms grow really well with fruit trees so we encourage and harvest those, and because we’ve also been managing a forested edge to the property (to help control run off and provide wildlife habitat), we start cultivating mushrooms in there. And then we make sure the forest is healthy so we have a steady supply of wood for the stove and for occasionally making some furniture, oh and then we set up a studio to make yarn from the sheep and beautiful knitted products, and grow some plants for dyes, and I hope by now you realize I can go on like this endlessly. Right there, in one paragraph, I listed enough work for at least 12 people, if not more (again, depending on the land).

If the economy collapses, all the better, we can be self sufficient rather than worrying about making enough money to pay taxes. If there is a disease that comes through and wipes out the apples, that’s too bad, but we’ve got other types of fruit, plus how many other enterprises? And the apples will come back one day. There are so many layers entwined into this model that if an issue arises with one, the others can sustain the loss. Do you see how this is different from a normal farm? There are only a few things, all of which would be completely out of our hands, that could stop us: some kind of disease which wiped all of us out (like small pox wiped out Native American communities), some kind of major environmental disaster (a tidal wave takes out the eastern shore), or massive climate change (such as another Ice Age). Or things carried out by human hands: nuclear holocaust, again some kind of virulent deadly disease, or, in the short term, the government swooping in and trying to put a stop to it because they are determined to prevent small farms from becoming successful. But at least with that last one we could fight back.

The other piece, of course, is that all of these people are working together to maintain the community as well as contributing to the “economic” success of the farm. Some people, so long as we’re still stuck in this economy, would also be managing the books, and others the marketing, and others engaging the larger community and working to stop the laws that keep rolling out, trying to make small farming harder. Others would be cooking, everyone would be helping keep the house (or houses, or yurts, or tents, or heaven only knows what). Others would be making medicines and helping take care of those who occasionally get sick. There’s plenty to do when you are feeding that many people. There’s mending, there’s making quilts, there’s repairing fences, and making tools, and improving the property, and, at the end of the day, there’s music and art and writing and reading and talking and laughing. What I’m describing is less of a farm, and more of a community. I would hope that there would eventually be several pieces of land, with everyone working in concert to share resources and provide support to one another. Everyone is living individually, while cooperating to make the group at large more successful. That is what at heart has made humans successful in the past, and it is what can make us sustainable again in the future. What you’re producing in your community is in some ways less important than the simple fact that you have a community.

Together, we can fight, alone, we fall.

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