The Creek
Now I know that it was Crawford Creek and that the park I used to pester my parents to take me to was named for it. But for most of my life it was just and only THE CREEK.
It was that deliciously wild place where, if I were lucky and promised to be good, my Dad would take me when he 'went fishing'. Honestly, now I suspect he was just looking for some alone time but occasionally agreed to share it with me.
He would sometimes let me help him fish and once I even caught one. A rather small sun perch that I was quite disappointed in. Only Dad grinned and said, "Well, if you don't mind. I could use it for bait." I agreed and quick as the sun shimmering on the water that little fish was in several pieces with one of them decorating the end of Daddy's fishing line.
But fishing is not what really drew me to that fascinating chasm of limestone. Dad had told me in passing what he had learned in school about how sedimentary rocks were formed. He also told me of that freaky new idea going around called continental drift. He even showed me the imprints of ancient shells that had fallen long ago into soft mud. Imprints that, when I saw them, resided in stone whose only softness lay in it's creamy white color.
I admit it, I was totally fascinated by the layer cake of those ever so slightly differing pale cream colors. Then there were the nuggets of iron pyrite that would sometimes make it look as though someone had shot the creek wall and it had leaked a streak of bloody rust down its side.
As I grew older and read more about geology and other earth sciences the creek began to show to me the grand forces of the planet and how they danced in a slow steady rhythm of subsidence, deposition and up thrust with erosion. It let me see the gradual inundation of the land by the sea that left the grittier layers of low water sandy marls where, when I was old enough to explore the creek on my own, I found shark teeth and, where, if I had had access to a microscope at the time, I quite possibly could have found various microscopic critters as well.
By then I was off to college most of the year. Visiting the creek only when home on holiday or over the summer break and when social obligations did not intrude.
Ah, how I loved to tramp up and down its length then! From the deconstructed dam well up river from where Old Homestead dead ended in the creek all the way down to the park the creek gave it's name to.
Only then, while going to ET and studying Earth Science, I could really appreciate that fascinating erosion feature. By then I knew that the walls of the creek were the Austin Chalk that lay beneath most of Texas. I even understood that the creek its self had probably originated as part of the outflow of the great glaciers that had covered most of North America during the last Ice Age. Glaciers that had stopped just north of Texas somewhere up in Oklahoma or Kansas. And that was why it was so flat here and there. Flat there because of the glaciers scraping along like a wood plane. Here because the outflow from the melting glaciers deposited so much of the mud and silt they had ground off of the rocks north of here.
Then, I graduated and having no luck finding a job, I joined the Army. Then I tried to go into business with some Army buddies doing Soil Analysis up in Kentucky, failed, came home and kept house for my parents while I licked my wounds and decided what to do next. At a loss, I saved up my money got on the GI Bill, and went back to school. Majoring once more in Broad Field Earth Science. Sigh. I never learn.
In any event, at this point in my life, life itself seemed to keep me from my beloved creek. I had my memories and some photos and I used both (I was also once more minoring in art.)to paint what I considered one of my best paintings. It was of a particular bend in the creek that I felt had been controlled by a fault. There I had found an outcrop of a mineral called slick and slide(though not formally named that I believe). This mineral forms inside old faults and records the scraping of rock against broken rock on it's sides and it was right along that line of outcrop that the creek had a slight little kink in its generally straight path.
I painted the scene from a photo I had taken, and from the memories I had of bright summer sun reflecting up from cream colored rock.
Of course the art teacher didn't like it much. After all he could tell what it was and there were no people in it. He of course didn't spot the unicorn I stuck in amongst some of the distant trees just for fun. He would not have thought it fun or cute.
I and my Dad got it framed and gave it to my Mom for her birthday that year. It pleased her I think. It was often hard to tell with Mom.
I left it in the house when I rented it to my Cousin Craig after both my parents died. He fell in love with it and has taken it with him when ever and where ever he has moved since. I suspect he has as much love for and fond memories of the old creek as I. Especially, as he got to ramble it with Granpa Montgomery and they both liked fishing.
Unfortunately, that old creek is dead now, as well. As dead as my parents and grandparents.
In their wisdom the city fathers of Dallas decided to put a north south road through and that required a bridge across Crawford Creek. It crossed just about where that little kink used to be. Areas up steam decided they needed more land area so they filled in parts of the creek, including an area where I had found a truly spectacular ammonite. Sigh.
Then while I was living in Grandpa and Grandma Montgomery's house; I had inherited half at Grandma's death and bought the other half from my Uncle who had inherited the rest, I started hearing cop-choppers whupp-whupp-whupping up and down the length of the creek, shining their bright light down into it. They were looking for drug dealers I was told. Drug dealers who had started using my creek to meet buyers and sellers. Then, a little later, I read in the paper about an abandoned stolen car being found dumped into the creek near my house.
Yes, my creek was dead. The bright shining, vanilla cake sided, geologic wonderland of my youth was now degraded into a dumping ground for stolen cars and a meeting ground for druggies.
The yuppies coming by to try to get me to sign a petition to outlaw farm animals and large dogs, while two horses grazed behind me and two big dogs barked at them settled it.
I started searching for another place to live. I found it here in Lone Oak. I haven’t been back to the old home place since the day we pulled out of the driveway with a two horse trailer loaded with two horses and the back of my truck piled nearly as high as the horse trailer with belongings. My Uncle followed with the rest in one of his closed trailers.
Some times I wonder what Crawford Creek is like now. Most times, I don't want to know, just to remember how it was.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
My view of politics
Hmmm. Has anyone ever noted how the word politics sounds? First there is 'poly' which, if I remember tends to mean 'many' or 'lots'. Then there's 'ticks' which brings to mind those nasty fat little blood suckers you can find on your dog or on your own person if you go hiking through rough country. So we end up with ' lots of, or many blood sucking, nasty little bugs'. And, sadly sometimes that is how I tend to look at the politicians of both main parties and even some of the minor parties that are trying to drum up support. Nasty little blood sucking varmints just ready to jump on the average citizen and suck them dry.
Yeah, I know. Most politicians get into the frey for 'noble' reasons. They want to do something about some injustice or blight or whatever. Then the reality of the thing hits. The real give and take of politics. I would be suckered in, I am sure. All despite my high faluting so called values. Why? Simple.
Lets say I ran for some office or other on a 'green' (or blue, or pink or purple) platform. I'm sure it wouldn't be long before I found out that in order to get the votes for the 'green' laws I wanted passed I'd have to promise to vote, or even actually push for a favorable vote for some other law that I didn't particularly like. Maybe I'd have to agree to back some orange, yellow, or beige law or watch most of my lovely little green laws either die in committee or be voted into oblivion.
And if I went in trying to actually CHANGE some things! Oh, boy, would the bureaucracy get on my case. If there is one thing a bureaucracy hates it is change. Just try changing one line of a church, business or government form. (All bureaucracy's love forms!) Or worse, give them an answer on one of those lines that is even just a little outside the box of what they expect. My personal favorite is when the paper work asks me for my race, or what I believe my race to be.... I like to answer 'Human'. They may chuckle or smile, but they always come back to, "Now, really miss. We need to know if you consider yourself to be ...." and I know that if I stick to 'human' there will be a price to pay.
As for the politicians we have in office now. Sigh. I'm, as you may suspect, a little pissed at both parties. Yeah, one wants to, apparently, have more control over the kind of medical treatment I will be able to get. But the other seems to want me to shift for myself unless I have enough cash saved back to pay either ridiculous medical costs out of my own pocket or equally ridiculous insurance costs. Insurance that I have no certainty that a Doctor will take or that will require that I go to specific doctors who may be, well, just too darn far away for me to get to. (Like in Dallas or Rockwall) And I'm really not sure about this idea on requiring everyone to have health insurance. That could end up hurting the really poor and even others as badly as the requirement for car insurance.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I don't want to get in an accident with someone who doesn't have insurance on their vehicle either. However, I'd also like to point out that while folks in the cities just might be able to ride a bus, train, or even take a taxi to work...There ain't none of that there stuff out here in the country. Where I live. Where a lot of the folks that work in the cities live. A goodly number of those folks who live here while working in those cities, even local small towns, work for a pay that just barely meets their needs for the rent/mortgage, food, utilities and maybe either a car payment OR insurance but NOT both. But they still have to get to work so they can pay the mortgage, for the food and utilities. All while work can be anywhere from 15 to 60 miles away. One way! Way too far for a bicycle, or a horse (which is all I felt I had at one point! but lets not get into that.)
That's a position I doubt very much any politician in DC has ever been in or considers when making up these 'universal' laws.
Sometimes I really like the wild story idea I had a few years ago. It went something like this (I'm leaving out the characters and other details): Some congressional intern suspects the congressmen or senators don't read all of the law put before them. So in one bill that the intern knows will be passed because it's for either a raise for the politicians in office or because it's for paying government workers, he / she inserts a sneaky little paragraph or two that makes an addition to all, and I mean all, ballots for the presidential election. This addition allows that if you don't like any of those running for the office or feel it makes no difference then you can vote to use a lottery to choose the winner. Only the lottery will include everyone in the United States who is of age for the office, of sound mind, and with nothing on their criminal records above a felony. Needless to say, the character I have 'win' this lottery is a peppery old country gal with strong opinions and a complete lack of any party affiliation. Hmm sorta sounds like...never mind.
In any event, sometimes I begin to think that's how we should elect all of our government officials and that we should limit all of them to only one term in office. That way every one would face having to do their civic duty for good or ill. It would certainly be an incentive to teach how government works in school. Yes, you could end up with people in office with really radical ideas, that way, not to mention from all economic levels. But at least you wouldn't have folks in office who had to remember who had helped them get that office, whether it be the Republicans, the Democrats, Exxon Mobil or the big ticket drug companies. Yeah, you might also have more folks trying to influence those who won these lotteries, but, lets face something here. If you knew your representative was chosen by lottery and that, simply by living where you lived, in your district and being of age, sane, and not jail bait you could be next in line to clean up their mess...wouldn't you keep a closer eye on what they did?
One things for sure, it'd sure as heck cut back on the mud slinging, muck raking and finger pointing we have to put up with every few years. Plus all that cash spent for all the advertising? Just think what it could do if it were donated to better causes or even dumped into the National Treasury to be put against the national debt.
Yeah, I know. Most politicians get into the frey for 'noble' reasons. They want to do something about some injustice or blight or whatever. Then the reality of the thing hits. The real give and take of politics. I would be suckered in, I am sure. All despite my high faluting so called values. Why? Simple.
Lets say I ran for some office or other on a 'green' (or blue, or pink or purple) platform. I'm sure it wouldn't be long before I found out that in order to get the votes for the 'green' laws I wanted passed I'd have to promise to vote, or even actually push for a favorable vote for some other law that I didn't particularly like. Maybe I'd have to agree to back some orange, yellow, or beige law or watch most of my lovely little green laws either die in committee or be voted into oblivion.
And if I went in trying to actually CHANGE some things! Oh, boy, would the bureaucracy get on my case. If there is one thing a bureaucracy hates it is change. Just try changing one line of a church, business or government form. (All bureaucracy's love forms!) Or worse, give them an answer on one of those lines that is even just a little outside the box of what they expect. My personal favorite is when the paper work asks me for my race, or what I believe my race to be.... I like to answer 'Human'. They may chuckle or smile, but they always come back to, "Now, really miss. We need to know if you consider yourself to be ...." and I know that if I stick to 'human' there will be a price to pay.
As for the politicians we have in office now. Sigh. I'm, as you may suspect, a little pissed at both parties. Yeah, one wants to, apparently, have more control over the kind of medical treatment I will be able to get. But the other seems to want me to shift for myself unless I have enough cash saved back to pay either ridiculous medical costs out of my own pocket or equally ridiculous insurance costs. Insurance that I have no certainty that a Doctor will take or that will require that I go to specific doctors who may be, well, just too darn far away for me to get to. (Like in Dallas or Rockwall) And I'm really not sure about this idea on requiring everyone to have health insurance. That could end up hurting the really poor and even others as badly as the requirement for car insurance.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I don't want to get in an accident with someone who doesn't have insurance on their vehicle either. However, I'd also like to point out that while folks in the cities just might be able to ride a bus, train, or even take a taxi to work...There ain't none of that there stuff out here in the country. Where I live. Where a lot of the folks that work in the cities live. A goodly number of those folks who live here while working in those cities, even local small towns, work for a pay that just barely meets their needs for the rent/mortgage, food, utilities and maybe either a car payment OR insurance but NOT both. But they still have to get to work so they can pay the mortgage, for the food and utilities. All while work can be anywhere from 15 to 60 miles away. One way! Way too far for a bicycle, or a horse (which is all I felt I had at one point! but lets not get into that.)
That's a position I doubt very much any politician in DC has ever been in or considers when making up these 'universal' laws.
Sometimes I really like the wild story idea I had a few years ago. It went something like this (I'm leaving out the characters and other details): Some congressional intern suspects the congressmen or senators don't read all of the law put before them. So in one bill that the intern knows will be passed because it's for either a raise for the politicians in office or because it's for paying government workers, he / she inserts a sneaky little paragraph or two that makes an addition to all, and I mean all, ballots for the presidential election. This addition allows that if you don't like any of those running for the office or feel it makes no difference then you can vote to use a lottery to choose the winner. Only the lottery will include everyone in the United States who is of age for the office, of sound mind, and with nothing on their criminal records above a felony. Needless to say, the character I have 'win' this lottery is a peppery old country gal with strong opinions and a complete lack of any party affiliation. Hmm sorta sounds like...never mind.
In any event, sometimes I begin to think that's how we should elect all of our government officials and that we should limit all of them to only one term in office. That way every one would face having to do their civic duty for good or ill. It would certainly be an incentive to teach how government works in school. Yes, you could end up with people in office with really radical ideas, that way, not to mention from all economic levels. But at least you wouldn't have folks in office who had to remember who had helped them get that office, whether it be the Republicans, the Democrats, Exxon Mobil or the big ticket drug companies. Yeah, you might also have more folks trying to influence those who won these lotteries, but, lets face something here. If you knew your representative was chosen by lottery and that, simply by living where you lived, in your district and being of age, sane, and not jail bait you could be next in line to clean up their mess...wouldn't you keep a closer eye on what they did?
One things for sure, it'd sure as heck cut back on the mud slinging, muck raking and finger pointing we have to put up with every few years. Plus all that cash spent for all the advertising? Just think what it could do if it were donated to better causes or even dumped into the National Treasury to be put against the national debt.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Welcome to new friend
Well, what do ya know!
A nice person name of Petrea Rasmussen sent me an e-mail because she'd read comments I left on a permaculture site. She realized I lived here in East Texas and that she would soon be moving near here (down in Van Zant) so she e-mailed me to see if I was a) still here and b) still into the permie thing same as her.
Of course I answered her and told her about this blog. While she may not have left comments her next e-mail showed she'd read some of it and then when I next checked she showed up as a follower!
Thank you Petrea! Feel free to leave a comment on which ever rant or maundering that you wish to comment on. Even if you disagree and think I'm a nut case. I'm all about everyone having their own opinions and their right to voice them.
Oh, what I just said to Petrea goes for any other followers or visitors or passers by. Like any writer I yearn for what I write to be read and am delighted when someone reacts to it. No mater what said reaction is. Well, except the old 'hunt down and hang reaction' that some apparently feel they have the right to. Never did understand that one.
Yeah, I know it was quite prevalent in various old cultures and is still in vogue in some countries today. But this IS the USA last I looked. And I did raise my right hand and swear to God that I would protect it, it's citizens and it's Constitution way back when I joined the Army.
Okay, now day's there's a few citizens I'm not sure about and this countries done some dumb things and still is but it's still way better than any other's I know of. Now, if we'd stop reading bits and pieces of the Constitution, especially the Bill Of Rights out of context, I think we'd all be a bit better off. Oh, yeah, it'd also be nice if some folks stopped trying to twist those out of context bits and pieces to suit themselves. That really chaps my sit downer.
One of those often twisted bits is 'right to Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness'. Okay there's some out there that forget about the pursuit part and think happiness is a grantee even if they have to kill or lock up other's to get it. Nope. Sorry. That ain't it. EVERYONE gets Life and Liberty guaranteed but the only grantee we get for Happiness is the right to pursue it, to chase it down, rope, tie and brand it. If we can. If we can't. Oh well, have fun chasing it.
Hey, way cool. I think I've found myself something here to use for my Alternative Opinion article for the Lone Oak Newsletter.
See Ya, gotta get to work on that.
A nice person name of Petrea Rasmussen sent me an e-mail because she'd read comments I left on a permaculture site. She realized I lived here in East Texas and that she would soon be moving near here (down in Van Zant) so she e-mailed me to see if I was a) still here and b) still into the permie thing same as her.
Of course I answered her and told her about this blog. While she may not have left comments her next e-mail showed she'd read some of it and then when I next checked she showed up as a follower!
Thank you Petrea! Feel free to leave a comment on which ever rant or maundering that you wish to comment on. Even if you disagree and think I'm a nut case. I'm all about everyone having their own opinions and their right to voice them.
Oh, what I just said to Petrea goes for any other followers or visitors or passers by. Like any writer I yearn for what I write to be read and am delighted when someone reacts to it. No mater what said reaction is. Well, except the old 'hunt down and hang reaction' that some apparently feel they have the right to. Never did understand that one.
Yeah, I know it was quite prevalent in various old cultures and is still in vogue in some countries today. But this IS the USA last I looked. And I did raise my right hand and swear to God that I would protect it, it's citizens and it's Constitution way back when I joined the Army.
Okay, now day's there's a few citizens I'm not sure about and this countries done some dumb things and still is but it's still way better than any other's I know of. Now, if we'd stop reading bits and pieces of the Constitution, especially the Bill Of Rights out of context, I think we'd all be a bit better off. Oh, yeah, it'd also be nice if some folks stopped trying to twist those out of context bits and pieces to suit themselves. That really chaps my sit downer.
One of those often twisted bits is 'right to Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness'. Okay there's some out there that forget about the pursuit part and think happiness is a grantee even if they have to kill or lock up other's to get it. Nope. Sorry. That ain't it. EVERYONE gets Life and Liberty guaranteed but the only grantee we get for Happiness is the right to pursue it, to chase it down, rope, tie and brand it. If we can. If we can't. Oh well, have fun chasing it.
Hey, way cool. I think I've found myself something here to use for my Alternative Opinion article for the Lone Oak Newsletter.
See Ya, gotta get to work on that.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
bye bye stinky
Well, the man who owns that little ram came and got him today. Thank goodness. The little feller was cute as could be but; Lordy did he STINK!
I do hope he did his duty with my girls and that their kids have some of his color. He's cream, tan and black with a touch of white.
It will also be a good deal quieter around here as he was almost constantly baaing. Probably complaining that he couldn't jump that 8 foot fence of the dog kennel.
Oh, dear. Now I have to clean up that kennel. I'll need to wash down the dog house, inside and out. Probably with something to cut that terrible sent he left behind. Same for the food and water bowls I usually use for my dog. Though I must admit I have gotten fairly used to her being inside with me. I know she likes it except that I'm no where near as active as she'd like me to be. Sweet, big and clumsy Issa Dorable Dog would really rather be outside chasing balls that she seldom returns to be thrown again and running around like crazy sniffing things and maybe chasing squirrels, cats and anything else that was willing to 'play' by running away.
Unfortunately for her I'm not anywhere near that active. I'm completely unwilling to chase her down to get the ball back so I can throw it again. Tug of war pails quickly and, well, with my knees and feet, I do NOT run.
Well, when I get her run cleaned up I guess she can stay there during the day and I can bring her in at night, or when it rains. I'd planned to start bringing her in at night when it got colder at night anyway.
Trouble is I just gave her a bath this last week and fear if I leave her outside for any length of time she will get totally filthy again. Of course she is mostly lab and has that wonderful coat that mostly sheds dirt.
Oh, well. I'll get it figured out.
I do hope he did his duty with my girls and that their kids have some of his color. He's cream, tan and black with a touch of white.
It will also be a good deal quieter around here as he was almost constantly baaing. Probably complaining that he couldn't jump that 8 foot fence of the dog kennel.
Oh, dear. Now I have to clean up that kennel. I'll need to wash down the dog house, inside and out. Probably with something to cut that terrible sent he left behind. Same for the food and water bowls I usually use for my dog. Though I must admit I have gotten fairly used to her being inside with me. I know she likes it except that I'm no where near as active as she'd like me to be. Sweet, big and clumsy Issa Dorable Dog would really rather be outside chasing balls that she seldom returns to be thrown again and running around like crazy sniffing things and maybe chasing squirrels, cats and anything else that was willing to 'play' by running away.
Unfortunately for her I'm not anywhere near that active. I'm completely unwilling to chase her down to get the ball back so I can throw it again. Tug of war pails quickly and, well, with my knees and feet, I do NOT run.
Well, when I get her run cleaned up I guess she can stay there during the day and I can bring her in at night, or when it rains. I'd planned to start bringing her in at night when it got colder at night anyway.
Trouble is I just gave her a bath this last week and fear if I leave her outside for any length of time she will get totally filthy again. Of course she is mostly lab and has that wonderful coat that mostly sheds dirt.
Oh, well. I'll get it figured out.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Goats etc.
Well, well, well. The billy goat a friend dropped over here on my birthday (Sept 8Th) has lost interest in my 3 nannies. Lost so much interest in them that instead of keeping them cooped up in their stall he's jumping the fence! Guess that means they don't, uh, NEED him anymore. Y'know what I mean? ;)
If that is so I should know in, what? about 5 and a half months or so I've been told. Which puts me out there in the cold of the first part of February watching and waiting for new born kids. UMMM. Seems I could have planed this better.
Some who know goats may be wondering how this can be as this may not be the usual time of year for nannies to come in. However, these are Pygmy's and I've been told, and read, that they come in any old time.
Anyone who reads this and has some hands on info for me, let me know. I'm new at this.
I've got some plans for these goats. I'd like to have more than the 3 nannies I have. But I need to decide what kind of goat I want to raise. There are pluses and minuses for all the varieties of course.
The ones I have now, which are mostly Pygmy goat are cute and some folks like to have them as pets. Even the little rams if they are, well, lets just say, no longer rams. That way they don't have that distinctive boy goat smell. Smell!? They stink like, like, heck, like a boy goat!
I've never smelled anything in particular from my little nannies (doe's) and I've heard the castrated he goats don't have a notable scent either.
Oh, as for the father of the kids my girls may have? Right now the little jumping jack is in my dogs 8 foot high dog run, while my dog is gleefully putting up with me 24 hours a day. At least until that cute but stinky little horny fella 's owner comes for him.
Needless to say, my cats are NOT happy!
Now as I understand it, pygmy goats can also be used as meat if you don't want a lot at a time. Their milk is probably as good as any milk goats but in much smaller quantity. In other words they 'produce' the same products as any other goat only in smaller amounts.
And they can be pets.
Then there are the plain old meat goats. The ones that are born and bred for one thing only and that's meat. They tend to be bigger and meatier of course. Now the question is, do I want to fool with anything that big and strong? (for the same reason I've rulled out cows.)
Now the milk goats are, I've read, about as big as the meat goats. The culls and, um, jobless? Bucks can be neutered and sold for meat. Goat milk is, apparently, a lucrative business whether you sell it as is or turn it into cheese or soap or some other goat milk based product. However! And this is a BIG HOWEVER! there is all the upfront cost of setting up the milking parlor, keeping it clean, milking the goats and processing the milk...even if you just sell the milk. Perhaps especially if you do that as then you get into all that government inspection and paper work.
Another kind of goat is the fiber goat. I haven't read much about these but I'm sure you'd have to either shear them or brush them out to get the fibers they grow. Then you'd have to clean said fiber, package it and ship it to folks who spin and or weave. That, or take up spinning and weaving yourself.
All in all it's still a load of work no mater which kind of goat you choose. The meat goats seem to be the least labor intensive. But I'm not sure of the market around here for the meat. Heck, I'm not even sure if I like goat meat!!
At least I won't be tempted to eat up my profits. :)
If that is so I should know in, what? about 5 and a half months or so I've been told. Which puts me out there in the cold of the first part of February watching and waiting for new born kids. UMMM. Seems I could have planed this better.
Some who know goats may be wondering how this can be as this may not be the usual time of year for nannies to come in. However, these are Pygmy's and I've been told, and read, that they come in any old time.
Anyone who reads this and has some hands on info for me, let me know. I'm new at this.
I've got some plans for these goats. I'd like to have more than the 3 nannies I have. But I need to decide what kind of goat I want to raise. There are pluses and minuses for all the varieties of course.
The ones I have now, which are mostly Pygmy goat are cute and some folks like to have them as pets. Even the little rams if they are, well, lets just say, no longer rams. That way they don't have that distinctive boy goat smell. Smell!? They stink like, like, heck, like a boy goat!
I've never smelled anything in particular from my little nannies (doe's) and I've heard the castrated he goats don't have a notable scent either.
Oh, as for the father of the kids my girls may have? Right now the little jumping jack is in my dogs 8 foot high dog run, while my dog is gleefully putting up with me 24 hours a day. At least until that cute but stinky little horny fella 's owner comes for him.
Needless to say, my cats are NOT happy!
Now as I understand it, pygmy goats can also be used as meat if you don't want a lot at a time. Their milk is probably as good as any milk goats but in much smaller quantity. In other words they 'produce' the same products as any other goat only in smaller amounts.
And they can be pets.
Then there are the plain old meat goats. The ones that are born and bred for one thing only and that's meat. They tend to be bigger and meatier of course. Now the question is, do I want to fool with anything that big and strong? (for the same reason I've rulled out cows.)
Now the milk goats are, I've read, about as big as the meat goats. The culls and, um, jobless? Bucks can be neutered and sold for meat. Goat milk is, apparently, a lucrative business whether you sell it as is or turn it into cheese or soap or some other goat milk based product. However! And this is a BIG HOWEVER! there is all the upfront cost of setting up the milking parlor, keeping it clean, milking the goats and processing the milk...even if you just sell the milk. Perhaps especially if you do that as then you get into all that government inspection and paper work.
Another kind of goat is the fiber goat. I haven't read much about these but I'm sure you'd have to either shear them or brush them out to get the fibers they grow. Then you'd have to clean said fiber, package it and ship it to folks who spin and or weave. That, or take up spinning and weaving yourself.
All in all it's still a load of work no mater which kind of goat you choose. The meat goats seem to be the least labor intensive. But I'm not sure of the market around here for the meat. Heck, I'm not even sure if I like goat meat!!
At least I won't be tempted to eat up my profits. :)
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
rain, rain harvesting
Boy, oh boy, do I wish I'd had the money to set up what is now days called a Rain Harvesting System back while it was dry. I'd be ready for a long dry spell after all the rain we've had recently.
Whazzat? You may be asking if you don't know me and haven't been already board to tears about my plans, wishes, and hopes to put rain gutters around every roof on my property and connect said rain gutter's downspouts to an upgraded, modern version of the old fashioned rain barrels.
Big ones.
Yeah, I know. I've had some folks I've mentioned this to immediately ask: "But what about the 'skeeters? or the nasty stuff on the roof before it rains? There's dirt up there ya know and stuff like bird and squirrel poop."
I know. So do the designers of the modern type 'rain barrels' or 'water harvesting systems'. They add on a stand pipe like thingy that the dirty water that comes off the roof first goes into. Thus carrying with it the leaves, twigs, and poop along with dust and such. When it's full the cleaner rain water flows over it and into the downspout. On it's way into the 'rain barrel' it goes through a filter, or more than one if you plan to drink it yourself, and then on into the barrel. Which now days is more likely a big opaque plastic thing with a faucet attachment near the bottom and screens to keep out all kinds of things from the afore mentioned 'skeeters to other things.
"Why bother?" many of these same people ask. "After all you already pay the city a pretty penny for good potable water."
Yes, I do. And frankly I'd really rather just drink it, use it to cook, bathe and flush rather than also use it to water my garden and animals who do not use my toilet. Beasts and plants whose waste do not go to the local sewer. Especially as my sewer rates are based, gallon by gallon on how much water goes through my water meter. There is no sewer meter measuring what goes out, of course, so how else could they measure it.
Thus, I would be saving money if I watered my animals, house plants and gardens with rain water rather than with that chemically fortified stuff so many folks pay to filter before they drink it. Frankly, I'm not giving filtered or bottled water to my plants or animals. Way to expensive. Rain water on the other hand would be perfect for them.
Now.
If I could just afford said rain harvesting systems.
Sigh.
Whazzat? You may be asking if you don't know me and haven't been already board to tears about my plans, wishes, and hopes to put rain gutters around every roof on my property and connect said rain gutter's downspouts to an upgraded, modern version of the old fashioned rain barrels.
Big ones.
Yeah, I know. I've had some folks I've mentioned this to immediately ask: "But what about the 'skeeters? or the nasty stuff on the roof before it rains? There's dirt up there ya know and stuff like bird and squirrel poop."
I know. So do the designers of the modern type 'rain barrels' or 'water harvesting systems'. They add on a stand pipe like thingy that the dirty water that comes off the roof first goes into. Thus carrying with it the leaves, twigs, and poop along with dust and such. When it's full the cleaner rain water flows over it and into the downspout. On it's way into the 'rain barrel' it goes through a filter, or more than one if you plan to drink it yourself, and then on into the barrel. Which now days is more likely a big opaque plastic thing with a faucet attachment near the bottom and screens to keep out all kinds of things from the afore mentioned 'skeeters to other things.
"Why bother?" many of these same people ask. "After all you already pay the city a pretty penny for good potable water."
Yes, I do. And frankly I'd really rather just drink it, use it to cook, bathe and flush rather than also use it to water my garden and animals who do not use my toilet. Beasts and plants whose waste do not go to the local sewer. Especially as my sewer rates are based, gallon by gallon on how much water goes through my water meter. There is no sewer meter measuring what goes out, of course, so how else could they measure it.
Thus, I would be saving money if I watered my animals, house plants and gardens with rain water rather than with that chemically fortified stuff so many folks pay to filter before they drink it. Frankly, I'm not giving filtered or bottled water to my plants or animals. Way to expensive. Rain water on the other hand would be perfect for them.
Now.
If I could just afford said rain harvesting systems.
Sigh.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Down on the worm farm....again
Yeeyoww! I've been invaded! Attacked!! By them damn little piss ants. (pardon my Anglo Saxon)
Started noticing those nasty little beggars a day or so ago, snooping around on my kitchen counter near the stove, so I washed that area down to make sure I'd gotten up any spills or splashes. Then I went back and used the plastic bottle it came in to puff some boric acid into the area between the stove and the counter, behind the stove, and into that little crack that's appeared between the back splash of my counter and the wall. I figured that took care of that.
News Flash!
The next day I found a whole line of the dirty little creeps snaking along from just under my kitchen window down toward my sink, along the back splash right toward my WORM FARM!! I hadn't done anything about ants over there. I'd gotten lazy and figured the boric acid I'd put down last year was still working. I opened the farm and was confronted with hundreds, thousands!!! of happy little ants.
If you are wondering that would only be good if I had an ANT farm instead of a WORM farm.
Needless to say I was afraid that serious damage had already been done. I feared those fearsome little hunters had wiped out my whole herd(?) of worms. Daring them mean ol' ants to bite me I dug down and found my cute little red wrigglers still wiggling.
Relief!
But I still had the problem of the ants....IN MY KITCHEN! I'm fine with the worms but NOT with the ants. They bite me. They eat my food before I'm ready to even fix it, instead of waiting patiently for the scraps like the worms.
Now here is an illustration of why a lot of folks refuse to go 'green'. These non-greenies, lets call them brownies, would want to either just forget the worms and dump the whole mess out side somewhere and spray the kitchen area down with the strongest bug killer available, or maybe, if they wanted to keep the worms bad enough, just spray the area around the worm bin down. If they tried the later they'd likely wonder in a few days or so why the worms had died off. (duh)
What did little old greenie me do? I spread some newspaper sheets out on the back porch in the shade and dumped the ant infested worms/worm food/worm poo mess out on it. I knocked all the ants off of the container and sat it aside. Then I proceeded to pick out all the worms I could find as well as the bits and pieces of as yet unused food scraps that had no ants attached and tossed them back in the worm bin. Then I added some mown grass that I spotted that hadn't already gone back to whence it came and added that as a lot of the worms food was still ant infested. I dampened the grass down, added the tea bags I hadn't put in before I noticed the ants and closed the thing back up. Then I wiped down the place where the worms had been in the kitchen with a soapy dish cloth. I also wiped down the trail of ants that had returned looking for that tasty little farm. Then I blasted the little biters with some more boric acid! I puffed the stuff out where ever I'd seen them little varmints walking. I puffed it up under the bottom piece of wood on my window sill. I opened the window and puffed it there. I went outside and puffed it along that side of the house and then around the nearest corner and under the back door. I even puffed it around and in my houses AC unit.
Don't get me wrong. Ants are fine. Great even. But only in their place - outside - and NOT in my KITCHEN!!
Started noticing those nasty little beggars a day or so ago, snooping around on my kitchen counter near the stove, so I washed that area down to make sure I'd gotten up any spills or splashes. Then I went back and used the plastic bottle it came in to puff some boric acid into the area between the stove and the counter, behind the stove, and into that little crack that's appeared between the back splash of my counter and the wall. I figured that took care of that.
News Flash!
The next day I found a whole line of the dirty little creeps snaking along from just under my kitchen window down toward my sink, along the back splash right toward my WORM FARM!! I hadn't done anything about ants over there. I'd gotten lazy and figured the boric acid I'd put down last year was still working. I opened the farm and was confronted with hundreds, thousands!!! of happy little ants.
If you are wondering that would only be good if I had an ANT farm instead of a WORM farm.
Needless to say I was afraid that serious damage had already been done. I feared those fearsome little hunters had wiped out my whole herd(?) of worms. Daring them mean ol' ants to bite me I dug down and found my cute little red wrigglers still wiggling.
Relief!
But I still had the problem of the ants....IN MY KITCHEN! I'm fine with the worms but NOT with the ants. They bite me. They eat my food before I'm ready to even fix it, instead of waiting patiently for the scraps like the worms.
Now here is an illustration of why a lot of folks refuse to go 'green'. These non-greenies, lets call them brownies, would want to either just forget the worms and dump the whole mess out side somewhere and spray the kitchen area down with the strongest bug killer available, or maybe, if they wanted to keep the worms bad enough, just spray the area around the worm bin down. If they tried the later they'd likely wonder in a few days or so why the worms had died off. (duh)
What did little old greenie me do? I spread some newspaper sheets out on the back porch in the shade and dumped the ant infested worms/worm food/worm poo mess out on it. I knocked all the ants off of the container and sat it aside. Then I proceeded to pick out all the worms I could find as well as the bits and pieces of as yet unused food scraps that had no ants attached and tossed them back in the worm bin. Then I added some mown grass that I spotted that hadn't already gone back to whence it came and added that as a lot of the worms food was still ant infested. I dampened the grass down, added the tea bags I hadn't put in before I noticed the ants and closed the thing back up. Then I wiped down the place where the worms had been in the kitchen with a soapy dish cloth. I also wiped down the trail of ants that had returned looking for that tasty little farm. Then I blasted the little biters with some more boric acid! I puffed the stuff out where ever I'd seen them little varmints walking. I puffed it up under the bottom piece of wood on my window sill. I opened the window and puffed it there. I went outside and puffed it along that side of the house and then around the nearest corner and under the back door. I even puffed it around and in my houses AC unit.
Don't get me wrong. Ants are fine. Great even. But only in their place - outside - and NOT in my KITCHEN!!
Friday, September 4, 2009
The economy
Don't know why I keep thinking about the economy. I never studied it in school. I'm doing good to balance my check book and get it to agree with my monthly bank statement. (Happy to say I'm doing a lot better at that than the government and several big businesses now days!)
But back to the economy thing. Way back last summer and before, back even before this last big election was starting to heat up I was saying that the economy just couldn't keep going the way it was. It was unsustainable. It was gonna go flop any old time.
Surprise!
It did!
Now what did I think made our "great American Economy" unsustainable despite the fact that in form and use it has been exported to every other nation in the world?
First there is that basic out look it has that is best summed up in a spiffy little 3 word battle cry. One that a motivational group charged a factory I once worked for lots of money to try to indoctrinate it's workers with. The company paid them in the hope that we would become good little employees and be motivated to work harder, faster and make the company more money for less wages. At least that was MY view of it. This spiffy little slogan was "FASTER, HIGHER, FURTHER!" Sounds great don't it. Stirring even.
Sigh. In my mind it translates to Faster production, Higher quotas, and going further to help the 'company' make 'it's' goal of a bigger bottom line.
Odd thing is it can also be the theme of our over all economy. Faster growth, higher profits, furthering bigger bottom lines.
Now this general outlook ends up also giving us the 3 things I (and some others) see as the things absolutely required to support our present economy:
1) An ever growing, preferably single, source of cheep, easily obtained energy to run factories, etc.
2) An ever growing source of cheep, easily obtained uniform materials to feed into factories to make ever more 'stuff'.
3) An ever growing population of easily controlled workers for the factories and easily controlled buyers for the products of the factories. (This can be simplified down to just 'an ever growing, expanding population.)
Now I'm certain that just about anyone who looks at our economy in this light can see that it is totally, completely and insanely un sustainable.
Lets look at the requirements in order and I'll show why I think they are unsustainable.
1) The fuel for our economy at present is hydro-carbons. Usually in the form of oil. I know lots of people refuse to believe this but we are running out of oil. It's getting harder to get. Yes, we are getting more out of old oil fields that were shut down. They were originally shut down because the oil stopped just pouring out on its on and they started having to pay to pump it out or even had to start doing things like 'frac' (pump water or gas into the formation to expand and crack -fracture- the rock so more oil could be sucked out). All that cost money and until the price of oil went up it wasn't worth their labor to get it. Coal is still plentiful but it has an even worse polluting effect on the atmosphere than oil and if it's very deep you have to risk a lot of peoples lives and health to get it up where we can use it. If it's near the surface all you have to do is completely destroy the land above it and make an open pit mine. Nuclear power has no immediate emissions, unless there's a melt down which is not as likely with modern reactors. - I'm told. - But I still have to ask...What the heck do we do when these fancy new reactors become old and unusable. Turn their radioactive hulks into apartments or what?
2)One of the favorite and cheep materials now days is the ever present and ubiquitous plastic. Guess where most plastic comes from. -Oil.- That stuff that's disappearing. Or Coal, that stuff that's so expensive to the environment and people to get out of the ground. Metal deposits aren't as close to disappearing as the hydrocarbons but they are getting harder to find and get to. We've just about used up the hardwoods that grow down in the jungles of the southern hemisphere. And I'm not even going into what's happening with the soft woods we use to make paper or houses. Oh, all these materials can be got and often fairly 'cheaply'. All we have to do is turn our backs while multinational conglomerates move in and rape the ecology of delicate biologically diverse areas and/or steal the land of native peoples, forcing them to move into urban areas where their thousand plus year old cultures are lost forever and they become alcohol and drug soaked hangers on of society. No skin off our backs, right. Until they start picking up guns or backpacks full of explosives and coming after us.
3) This one is the real crux of the problem I think. It is an absolute requirement. Why? because we need ever more, preferably cheep, easily controlled labor to use the energy from 1 and the materials from 2 to make all the various 'stuff' that those of us here in the US and other '1st world', 'advanced' nations have been taught to think we can't live without. The companies that make this stuff are convinced that they have to have an ever expanding, bigger and bigger 'bottom line'. (faster, higher, further!) Therefore, they must have more and more customers while their workers must produce more and more product. Now, there is also a slight (?) disconnect here. The owners of the companies want that ever growing population of workers to work for as little money as possible while they charge as much as possible for their product. Thanks to modern advertising it was easy to convince those workers that it was perfectly okay to go deep into debt to get all those goodies they were making. Then it was just as easy to convince them that it was sencible to throw those goodies away, before they finished paying them off, so they could go into more debt in order to buy the 'NEW! IMPROVED!" model. We know how that has ended up.
Now the outcome of all of the above is that we now have a population greater than the planet can support, an atmosphere polluted with all kinds of stuff our ancestors never had to put up with and a generally degraded environment. Not even mentioning Global Warming. Which is another problem I think this 'run away' economy is responsible for whether anyone reading this dose or not. Worse, this totally unsustainable economy, after getting us this far in style and luxury, is finely starting to stumble. As I see it, this horse just can't run no further. We've run it into the ground. Literally.
Unfortunately the powers in charge at the moment, instead of trying to really change the economy to something sustainable is, instead, trying like all get out to prop up the old one. They are doing all they can to kick that tired, nearly dead, old horse back from it's present stumbling trot back into a full out gallop. I think we are headed for disaster here folks.
However, I can see the problem the powers that be have. They have grown up, been educated to see, the present kind of economy as the only one that will work. "It is really what defeated the communists" I'm sure they like to tell themselves. Yep, I agree. But we beat the commies only because the Free World had more of two of the three things needed. I'd say all three but while the communists didn't have quite as big a population it was very controllable. At least they thought so.
I have had a deal of trouble myself trying to picture what a sustainable economy would really look like. I had no luck at all until I decided to take the above 'rallying cry' of the present economy and the 3 things it has to have and reverse them. Just to see what would happen.
Now let me be clear here. I am not advocating any kind of controlled markets, communism or any such kind of thing. Mainly because they are even less sustainable than our present economy as the past few decades have shown. What I do advocate is individual independence, self sufficiency, responsibility, respect for our fellow beings; human, plant and animal, as well as cooperation with our environment and each other rather than competition.
Now let me show you what happens if we turn the present precepts of our economy on it's head.
"Faster, Higher, Further!" Becomes "Slower, Lower, Closer to Home." Note the absence of an exclamation point.
In other words, doing things slow enough to be sure they are done right and well. Maybe even thinking about the thing to be done enough to realize that it might not need to be done at all!
Lower expectations. Not nearly as bad as it sounds. How many folks out there get up and go to jobs they hate just so they can live a 'high life' that they don't even like living? How many young people are going to end up facing huge bills for college loans even though they know they would be lots happier working on the family farm, welding, or even throwing pottery rather than being managers or businessmen? How many Scientists are out working for companies whose philosophies and plans they don't agree with just so they can make enough for a high life when they'd be happier at a University, teaching new scientist (who really want to be scientists) and making new discoveries? And why must we have an ever higher income other than to buy more stuff we don't need? What's wrong with haveing just enough to get what we need? And what's so grand about buildings being so high you have to have an elevator?
Closer to home sounds dull I know. But there is a movement afoot already that emphasizes the better nutrition and taste of foods grown close to where they are eaten. The same is true of cloths and building styles as well as materials for all kinds of other things. I can see moving some things around. Lets face it, EVERYTHING, can't be grown or made locally. But loads can.
Now for the needs of this new economy. Remember I'll be turning the needs of the one we have upside down.
1) A steady supply of sustainable, renewable energy from various sources that can often be produced by individuals and used close to their source. (or added to a grid where it can be shared)
2) A steady supply of sustainably produced material that is often processed and usually used close to it's source. (or moved, sustainably, to where it is needed)
3) An individualistic, thinking, self sufficient, well educated population that maintains itself at a sustainable number of individuals.
What that kind of economy would actually look like in detail, I don't know. What kind of society it would evolve, I don't know. I'd like to think it would be a peaceful one as there would be no excess young bucks any government would want to send off to war to use as cannon fodder just to get rid of them. Indeed our government would likely be a shadow of it's present self what with an independent, well educated, and self sufficient population keeping an eagle eye on it. I also doubt there would be much pollution either.
I'm not, no mater what some may think, advocating doing away with technology or our present or future knowledge of the sciences. We will need those, and need them desperately, as our 'alternative energies' will be based on them. Nor do I want to see a one size fits all religion, or social structure rise out of this sustainable economy. I think it should be obvious that individuality, self sufficientcy and clear thinking will be the things of greatest value in such an economy.
Yeah, I know. I made no provisions for criminals or the insane. Frankly, niether dose the present economy.
So much for this rant. Feel free to rant back.
But back to the economy thing. Way back last summer and before, back even before this last big election was starting to heat up I was saying that the economy just couldn't keep going the way it was. It was unsustainable. It was gonna go flop any old time.
Surprise!
It did!
Now what did I think made our "great American Economy" unsustainable despite the fact that in form and use it has been exported to every other nation in the world?
First there is that basic out look it has that is best summed up in a spiffy little 3 word battle cry. One that a motivational group charged a factory I once worked for lots of money to try to indoctrinate it's workers with. The company paid them in the hope that we would become good little employees and be motivated to work harder, faster and make the company more money for less wages. At least that was MY view of it. This spiffy little slogan was "FASTER, HIGHER, FURTHER!" Sounds great don't it. Stirring even.
Sigh. In my mind it translates to Faster production, Higher quotas, and going further to help the 'company' make 'it's' goal of a bigger bottom line.
Odd thing is it can also be the theme of our over all economy. Faster growth, higher profits, furthering bigger bottom lines.
Now this general outlook ends up also giving us the 3 things I (and some others) see as the things absolutely required to support our present economy:
1) An ever growing, preferably single, source of cheep, easily obtained energy to run factories, etc.
2) An ever growing source of cheep, easily obtained uniform materials to feed into factories to make ever more 'stuff'.
3) An ever growing population of easily controlled workers for the factories and easily controlled buyers for the products of the factories. (This can be simplified down to just 'an ever growing, expanding population.)
Now I'm certain that just about anyone who looks at our economy in this light can see that it is totally, completely and insanely un sustainable.
Lets look at the requirements in order and I'll show why I think they are unsustainable.
1) The fuel for our economy at present is hydro-carbons. Usually in the form of oil. I know lots of people refuse to believe this but we are running out of oil. It's getting harder to get. Yes, we are getting more out of old oil fields that were shut down. They were originally shut down because the oil stopped just pouring out on its on and they started having to pay to pump it out or even had to start doing things like 'frac' (pump water or gas into the formation to expand and crack -fracture- the rock so more oil could be sucked out). All that cost money and until the price of oil went up it wasn't worth their labor to get it. Coal is still plentiful but it has an even worse polluting effect on the atmosphere than oil and if it's very deep you have to risk a lot of peoples lives and health to get it up where we can use it. If it's near the surface all you have to do is completely destroy the land above it and make an open pit mine. Nuclear power has no immediate emissions, unless there's a melt down which is not as likely with modern reactors. - I'm told. - But I still have to ask...What the heck do we do when these fancy new reactors become old and unusable. Turn their radioactive hulks into apartments or what?
2)One of the favorite and cheep materials now days is the ever present and ubiquitous plastic. Guess where most plastic comes from. -Oil.- That stuff that's disappearing. Or Coal, that stuff that's so expensive to the environment and people to get out of the ground. Metal deposits aren't as close to disappearing as the hydrocarbons but they are getting harder to find and get to. We've just about used up the hardwoods that grow down in the jungles of the southern hemisphere. And I'm not even going into what's happening with the soft woods we use to make paper or houses. Oh, all these materials can be got and often fairly 'cheaply'. All we have to do is turn our backs while multinational conglomerates move in and rape the ecology of delicate biologically diverse areas and/or steal the land of native peoples, forcing them to move into urban areas where their thousand plus year old cultures are lost forever and they become alcohol and drug soaked hangers on of society. No skin off our backs, right. Until they start picking up guns or backpacks full of explosives and coming after us.
3) This one is the real crux of the problem I think. It is an absolute requirement. Why? because we need ever more, preferably cheep, easily controlled labor to use the energy from 1 and the materials from 2 to make all the various 'stuff' that those of us here in the US and other '1st world', 'advanced' nations have been taught to think we can't live without. The companies that make this stuff are convinced that they have to have an ever expanding, bigger and bigger 'bottom line'. (faster, higher, further!) Therefore, they must have more and more customers while their workers must produce more and more product. Now, there is also a slight (?) disconnect here. The owners of the companies want that ever growing population of workers to work for as little money as possible while they charge as much as possible for their product. Thanks to modern advertising it was easy to convince those workers that it was perfectly okay to go deep into debt to get all those goodies they were making. Then it was just as easy to convince them that it was sencible to throw those goodies away, before they finished paying them off, so they could go into more debt in order to buy the 'NEW! IMPROVED!" model. We know how that has ended up.
Now the outcome of all of the above is that we now have a population greater than the planet can support, an atmosphere polluted with all kinds of stuff our ancestors never had to put up with and a generally degraded environment. Not even mentioning Global Warming. Which is another problem I think this 'run away' economy is responsible for whether anyone reading this dose or not. Worse, this totally unsustainable economy, after getting us this far in style and luxury, is finely starting to stumble. As I see it, this horse just can't run no further. We've run it into the ground. Literally.
Unfortunately the powers in charge at the moment, instead of trying to really change the economy to something sustainable is, instead, trying like all get out to prop up the old one. They are doing all they can to kick that tired, nearly dead, old horse back from it's present stumbling trot back into a full out gallop. I think we are headed for disaster here folks.
However, I can see the problem the powers that be have. They have grown up, been educated to see, the present kind of economy as the only one that will work. "It is really what defeated the communists" I'm sure they like to tell themselves. Yep, I agree. But we beat the commies only because the Free World had more of two of the three things needed. I'd say all three but while the communists didn't have quite as big a population it was very controllable. At least they thought so.
I have had a deal of trouble myself trying to picture what a sustainable economy would really look like. I had no luck at all until I decided to take the above 'rallying cry' of the present economy and the 3 things it has to have and reverse them. Just to see what would happen.
Now let me be clear here. I am not advocating any kind of controlled markets, communism or any such kind of thing. Mainly because they are even less sustainable than our present economy as the past few decades have shown. What I do advocate is individual independence, self sufficiency, responsibility, respect for our fellow beings; human, plant and animal, as well as cooperation with our environment and each other rather than competition.
Now let me show you what happens if we turn the present precepts of our economy on it's head.
"Faster, Higher, Further!" Becomes "Slower, Lower, Closer to Home." Note the absence of an exclamation point.
In other words, doing things slow enough to be sure they are done right and well. Maybe even thinking about the thing to be done enough to realize that it might not need to be done at all!
Lower expectations. Not nearly as bad as it sounds. How many folks out there get up and go to jobs they hate just so they can live a 'high life' that they don't even like living? How many young people are going to end up facing huge bills for college loans even though they know they would be lots happier working on the family farm, welding, or even throwing pottery rather than being managers or businessmen? How many Scientists are out working for companies whose philosophies and plans they don't agree with just so they can make enough for a high life when they'd be happier at a University, teaching new scientist (who really want to be scientists) and making new discoveries? And why must we have an ever higher income other than to buy more stuff we don't need? What's wrong with haveing just enough to get what we need? And what's so grand about buildings being so high you have to have an elevator?
Closer to home sounds dull I know. But there is a movement afoot already that emphasizes the better nutrition and taste of foods grown close to where they are eaten. The same is true of cloths and building styles as well as materials for all kinds of other things. I can see moving some things around. Lets face it, EVERYTHING, can't be grown or made locally. But loads can.
Now for the needs of this new economy. Remember I'll be turning the needs of the one we have upside down.
1) A steady supply of sustainable, renewable energy from various sources that can often be produced by individuals and used close to their source. (or added to a grid where it can be shared)
2) A steady supply of sustainably produced material that is often processed and usually used close to it's source. (or moved, sustainably, to where it is needed)
3) An individualistic, thinking, self sufficient, well educated population that maintains itself at a sustainable number of individuals.
What that kind of economy would actually look like in detail, I don't know. What kind of society it would evolve, I don't know. I'd like to think it would be a peaceful one as there would be no excess young bucks any government would want to send off to war to use as cannon fodder just to get rid of them. Indeed our government would likely be a shadow of it's present self what with an independent, well educated, and self sufficient population keeping an eagle eye on it. I also doubt there would be much pollution either.
I'm not, no mater what some may think, advocating doing away with technology or our present or future knowledge of the sciences. We will need those, and need them desperately, as our 'alternative energies' will be based on them. Nor do I want to see a one size fits all religion, or social structure rise out of this sustainable economy. I think it should be obvious that individuality, self sufficientcy and clear thinking will be the things of greatest value in such an economy.
Yeah, I know. I made no provisions for criminals or the insane. Frankly, niether dose the present economy.
So much for this rant. Feel free to rant back.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Uncle Ross is gone
I'm sad. So sad. My Uncle Ross died this morning. I just found out he had been diagnosed with Lung Cancer this Sunday after a stay in the hospital. His doctors told his faimily that he maybe had 6 months, if that left, and sent him home.
When my Aunt Virginia (his wife and my Mothers sister) called to tell me that news Sunday she was close to loosing it as she was waiting for the hospice folks to deliver a hospital bed for him to use. She was calling faimily and friends. I told her I'd call my cousin (on my Dad's side) and let that part of the faimily know.
Sigh.
Uncle Ross was a fellow gardener. He was always glad to get a horse feed sack full of well rotted horse manure for his compost pile for Christmas. It was something he (like myself) could appreciate. I'm gonna miss that. That and all those wonderfull potted plants he had hanging and setting all over the covered area where we'd eat at faimily reunions and such.
He was also a veteran. He survived the bombing of Pearl Harbor at the begining of our envolment in WW II.
Of course it didn't do him any good to have been a smoker for most of his life, but still he hadn't smoked in a long time. Guess it can still sneak up on you.
I can only guess that he passed on so quickly after the diagnosis because the BIG BOSS upstairs dicided he didn't want him to suffer, or his faimily to watch him decline any further.
It still hurts though.
When my Aunt Virginia (his wife and my Mothers sister) called to tell me that news Sunday she was close to loosing it as she was waiting for the hospice folks to deliver a hospital bed for him to use. She was calling faimily and friends. I told her I'd call my cousin (on my Dad's side) and let that part of the faimily know.
Sigh.
Uncle Ross was a fellow gardener. He was always glad to get a horse feed sack full of well rotted horse manure for his compost pile for Christmas. It was something he (like myself) could appreciate. I'm gonna miss that. That and all those wonderfull potted plants he had hanging and setting all over the covered area where we'd eat at faimily reunions and such.
He was also a veteran. He survived the bombing of Pearl Harbor at the begining of our envolment in WW II.
Of course it didn't do him any good to have been a smoker for most of his life, but still he hadn't smoked in a long time. Guess it can still sneak up on you.
I can only guess that he passed on so quickly after the diagnosis because the BIG BOSS upstairs dicided he didn't want him to suffer, or his faimily to watch him decline any further.
It still hurts though.
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