The situation world-wide makes what we are doing here utterly necessary as one tiny experimental template for a transformed future. Please see this, yesterday’s post on my personal site:

FOOD SHORTAGES? Let us turn crisis into opportunity, at home, with our neighbors

Meanwhile, also yesterday, I used some precious gas in my thankfully efficient, but rusting-on-the-bottom 2006 Prius to drive 7.5 miles so that my dog Shadow and I could commune with the tall trees on a Griffy Lake path. It helps me greatly to enter their calm, spacious presence, if but for only one hour, during these tumultuous times on our home planet. Indeed, nature is my church.

Shadow and I were there earlier than most people get up on Saturday mornings, around 8 AM. I saw only two parked cars, plus a fairly new red truck with a tarp covering stuff of some kind in back; and here’s what drew my attention: small tarps covering the insides of the windows, which were rolled up with a couple of inches of the top of the tarps flapping in the breeze. Hmmm . . . I snorted, assuming a homeless man inside, who had stopped for the night.

One hour later, on our return to the lot, the red truck was just pulling out, flapping tarps gone, a young woman at the wheel, and a license plate indicating she was handicapped.

Wow! Compassion flooded through me. Not a man, but a woman, alone, and not just needing to sleep in her truck in the Griffy Lake parking lot, but handicapped!

Why it’s easier for me to empathize with a woman than a man is probably obvious, since I am a woman, who has seen my own times of desperate struggle for survival.

But now, the entire human race, men, women, gender benders, children — is headed down (up) into inflation so extreme that the entire economy will likely shut down, making it imperative that we re-learn how to connect and cooperate with each other as we grow our own food — and, use leftovers! — in the kitchen, in the garden, and other past projects. Whatever stuff we’ve already got, use it! Repair it if necessary! Repurpose it! Cobble together with other stuff in creative ways to meet unmet needs!

As usual, with Life on Earth, “what we’re doing here is moving stuff around”; which in turn, remember, is just an excuse for relationships!

Growing local food cooperatively is just for starters. Every area of life that we used to take for granted in our “on demand,” “convenience-oriented,” “just in time” society that has recently devolved into extreme divisiveness is to undergo profound, inexorable, long-lasting transformation. 

Friday’s morning work party was so engaging for me that I forgot to take pictures. While Daniel (and others? ) were in the greenhouse working with the seedlings, and Marita had to start by “washing a chicken’s butt,” Joseph and I were out in the main garden, attempting to lightly sift (but often ending up clumping; should I use a shovel? a fork?) a large leftover pile of soil that had been covered and out of the way onto existing beds. Looking at this sight later, I recognized that we had thereby broken one sacrosanct permaculture principle: never leave soil exposed! Always mulch over it!

We do have one straw bale extra, so this afternoon I will scatter straw on the newly exposed beds.

Here’s what’s left of the leftover pile . . .

 

Aa newly exposed bed.

View of more of the garden’s newly exposed beds, plus notice the two chip drops outside the fence. We share our chip drops with the family across the street, and use them to cover all paths. (Chips themselves are leftovers, from downed trees . . . Permaculture: “all waste is food.”)

A few photos from last Tuesday morning, at the first work party of the week:

Joseph, transplanting . . . chard?

Daniel, with seedling . . . tomato?

These golden “always dependable since 1868” seed packets held seeds that did not germinate. No dates on their covers, so we don’t know when they were packaged. BUT: these were the only seeds that did not germinate, despite that this year we concentrated on stocks of left over seed from previous years, rather than ordering new seeds. Good call, new farm manager, Daniel!

Marita and Annie (butt first) decided to use the morning to hack out space for a gigantic eight-inch thick block of granite and concrete (leftover from a previous project) as their back stoop. Annie is figuring out how to level and slant the stoop slightly away from the house, so that rain will run off that way. Good idea . . .

Looming problem: how to move the giant block? Another Daniel, who used to live here, says he can help. Both Colin and our present Daniel have bad backs right now; Marita, Aya, Annie and Joseph are somewhat strong, and me not a bit strong; luckily Justin, very strong! — returns today from a week-long Florida vacation. So we’ll have to figure out a date for this task, and I’m sure we could get a few neighbors to come help, if needed.