2012 alt op # 6. fixing this economy is like shoeing a dead horse

             Just a quick reminder that I’ll be showing the last of two Permaculture DVD’s at Community Seeds this Saturday starting at 10 am. One will be on Urban Permaculture and the other on Food Forests.  If you want to find out how to grow your own food cheap and easy, with less work as the system you set up ages come on down. Otherwise, you can end up buying your food from me and Community Seeds when it gets too expensive to buy gas to run your tiller or drive to Wally World.

            Just saying.

            But on to those other things that tend to make me say “GRRRR!”

            Politicians who keep saying they are going to “fix the economy” if elected really irk me. They are at least a little better than those who are ignoring that problem (and the environment) so that they have time to harp on things that patently are not their business! They seem to think its fine, in this day and age, to tell us ‘girls’ what we can do with our own bodies. What? We suddenly don’t have brains anymore?

            But back to my economy rant.

            They say, those in office already and those wanting to be elected, that they are going to “fix the economy.” My opinion there is that what they are trying to do is shoe a dead horse.

            I’m not saying give up! I’m saying find a better way! A sustainable economy that we can pass on to the kids and grand kids is what we really need. Be nice if it came along with a sustainable world and frankly I don’t think you can have one without the other.

            Of course anything sustainable is a lot of work, especially at the beginning. You actually have to do something hard. You have to think. You might even have to change your habits. Heck, even change the way you think. A good example is the usual way folks think about their lawns. A great lot of folks go along with the ads on TV that say you should have this huge lushly green carpet of a specific kind of grass that needs lots of fertilizer, lots of insecticide, and lots of mowing, mulching, dethatching and other kinds of hard labor or expensive machines. This works out to a costly investment all the way around. On the other hand you can say, “too heck with it,” and never mow again except maybe in small areas. Yeah, the health department might get on you for that, unless you’ve replaced that green carpet with all kinds of garden beds. Gardens full of flowers, vegetables, fruit and nut trees and bushes and such edible kinds of things that could feed you and maybe even your neighbors.

            That’s the kind of thinking shift I’m talking about that we need for the economy. Yes, we all need to make some kind of profit but that is the point I want to make! We ALL need to make enough to live on with enough left over to fix and repair the worn out stuff. We all also need to learn to do real work again, with our hands, our minds and our hearts.            

Alt Op # 5 for 2012, More about Geoff Lawton's DVD's

Well folks, this is the first of two weekends where you can find out more about some of this stuff I have been talking about. All you have to do is show up at ten in the morning at Community Seeds this Saturday and the Saturday after. This Saturday, the 11^th, I’ll be showing three DVD’s. One is “Introduction to Permaculture” and it gives a far better overview of the subject than I can usually communicate. Come and see it if for no other reason than to try to figure out how to get me to hush up about this subject!

            All of these DVD’s are from Australian Geoff Lawton, one of the pre-emanate Permaculture Teachers. The other two DVD’s I plan to show this Saturday are on building soil and harvesting water. Why should you be interested in that you may well be asking yourself? I’ll tell you. Modern agricultural practices have been degrading the soils our ancestors found when they first came to this area. Those big tractors have compacted the soil, the fertilizers and insecticides have killed off all or most of the beneficial bugs and other critters in dirt that make it rich and productive. Now days, in order to have just about any crop at all you must depend on both big machinery, lots of chemical fertilizer and lots of herbicides and insecticides. All of that stuff is costly and will only get more expensive as time goes on. Those costly things are why the old school “family farm” just can no longer work, unless at least one person living on it has a super high dollar job in the big city, a huge income from somewhere else, or is just plain filthy rich.

            The methods shown in these DVD’s work anywhere and everywhere. You just have to use your brain and modify them to your local conditions. Yep, most of the things shown in these are in Australia, so there are a lot of tropical and sub-tropical plants mentioned. To use these methods here you would just have to use local plants that do a similar job. That information can be found on line or even just ask a local nurseryman. Of course if you go from ‘normal’ agriculture practices to the Permaculture methods there will be at least one to two years where you will actually be doing nothing but rebuilding the soil on your land so that it can grow things. So that you are no longer doing what I call “in the ground hydroponics” where you and only you are responsible for supplying all the expensive nutritional needs of your crop.

            Yes. If you turn to the Permaculture methods of agriculture there is some start up cost and possibly even heavy duty earth working needed. But after that is done, providing adequate thought and planning have been put into it, there will be little more that needs to be done other than up keep, repairs, and management. Those would be things that can be done while you walk around gathering your breakfast, lunch or dinner if all you want to do is feed yourself and family.

            So come on over to Community Seeds and see what all the fuss is about. You might learn something new. See you there.

  

Alt Op # 4 for 2012, Why Sustainability?

Why am I harping on this sustainable stuff?  Because, I care about how the rising price of energy is going to affect all of us who don’t live inside a big city somewhere. I care about how that rising cost is going to affect the big cities populations which could eventually spill out here looking for something to eat!

            The sad part is us country folks need the city folks and they need us. We need the high tech, the concentration of information and knowledge the big cities represent, not to mention the potential customers for our products. While they desperately need us country bumpkins to produce food and various other materials they need to survive, and oh yeah, we are all potential customers for their products of information and knowledge. See how that works. We just need to learn to get along and respect the products each of us can create.

            Later this month, on two separate Saturdays (Feb. 11 and 18), a total five DVD’s are going to be shown over at Community Seeds here in Lone Oak starting at 10am. All of them are about Permaculture and Permaculture is all about valuing variety in every aspect of life. It is about designing a sustainable life centered on a sustainable home in a sustainable community.

            Most of our lives now are not sustainable as they depend heavily on the constant input fossil fuels. These fossil fuels are getting harder and harder to get and are poisoning our air, land and water while we spend ever more fossil fuels to get the stuff out of the ground.

            These five DVD’s will show how we can use what we have now, investing some of that high dollar energy in permanent to semi-permanent structures that can supply generations with a secure and sustainable source of food.

            Yeah. You might not be able to have fresh tomatoes in the depths of winter but if your home is designed right you will be warm, dry, clothed and eating tomatoes from your garden that you canned, dried, or otherwise preserved. I might have to switch to eating pears from eating apples (and I do so like apples!) because I’m not sure I can get a micro climate going that will let me grow Red Delicious apples here in Texas.

            However, as I pointed out last week, I could be wrong. Some scientist playing around in a lab somewhere may come up with a cheap, safe and sustainable form of energy that can fuel our constantly growing greed. Still, between now and then money is going to get tight. I already have to watch how many times I dash into Greenville, down to the Tawakoni Grocery, or Point. I just can’t afford the gas for it. I am also sure I’m not the only one in that bind. These DVD’s can show us all how to modify the way we live so that we save money and grow food as well as live more lightly on the planet. So come on over from 10 to 4 those two days and check it out.