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.

2012 alt op #3 Cheap, easy food in your yard

            Been kind of on a downer the past two articles haven’t I. So let’s just suppose that I’m wrong. Those things I’ve been yapping about just won’t happen. I’m fairly sure they will, I just don’t know when, but I’m willing to admit that I could be wrong.

            So, how would you like to find out about way’s to grow nice healthy food in your own yard?  A place where you can control what goes on them or in them? I’ve mentioned this to a few folks around here and been told that it costs too much and is just too much work to keep a garden when all you have to do is drive to Wal-Mart to buy food. Yeah, it costs a bit but its still less than you’d have to pay for all the city water, the herbicides, the insecticides and don’t forget the tilling, the hoeing, the planting and all that hard work.

            So what if I said you could get together with a few neighbors and set up your front yard, back yard, heck maybe even one of your fields if you have several acres, so that after that initial hard work you almost didn’t have to do anything. Well, maybe walk around clipping a few limbs or bushes and such and just dropping them on the ground. No more tilling or plowing. No more herbicides or insecticides or even gasoline for the tiller or diesel for the tractor. Maybe you’d need a little oil and gas occasionally for the chain saw.

            Impossible! Nope. I’ve seen a video of how it can be done. Even in our drought prone area with only an initial input of city water. Yeah you will have to keep working it, but it shouldn’t be hard if you’ve planned it right. The cool part is you can tweak it as it grows.

            What the heck am I talking about?  I’m talking about a food forest. It doesn’t have to be big either. It can be your front yard, back yard or both. It can be out in the pasture behind your house or around your barns. It is complicated to explain. You start with a ditch and some weeds.

            This is a special kind of ditch called a swale. It’s dug along the contours of the land with the soil from it piled up on the downhill side. The bottom of this ditch is not compacted or covered with clay or water proofing and it is kept as level as possible. Yes it will catch all the rain runoff from uphill. That’s the whole idea, to catch that water and hold it there until it soaks into the ground. The “weeds”, the specially selected weeds, are planted on the mound of dirt below the ditch. These will be the fast growing, nitrogen fixing and soil building plants that also make food for you or your animals. There will be ground covers, bushes and even trees of a type you might normally rip out of your yard or pasture. Mesquite, clover, alfalfa, hairy vetch, even bluebonnets! You’d plant lots of those and among them you plant things like fruit and nut trees and trees for timber or firewood        

            One big trick is to mark the trees that will eventually be your food trees because all the others are going to be chopped on and their limbs dropped around the fruit or nut tree nearest them. Meanwhile down on the ground you’re also growing sweet potatoes, tomatoes or whatever, wherever. So all you need to do is go out and pick them. Sound good?

            “But what about the bugs and weeds!?” you may well be asking now. Simple answer: forget about it! If you design it right there will be so many different flowers, scents, colors and shapes that the bad guy bugs will be all confused. Meanwhile there will be lots of hiding places, nesting places and such for critters who like to eat bugs. That would be good guy bugs, and various kinds of birds, amphibians and lizards that won’t be killed by the poisons if you don’t use them.

            Yes, I remember the plague of grasshoppers we had this past summer. The answer to that is simple. More ground birds such as turkey’s and guinea fowl should solve the problem and they taste good to. I’ll say more on this later. Meanwhile you can go to Permies.com to have it explained better.

2012 alt op #2 More gloom and doom with a ray of hope.

             Was I gloomy or what last week? Actually in my opinion (and that’s what this article is anyway, right) I wasn’t being gloomy! I was just being honest. Absolutely everything we do now days is either made of or fueled by oil. Most often it’s both! Even our economy is dependent on it! Why? Because everyone, top down to you and me, has wrongly assumed that we could just keep making more and more of everything, selling it and then taking home an ever increasing paycheck. That whole idea is based on the assumption, also false, that there will always be an ever increasing supply of three things: 1. Cheap energy, 2. Cheap material, and 3. People to make products at low cost and buy products at a high cost. Here’s a clue for you. Every one of those things depends on cheap oil! 

            Now, if you did your homework assignment that I gave last week, you already know that living out here in the sticks we are in big trouble when the oil runs out. No more delivery trucks showing up at our local grocery store or restaurants. No more gas delivered to the two local gas stations or the prepackaged foods they sell there either. Even the DG will run out of stuff because the folks who sell them the stuff they sell us can’t make anything or even manage to send out what they have made!

            Yeah, I know. Seems I’m just making it worse aren’t I. Well that’s cause I think we all need to decide right now what we want to do when oil gets so pricy we can’t afford to use it. Are we going to crash and burn right along with the economy or are we going to survive?

            I vote survive.

            Here’s how. Stock up now on the one thing that energy we are using so lavishly can get us that can be used and used well after that energy dries up like our ponds did last summer. That one thing is knowledge. Not how to shoot guns and kill folks but how to grow food and feed people without chemicals of any kind. You won’t have a choice about doing it organically because all those chemicals, fertilizer, insecticides, and herbicides almost all come from oil. Heck I can’t even think of any non-organic things like that that DON’T have petroleum products in them somewhere! Even some so called organic products do!

            Where can you get this knowledge? There are lots of places on line (like permies.com) and then there’s the library here in town and the ones in the other towns nearby as well as the big one up in Commerce on the TAMU-C campus. In fact on Jan, 28^th at the Rockwall library from 10am to 4pm there will be a little get together where you can swap seeds and watch some video’s about how some other folks have already survived the oil suddenly not being there and how to grow lots of food in an urban environment without all the chemicals. If we start doing this kind of thing NOW we might not even notice when the oil does dry up. Next month I’m planning on showing even more videos here in Lone Oak on ways to grow organically and cheaply just about anywhere. I’ll tell you when and where later, when that’s all ironed out. 

2012 alt op #1 Oh, woe. The end is near. Again.

             Well, going by the prices at the gas pump I’d say we were well past “peak oil” now. For those of you who just said, “Huh? Wassat?”   Imagine that nasty old bell curve you always hated for your English or Math teacher to grade to. You know the one where the folks who scored the average grade were the ones at the highest point and they all got ‘c’s while those at one end or the other got either ‘A’s or ‘F’s depending. Only in this case instead of representing the class scores on a test it represents the oil left that we can cheaply or affordably get out of the ground! So let’s say that a point to the left of that big middle hump on this chart would be a point in time when we still had oodles of oil down there. A time when if we poked holes in the right spots that black gold would just jump out of the ground and beg to be used. That would make a point at the very top of that hump a point where we would be about half out of the stuff we could get hold of easy.

            Guess what. We are on the right side of that little hump now and sliding down fast. Yep. There is still oil out there, BUT! And it’s a whopping big but. It is starting to take more to get the stuff out of the ground, lots more. Worse, part of the greater cost is the products of that black gold we have to spend to get more of it. Yeah that’s kind of convoluted I know. What I’m trying to get at here is that we are rapidly approaching a catch-22 situation where it costs more in gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum based chemicals to get oil out of the ground than we CAN get out of the ground. In simpler words: We goin’ broke folks.

            Yeah. I can see some of you out there saying “So! Aren’t you the one yelling about green power, solar panels and windmills and all that other stuff.” Yep, I sure am but I have to point out a sad truth by asking a question. What do you think is needed to make those nifty keeno things that make electricity out of wind and sunlight? I’ll tell ya. You need plastic, a lot of plastic, and a lot of energy to make and transport the things to where they can be used. Where does that plastic and energy come from? Fossil fuels, mostly oil that’s where.

            So we’ll go back to coal, you shrug. Ah, but there we run into another problem. Unless you like the really harsh and odd weather we’ve been having. That’s that global warming you might not want to believe in kicking in. Then again, with coal there is also the simple question of if you want to be able to breathe or drive your car. Personally I prefer breathing. It makes living easier that way.

            Now, I think I’ll assign some homework. Sit there and think of all the places you go from your home and how you get there. Think about the work you do and what fuels that work you do or even makes the materials you work with. Now, what will you do when the oil runs out? How will you get to work, to the store, raise a garden, or even just go fishing? How will you eat? How will you stay warm in the winter or even cook your food? I’ll give hints next week.

Alt Op. # 50 End of the year

Well, this is the last article I’ll write. This year, that is. There will be more next year, unless some weirdness intervenes.

            But what shall I write about now? Traditionally, articles, news reports and such tend to go over the major happenings of the past year and a few try to predict what might come to pass in the coming year.

            Last year gas prices went up. At one point they got near $4 a gallon or more, I stopped looking. Other sad things happened. Some good folks we will miss passed on. No not the big name stars though that is sad for their families; I’m talking about the everyday folks we will all miss meeting down at the Lone Oak Grocery, the Buffalo Grill, just passing in the street or getting e-mail from (Sorry, Boe. Even DSL won’t connect to Heaven.) Some really bad folks also left this mortal coil in the past year. They aren’t missed and I won’t waste more time on them.

            There were glad tidings as well. New lives came to give people joy. Some have two legs, wear diapers, and cry a lot. Others have fur or hide, hooves, horns or at least flowing mains and tails. Yeah, I’m an animal lover. Sue me for cooing as much over a picture of a puppy, a new foal or goat kid as I do over a baby human.

            As for next year, well, it looks to be more of the same as it is every year. We will certainly be entertained by the politicians as they jockey for position in the presidential race. Some will surly get a kick out of arguing politics with friends and family which can be an enjoyable pass time if it isn’t taken too seriously.

            I’m looking forward to spring and to planting something tasty both on my property and over at Community Seeds. I plan on trying some techniques I’ve been reading about that can let you grow tomatoes and other plants without bothering to weed, fertilize or even water them. I will be talking about these methods more in next year’s articles. After all I am an opinionated gal and happen to think these Permaculture ways of doing things is a darn fine idea.

            In fact there is only one part of the Permaculture idea’s that I have a personal problem with. You see, Permaculture believes everyone should cooperate. I can cooperate fine, but I’m also a loner at heart, with a bad habit of hauling off and trying to do things beyond by present physical abilities. Why? Because I hate waiting around for someone else to get the time to help me, then having to try to explain why I don’t want whatever it is done the way they are used to doing it.

            Hmm. Sounds like I have my New Year’s Resolutions right there. “Be more patient, especially with yourself as well as others, and try to remember to ask for help when you need it!”  What’s yours?

Alt. Op. #49. The oldest fossil fuel and why it is NOT a green energy sorce

            Dang, it’s happened again.  I recently heard an otherwise intelligent, knowledgeable person say something I see as totally ignorant. Maybe he really doesn’t know. Maybe he just doesn’t realize the full parameters of what he said.

            “Okay, Montgomery,” I can almost hear some of you sighing out there as you ask the question you know you’ll likely wish you hadn’t. “What did this poor fellow say that got your tree hugging underwear in a wad?”

            To which I would reply: “Gee, I didn’t know underwear could hug trees.” At which point you would glare and I’d get back on track.

            What the fellow said was: “Nuclear reactors give off no pollution.” Oh, I wanted to jump on that immediately but was in a public meeting (Not to mention the glare I got from the guy in charge of that meeting).

            Now I’m guessing that there are those of you out there who just might agree with this guy. Even I must admit that if you look at it from just the right direction you could say he was absolutely right. A nuclear power plant does NOT give off carbon dioxide, smoke or anything else. All you see coming out is just white billowy steam from the cooling towers.

            I heartily disagree that nuclear power plants are non-polluting (pardon my snicker). The first part of the pollution they, and all other fossil fuel powered plants cause is the process of getting that particular fuel, be it coal, oil, gas or uranium. Yes. Uranium is a fossil fuel. It is one of the oldest fossil fuels in fact being left over from the formation of the planet. Yes, there is a good deal of Uranium here in the states. It just happens to reside in formations about half way up some mountains in the North West US that are sacred to the Native Peoples of that area. The most economic way to get at it is to just rip off the tops of the mountains. So what, you may have just shrugged and thought. Let’s put it this way. How would YOU react if, being a Christian, you were told they’d discovered that the material used to build the corner towers on several of those big churches in New York had gold in them and the government was going to let a company rip the tops of those towers off to get at it. Oh, they’d put a roof over what was left and make it all pretty again, sort of, so that should be alright, right? Yeah, I know. You can’t even imagine such a sacrilege. Other than that, out west there would be the complex and really unfixable environmental damage not just from the mining of the uranium but from the refining of it into fuel rods for the power plants.

            As I said above there is no nasty Carbon dioxide produced by a nuclear plant but there is a waste product. Waste even by my broad standards (Waste = a product that hasn’t got a use). That waste is the used up fuel rods. Nope they have no real use once used except to be wrangled over about where they will be stored until they stop being radioactive and how to keep them out of the hands of terrorists, etc.

            Speaking of radioactivity; what do we do with the old, no longer safe to use, outdated nuclear power plants anyway? There’s all that big area, that huge building that really can’t be used for anything else because, duh, it’s radioactive in a lot of spots.

            That’s the pollution we face from nuclear power plants that don’t have any problems. These plants can have problems because they were built poorly. Trouble can come from poorly trained or inept operators. Problems can also come, as we know, from the plant being situated near earthquake zones, placed where it could be hit by tsunami or threatened by wild fire. Add all of that in and we have a whole lot more to worry about.

            Nuclear power plants are non-polluting my, ah-hem, tree hugging underpants.

Alt. Op. #48 Fire Departments, Mention of South Fulton, and some history

            My goodness! Aren’t we all glad we don’t live in South Fulton! Saw this on the Yahoo page and wondered what the heck happened until I read the story. Seems that if you live outside of South Fulton and don’t pay the $75 yearly fire protection fee to the South Fulton fire dept. they won’t put a drop of water on your burning property or do anything unless a life is in danger.  The Mayor of South Fulton defended his city’s position by pointing out that if they did go ahead and put out the fires of those who hadn’t paid the fee then there would be no incentive for folks to pay the fee that helps with the up keep and maintenance of the city’s fire equipment. I’m guessing it also goes a way’s toward paying the firefighters, their health insurance and other such as well.

            Believe it or not that’s the way a lot of fire departments were set up back when they were first being organized. Later the insurance companies got in on the deal to. In fact those insurance companies actually funded some of the fire brigades and those brigades were not allowed to fight fires on property NOT insured by their ‘boss’. Back then a lot of commercial buildings especially, had big emblems painted or bolted on them to indicate which insurance company covered them and thus, which fire brigade could save them.

            Later someone got the idea of paying fire brigades for fighting fires. Then you’d have the sight of two or even three different and competing fire brigades showing up at a fire and fighting each other rather than the fire! But that was then and South Fulton is, thankfully, THERE!

            Here in Hunt County we have several all volunteer fire Departments as well as two different paid departments. One of which is in Greenville and the other in Commerce. The department in Commerce is aided by the Commerce Emergency Corp which is also an all volunteer group. There are even volunteer fire departments in neighboring counties that will respond into Hunt County if one of the Hunt County Departments needs help or, for some reason can’t respond themselves.

            Some of you may ask: “And just what would keep an all volunteer department from responding to a fire or medical emergency call!” Not, thankfully, that you didn’t pay your fire fees! Not here! Here the problem is often simple man (or woman!) power. Here, depending on the time of the incident, there just might not be any one in town who can respond! The members of the various fire departments, being volunteers, must also work for a living as well as do other things like mow the lawn, do the dishes, cook supper, take the kids to school, go to school functions, go shopping or even, just kick back and enjoy a well earned beer. Now, if they’ve just taken one sip of that beer and a call comes in, they can’t respond! That is for their and your safety! Then there is the problem caused by the fact that most folks work on first shift. That means there are few folks handy for anything during those hours. Just those who are off work for some reason, work for themselves, don’t have a job, or work on second or third shift.

            “Say!” you may think about now. “What’s the alternative opinion in this article?” Well, It’s not really alternative at all, I suppose.My opinion is that it would really be nice if we had some second or third shift workers on the Lone Oak Fire Department. Heck, retirees who are still active enough to get out there and beat down a grass fire would be good to!

            Of course if finding out about the South Fulton fire department makes you feel like  maybe you should send some cash to your local volunteer fire department. I’m sure they’d appreciate the donation. It’d sure help pay for gas to get to any emergency's.

Alt. Op. #47 What-cha gonna do when the well runs dry?

            My fingers are cold as I type this.

            No, the power is still on or I couldn’t be keyboarding this into the computer. No, I haven’t turned the central heat off. In fact its set at a temperature that lots of folks considered comfy this summer if maybe a little warm.  I set it at 66. So I’m used to seventy or so! I usually had the central air set at 75 during the day and 69 or 70 at night during the summer. Most of the spring and fall I didn’t even use it.

            Problem is this cold snap has got me to thinking troubling thoughts. This nice house of mine, while I appreciate it and am grateful to have it, has its draw backs. While it is well insulated it isn’t oriented so that the longest side faces south so that I could catch the winter sun for extra warmth. The Law said, I was told when I requested that orientation, the front of the house had to face the nearest public road. That road runs north/south so now the longest sides of my house face into the morning sun and the setting sun. Not a good thing during the summer. I am trying to think of ways I can afford that will capture that passive solar energy and use it to good purpose. Right now I’d love it if I had a small narrow green house on the south end of my house.

            The most troubling thought I have about this house is that it is an ALL ELECTRIC house with central heat and air. Yes, I do like the central heat and air. I remember all too well my old house where the temperatures during high summer and low winter would make it nearly impossible to use the kitchen and made the bathroom seem more like an outhouse. (Ever set on a really cold toilet seat?) Why does the fact that my house is all electric bother me? It’s great now, but what do I do if the power goes off for some reason? And stays off for a long time? I know there are some of you out there shrugging and saying, “Pack up some clothes, your dog and cat, and go stay with relatives or friends.” So, what do I do if I can’t for some reason? A blizzard for example, or a region wide power loss due to ice, wind, or some other weirdness that can and has happened elsewhere could keep me in place for a long time without power.

            I know others of you out there are just grinning and shaking your heads. “Silly girl!” you say to yourselves, “If it worries you that much just go buy a nice big generator.” To which I reply, “So how will I pay the ridiculous cost of the gasoline or diesel to run that generator?”

            By now you are all rolling your eyes and thinking, “Give us a break, Montgomery!” To which I tartly reply. “NO. I will not. I want YOU to think about how you would live if the electricity went away.” I mean that. How would you cook your food? So you have a grill outside. All well and good, but then what do you do if it’s raining out and you don’t have a covered patio, deck or some other safe place you can use such a thing. Don’t even think of bringing it inside the house, you’ll kill yourselves! Speaking of inside the house, how will you stay warm if it’s cold, or survive the heat if it’s hot out or even open food cans with no power opener?

            My point is houses should not be built with only one source for power, for heating, cooling, cooking and keeping food. Yes, electricity is convenient and easy. But it is also easy to interrupt and often hard to reconnect. Think about it.

Alt OP. #46 Weeds for lunch

Well, I finely found someplace this weekend where the folks at least half way understand me when I get off on my Permaculture stuff. I actually used the word Permaculture and Hugelkulture while I was talking to them and . . . They knew what I was talking about!!!

This place is even in Hunt County, though it is north of Greenville and even a little N. E. of Celeste on 272. The place is called Good Earth Organic Farms (they are online, look it up). You can go there and pick up some organic produce just about any old day I think. They are also planning on having more classes similar to the one I was there for when I started talking about my favorite subject.

The class was on wild food and it was very informative. Fortunately the young lady teaching the class warned us that it was highly unlikely that we would remember all of the plants we would be shown growing in the wild that day. It is fortunate because, sadly I remember only a few.

Most of them were greens, I do remember that. She mentioned Poke Salet but that is a spring green and not available right now. However, the various types of Dock are. They had some Yellow Dock growing near their hay barn and it was rather tasty. At least the younger leaves were. One of the others in the class noted that one of the Dock plants had put up stems with clusters of dark brown seeds. He asked if those were edible and the instructor said they were. Just pop them in a grinder or blinder as you would whole wheat and grind them to a flour consistency. She told us we wouldn't have to thresh the Dock seeds like we would the wheat to remove the chaff as the Docks hulls were also edible. We moved on through the sheep pastures and to the garden areas where there were various tasty goodies growing between the rows of normal garden plants. Now remember this is an organic farm so there have been no pesticides or dangerous petroleum based fertilizers applied to the fields. Thus we could simply pluck the weeds and eat. There were lambs quarters which were quite tasty as I remember. Sadly I don’t remember what they looked like well enough to trust I’d be picking the right thing in my own yard. There was also clover. Yes. People, as well as live stock, can eat clover. Another plant, related to mint she said, is one with lovely little purple flowers. Bee’s love it too for the flowers of course, but the leaves do have a hint of mint to them. Can’t remember the name. I even found out that an odd looking plant I've been seeing around my barns is actually edible. I’ve been calling it the paper lantern plant because the obvious seed pod looks sort of like a little Chinese paper lantern. It is actually called a Ground Cherry and each little ‘lantern’ carries a small cherry that is ripe when it turns a dark purple. It tastes slightly like a tomato and is related to that plant as well as the tomatillo.

One of the most surprising edibles I encountered that day was the Choke Berry Tree. Those little red to reddish brown berries that appear in the fall and then seem to hang on forever are edible!! The instructor had about a cup of the berries that she had harvested earlier and rinsed off. She put them in a blinder with about two cups of water and blended them for a fairly long time. (At least it seemed so to me) Then she strained the mixture through a “paint strainer” cloth bag she’d bought for this use and viola! Choke Berry milk.

 Ah, no. I was not overly impressed with it, but then I don’t like cow milk either. I would have added some sugar and cinnamon to the mix as I do with real milk, but others there liked it as it was. So all in all I had an interesting Sunday this past weekend.

It’s always bound to be interesting when you can say you had weeds for lunch.

Alt Op.#45 The coming Fall and What can save us

Now, as I remember last week’s article was a downer where I went on about how the economy and the civilization it supports is likely not long for this world because they are both so unsustainable. I still stand by that. Especially with all the changes in our climate that are going on.

Honestly folks this is a geologically and climatologically active planet we live on. It’s just been napping for a century or two and us short lived humans will just have to get on board with the new way nature works or take a hard fall.

Now, as I see it, one of the hang ups of our modern civilization is that it just does not allow for change. At least not change like we are seeing it now and will continue to see it in the future. We have come to depend way to heavily on Big Brother and the ever popular “Somebody” who is supposed to take care of us, our things, and our way of life, keeping it from changing, so that we can just keep toddling along with a frown on our faces complaining about taxes and how big government interferes in our lives.

Yes, we do that. Just think about it a bit.

To illustrate the point I tried to make above, here is a tidbit I read somewhere, possibly on the internet. Those areas of Mississippi that did NOT wait for government assistance or money; did not stop and ask “where’s FEMA?” or “What if we do something that will keep us from getting relief (money) from the government”, those are the area’s that were being rebuilt and prospering while those that cried about how the government wasn't helping them were not.

Yes, the places where the government finely did jump in got those nifty trailers and tons of cash eventually poured in. As far as I know a lot of those trailers are still there and some of the money has been spent fixing what was destroyed but the rest of the cash? Who knows. Yeah, I know. A lot of what I’m saying here is “hearsay” as I can’t remember where I read it or even how reliable some of the reports were. But it makes sense to me that if you sit around on your hands waiting for someone, anyone else, to do for you nothing will get done and you will be in the same place, the same situation until you get up off your buttocks, and use your own hands to do for yourself.

That brings me back to what can be done about this fall of civilization, of the economy, that I see coming. What can we do? The answer as I see it is not simple, not easy and probably not popular as it will require looking at the world around us in a new way. It may even require us to give up some old and cherished
points of view and ways of life. This complex and difficult path is, surprisingly, fairly well laid out within an idea, a way that has a name. A name that has been copy righted so that only those actually trained and
receiving a certificate stating that they have been so trained, can legally use it to describe themselves or their work with it. That word is Permaculture.

Yes, I’ve used that word a lot. I can’t afford to travel to the places where the training in Permaculture design is given nor can I afford the classes. Thus you will not hear me say that I am a Permaculture Designer. I am
just a poor old gal that is trying to use the ideas and methods of Permaculture to improve my land, lower my impact on the local ecosystem, and maybe even grow some food. To get a look at this stuff for yourself go to www.permies.com or just Google the word Permaculture.

Alt OP #44 Sustainability

As some of you may have gathered from last weeks article I’m on my sustainability kick again. Oh, and yes, that really was an opinion piece. My opinion being that Mr. Fukuoka has the right idea and that his ideas, modified to fit our climate and land will work here.

Yeah, I know. He doesn't use any of the big machinery we Americans are so fond of. No big combine rolling down the rows of corn, wheat, or even rice and spitting out tons of grain into a big ol’ dump truck rolling beside it. Just a lot of folks swinging scythes as they walk through a field, then maybe using a simple machine to thresh and gather up the grain before they haul the straw back into the field.

Sounds down right primitive. But isn't one of the problems we have right now in our nice high tech, big machine civilization unemployment? That big combine only takes one man, or woman to run it. Only one person is needed to run the truck that follows beside to catch the grain. Yeah, I know. You also need “behind the scenes” types to fuel, maintain, build, and make parts for those machines. But other things are going on back there too. Things that are, going to help bring us all down. The environment is being mauled to get the materials (metals and such) and the energy (oil, coal) to build and run those big machines. Then there is the literal killing off of every life form but the crop being grown that is done when you use pesticides, herbicides and, yes, even chemical fertilizers. This leaves you with dead, sterile soil that can’t grow anything unless it does get those chemical fertilizers. Guess where almost all of those things come from, folks.

 Oil. And oil is not going to be getting cheep ever again. Ever.

As to why oil isn’t ever going to be cheep again, I’ll leave that to you all out there. I believe it is simply because we've already pulled out all the oil that is available and that if we want more we will just have to wait the geologic eons it takes to make more. I do know that a lot of you out there think that there is this big stock pile somewhere that the country could run on for years. To which I reply. So?

So what if there is a big ol’ pot of oil stashed out there somewhere that the country could run on for what? Two years? Three? Maybe even five. Do you all realize how much oil that would be?! Just think people.
Think about how many cars are on the road right now, how many big diesel trucks are hauling produce, material, finished products or even out there fighting fires. Then there are the airplanes, the ships, the lawn mowers and the weed eaters as well as the chain saws and the golf carts. Do you really believe there is
enough room anywhere to store that much oil without someone knowing about it and blabbing?

Maybe back during simpler times. Not now. Remember Wiki-leaks. But let’s just suppose there IS such a pot of stored up oil. Now lets suppose further that we go ahead and use it. Then what? We’ll have one to five more years of living just like we are now before the whole civilization we've built on the availability of cheep, plentiful, energy falls down around our ears and on our heads. Sad thing is a lot of the stuff we think can save us, those big, humongous, wind generators, and the solar panels to make electricity when the wind doesn't blow, guess what is needed to make those?
 Yep. Oil. Cheep energy.

Might oughta think about putting in an all season, organic garden. While you can.

Alt Op #43 Seed Balls

Okay. So here I sit considering the idea of Seed Balls. I can almost see you now, gentle readers. You are either blinking and saying “Huh?” or rolling your eye’s and thinking:  “Hooo Boy. Here we go again!” Most of you are likely asking what the heck I mean by seed balls. Do you eat them or what?

Well, you toss them. As to where you toss them, it depends on what you've made them of. If you made them of a mix of wild flower seeds then you toss them into whatever area of your yard, field, or drainage ditch that you want decorated with bright flowers this spring. On the other hand if you made the balls of say, winter wheat, clover and other assorted small, winter hardy grains then you toss them around your pasture. Then you maybe shred the weeds that are all over it (well, you do if it’s like my pasture) and then just let those weeds lay there and protect those seed balls while the seeds in them sprout. Nope. You don’t plow, till or otherwise tear up the soil. The most you do is mow. Then you turn your cattle, horse, or goats out on the stuff for short times as each seed starts to mature. Ideally you've used a mix of seeds that grow and mature at different rates so that you get plant A coming up first. It gets eaten down or pulled up by the grazing critters or by you harvesting it. Then as plant B has already germinated and just started to come up you don’t have naked ground showing while the next crop comes in. Then plant C starts coming up and you graze or harvest plant B. Get the picture? There’s this guy in Japan that does something
similar with rice.

Bear with me now, his name is Masanobu Fukuoka and he’s written this neat little book called “The One-Straw Revolution.” Yes! Of course it’s been translated to English!

Mr. Fukuoka is a proponent of what he calls “do-nothing” agriculture. And no you don’t get out of doing any farming. You still have to sow, and harvest but mostly you have to watch what’s going on. He claims he can get his whole years sowing done in a week or so then just wait, and watch, while he floods, and drains, his fields. He doesn't even leave the water in his rice fields as long as most other rice farmers do. He uses no insecticides, no fertilizer (other than an occasional thin coating of chicken manure, he used to use ducks but that’s another story) and no big machinery. Not even the old style water buffalo. Yet he has harvests at least equal to the per acre output of the big factory farms in the most ‘productive’ part of Japan.

Mr. Fukuoka points out early in his book and often later on that while his methods work very well for his particular farm in his particular area of Japan, they must be tweaked to work on other farms in other parts of Japan. He stated flat out that his exact method will not work here in North America. Our weather is different, our wet seasons come at different times and, well, it’s just different here. He even points out that he doesn't do the exact same thing every year! After all one year is never exactly like the last one, now is it.
Some times the rains are a little late or a lot lighter than before. So while you planted say in the middle of September last year you have to wait until October this year. In case you wonder, I do recommend this
book to all my fellow gardeners, and local farmers. Mr. Fukuoka holds farming in high regard as both a physical and spiritual activity.

There is a good deal of philosophy in this book and spiritual references but he does not ‘push’ any particular religion. He quotes the Buddha and the Bible with ease.

Alt OP #42 . . . I hope

But first! An apology for taking so long to post more. I've been in the process of switching out computers and darned if the 'new' one, being newer, has decided it can't read the word program the other alternative opinions were written in. Sigh. Happily I am backlogged on deleting things from my email inbox and those contain the prose you see below and in about three or more future posts. All I had to do is figure out how to do it on this new interface, program, whatever you call it. But I did figure it out so here ya go. Hopefully I haven't missed any.


Enjoy. 

“But first . . .,” How often have you said or heard that? I seem to say it a lot. I hear it a lot to. Usually it works like this: “I need to hang this picture, but first I need to move that book shelf so the step ladder will set closer to the wall for me to reach where I want the nail, but first I have to find the hammer to hammer the
nail.” It can go on and on down to finding a place to stack the books so you can move the book case and end with having to dust the books before you put them back in the book case after you've finely hung that cotton picking picture!

I and a friend call this the “but first! Disease.” It’s when you find yourself standing there knowing what you want to do and going over all the things that are in the way of you just hauling off and DOING whatever it is. It has been the end of many of my pet projects. Usually, it’s because: “but first I need to get the money!” Of course that can sometimes be gotten around, the money issue anyway. The real problem is that when you try to do some things without money the but firsts pile up so high it’s just too much! You either loose track of what the heck it was you planned to do in the first place or, worse, you discover that trying to do it without an up front cash lay out is going to cost you more than that cash lay out!

Don’t get me wrong this “but first” thing can be useful when you are trying to either get out of doing some thing you really don’t want to or to point out that you really need more time (or pay!) for doing a job. “Sure I can paint your house for only a couple hundred, but first you’d have to buy the paint and brushes, supply the scaffolding, the wire brush and scrappers for cleaning off the old paint . . .” See what I mean. Trouble is we sometimes take this but first thing to extremes and let it keep us from doing things that really need doing.

Take Congress, they seem to think they really can control every single aspect of American life so as to make us all safe, secure, happy, and healthy. They and we, seem to have forgotten that while life and liberty are guaranteed by the Constitution, the only guarantee we have for happiness is the pursuit of it. If we can’t
catch the sucker, tough. They (the ones who want to control Congress, the Government, Etc.) are going to give us all kinds of goodies to make our life one of leisure, jobs that pay us loads of money, health care out the wazoo, AND lower taxes! But first! But first they have to get total control of the whole government so no one can tell them they can’t do these wonderful things for us! Uh-huh.

Yep.

Guess what. That would mean even we the people couldn't tell them they couldn't do whatever came into their little pea brains to think we the people really needed . . . Whether we wanted it or not!

Yeah, I know. I used that dreadful, anonymous “They” in the preceding paragraphs. Just who the heck am I accusing of this heinous plot anyway? Oh, just the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Party, the Right to
Lifers, the Right to Choosers, the Liberals, the Conservatives, and all those other folks that think they have to be the ones in charge of telling us what to do and not do.

No, I do most certainly NOT suggest we should try to live without any laws at all. I’m way to old to survive the kind of civilization anarchy would bring about. I just think all we really need are general directions like: “Don’t kill or beat up folks cause you don’t like them or just cause you can, live by the Golden Rule, take care of your self, and act civilized even if you aren't.”

Alt Op #41 Do We Really need Such a High Formal Education?

It always seems to surprise me when I see something on TV news that seems to support something I’ve said. This very evening on the news I saw this report where a manufacturer reported being worried that he would soon be unable to hire skilled workers, skilled technicians to work for him. The one job they actually mentioned was, ya ready for this? Welding. Yep. Remember back a few articles ago when I was ranting about how maybe some kids just really didn’t need to go to college? That maybe even my over educated self would have been far better off when I moved out here if I had a welding certificate rather than a Masters Degree in Broad Field Earth Science.

Now here’s this report on national TV saying that American industry is running out of workers who can do skilled labor. That’s folks who can actually MAKE STUFF rather than push paper around on a desk, fill out forms, or make presentations for a business, a product or whatever. Now the wild thing is why these folks fear they will soon be unable to find these skilled workers. Seems the Vocational Education in most schools is being cut.

Yep. Seems kids today are basically being told, you can go on to some Jr. College and four year University OR you can flip burgers for the rest of your life. Nothing in between like welding, machining, carpentry, or even the technical side of the high tech revolution. You know the side that builds the machines or actually takes care of folks like nurses do. So who’s going to do that if we don’t let kids who’d rather mess with that stuff than spend endless hours and money they might not have getting a higher education they don‘t really want?

This is supposed to be a rural community here in Lone Oak. That means that, theoretically at least, most folks out here make a living off of the land. They grow food of one kind or another, for people and animals, they grow fiber. In other words they keep the rest of the country fed, clothed and supplied with numerous things they take for granted. Do the local kids in 4H or any of the Ag classes really get any encouragement to keep doing that? Don’t think so. Some of what I’ve heard is that the Ag department is shrinking. I’m guessing due to lack of funding.

Now I do not subscribe to the idea I’ve sensed in some areas that farmers and ranchers are dumb, narrow minded, resistant to change or anti-technology. Anybody who can fix a hay baler with spit, hope and baling wire is probably as smart as any big time engineer, maybe smarter and way more practical. I also know that if it looks like it will work for them they will be the first in line to jump on a new technology as well as the first to drop it if it turns out to be a dud.

So why are the schools dropping vocational ed and cutting back on teaching Ag?

Heck if I know. Same reason they are cutting out PE and complaining that the kids are getting fat for all I know? Yep. I know. They blame lower funding for the schools. But come on here folks. Dose it really take that much cash money to do a really good job of teaching? Yeah, you got to pay the teachers and the better they are the more you better pay them to keep them there teaching your kids. But then the teachers are like the guy on the line welding stuff together. They are making a product. They are the ones who should get the good pay, I say, not the folks with the fancy degree (fancier in the case of teachers) shuffling papers on a nice big desk while sitting in a comfy chair. They should also be let to do their jobs instead of baby sitting or trying to use politically correct language to tell parents that Johnny would read better if there was stuff at home for him to read or if he ever saw his parents reading. And maybe just maybe, little Anna Bell really would rather be a nurse than a doctor or even a farmer! We all need to realize that there are real jobs out there that are extremely important that don't get paid enough, but should at least get some respect for the folks who do them and do them well.

Alt Op # 40, Economic downer

Lots of bright minds in DC and other places are coming up with all kinds of plans to “Save the Economy.” Well, folks, here is where I get not only alternative but down right gloomy.

I don’t think the “economy” that we have developed over the last century or so can be saved. I don’t think it can be saved because it is inherently unsustainable. Why do I believe that? Who am I to say such a thing? I’m a regular gal. Slightly over educated, but not in economics. But I read all kinds of things from all kinds of places. I’m not the only one who thinks our present economy is doomed. As to why I agree that it is doomed, keep reading.

Our economy today is dependent on one and only one energy source. If you don’t get your energy from that then you don’t get, by our economy’s standards, “enough to do anything.” No, that energy source in not electricity. That is just how we use a lot of it. The real, the basic energy source is fossil fuel. Oh, here is where I might point out that even the uranium used in nuclear reactors is a fossil fuel, perhaps the oldest one, left over from the very formation of the planet.

That dependency on fossil fuel wouldn’t be quite so bad if we used them, and had always used them, in a wise and frugal manner. But we didn’t and with the outlook our economy insists we have in today’s society we never will. We use them lavishly and wastefully.

We are using them that way even though they are no longer cheap and easy to get. You’ve all read the horror stories about “fracking” as it relates to the process of getting oil or gas out of non-permeable shale. Want to know why we are only now finding out about this problem? Because until now the oil and gas folks didn’t need to do any fracking where people rich enough or close enough to a big city TV station could bitch about it. The only reason they do it where they do it now is because they have to. Why? Because there ain’t no more else where!

Yep, that is one of the big reasons the economy is, in my opinion going to go bust. We are running out of the stuff we use to make it go. Coal? HA! What they’d have to do to make that run your car or truck is way more expensive than gas is now. Yeah, it could power an electric car, but without a lot of filtering the smoke from the stacks would have us all suffering from COPD before long.

Then there is the basic outlook our economics has taught us to have. We deserve a raise just because we showed up for work most days and were generally on time. We think we deserve a raise even if the cost of living our life dose not go up.

Why? If we have enough to live on, enough to eat, keep reasonably warm in winter, cool in summer and stay dry and comfy when it rains, and friends / family to keep us company, why do we need more money? More stuff? Human nature? Maybe. Maybe not. Somehow I think our present wastrel life style has taught us this outlook. Now we throw out things even our grandparents would have repaired and kept using. These wasteful habits of ours are really rather new to our culture and will end it.

What to do, specifically what to do NOW to survive the end of oil and the modern economy? Start a sustainable food garden. Read up on Permaculture. Learn to walk again. Help any interested neighbors start their own gardens. Work with nature, not against it.

Alt Op # 39 : Don't call me! Call 911!

Okay folks, this is just a little silly. In the past month two different folks have called me to tell me that there was either a fire somewhere or that there had been and now there was smoke somewhere it shouldn’t be.

First, thanks for the vote of confidence, BUT!

Don’t call me, or any other person you know to be a volunteer firefighter when there is an emergency situation. If there is a grass fire headed toward your property; house or barns, or if there is smoke inside your house for some odd reason call 911, don’t call someone on the fire department! 911 is the fastest way to get someone there to help you.

Okay if you just want to know if there is still a burn ban on, or if it’s a good idea to set off fireworks go ahead and call up your friend on the VFD. But if it is an emergency and you need help call 911! Calling a member of the department will not really get help there any faster. Calling them second might get them to the fire house ahead of the others.

Remember most real emergencies, medical, fire, or accident usually require more than one person and even specialized equipment like fire trucks or an AED and not every single person on the department can use ALL the equipment. If you call 911 and tell them what the problem is they can tell the local VFD faster than one of the members can call up everybody on the phone. Then we all go to the firehouse, get what we need and get to where ever we need to go.

And that brings me to another big problem. When you call 911 know where you are! Know where the problem is! If you call from a land line the address you are calling from shows up at the 911 office, but it helps if you also tell the dispatcher your address number and road. Then you can elaborate a bit and say it’s this or that color house with something noticeable (if anything) out front. If they ask you can give them simple, clear directions. You should have also told them exactly what the emergency is. Maybe you burnt that pot of beans and the house is full of smoke and all you need is a big fan to blow the smoke out. That’s fine. Make sure they know that’s what you need so they can tell the VFD. If your friend just fell down after complaining of a sudden pain in his left arm and stopped breathing, be sure they know that and be ready to do what they tell you to do.

However, if there’s smoke in your house or it’s on fire don’t even bother calling 911 until you and your family is out of the house! And don’t go back in! Use a cell phone or your neighbors phone and call 911 from OUTSIDE the house.

If you use a cell phone to call 911 about an emergency on the road or otherwise, be very sure you can tell them where you are. Preferably something like “Hwy 69 near the water tower just north of 513.” or “the water tower north of the river bridges.” Be as specific as you can. It’s very frustrating to be wandering up and down roads trying to find somebody who’s called for help when you’ve only been given a very general location like “somewhere on 513!” when the actual problem is at the fourth house east of 513 on 21whatever and THAT is actually closer to, say 2947 than to 513. See what I mean.

When you need help you almost always need it quick. So call 911 rather than an individual. After all it is entirely possible that all the volunteers on the VFD could be at work and/or out of town at the particular time you need help. If that happens and you only call your friend on the department then you are, as they say, S. O. L. But if you call 911, give them a good idea of the problem and an accurate address and/or good directions then one of the surrounding VFD’s can come help you. Or at least come looking for you if you don't give them an address or good directions.

Alt Op #38 Buzzes and bites

This time I’d like to talk about buzzwords and sound bites.

First let me give you a definition of these two words. Buzzword means: a fashionable word or concept, often associated with a particular group of people and not understood by outsiders (informal)
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Sound bite, on the other hand, means : brief broadcast remark: a very short comment or phrase intended or suitable for broadcasting in a news program, especially one by a politician. Their use is often regarded as demonstrating superficiality and glibness.
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

There is even a game called buzzword bingo that can be played when you know you will be sitting through a boring meeting or speech likely to be loaded with the things. You simply make up a bingo card before the meeting with a list of the most likely buzzwords the speaker will use and then pass it out to your friends. A number of words used for a ‘bingo’ is decided on and when you are able to check of that number of words on your card you either yell ‘bingo’ or, if you just don’t want to get in trouble then you raise your hand and ask a question, dealing with the subject, that has the word bingo in it somewhere.

Sounds like something we should all do when listening to either the news or political speeches. It might make it harder for them to lead us blindly about with these kinds of words.

The problem is that while these words may have once actually carried a definite meaning, buzzwords especially as they are usually taken from a technical jargon of some kind or other, that meaning has usually been lost or diluted when it becomes popularly used. “Green” for instance. Once it was just a color. Then it became a movement. Then it became a descriptive for a special form of whatever other word it was tacked onto as a descriptive. We now have “green power”, “green fuels”, “green economy”, and any number of other “green” things. It has become as bad as the word “lite” or “light” and just as misleading or, in this case; fattening!

Sound bites are just as bad. We all think we know what they mean. But these short groups of words that may or may not stir the soul one way or the other, have been taken completely out of context and used that way so often I doubt some of us even know what they once really meant.

One that bothers me, that I have heard recently is “Class War.” It was being used to refer to the idea, a splendid one in my opinion, that maybe; just maybe, those who have scads of money should pay the same tax rate as everyone else. Not MORE than everyone else, just the SAME as everyone else.

Now I’m not against people who have a lot of money. I’d really like to be one someday. I’d have no problem paying taxes on what I earned then, just as I have none paying what I owe now. How dose that make the very idea the opening shot of a “class war?”

Alt Op # 37, Alternative book lists

Well, school is back in session and some kids are being taught, despite the teachers best intentions, that reading is painfully dull, boring, and uninteresting. They are learning that it is something that often must be done, like it or not, to get information to pass tests or perform tasks.

Yeah. Some books are like that. Text books in particular. But, honestly, there are a LOT of books out there that are WOW! Just that, folks, wow. They can blow you away. They can yank your self / home town centered brain right out of your skull, strap a faster than light unit on it, and set a course for. . . Well, for the grandest adventures you never thought of before!

Uh-huh. You got it. I am a reading fool. I started reading young and I still read. When folks ask me how many books I read in a year I get glassy eyed, then I have to ask, "Does that include the ones I’ve re-read?"

Honestly, I usually can’t tell how many books I’ve read because I lose track! Ask some other folks how many songs they’ve listened too! That’s me, only with reading. Books, magazine articles, even stuff I can find online!

My opinion of why kids get turned off reading, other than never seeing Mom or Dad read anything and there being nothing to actually read in the house, is that the stuff that educators tell them is good to read; well, it isn’t all that great. I shudder when I remember some of the stuff I had to read for my English classes in Jr. High and High School. I can summarize them all with one word. BOR-R-R-R-R-ING!

To that end I have compiled a list of five books for "juvenile" readers and another five for "older" readers. Some of these are series’ of books. At least one group you will find familiar.

JUVENILE BOOKS:
1) Any of the Asimov Juvenile books, particularly the Lucky Star series. Yes, a lot of the science in them is now outdated, but the books are still hard core SF.
2) Ditto for the Heinlein Juvenile books.
3) The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
4) Any book by Andre Norton
5) The Harry Potter books ( I said you’d recognize at least one!)

BOOKS FOR OLDER READERS:
Okay, there will be some repeats here. Some of the above books have stuff in them that younger readers just don’t see. I didn’t. The wow got bigger when I reread them as an "adult!"
1) The Hobbit AND The Lord of the Ring.
2) The Power of Myth by J. Campbell
3) A Brief History of Time by S. Hawking
4) Harry Potter, trust me. Older folks get even more out of it.
5) Way Station by Clifford D. Simak

Of course I also recommend just about anything you can find in the science fiction, fantasy, adventure and mystery section of the library or book store of your choice. These are the kind of books that can open up your mind and get you to thinking outside of the box you live in now. I decided to limit myself to just five each but I could go on and mention other authors like Anne McCaffery, Glenn Cook, . . .Oh, yeah, I said I’d limit myself to five.

Oh, science books are good to. Just scarier cause it’s well, real!