A small helping of TEOTWAWKI*, anyone?

New lettuce and spinach are in the ground today here at the homestead, and with the warm El Ninó weather blowing in, it feels a little more like spring than winter around here. 

I spent the morning planting and pruning our roses, and after finishing that, was reading a blog I enjoy. It referenced another blog (one I wasn't familiar with) whose authors have stopped writing due to their belief that a cataclysmic meltdown of society is imminent. The author of the original blog I was reading stated she was also very nervous about things right now, which I took to mean an impending collapse of society, the enforcing of martial law, city types fleeing for rural areas, post-collapse danger, etc.

What some people wish for.

This was a person who, up until today, I considered reasonable -- a fun read on basic homesteading activities. Sometimes you have to wonder where people get these ideas, and what kind of world they live in that leads them to these sorts of conclusions. What could it be? 

I know in some cases it's religious fundamentalism and the belief that we are living in the End Times. The problem with that is, even in Jesus' time, people thought they were living in the End Times. So did folks in the 1800's. So did people during WWII (which I kind of get). 

Honestly,  I think it's a huge warning sign of living a too-small life. I wish I could snatch those doomsday people up for an afternoon and take them to a café on the palazzo in Verona, Italy for some pasta, wine and gelato. People in Europe have an advantage over us in that they can look around them and see 1,800 or more years' worth of evidence of human life in architecture, roads, and art. And  there, subliminally, is the message: life, does in fact go on. Even what seems like the end of the world tends not to be, when it's all said and done.

I also think people sometimes enjoy believing they are living in critical times because it makes them feel more important than being just a blip on the radar screen at the beginning of a very slow and somewhat inevitable decline most civilizations eventually go through. "Not with a bang but with a whimper" and all that, or so the saying goes. It gives their lives  a larger and more immediate purpose to believe they are present at the first shot of a great conflict that quickly destroys everything we are familiar with.

What I wish for.

And so I say, live a rural life, live a quiet life, but also live a balanced life. If you feel like America is headed for some kind of crash, then get outside America and see that despite terrorism, crime and religious extremism, most of the world is still going about their lives as usual, and short of a killer asteroid and combined nuclear strike, the world and indeed our nation will go on as usual, tomorrow, next year, and the day after you die.

TEOTWAWKI? More like COLAWKI (Continuance of Life As We Know It). Have some gelato and rest assured that the sun will probably still come up tomorrow, beginning a day that will probably not be all that different from yesterday or last week, especially if you're on a homestead.

* TEOTWAWKI stands for "the end of the world as we know it."

The small things

Mega-drought.

Living during a time of mega-drought, you have to learn to hang on to hope.  The world is finally waking up to the reality of climate change, after many, many years of angry denial and turning the issue into a political football.  Is there anyone left out there who still doesn't believe? Probably, but it no longer matters any more.  Just like the "theory" of gravity, climate change is not something you have to believe in for its effects be felt.

Last night I was driving through some vineyards with Big Ag and looking at the 1000-foot wells, the giant uncovered reservoirs, and the acres and acres of grapes we grow here.  And I thought of another place we used to live, which had nothing but almond orchards, as far as the eye could see.

And I asked my man, who is proficient in All Things Agricultural, if all of this was sustainable, long-term.  He thought about it for a minute -- actually so long I thought he might have forgotten the question -- before answering, "probably not, long term."  And what was long-term in his books, I asked? 20 years until it first gets ugly, he said, and 100 years before most of it is finally gone.

He said that our great-grandchildren would see ghost orchards and ghost vineyards, which brought to my mind how local hikers sometimes stumble upon ghost towns up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains -- the empty, decaying remnants of the boom towns from the Great California Gold Rush of 1849. Maybe our days will be known as the century of the Great California Agricultural Rush, from 1950 - 2050, give or take a few years.  Who knows?

But I will tell you something.  If you focus on those things, particularly if you are a sensitive person who tries to live a "do no harm" kind of lifestyle, you will find yourself enormously depressed at what the future holds.  So my advice is this: Be aware, but don't dwell on it. Here is the one and only thing you can do to make a difference: You can do what you can, where you are. And that's about it, so you might as well stop worrying.

Local, small production vineyard!

The only place you can really change things is what goes on in and around your own dwelling. You can set good limits and you can set a good example, and that is about it.

In an era of decline, you can learn to use less and make do with less, and just go on with your life in that way. Because, realistically, that is all you can do.  You are not going to convince the almond growers to uproot their trees and bankrupt their very profitable imports to China, all in the name of future generations. Not gonna happen. You are not going to convince anyone that there is probably a limit to how deep a well can be dug, and that aquifers that have been around since the glaciers last retreated are not a renewable resource.

So be mindful and do what makes you happy. Yesterday, for instance, I was thrilled to find a nice picnic basket and a used salad spinner at the thrift store, because neither of those things need to be new for me to use and enjoy them.

New acquisitions.

That picnic basket and salad spinner made me happy because I know nothing new -- not the plastic or the wood -- was culled or made for me to buy it second-hand.  And they cost a total of six bucks between the two. Plus it was a sunny day and while a sunny day means no rain, well, that doesn't mean I should feel guilty and not enjoy it.  I'm not in charge of when it rains.

Part of this state of being -- the peace of mind before The Great Decline -- comes because, to some extent, I realize we are all being swept along in a human current that we can only swim against so much.  So ultimately the descendants of the  homesteaders, the off-gridders and the preppers will more than likely share the same future as those of the SUV-gas guzzling, Keurig-cup using, styrofoam plate dining and everything-new demographic, with not much to be done about it.

Your only job is to do what you can, and what will leave you with a clean conscience, knowing you did everything you could.  So use less water, but enjoy the sunshine, and, although it seems strange, enjoy being the last generation for whom everything was once possible.

Hit by a family on Doomsday

We had the first of our family arrive last night for the holiday; the rest will be here later today.  I shopped like a Doomsday Prepper yesterday, stocking the fridge and cupboards with everything they'll need or want for the next several days.  It's nice to be the gathering place, where everyone wants to wake up Christmas morning.

And speaking of doomsday prepping, it looks like we all made it into 12/21/12 without too much trouble.  Which is a good thing, I would have hated to spend my last day on the planet trolling a shopping cart through Von's.