Wandered far afield

That's a term one of my old bosses used in management meetings when he and the two under-managers he supervised (one of whom was me) would find some topic related to work, but not actually pertaining to work directly, and happily chat about it for a half-hour or so before finding our way back to business.

"Well, we've wandered far afield..." he would say, and that was our cue that we needed to get back to the real business at hand.

And it's a term I've rediscovered in these first days of 2016, as it applies to myself and the life I've been living.

One of the ways hit home yesterday, when there was a power outage at about 8 a.m. The house was cold and dark, and because we chose an electrically-driven pellet stove instead of a wood stove the house hadn't warmed up yet, and now would have no chance of doing so. We have a central heating system we use for back-up, but of course it doesn't work without electricity either. 

So as the temperature dropped inside and I bundled up, I reviewed that choice. Did I ever.

So I sat in the cold and read my Kindle, played music on my iPod and checked Facebook and email on my phone until those devices all died. At that point I decided to head into town to run some errands (thank God I had gas), where at least I'd be in some warm buildings and I could use the car to charge all my devices and run the heater while driving around, which felt SO delicious after being in a cold house for several hours, let me tell you.

Where I feel like I am.

One ironic thing is that the book I was reading before my Kindle died was one called "Patient Heal Thyself" about a young man who discovers healing of his Crone's disease through eating a diet identical to what our biblical ancestors would have eaten 2,000 years or more ago. Yes, I was reading a book about the diet of the 20 BC man on a 21st century Kindle. Boggles the mind, no? If it had been on papyrus I could have at least kept reading without fear of a battery dying.

Anyway, the book reminded me of a time when I adhered to a similar diet just through making healthy food choices and refusing to buy into the industrial food system of feedlot beef, trans-fats, refined sugar, and over-processed bleached white flour. While I haven't backslid all the way (you will not find me in line at McDonald's when McRib returns, for instance) I have cut corners as life got more busy and complex and food still needed to be served. 

So to review, I cut corners by getting a pellet stove instead of a wood stove and I cut corners by just accepting what the regular supermarket thought I should be eating. It's an uncomfortable truth that sometimes we know what the right thing is to do and still do something else anyway. And when we do that, we wander far afield from the selves we want to be.

The solution for the pellet stove is a simple one -- we can buy a small generator for the house or a back-up battery for the stove itself. And the solution to the food issue is there as well. We're already growing a lot of what we eat, but the fact is, even if we had 10 times as many acres we would probably still not grow everything we consume. And so the choice then becomes to purchase those things at the health food store, expensively, or drive an hour's south to the local Whole Foods Market and get it there.

And since I've committed to getting back to those things that matter most to me in 2016, perhaps you'll notice something of a course correction as we get farther into the year. It will be a homecoming of sorts. I've wandered far afield, and it's time to get back on the road I most want to be on -- gardening, planting, conscious food-buying, and healthy living.  It doesn't so much mean giving up on any good things as much as taking the time for different good things that aren't necessarily as easy to come by. 

One thing is for sure: When you wander far afield, eventually the road that leads home will call you back to it, if you're willing to listen. I'm listening, road. I'm listening.

Where I want to be.

Listeria Recall

Just heard a warning issued that the California-based Wawona Packing Company has discovered Listeria bacteria in some of its peaches, nectarines, plums and pluots. The fruit was distributed across the gamut of supermarkets, including Sam's Club, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods.

One more reason to appreciate having a food life that's significantly off-the-grid, so to speak. We have no Listeria here. It gives me a very real sense of personal empowerment, well-being, and independence to see stuff like this on the news and know it doesn't effect us in any way. Of course my heart goes out to all those injured or otherwise affected by something like this, but one of the reasons I keep this blog is in case anyone ever reads these words and thinks, "well I could plant a fruit tree or two." (or grow a lettuce, cauliflower, or tomato plant or two, etc.)

It's not just the well-being that comes from a diet grown within feet of where it's going to be consumed; it's the freedom from worry that comes from never having to take a bite of fruit, or a vegetable, and worry that it might make you sick, something which is becoming more and more commonplace in the commercial world as larger and larger shipments of food are crammed together, or processed together, and shipped thousands of miles away from where they were grown.

Sure, plenty of blog posts here are about the work it takes to make food, but it's also about the freedom that comes from doing the work. Which is worth it in every way.

A few more thoughts on sustainability and employment

So the very nice man who offered me the sustainability job I turned down has contacted me twice since then, sweetening the offer by almost doubling the salary, as well as slightly lessening the commute. He's committed to getting the program off the ground, and I admire his dedication.

I am still not taking the position, because as I said in a previous blog post, it's not personally sustainable for me.  But the whole thing has made me think about it from a bigger perspective as well.

I've been thinking about it in regards to how carbon footprints relate to sustainability.  Personally, I believe that the smaller your carbon footprint, the more you are contributing to a sustainable future.  Less dependence on fossil fuels is the key, whether it's using less gasoline to power your car or not adding to the amount of petroleum-based fertilizers put into the ground by buying less mass-produced food from the supermarket. 

So, with that in mind, the future of teaching and academia is clearly not in burning fossil fuels to commute, especially if you're going to be teaching about sustainability.

Traveling to a sustainability/homesteading class, no doubt.

Sustainability is (I believe) best served by utilizing today's modern technologies to disseminate the ideas and share knowledge about things.  In this case, the "things" I speak of are of some very back-to-basics ways of living, like growing food naturally and making much of what you'd otherwise be buying. Do those things alone and you've lessened the amount of pollutants going into the atmosphere by a significant amount.  We don't all need to live like we're completely Amish.  But adopting just a few "Amish" practices can make a huge difference in the carbon footprint of what is otherwise a very lovely and modern life.

In other words, we can still live in both centuries.  We can use 21st century technology to teach 19th century country skills, wherever possible, thereby melding the best of both those worlds into something workable and, yes, sustainable. 

So this means if you want to learn how to can foods, it's better to get on the internet and watch free instructional videos about canning than to drive 100 miles to attend a class.  If you know someone down the road who does it and is willing to show you, then you're luckier still.  But if not, there are plenty of plucky, self-sufficient types out there making very good YouTube videos on the topics you're interested in learning how to do.

One writer I know holds workshops on homesteading-type topics and brags about how how far some of her audience members come to take her workshops.  That's not anything to brag about, to me. Because I believe that...

1) Teaching about sustainability is something we should be passing on to whomever wants to learn, free of charge.  Intern on a sustainable farm, if you need truly intensive, hands-on knowledge, which can only be built over time.  But layman's knowledge about growing food and sustainability are not things you should have to pay someone to teach you.  They're skills you should have learned at your great-grandmother's knee, but didn't have the chance to. And like any basic skill they should be passed on, person to person, generation to generation, for no other reason than to make the future a better place.

2)  If you're teaching about sustainability yet you (or your students) are putting hundreds of pounds of carbon pollutants into the air by using a private car or airplane to get to the workshop venue, you're missing the whole point. Don't talk the talk, walk the walk. Lighten your load on the planet by teaching locally or sharing your skills via your blog, the internet, or writing a book about it.  The book can travel in a more eco-friendly fashion than you or your workshop attendees ever could.

Bottom line, you cannot untie the connection between sustainable and local.  They are the two concepts that, put together, can change the future of the planet.  But the minute it becomes a "for-pay" kind of knowledge, as soon as words like "net profit"  or "commute miles" come into the picture, I think we've  blown it.

Let's not blow it.

Food desert

"Food Desert"

It looks as if our nation has lost its collective mind.  Check out this snippet from a San Joaquin Valley, CA newspaper article today. Keep in mind that Stratford is in the sunny, temperate heart of California's agricultural belt, which grows approximately half of the produce the United States consumes:

STRATFORD — What if you had to pay about $30 a month just to be able to go grocery shopping?

For Stratford resident Christina Johnson, this is the everyday life. With no grocery stores in the community and only one convenience store, Johnson and many others in Stratford must travel 10 miles or more to Lemoore or Hanford in order to buy fresh produce.

“The travel doesn’t bother me, but I do have to spend extra money on gas,” she said. “I go shopping at Save Mart in Hanford twice a week, so it can really add up.”

Johnson said she tries to make the most of her visits, doing other errands to make each trip more worthwhile. However, she said she counts herself as one of the lucky residents of Stratford because she has a car.

“It’s a big task for people here that don’t work and don’t have a vehicle,” she said. “They either have to get rides from someone or ride the bus, which would be a hassle.”

Stratford is just one of hundreds of communities across the country to be considered a “food desert,” areas that offer limited access to supermarkets. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 2.2 percent of U.S. households are more than a mile from a grocery store.

No food here!

Isn't one of the lovely advantages of living in a rural area that you can actually grow your own produce?  Most of the time, within unincorporated county islands, the rules for farming and animal-keeping are looser than they are in the city, meaning you could also keep a few chickens and maybe even a milk goat, too.  

None here either.

A hundred years ago, a much larger percentage of our population lived more than a mile from the local grocery store.  They bought their staples there and grew their fresh produce at home.  Nowadays, living more than a mile from a grocery store means you are techinically in a "food desert," because we've literally forgotten how to feed ourselves in any way other than harvesting items off a shelf in an air-conditioned food warehouse with muzak playing in the background.

So many wanna-be homesteaders (and please know I use the term "wanna-be" in the most positive way in this case) living in the cities loathe the fact that they don't have yards where they can grow food, but here you have people with not only yards, but possibly even an acre or ten outside their back door who are starving to death because they can't get to the supermarket.

Something's wrong here, people.

Eureka!  Found the food!

"Green" Beer Drinking

One of the coolest things about the area we live in is the availability of local wine and brews.  It took us awhile to discover this Firestone-Walker Brewery 805 Blonde Ale, But now that we have, we really enjoy it as an alternative to wine.  Wine is king in these parts, but this beer definitely gives the grapes a run for their money.

"805" is our area code, hence the name...how cool is that?

Another thing we like about this brew is that the brewery is right in town, which means the beer has not traveled far before it hits the grocery store shelves.  Less food miles = less pollution, for anything you consume.  Sure, you could drink imported beer that may have come from another country, or maybe just another state, but why pay for goods trucked hundreds or thousands of miles when you can find something good that's made right in your backyard?

Oh, I should also mention they make at least one excellent dark ale I've tried, called Parabola, but I haven't seen it in the stores, just the taproom.  But if I get a yen for dark beer, I will definitely head over there and buy a bottle or two to bring home.

Who knew beer-drinking could be such a green activity?