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.

Crisis or Opportunity?

Interesting story off the Associated Press this morning, about the "crisis" of large feedlots closing due to a lack of cattle:

Too Few Cattle Left To Feed

This crisis has been brewing for some time, as the price of corn skyrocketed (due to its use as a fuel component), followed by a midwest drought, which depleted much of the corn produced for all purposes.  Because of this, many ranchers sold their herds for pennies on the dollar and stopped breeding the cattle they had left, because it had simply become too expensive and difficult to feed them. The article reminds everyone that less cattle in the surviving feedlots will mean higher prices for beef at the grocery store and in restaurants.

And they make it sound like it's a bad thing.

It's just my opinion, but I firmly believe if most Americans ate less industrially-produced beef, it would not harm their health at all.  In fact, it might even improve it.

Humans do not need beef, especially not fattened up, corn-fed beef.  Corn-fed beef tastes better in the way a Twinkie tastes better than a chewy piece of homemade bread with butter and jam.  It's more bland, easier to digest, and filled with a lot more chemicals and unnecessary ingredients that make it easy on the palate.  Maybe we like that better because it's easier to forget that a living creature died in order for us to have it on our plate.  We are uncomfortable thinking about things like that.

Grass-fed beef can taste "gamey" (or perhaps "beefy" would be a better word).  You can't mass-produce grass-fed beef like you can corn-fed, feedlot beef, because grazing requirements are high.  Because 100% grass-fed beef is more difficult to produce, it's more expensive, meaning you will probably eat less of it than other things, like pork or chicken.

We had steak last night, the first we've had in several months.  It was really good -- grass-fed, locally raised and processed beef -- but it is expensive and, because of that, is an occasional treat for us.  Ditto for hamburger meat.  
Perhaps one unforeseen up-side to climate change ruining our vast fields of mono-crops is that we'll all be healthier, eating more home-grown and home-raised vegetables, or even small livestock that could be raised and butchered in a backyard.  Maybe more people would even choose to become vegetarian, once they were faced with the prospect of butchering their own backyard farm animals and meeting their meat on an up close and personal basis.

Perhaps there's a bright side to these harrowing times...if we choose to change how we do things.  We're two generations (at least) out from where most Americans did some farming, which means it's not too late yet to get back to a more agrarian lifestyle, even in urban backyards and vacant lots.  

Our grandparents and great-grandparents can light the way for us, if we'll let them.  And we'd better let them, before those micro-farming skills die with them and are gone forever.