Leave it to the kooks. . .

Anyway, I often forget how few people have done any sort of provisioning, especially for time frames of more than a few days. I also forget how few people cook! Anyway, the following website can be a big help to get a grasp on what you need to pack away to be sensibly prepared.

http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm

By the way, get a load of that crazed vacant stare of the woman at the bottom of the page! Dang, don't she look Redeemed! Or something. . .

Don't forget that many of these survival foods take a great deal of preparation time and fuel to prepare! Don't be thinking you're going to be cooking a pot of beans over an open fire with wet wood in the rain--and get any sort of sensible results! Think ahead, it's a bigger issue than many take seriously, and we may well be playing for keeps.

It's time. . .

that those of us who are paying attention to what is going on recognize that as the economy falls into despair that the responsibility of keeping our communities intact is going fall into our laps. It's going to be us and only us left standing to provide the most basic of services that keeps local civility intact.

So, have a heart and plant a little taro for so your neighbors kids can have something to eat next spring.

A homesteader's godsend: 'Uala

This is an amazing plant.

I think one can be well assured that an earnest planting of 'uala will greatly aid the success of any Hawaiian homestead.

Easy to grow? Well, I'd say it's like farming morning glory. Whack off a 12 inch piece of vine and more or less stick it in the ground. Within a week it will growing. In my research there were some rituals locally involving the plant and a more complicated treatment, perhaps in different areas or climates on the island this might matter. For me, however, that's all it takes.

At this point, the variety I have--the piko type--bears smallish tubers in about six months after planting. Yields per plant are not high, not like potatoes, but you can expect 2 lbs per plant. The plant itself makes up for those yields by easily being crowded in with itself, about a foot apart per plant, and the vines frankly run amok. If one rotate plants by trimming the vines out of footpaths replanting the cuttings it wouldn't take much to produce serveral hundred pounds of useful harvest with very little attention.

It grows, alright. It likes as much sun and water as it can get, but I can't seem to kill it no matter what I do. It is ornamental and an aggressive groundcover that will even choke out grass.

Traditionally, it was one of the two "big" local survival crops and no question as to why. It seems to me that if a small homestead planned on 100 plants, rotation farmed as one went through the stocks, you could supply a significant percentage of a families food with great reliability. It is more or less bug, slug, vog and chicken immune. The small tubers are typical sweet potatoe types, and they get significantly sweeter about a week after they're harvested, which makes it nice to be able to keep some of that "sweetness" under control, if you're like me and not partial to it. It lends itself very well to typical potatoe curry style dishes.

There are quite a number of other uses attributed to the plant, but at this point I haven't personal experience with those--perhaps someone who has can inform the conversation!

Perhaps the most dangerously endangerered aspect of Hawaii. . .

. . .is the island lifestyle.

At this moment which taking on a non-materialistic lifestyle becomes critical to one's very well-being, it is very disheartening to see the slow-moving, easy going, family and leisure time Pacific values being lost to consumerism, development, and legislation--especially legislation--being crafted with the specific goal of outlawing what some see as "sub-standard" existences. It is especially sad, I think, to see the young guys who have compromised their own tradition for big trucks, chrome, hip-hop paraphernalia or otherwise mainland, pre-packaged, consumerist "attitude" who now stand to lose the whole works to high fuel prices, unemployment and a chronically bad economy.

So,

Certainly any meaningful progressive actions must have their root core in non-materialist living. Already our core cultural values are beginning to change, mostly by necessity. . .but we have a very very long way to go to get our personal levels of consumption to historically sensible terms. The average American will require a 90% reduction in consumption and expenditure to get within striking range of ethical or sustainable living, and this dirty little secret is something the evangels of ecology, especially those preaching "simple living" while living on a trust fund are not too often to bring up.

Still, at this moment facing a very poor economic future with grave uncertainties regarding commodities scarcity and climate, it would be hard to argue that paring back one's expenses, saving all one possibly could and living as minimally as one could is a bad idea. In fact, it's never been a bad idea--it's simply, until recently, been a counter cultural idea. Without a consumptive lifestyle, even not so long ago, it was very difficult to maintain any sort of social group. . .by necessity, this is rapidly changing.

Interesting times, for sure. I doubt much in terms of human values we currently hold will survive the century.

Drawing a bead. . .

Just as combative handgun experts suggest--there's no crime in the first shot being wild, as long as the 3rd pull is dead on the money. Sometimes it takes focus to focus.

Obviously a lot of you are thinking about the same sorts of stuff, which is why my in-box is flooded.

I think we can draw a bead on the target. Let's think things through together.

"Green" is an unaccountable, immeasurable, bullshit term prone to distortion and exploitation.

"Sustainability" is an unaccountable, immeasurable, bullshit term prone to distortion and exploitation.

"Ecological" is an unaccountable, immeasurable, bullshit term prone to distortion and exploitation.

What do I mean? I mean terms like these have come to be expressed in gassy, almost religious overtones where the definition of each is so vaguely defined it's immune to the probings of reasonable critique and rational discourse. They cannot be held to any standard of accountability. If I say I live a "green" lifestyle, what the hell does that mean? So does John Travolta. There's obviously massive problems with the integrity of the term green if it can encompass lifestyles as diverse as his and mine. Hell, I don't even have a proper landing strip for the chickens. This sloppy thinking and fast slick wordsmanship MUST change, as the "ecological movement" is being rapidly commercialized into horseshit consumerism!

Since the issue we face ultimately is a performance oriented issue--not an ideological one--meaning the world economy, global climate change, and resource depletion is one of measurable empirical issues, so should be our response to the issue. It has relationship to what you "feel," only with what you "do"--or more importantly--what you don't! Meaning, precisely, that in the same way that population, balance sheets, energy input and output are measured, so should be our relative success. I don't think this is a difficult or high bar at all. It is, again, a shot at that word "effectual" that I brought up at the first. Who is greener? Who is wiser? Who is more humane? Easy--who lives better on less?

The success and credibility at this moment of one's ecological integrity should not be measured by one's bankroll, or the high powered consulting wage one draws, nor the size of one's eco-estate, but rather by the LACK of all the above.

Who is the ultimate judge of who is an effectual person or not? Not I, but I will suggest, among those of us who know sailing understand the ultimate judge of sailing performance is certainly Poseidon Himself, and with living, it must be Life. Not to wax metaphysical, but surely we can agree it is admirable to find examples of those who do much, and more so those who do much with little, and more so those who do more with nothing. Likewise, vs. versa.

So, let us demand much much more, both of ourselves and others. Quantify, in real terms, your assertions or back away from your argument! For example, if you say photovoltaic cells are more "green" than gasoline, I'll grant you that, because I don't really care. I want to know whether they're more effectual--which is a quantity drivable, meaning will I get more power, less co2, and usage out of 5000 bucks worth of gasoline or PV panels? This is not a unrealistic question to ask, and one of many, and it must be asked. WE ARE PLAYING FOR HIGHER STAKES AT EVERY MOMENT.

And the stakes are already VERY high. This isn't your papa's "back to the land" movement. The 60's hippies went "back to the land" to frolic in the flowers. My generation is doing it to cover their ass, not expose it.

Who's right? Not me, I'm no expert. I'm just some dude living in the jungle on pennies. We'll know in 20 years, won't we. . .?

So, back to designing the woodburner stove. . .this diatribe brought you by some young dreadhead buck who informed me he "taught sustainability" for a living.

Chew on that. Chew on it again.

Anybody feel like going camping?

. . .for the rest of your goddamned life?

Well, trying to put a little humor into the state of the world economy this morning.

Why you cannot possibly win, except on a personal level.

First, look here.

Now tell me that your driving a hybrid makes for a better world. . .looks like all you're doing is freeing up a little jet fuel for others to play with.

Still, on a personal level, you can and will win. You will retain your sense of integrity and humanity, and you won't likely starve to death. I'd say both of these are big pluses.

Anyway, it's interesting to ponder such lifestyles and people while congress steps to bail out banks, with intent to pass legislation in a record 5 days--meanwhile the health care debate drabbles on for years and years, and all other stuff is obviously ridiculous, and fat cat environmentalists like Kennedy and Travolta encourage us all to "cut back on our personal consumption."

Something else worth thinking about.

Methane waste digesters are rapidly becoming the most effective way of dealing with wastes in poor and rural areas around the world. The technology is certainly applicable and cost effective for a small homestead in areas with a high enough average temperatures. If you're unfamiliar with the technology, take a look.

Of course, like near everything else one needs to do to prepare for the future, certainly this is in violation of some law or another. But, remember, the need for survival may trump compliance! A little bit of pirate attitude may well be warranted.

http://www.ruralcostarica.com/biodigester.html?gclid=CP-F2cSG8JUCFQOWHgod5AWifw

A biomass cooker

One of the things one is faced with when trying to pare back a budget is this: the majority of really cheap food is fuel intensive to cook. Sure, we all like a good bean soup or locally, good poi, but the fact is that boiling away for hours when the doing so requires the consumption of expensive electricity, liquid or gaseous fuels--suddenly things become much less frugal. It can cost 5 bucks to cook a dollars worth of food, and this hardly makes sense. Suddenly you're better off to have a steak.

So, in the quest for simplicity, I built a simple updraft charcoal/wood cook stove of the type modeled on the "volcano" stove and a zillion others. There's a lot of designs, they all work, some built out of paint cans--mine is a little nicer built out of 6 inch well casing about 15 inches long and a piece of plate stock.

There isn't much to it. Weld them together. Drill a few holes in the top and bottom(of the sides of the thing, of course) and give it a test burn. With no pot on the top the stove should burn hot and quickly generate very hot coals in the tube. Once you're at this point, you can put a pot on top, which caps the major draft and now you're burning charcoal, which will simmer along for hours. Burn quality dry fuel in this device or your wasting your time. For an experiment, plain old grocery store charcoal is good for practice.

Start out with 4 .5 inch holes in the top and bottom of your can or tube. If the fire burns too low once the pot is on, or goes out, punch a few more. You want a very low flame that burns for several hours with a slow cook process. Don't worry over much about bugs getting into the stew, as the small amount of smoke from the thing drives them off.

A very useful and practical device, and cooking a pot of chickpeas on the equinox is a fairly idyllic experience.