I was looking around the other day, and it sank in just how good of a spot my family is in for future permacultural potential. To illustrate what I'm talking about, I painted my neighborhood for you to see .

(created with mspaint, referencing googlemaps. scale given only as loose reference)

The blue block labelled "me" is my family's house. The "yard" next to our house is our yard, as is the "yard" directly behind our house, extending to the alley (the land slopes down after the line/fence). The gray areas in the yard are concrete (the black dot on the concrete square is the basketball pole). The brown patches are the existing garden areas, almost completely plantless at this point, save one rose bush, but mulched over heavily. They are the areas I intend to plant this spring.
But looking into the surrounding area, there is an incredible amount of green space that could feasibly be guerilla gardened in the future, as control systems get looser. The big field across from the house to the north of us (which is gutted) is city owned, I believe (well, at least it's city mowed...). The big field behind our house is owned by a church (not pictured, but I show their parking lot). Continuing east, the field across the street is owned by the city. It used to have a building on it (as is true of all of these areas), and has been subjected to some earthworks (there's now little rolling hills, with single trees planted at the top of each). Note the community garden on the corner. I'm considering renting a plot next year to grow some annuals. The grass medians in the road to the north could be planted (they're maintained by the same people who garden on the corner). And west of our house there is some fenced-in private property that could eventually be utilized by the neighborhood, far in the future. One note of concern my dad pointed out is that there's a lot of housing development right now on that northern street, and it could spread to the church owned field, or on any of the other fields.

The two trees in our yard at the moment are a maple (overhanging our yard in the corner) and a cleveland select (in the front/side yard). You can see how many (or few) trees there are in the surrounding neighborhood (most notably, there are two huge mature oak trees (I think they're burr oak), one of them being pictured south of us across the street). I want to increase the numbers of those wise beings in this land. That is my highest aspiration at the moment - to plant trees.

I'm starting to research the plant nurseries in the area to be ready to make my order come late winter. But I wonder, how would I build a forest when the nurseries are closed (hopefully, far in the future)? If there are no good specimens to graft from in the area, I'd have to start from seed. But what if I don't have the right kind of seeds available? How easily, really, could I start a permacultural garden post-collapse? Or is this (ad)venture something that is only feasable to begin from within civilization? I'm not doubting that a forest garden of sufficient size could sustain us during and after a crash, but it seems it would be a necessity to already have the forest at least in it's adolescence to have a chance.

If there is one overarching lesson I am learning these days, it is how to adapt, to readjust to changing conditions. I could let myself be immobilized by fear that my forest will be years too young even as I need to come to depend on it, or I could prepare to be able to shift lifestyles completely. While I'm watching the plants grow, I'll also still be out there learning to track rabbits (there are at least three that live on my block) and gathering acorns and lamb's quarters and dandelions. And I plan to volunteer at the urban farm/csa, new roots, in north city, hoping to make connections and build relationships with others throughout the area attempting to produce their own food - maybe get a little rhizome network going. All in all, I'm not overly concerned about the future, and I'm doing what I need and want to be doing at the present.


I just thought it was nifty how much "green space" I have around me, in the middle of the city, when I took the time to notice.

Short rainy days and long dark nights lead to a lot of time spent indoors thinking for me. I'm just happy this is the darkest it gets, and that while the cold is just beginning, it keeps getting lighter after this! Happy solstice, everyone!

I've been thinking a lot, lately, about what I'm going to do in the future. I am home/unschooling Mike for the rest of the school year, and I'd like to get at least a small food garden growing this april, if only for the experience. Beyond that, I'm not tied down to any one thing, and I wouldn't want to be either. I would love to continue unschooling my brother until he is 16. I want to take him to see Dancing Rabbit next summer. So I fantasize about living there with my brother, start on growing the beginnings of a big forest I'll live in, having that as a homebase, and still travelling around the country with my bro as long as bus fares remain reasonable to see what there is to see and learn what there is to learn, maybe do some wwoofing along the way (and when there's no organic farms around, maybe some impromtu camping/hunting and gathering in some national forests).

That's still looking only into the somewhat intermediate short term future. Which is really all the farther I feel the need to look. I suppose in my fanasy there is the implication that I'll settle down eventually at DR. From a practical standpoint, the only thing I'm sure of is that I want to become community-sufficient in procuring all the necessities of life. As I learn skills to head in that direction, I suppose I plan to spend my energy learning and practicing whatever is the most fun. Right now, I'm really into the magic of growing things. This only manifests itself in reality at the moment with my sprouting of wheat berries in a jar on the countertop, but I find it so amazing - captivating - to play with life! And death (that is, eating, in this case).

Reading Ted over the last couple months, there were points where, when he brought up parallels between his own body type and those of certain primitive peoples, that I realized that my body is really not adapted to any environment that I know of. I'm tall and skinny, so I would theoretically do well in very hot environments (and not so much in cold ones), but I'm also incredibly pale. And where there is heat, there is also generally a lot of UV rays to burn the skin when it's not blocked by melanin. So damn, where can I live? Someplace temperate and cloudy? I figure the climate will be changing so much within my lifetime (and unpredictably, too), I might as well stay where I am (meaning missouri) unless/until it forces me to move someplace else. Well, with global warming, the height/skinniness should come in handy, and maybe if that continues in combination with global dimming, I'll have the perfect body type for where I live! If only. . .

Another xkcd comic I love, entitled Nihilism.

This is pretty much exactly the reason why I haven't been blogging as of late. (comic from xkcd)

I really want to be able to just live without habitually thinking about how whatever I'm doing can make me look good to someone else. I've been an internet addict, and showcasing myself on this blog has been part of that addiction. I've begun to wean myself off the internet, gradually. I no longer feel the compulsive need to check my email all the time or refresh my feedreader five times a day. Actually, what I've done that has allowed me to get some distance away from the computer and spend some quality time with the real world is get really into food. I love food. Not just eating it, but even more so, playing with it. The vacuum of time I found myself freefalling in that I used to wastefully fill up retracing my steps over and over again on the internet I now spend fermenting, sourdoughing, sprouting, cooking, baking, washing dishes, reading really interesting cookbooks (like wild fermentation or nourishing traditions), and yes, eating. Certainly I still inevitably get on the computer towards the end of each night to check in with the goings-on of the cyberworld, but it no longer demands my near-constant attention as it used to.

Now food does that. And I'm much happier because of it.

My diet has actually undergone a pretty substantial revolution in the past month or two. I gave up peanut butter cold turkey. I don't fully know how or why I did it , but one day I was still eating my regular lunchtime meal of a humongous peanut butter sandwich (with the layer of pb between the slices of bread being as wide as one of the slices of bread) and the next day I found something else to eat instead. Pbj's (or for some lengthy intermittent spans of time, pb's) had been my lunchtime staple since I was two- throughout my childhood as a picky eater, thriving even more as I became vegetarian, and carrying me through my most recent period of purgatory hovering between vegetarianism and omnivorism. I suppose a couple things changed at once that allowed me to make the transition from constantly fatigued pb-fanatic to my present nutritionally healthy state. 1) my attempts at souring dough finally suceeded and I began to regularly consume sourdough pancakes, and 2) I started getting high quality bacon and grass fed burgers from a natural food store. A couple weeks after quitting pb, I was looking for a quick bite before going out, and I grabbed a spoonful of peanut butter only to find that it now tastes nowhere near as good as it used to (actually, more bad than good). So I'm pronouncing myself cured of my peanut butter addiction, as well as very happily an omnivore again.

If you're curious, my meals these days often go something like this: an apple first thing in the morning (granny smith's are my current favorite), then often a sourdough pancake, with butter and real (grade b) maple syrup on top, then often in the afternoon sometime a salad of sorts consisting of whatever sprouts I have going (wheat berries, quinoa, clover) mixed with some Ezekiel brand sprouted cereal, flax seeds, and whole-fat yogurt. And every few days I have a midday meal of meat, taking care to include as much saturated fat as possible. I usually have some form of eggs for dinner- an omelet or a couple over easy or scrambled or "in a (sourdough) basket". Oh yeah!, I've also made two loafs of real sourdough bread, one breadpan shaped and one round. And I've made two pumpkin pies with sourdough crusts. On halloween, instead of eating refined sugar, I made "urban legend" cookies with Rapadura and whole wheat flour, which the family enjoyed very much as well. I also gave up caffeine, except in chocolate form of course, so I've been exploring the world of herbal teas (mmm, especially with raw honey). I've also been taking bee pollen as a whole food/superfood vitamin supplement (I can't wait till spring comes to see how much it'll mitigate my seasonal allergies!). I cook with either olive or coconut oil, depending on the dish, and I bake with organic butter. I just made a batch of nut bars the other day, but they're really rich! (I used almonds, cashews, brazils, dates, and maples syrup, in decreasing order of amounts) I got a headache the first day from eating two and a half bars, and I won't be making that mistake again. I've got several different juices fermenting wildly right now- apple, grape, cranberry/blueberry. And I've still got some of my blueberry mead left. It's aging beautifully, but unfortunately I made the mistake once of shaking up the dregs before serving it to some friends. I like the dregs! But my friends don't.

Other than preparing, cooking, and eating food, I've also been dreaming of growing it again. I've recovered fully from my detour away from permaculture with Devin and now eagerly await to play with the space my family has made available to me in our yard. This is still one area where I can only read up on right now and can't do much yet except sheet mulch the beds, continue composting, and tinker with a homemade rainwater catchment system (so far, my problem is that the trashcan I'm diverting the water into fills up too fast and overflows! I've just reconnected the pipes to run into the sewer for winter, but I eagerly await holding onto and fully utilizing that water in the spring (perhaps even filtering some of it to drink?). Right now my vision for the garden is of a woodland edge garden, as that would fit the space I have availabe perfectly for now. If I were to stay here with my family on a more longterm basis, I would want to start maybe convincing them to let me turn the side yard into an orchard, and all of the yard behind the house, and down the back hill, and even in front of the house (you know that narrow strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street- I'm thinking a male and female couple of some undetermined species (probably an apple). That brings me to a question I've been pondering- If I were to build this woodland edge garden, and I only had room for one tree to start out with, what tree would be best to use? I want it to provide some food (either fruit or nut) and, since it's a forest of one, it of course needs to not need a mate to pollinate. I'm still researching, but if anyone has a suggestion, feel free to leave a comment. I'm also excited about using mushrooms in the garden, specifically mycocorrhizal fungi. And maybe with all the leaf mulch I've put down, I could grow some edible fungus too, perhaps the king stropharia. Other than the mycogrow, I really have no clue yet what I'll end up putting in. I'm trying to try out a lot of new fruits and nuts that could possibly be grown, but most just can't be found, even in a farmer's market (I'm thinking gooseberries, juneberrys, currants, and the like). There's a mulberry bush growing right next to our property line that I hope the neighbors leave alone long enough to fruit. We used to have a fruiting mulberry bush/tree ourselves until my family had the yard completely redone with dirt to level the side yard (where a house once stood) and fill in the empty concrete carlot, creating a hill down to the alley. The mulberry tree was actually perched right on the edge of the yard , hanging over the empty parking space like the magnificent weed it was. I don't think we ever ate any of the berries. Just complained about the birds pooping purple on our cars. At the same time as we had the fill dirt put in and sodded over it all, we also put in a concrete slab of a basketball court (this was all ten years ago when I was still ascending towards the peak in my fanaticism about basketball). Now I dream about tearing up that concrete to plant trees in great full southern light. Maybe someday. . .

It's been over a month and a half since I last wrote. That's significant because it's the first time since basically the beginning of this blog that I've let a whole calendar month slip by without writing at least one thing, if only to hold a place in the archive (so that there are no "missing" months). I considered posting something on November 30th, but I really didn't want to. So I didn't. I let go of my need to control this one little aspect of my outward (internet) appearance. You'll notice I also did some cleaning up of the site as a whole. I was feeling cluttered, so I cut out a lot of the bells and whistles and am working on some new pages to share, as you can see, using pbwiki. All of the links that used to be in the sidebar, and some new ones I added, can be found by following the links link to that separate page. And since the focus of this site has shifted from discussion/debate to just me randomly checking in every once in a while, I've removed the fancy html code that allowed for easier commenting/viewing. If there's anything you notice lacking in functionality of the site as a result of my delete-button happy excursion, feel free to let me know.