Monday, July 4, 2016

Down-Home Good Sense on Independence Day

 New Moon 
Fourth of July

As start to a hearty breakfast, I nibbled my way through the garden at first light. All praise to the dewy cool of morning.

I pinch-pruned basil destined for pesto, savoring pungent leaflets; munched down the first Sugar Snap peas, a few celery leaves, sprigs of parsley. Also added savory thyme to the pot of beans simmering in the solar oven.

Fantasyland? Not really. Try common sense. Here's why:

This day in the US, freedom! is celebrated, freedom from 18th century super-power tyranny, the Fourth of July. 

For beautiful, for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesty
Above the fruited plain...

I grew up, hand on heart, singing "America the Beautiful." Even when three feet tall, the national anthem struck me as shrill, and a strange hymn to explosions. 

Mind you, I also grew up with duty/honor/country, and a deep respect for public service.

The amber waves of grain have morphed to GMO, to "Frankenfood." The breadbasket of the world of yore, lies poisoned. And, hand on heart, Tyranny-R-us. 

A political commentator, PCRoberts, not on board the globalist express, mentions that the USA has destroyed seven (resource-rich) countries in fifteen years.

Just in case of citizen disagreement or impudence or outrage, take note: Billions of hollow point bullets the government stockpiles? For domestic use. What?

So, where does a cool morning stroll through the garden come in, beneath apparent force fields of power über alles?!

Down-home, the "buck stops here" in community, family, and good neighbors. (Be one.)

I mentioned a solar oven. It's sunny and bright today. Cooking beans could take several hot hours indoors. I set the pot in the oven and will move the structure once or twice to catch the rays. That's it. 

I have no financial interest in any of the simple at-home can-do which follows. It's just good sense, and bottom line, we're all in this together.

A government devoted to itself, to wars, to crushing of dissent may not maintain bridges, roads, or any sense of humanity. It's up to us.

Just supposin'...

If the power grid were to go down by whatever means, a solar oven cares not; just does its job. I once made one with a friend, a useful exercise though a rickety end-product. This is worth a look: http://www.solarovens.org/


Water: Consider a gravity-filter which requires no power or water pressure, and can safely purify river and lake water. Long used by the Red Cross in disaster areas. 

Some feel that the black filters yield a better tasting, spring-like water than the ceramic. Here's a useful review:
http://www.cookinggodsway.com/big-berkey-water-filter-system-review/

How about hot showers? We, the spoiled, who've forgotten the bowl and pitcher sponge baths of centuries? Some folks never bathed, considering it unhealthy. The homeless and those in war zones rarely bathe.

A solar shower is fun on camping trips and may be a public service if things should ever go wonky and bodies grow stinky. It's one item easy to find locally, at outdoor stores.

Food? arrgghh. This might be a savvy time to get to know your local farmers and farmers markets and grow what you can. Learn from an old-timer, a gift to you both. 

My neighbor has hired a WWOOFer. The young woman gets room and board and helps with gardening and property maintenance.
http://www.wwoof.net/

You might be surprised how many eager-beaver young folks are indignant about worthless college degrees, debt and the grand finale of flipping burgers

Many long to learn useful skills, and especially how to form community and local self-sufficiency. 

Gardens, including tomato and flower pots on a balcony, are magic. We two-footeds draw closer to sustaining-life when we walk among butterflies, hummingbirds and honeybees. And when we plant for them.

It's a new moon today, in the sign of Cancer the crab. New moons favor new beginnings, and this new moon is in the sign which loves hearth and home, family, food, and old skills.

There's hope for us, one by one, family by family, hearth to hearth, idiosyncracies and skills yet unknown! 

Happy Fourth of July.

2 Comments:

At July 5, 2016 at 9:10 PM , Blogger Mmamallama said...

I spent time with a man today who told me of leaving his church job and going to his in-laws' farm, and what a powerful, contemplative experience it was to pull out fence posts all day. He said "By end of day I was tired and sore, but what a wonder it was to look at the edge of the field and see how where there had been rotting old fence posts, now there were no posts from here to there," motioning with his hands. And his eyes filled with tears at the memory.

 
At July 6, 2016 at 2:13 PM , Blogger Wayfarer said...

Mmamallama, what a treat to hear from you. Thank you for such a good story.

There's something about being on soil, not asphalt, and doing simple honest work that helps us ground out all the electronic buzziness that's our norm now.

Ditto walking barefeet on the beach or sitting on a rock ledge and just being quiet to all the doings around--hawk overhead, wildflowers, maybe a coyote.

In the Type A mode, it could look like useless doing nothing. But there may be peace there like we haven't known for a good little while.

 

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