Author: Philo

human

Sustain Sufficiency

sustainability

The fall has come here at our new forest/farm. The renovation on the bathrooms is almost finished and the months past have flown by. The question still remains: is self sufficiency a pipe dream, is it possible? This discussion, I’m sure, is common in households that have decided to turn their backs on the supermarkets, the food-consumer concentration of non-sustainability, and suburbs that offer comfort and the all-consuming security.

First, self-sufficiency. The problem, it seems, is energy. How to sufficiently produce and continue to produce the energy that it takes. There are two possibilities: add to the energy production or take away from the energy consumption. Alone, there is no option: we must take away our need for energy to be self sufficient. So, self-sufficiency becomes a community approach to living at some point, which (in order to be moral, to be healthy and to be virtuous) must be sustainable.

Second, sustainability. The problem is energy. How to continue to sufficiently produce the energy that it takes to be self sufficient. There are two possibilities…

So while self-sufficiency and sustainability are not the same they are reliant upon one another: to sustain self-sufficiency we must have sustainable energy sources. This is the catch and the secret. This is the unending education that I am reminded of as a look out over my new acreage and feel the damp coolness seep in, watching the golden leaves fall.

I throw another log on the fire and sip my hot coffee.

Mess

(Pic of my shop. Can you find the dog?)

My shop is a mess right now, but on Saturday (at the end of the day), I looked around and liked what I saw; I turned out the lights and left it that way. Sometimes a mess is just what we need. It reminds us that we’ve worked; that we’ve done something and people need that: we need work.

There were the maple slabs on the bench that I had planed and jointed. There were the shavings from the jack plane and the tools laying about; the newly stained drawers on the sanding bench and the stack of smaller drawers on the shaper in the corner. There were the 24″ cherry slabs on the lumber stack and the tractor sat in its place dusty from use.

The pile of slate tile and the tools that go with such things next to the beer fridge in the corner. The newly installed mud sink was, well, muddy. The commanding 24″ sander with the stack of newly built cabinet doors on it waiting to be sanded; it waiting to work. Even the machinery needs to work.

The two table saws in the center of the shop were covered with cabinet door pieces waiting to be built with the cut pieces from the lumber from the stacks. The mess is coherent: the mess is meaningful. The sawdust and shavings wafting the smell of newly cut wood; the wood stove wafting the smell of warmth from the scraps that were burning in it.

As I turned to walk inside Saturday I turned for one last look knowing that the mess I now saw would just be a mess on Monday and nothing more. Turning off the light and grabbing a beer for the evening I felt like I’d done something and people need that: we need to work.

Any Questions?

The Community of the Self Sufficient

self_sufficient

To be self sufficient is a personal thing, not unlike so many who just want to “get away” and have everyone leave them alone. I am, and was one of those. However, things often must change, and do. NOFA puts on event up here in New England, and I went to a hog butchering class today. There I realized that to be self sufficient, there must be a community.

It does sound strange, but it is, and always has been, true. In the cities we often forget this fact of independence. Often we can live around millions of people and be completely alone. This is sad, true, but it is only because there are communities of self sufficient communities of people that support such lifestyles.

Aloneness is important. Being alone we can often find our “true self”, and what we find is often a bit disconcerting. But the self sufficient ought to be able look that self in the eye every morning and meet it head to head on those nights when we wake up feeling so alone and vulnerable. One way to do this, is to realize our dependence on healthy communities.

Unfortunately, self sufficiency is often correlated with those who have opted out and see survival as a pile of rations and guns. This is a misconstrued view of self sufficiency. Self sufficiency is an education and there are many great teachers out there that are willing and often able to teach those willing to learn. To realize that the community of the self sufficient are not these radical outliers one only has to reach out to learn, well, to be self sufficient.

At the class, there were seven of us, we each took turns learning to cut the 1/2 hog in such a way that would do justice to the animal, and to those who had, and will continue to create a community of the self sufficient.

The Birth of Dreams

beer

Since the dream has died, it is time to make new ones and so it is time to brew beer. Beer is one of the few possible proofs that there is a god in the universe, but brewing your own beer reminds you that really god is not needed; just clean water. And so new dreams start again, this time with the help of some well water, yeast, malt and hops.

Brewing beer gives us a break from building other things and gives us a chance to remember what counts: time. This because brewing beer takes time. If you are not cleaning, then you are waiting. The smells waft from the kettles and there is time to dream new dreams.

After Death

life-afte-death After years of living in cities, longing for the country; perhaps some peace and quiet, I look out over twenty two acres of forest and a half acre of tilled earth to become garden next year.

A dream come real is no longer a dream; a reality in the form of work, wood and wonder. Reality offers it all and reminds us with the birth of reality comes the death of a dream.

Simple needs become clear and concise. They are many reminding me that a simple life does indeed necessitate complication. Work is the key word, the kind of work that goes beyond a scotch in the evening listening to music and imagining and composing wishes.

Happiness, the quality of contentedness that so few find is possible, but the road is long, and comparisons begin to take the joy away from the reality.

For those who wish to live their dream do not compare, do not wish for more. The dream as reality will not be what you think, but it will be life as it is, not as we wish it to be.

The future is still clear, the present is all encompassing and the past is full of memories, if not regrets and happy times. Perhaps it is age, but most likely it is the realization that a dream come true is the death of the dream.

Self sufficiency has been and will continue to be the goal, it is now only a daily endeavor, a clarity of mind and a soreness of the body. The dream perhaps lives more clearly now…after death is the life that I have dreamed of.

An Update on the Experiment

experiment

This particular post is two things: an apology and and explanation.

First, an apology. I realize that blogs are particularly important to those who write them, and less so to those who read them. That being the case, I must still apologize for not being consistent, if only to myself.

Secondly, an explanation. I have embarked upon an experiment in self-sustainability that involves moving from one side of this country to the other. Such a move takes time and effort which explains my apology above. This experiment involves buying a small (22 acre) plot of land with a house, a barn foundation, and a full woodworking shop. This is the result of several years of contemplation and contrary thinking that has cost comfort and security, I hope, to a good end: to see just how self-sustaining an individual can be.

To this end I would like to invite anyone interested to visit two new sites that will be up and running this fall. First, I will have a podcast called “The Philosophy of Gardening” and at some point and time a youtube channel called Trollcastle Works. These endeavors will simply be a video/audio blog of ongoings around the property that will include forestry work, woodworking and of course gardening.

I hope to have several projects going that include: a small fruit orchard, vegetable garden, furniture making and carpentry, hops and grain fields, and brewing beer. The podcast and videos, I hope, will be of interest to anyone that might consider self-sustainability as a way of life.

I call this an experiment, because I see 100% self-sustainability as being the speed of light, and the experiment’s goal itself being to see how close to this ideal that I can get. There will be failures and there will be accomplishments, and I hope to share both.

The reason for this experiment is, of course, personal, but it stems from a belief that self-sustainability for individuals and families is the only moral option. What better way to test this belief than putting it in practice!

I hope that some of you consider following me on this adventure!

Two-Way Sword

Fear is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it is protective; a gut instinct is helpful in situations where the facts are not clear. We have an evolutionary trait (called an intentional stance) that we carry in our genes that makes assumptions that have proven to save our hides. Fear is a product of that, a consequence of both our genetic makeup and our desire to survive.

However, in the western world this intentional stance does not always serve us well. Often our fear does not help, but hinders us. The issue is for us to determine why we are afraid. At the end of the day, our actions need to be based upon well-informed decisions, but skepticism concerning our actions is a well-tested intentional stance.

Fear serves us well until we becomes slaves to it.

Perhaps our fear comes down to what it is we actually want: to be correct or to be courageous. Alas, the sword cuts two ways again.

Industry

When did the word “industrial” become synonymous with heinous attributes of our society? To be industrial has not always meant “continued or increased military spending by the national government.” a term first used by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Farewell Address on January 17, 1961. Nor has it always been “characterized by a low fallow ratio and higher use of inputs such as capital and labor per unit land area”, in contrast to traditional agriculture in which the inputs per unit land are lower. Nor has industry been a “transition to new manufacturing processes…” To be industrial traditionally refers to the efficient effort put forth by individuals, and not to the methodological destruction of other countries through warfare, or the planned and procedural devastation of the environment. Nor has industry always denigrated human beings to just another “cog in the machine”.

Industrial military complexes, industrial agriculture systems, or industrial revolutions really do not refer to industry at all, but to consumption, profit motivation, and product movement. I would like to take back the word “industrial” to mean something effective but positive; a compliment if possible. I would like to see the industrialization of our communities by seeing lawns disappear, being replaced by gardens, and useless fences replaced by useful fencing in of a few small livestock. I would like us to be an industrial culture once again, but in the true sense of the word.

If we are to become industrial, we must come to understand the system in which we work. We must understand that industrialization does not mean continued or increased inputs measured in units and efficient processes that lead to positive profits. I would like to be industrial because that is what human beings’ purpose is: to work. But we are also moral beings, and so I would like us to be morally industrial. If we are to work, then we ought to work towards something good, something positive, something sustainable, something worth being.

The good, the positive, is seldom complex and even more seldom reliant upon units, inputs, measured efficiencies or manipulated markets, goods and services. It is almost as if we have let our language fall prey to the lowest common denominators of those in our society that would have us believe that progress is measured in goods and services created by our industries rather than our industry. I would like us to be industrious without relying upon industry. We can, if we only realize that we must. We must, and so I can only hope we will.

The Armchair Philosopher

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