6.04.2006
6.03.2006
energy. money. sighs. and amens for the days.
I have not been blogging as much as I want to be, as much as I envision myself writing. I have been busy in the fields the last few weeks -steady on-the-go.
The demo gardens at rare, where 'garden ninja school' takes place, are looking fantastic. (In my humble opinion). Last Tuesday, Alexander and Leah showed up early in the day so the three of us watered and mulched as much of that sweet little garden as we could. We built the compost up another layer using more of the kitchen-office compost and a fat, fresh harvest of vetch, cut to free the rhubarb and siberian irises.
After class I put in a lot of transplants that I had brought from home, and taken from the greenhouse on the production fields. Tomatos, peppers, chinese motherwort, ground cherries, tobacco, clary sage, lemon verbena, valerian, cleomes, orange cosmos.
That class was fantastic. It was the first in herbology series. We wandered the gardens, then went in the kitchen with our handfuls of green. We began a tincture and an infused oil, and made salve with an infused oil I began a few weeks ago. It was rosemary, lemonbalm and oregano, and it smells fantastic. It was a great class.
I have have been having a series of major realisations about energy, specifically petroleum and money and personal, human energy.
One Tuesday, I was in the demo garden, and I realised that I had forgotten something at home.
I considered riding home - which is about 30 mins by bicycle each way. I wondered if someone would lend me their car.
I realised that, if I chose to go, the energy it takes to get me home and back must be expended whether it is by me or by the combustion of oil. The laws of physics demand energy to move me place to place.
I get there faster on my bicycle, expending less energy, but even that equation is subsidised by the amount of energy it took to make the steel, and to make the bike. (One might argue that in riding, I do not expend less energy than I would if I walked, which is quite likely, but the time that I save does afford me more energy.)
Oil is like credit, roughly metaphored.
It is instant, and not of your own making. It is high-powered, and is more expensive than it first appears.
But, by using a money system we can give something a value that does not reflect the true 'value', but only one aspect of it.
We can make oil cheap.
'Economics is a form of brain damage'. (Goodness if I can find where I read that! It was in the new Permaculture Activist, and someone was quoting someone as saying this. I have looked, and could not find it again. )
Whether or not I knit the sweater I am wearing the energy needs to be expeded.
Money is a way of skimming the energy and re-allocating it. Subsidies, wages, 'value', coal and petroleum, all distort the true energy production and consumtion balance.
Items that are cheap - refering only to their designated monetary value- are a key to making money. Florists need to keep their container costs low, so the industry supplies stoneware and ceramic pots for $4-$8, mostly from Asia. The cute little pots are drenched in petroleum and factory labour.
Going the cheap way supports degredation somehwere else; it is a credit taken in other humans energy, and Earth's energy stores. Money has made acceptable and possible lynching another into repaying your debt.
Derrick Jensen, at some point in 'Culture of Make Believe' says something to the effect that true and persistant creativity will create the change.
Grow your own mulch. Make beads. Make medicine from herbs you grew, and art from roadside plants. Write, and observe.
Grow your own mulch. Provide for your own scene. Figure out how to work what you got into what you need. Yes, I am now veering towards a rant that stems from a difference of perspectives between the boss and I.
So often, less is more.
The demo gardens at rare, where 'garden ninja school' takes place, are looking fantastic. (In my humble opinion). Last Tuesday, Alexander and Leah showed up early in the day so the three of us watered and mulched as much of that sweet little garden as we could. We built the compost up another layer using more of the kitchen-office compost and a fat, fresh harvest of vetch, cut to free the rhubarb and siberian irises.
After class I put in a lot of transplants that I had brought from home, and taken from the greenhouse on the production fields. Tomatos, peppers, chinese motherwort, ground cherries, tobacco, clary sage, lemon verbena, valerian, cleomes, orange cosmos.
That class was fantastic. It was the first in herbology series. We wandered the gardens, then went in the kitchen with our handfuls of green. We began a tincture and an infused oil, and made salve with an infused oil I began a few weeks ago. It was rosemary, lemonbalm and oregano, and it smells fantastic. It was a great class.
I have have been having a series of major realisations about energy, specifically petroleum and money and personal, human energy.
One Tuesday, I was in the demo garden, and I realised that I had forgotten something at home.
I considered riding home - which is about 30 mins by bicycle each way. I wondered if someone would lend me their car.
I realised that, if I chose to go, the energy it takes to get me home and back must be expended whether it is by me or by the combustion of oil. The laws of physics demand energy to move me place to place.
I get there faster on my bicycle, expending less energy, but even that equation is subsidised by the amount of energy it took to make the steel, and to make the bike. (One might argue that in riding, I do not expend less energy than I would if I walked, which is quite likely, but the time that I save does afford me more energy.)
Oil is like credit, roughly metaphored.
It is instant, and not of your own making. It is high-powered, and is more expensive than it first appears.
But, by using a money system we can give something a value that does not reflect the true 'value', but only one aspect of it.
We can make oil cheap.
'Economics is a form of brain damage'. (Goodness if I can find where I read that! It was in the new Permaculture Activist, and someone was quoting someone as saying this. I have looked, and could not find it again. )
Whether or not I knit the sweater I am wearing the energy needs to be expeded.
Money is a way of skimming the energy and re-allocating it. Subsidies, wages, 'value', coal and petroleum, all distort the true energy production and consumtion balance.
Items that are cheap - refering only to their designated monetary value- are a key to making money. Florists need to keep their container costs low, so the industry supplies stoneware and ceramic pots for $4-$8, mostly from Asia. The cute little pots are drenched in petroleum and factory labour.
Going the cheap way supports degredation somehwere else; it is a credit taken in other humans energy, and Earth's energy stores. Money has made acceptable and possible lynching another into repaying your debt.
Derrick Jensen, at some point in 'Culture of Make Believe' says something to the effect that true and persistant creativity will create the change.
Grow your own mulch. Make beads. Make medicine from herbs you grew, and art from roadside plants. Write, and observe.
Grow your own mulch. Provide for your own scene. Figure out how to work what you got into what you need. Yes, I am now veering towards a rant that stems from a difference of perspectives between the boss and I.
So often, less is more.
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