Comin' home

[curt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua_ODg0FmzQ

soon

[Mouse]

Half the problem is that when the dear fellow who carried the tree trunk down on his back and cut it up to make posts for fencing and to support the honeysuckle died the posts fell down and everything collapsed.

All my mother's grandparents were Irish. When we tried returning all that was left of the abandoned village close by us in Droumbrain were heaps of stones. The paths between villages were wellnigh eradicated by modern forestry. Under the trees the walls of lost fields were tumbled and covered in moss. Everywhere the sound of water flowing in little rills. It was like heaven. My mind is turning over in delight.

[waldopaper]

I remember driving through the Irish countryside... seeing so many abandoned farms... even villages. There were stone walls that stretched for miles... must have taken so many people decades to carry from the fields and stack with such care. The sun would go down... and in the darkness, occasionally there was a light that indicated at least one of the "abandoned" homes was occupied.

It made me want to visit.

[curt]

I see a cat in the clouds. Looks like a mountain lion, a Puma. Just the face. To the left of the Puma face, I see a calf's eye. To the right, an eagle landing. Unrest in the sky portion indicate a storm. Storm clouds never fail to produce images like these.

I should have avoided certain substances while a teenager.

[BO]

"Today in western North Dakota a 3,000-acre (1,200 hectares) spread of wheat is necessary for survival, ..."

I think that figure is based on profitability--not self-sustainability.

My grandparents' farm was only 400 acres or so. But they had cows, chickens, pigs, vegetable garden, barn, root cellar, storage facilities, their own water source, various heating sources, every tool imaginable, and knowledge that doesn't exist today. They knew how to survive without any help at all. The wheat, barley, etc. that they sold was for money they needed to augment what they couldn't create themselves.

Today's farms are nothing but corporate dirt. In fact a lot of them are farmed in groups to amortize the costs. The economy of scale--the bigger the better.

Individuals have been replaced with systems and specialization. Serfs and lords. The same shit that created the original mass migration in the 1800's is here again. Hence, the need to begin thinking about migrating once again. It's in our blood.

The new frontier will be those places that can resist the trend toward globalism and the values the US now represents. Hopefully, there are still a few of those places left. Go south young man. Or join a tribe that's willing to succeed.

[waldopaper]

"I think that figure is based on profitability--not self-sustainability." Precisely!! I think (hope) even the article's writer realized this... maybe not. It seems like the diverse 400 acre (wow!) farmstead you describe could sustain itself indefinitely. The fact that you need 4 square MILES of a single crop... plus all the shit you need to maintain such a monster is the apex of the absurdity nobody seems to see. Yes... the migration is about to take place... and joining the Bolivarian Revolution is an option worth considering. Scalable agriculture in low-population areas like ND is another... plus it's close to Canada.

Curt brings up that gnarly question of defense again. At first, I thought "...defense against what?" Then I read about another scalable enterprise:

"A Word of Caution: Ghost towns are frequently re-inhabited after they're abandoned. Although you may meet some friendly folks, there's also the possibility you may run into some not-so-friendly folks too. If you stumble across someone's meth lab, obviously LEAVE. "

Jeebuzz Sheetrock. Tweekers in NORTH DAKOTA?? Last gasp of scalable enterprises in the "cheap energy" culture, I suppose. The question is the same: how much grief and misery of others are you willing to support in order to sustain your own comfort? THAT dilemma will be with us for quite some time. Teaching seemed to be the answer... until being forced to shill grossly-overpriced "textbooks" for grossly-overpriced "classes" ... again- "profitability" and "economy of scale."

Well it could be worse. Fortunately, our Allies are with us. And at least we don't work for Jews.

[waldopaper]

I think the wile wile west is gonna be the mile mile bes when da banks close and the infrastructure break down. but that just speculation, eh? draw a spiderweb-splat from the major population centers, and that tell you where it be the most fucked up. problem with disability is that i really IS fucked up.

ok-right- i kin open a door at Sprawl-Mart. (part time) .. so that's "meaningful work." Truth is== "they" suck the bread out ye right now to pay the rich CEO defensekorpbucks fatties. it's a scam.

there is virtually nobody in ND... and no way to get there... even if they wanted to... which they don't.

[BO]

A recent e-mail from my cousin about growing up in north Dakota where even your balls need antifreeze. (sorry ladies)

Quote:

Yeah the winters were something else. I would sleep with Carl [BO's grandpa] in the grainry near the house that had no insulation or heater. As long as I stayed under the Canadian horsehair blanket, I was warm, but getting up and getting dressed wasn't so much fun. I remember one winter where we had to go through a 30-foot snow tunnel to get to the outhouse. Everyone in Chicago wonders why I don't wear very heavy clothes, but it is really warm here compared to North Dakota. And I love shoveling snow especially now that I am retired. I also like running in the cold. I think getting cold has to do with attitude as much as biology.

I only wore a letterman's jacket that I got from being a team manager without a hat or gloves most of the winter. I found out that if I kept the muscles in my lower back relaxed and didn't start shivering, I could stay warm.

One day during a heavy blizzard, I couldn't drive my car to take a test at UND so I headed out with a parka and decided to walk the four miles. I made it, but because I was moving pretty fast and my balls started sweating, I had to put my hand in my crotch to keep them from icing up. True story. Only a few people that lived on campus showed up for the test.

Hope you and your family have a good healthy year.

P

[BO]

Thanks for the links, Waldo. God I love rummaging around old farm houses. Your link to the ghost towns of ND brought back some memories. Makes me want to go back and explore. A good way to flush contemporary life out of the system.

[Mouse]

Focus on the things that matter. Genuine friendship, in whomsoever it is found and wherever they are, is a cohesion that can shift us into a different kind of global society, I am thinking. Something in a universe parallel to the nightmare of networking.

Rummaging around old farmhouses.....
I had a man who discovered a barn full of treasure in his youth, by torchlight.

[pan]

The first year I was in Cape Girardeau, MO (Rush LImbaugh's home town) I choreographed a very post-modern work to Giustino Di Gregorio's Sprut, a very disjointed sampling of all sorts of musics and titled it Home is Where You Are. This has been our quest, throughout our married life together, to find home. The wife recently amended the idea to Home is where the two cats and you are. San Francisco was home but it was too hard to scrape together a living there and California has too damn many people. The Puget Sound.....Tacoma....has some possibilities but there are some definite issues here. The Dakotas, especially N.D., too hard to survive there. There is a reason why the state is so sparsely populated.

It is fitting that the RBC keeps moving from one site to another - not really finding a home at any one of them - it goes to show ya what a bitch it is to rent, not own.... And I do love the paradox that the Reality Based Community is based in Virtual Space.

[waldopaper]

I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound
(Tom Paxton)

Tune from the old days... exploring the bold works of Jack D... which led to the sad story of Iron Thunderhorse... aye, we are nomads... "...some ragged treasure hunter found that bottle in the sand." We leave behind our petroglyphs. Perhaps only the stars will see them. Maybe that's enough.

I am drawn to godforsaken places like the Great Plains or Michigan's UP... keeps the peeps away... and I have the ability to hibernate. Sunny and warm is ok too... as long as you can be cool and share. "Survival," yeah... or the next step up: "making a living." The paradox today is that you often have to give up life to make a living. Most artists spend their days breaking their ass on that wheel. If you are capable of grossing $900 a month doing anything, the govt. defines that as "substantial work." Most artists would settle for even that. I know I would... but greeter at Wal-Mart? No thanks.

Jack D. has done stellar research... can't get anybody to take it seriously. Thunderhorse has reached through time itself... and it looks like he might die in prison. Van Gogh shot himself next to a pile of shit... and missed. Everybody wants to own a Van Gogh. Nobody wants to be a Van Gogh. We have this day and our daily bread. That is enough. We have our soul-mates and kindred spirits... and that is a great gift. I hope one day the generations that follow us will find a "home." For us... it's the wilderness.

My German ancestors scowl at me. Do I think I am BETTER than the greeter at Wal-Mart? Nie nie, mein altes Volk.

It's been going on for ten thousand years.

[littleoldme]

I'm lookin' for some place that has a decent growing season. If you're gonna live off the land you have to have enough of a growing season to do it.

I did find a very informative site, well really it's what's on the site that makes it informative and really interesting reading. It's called Feeding America. http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/browse.html
If you start reading some of the stuff from the 1800's and before, they are a wealth of info on survival. They aren't just old cook books. Pretty amazing stuff. How and when to plant, churn your own butter, etc. You might enjoy reading some of them.