Children of the Corn

We just watched this amazing movie that you should get out of the library. It's called King Corn and it's about, well, everything. It's about civilization, about food, about that crazy state, and people, mostly fat people, which is to say people. It's about everything. And it all comes from corn, which comes from oil. They didn't really talk much about oil but that's okay, you can't cover everything in a film.

If you were to have your hair analyzed you would find that most of the carbon in your body (which you got from food) comes from corn. We eat corn in everything: pop, all processed foods (that's right, all!), cheap meat is fed corn, and any sugar is probably made using cheap corn syrup. It's pretty much impossible to avoid unless you are going to grow your own food and only purchase whole foods. And even then, who isn't tempted?

I actually called Smuckers (the jam company, likely owned by Lockheed-Martin) the other day because I naively wanted to know if their sugar was made from sugar beets (genetically modified) or cane sugar (not genetically modified yet). Little did I know that their sugar comes from corn (genetically modified). So as I informed Linda on the phone, there'll be no more Smuckers on the kitchen table and probably no more commercial jam since it will all contain fructose from corn because it is so cheap.

And why is it so cheap? Because the government subsidizes corn production. In the film, most farmers (if you can call them that) post a loss until the subsidies come through. So the only reason we have a crazy, deadly, stupid, death food system is because the government supports it. You'd think that in Canada, with nationalized (for now) healthcare that this would be discouraged. Recognizing this fact, I don't have high hopes that universal healthcare will come south of the border anytime soon. Good luck President Obama.

The only good news is that this generation is likely to live shorter and much more painful lives than our parents and their parents. Serves us right for being so stupid. So hopefully some humans will die. But that's the only good news and it's kind of twisted.

But check out King Corn if you can. But if you still can't do without the grocery store and your daily dose of cola then maybe you should just get back to the television. I'm sure something good is on. Perhaps another Michael Jackson retrospective?

Lost at Sea

We've had a fun week here at Wild Roots. The fellow who brought us our firewood for this winter also works as a lobster fisherman in season. He offered to take us out to show us how they do it. So we joined him for an early morning lobstering adventure. It was nice to be out on the water in the early morning light. There was no rain and no waves. I'm not normally seasick but I think that being hammered by waves might be a bit much. It was a nice treat for our wwoofer Yuka, who in typical Japanese fashion took lots of pictures. Happily she provided me with some to share here.


So what did I learn? I learned yet again how fucked up the global economy is. Sorry, I mean the death economy, we've really got to tell it like it is. There were so many traps everywhere along the shore, marked by hundreds of little coloured buoys. Dan and I both remarked on it. Way too many. And the lobster fishermen are getting even less for their catch this year.


Basically the lobster fisherman (didn't see a woman but you never know) are catching lobsters to send to the United States and other countries. Those countries don't want to pay a fair price, so lobster fishermen have to sell it for nothing for the privilege of feeding some bastard who works in an office and produces nothing and gets paid more than them.

I'd like to submit that lobster fishermen instead tell all those shitheads in their offices to fuck off if they don't want to pay a fair price and just focus on selling their catch locally. Why ship them around the world anyway? Oh yeah, because those other countries have already destroyed their fisheries and they want the same for us. Thanks for sharing. But seriously, if 90+% of the catch was saved for Cape Breton the fishery might last for a long time, maybe even forever (as much as humans are aware of forever). Because Cape Bretoners who live here wouldn't want to lose a valuable source of food. Why would you throw that away? For money? You must be insane?

I still haven't eaten lobster. I'm sure it's nice. I did eat some donair beef that was offered me on an organic farm we worked at last week. It was nice, flavoured with some spices. I didn't have any tummy upsets. And I had a sausage of a bun today at lunch from the same organic farmers who come to the Mabou Farmers' Market. Again no ill effects.

But don't worry, oh faithful vegetarian reader, I'm not going totally carnivourous. If I did I would be living on the street anyway. Have you noticed just how much food prices are going up? We're fucked. And I'll only eat happy animals or the happiest animals, wild animals. I'm game to try deer or moose in the fall. Dan's going to try for a moose but it's a lottery to get your tag.

And I read a review for a book that I'm not going to read unless the library gets it or someone brings it by that might be some food for thought about the diet issues raised above. It's called The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith. It sounds like a heavy read for a vegetarian but it might be really important for you to read it. Check it out.

The thing that made me think in reading a review the other day was that vegetarians assume that our choice to not eat meat causes less violence or environmental destruction when in fact it just shifts the violence and desolation. Instead of slaughtering thousands of factory farmed chickens we are encouraging the dead economy to mow down forests to plant grains and beans destroying countless beings. So really if food is already about violence then you might as well take on that violence yourself and be accountable for it.

And it again makes me think about population. C'mon swine flu! Just a few billion to go. You can do it! We really need your help as we aren't about to take action on our own.

The End of Drugs

I remember once being told how one friend's mother reacted to the Upside of Down by Thomas Homer-Dixon. The book goes through the converging crises that "threaten" (one might call this is justice) civilization. As I recall he talks about peak oil, climate change, overpopulation, you know the usual. Anyway in response to the book's title, my friend's mother exclaimed: "Where's the upside?"

Though I view any kind of civilizational collapse as the upside because it will force us to behave as other beings do on this planet or die, the other day I thought of an upside.

Right now, tens of thousands (probably more) people are involved in the production of "illegal" drugs like heroine, cocaine, crack, ecstasy, acid and probably a whole lot more that thankfully I've never heard of. These drugs are highly addictive and destructive and we should all pity those who become ensnared by them. Most of the abovementioned drugs require industrial processing techniques to produce and, as I mentioned, a large workforce to grow, harvest, process and produce in labs. Right now all these people can produce these ultimately useless products because they are supported by cheap energy which provides them with food, heating and clothing and more.

But imagine in a few years when energy costs are much higher than they are today. The people involved in the drug trade, both producers and consumers, are going to have to think a lot more about where their food comes from. Do you think they are going to have time to sit in a lab and produce their quota of ecstasy when their stomach is rumbling continuously? And what kind of market do you think you'll have when your customer base is chewing tree bark? If they are stupid enough to even be thinking of drugs then happily for all of us, they won't be passing on their useless genes to the next generation.

So an upside to down. Many addictive and destructive drugs are going to disappear. And as a bonus, the human population is likely to decline because many addicts are going to die (sorry if I upset you but really there are way too many humans, it's time we accepted this and stopped valuing human life above everything). Maybe I'm wrong and somehow one can overcome a crippling addiction to become a succesful hunter and gatherer or permaculturist in the post-crash world. I just don't think addicts of such potent drugs will be able to go cold turkey.

Having said all this, I still think there will be drugs available but people will likely produce them themselves. Marijuana, mushrooms, opium, alcohol, tobacco, coffee and tea will likely still be consumed as they require fewer energy inputs and can be produced at home without high technology (depending on where you live).

Once again these thoughts make me realize just how much of an aberration the past century has been in the history of our species. Fast cars and deadly drugs.

Twentieth century go to sleep.

Time

Our garden is far from Eden. It is populated by a voracious horde of cutworms and now the cucumber beetles have moved in. Literally everything we plant is subject to consumption by a tiny insect. I planted some really healthy zucchini and squash the other day and within the next couple of days, most of the plants were dead and I was scrambling to put up physical barriers in a vain attempt to slow down the cutworms. At this point we are hoping that they will complete this stage of their lifecycle and move on.

Such are the joys of converting an old hay field into a garden. Once again it seems that we must wait for time to rebalance the soil. And we must play our part, using our energy to add as much organic matter as possible. So we are not holding out much hope for our garden this year. We are unlikely to be able to grow as much as we were hoping. This is very disappointing but is a good lesson in patience, as I think I've said before.

Our friend Michelle today told us to house animals since they provide an endless source of nutritious manure but we don't have a barn and aren't really interested in husbandry. But she is right, manure is wonderful. Why can't we have a neighbour with an excess of manure? I guess we have our humanure but that's a few years away.

I'm not disheartened but compared with the relative ease of growing last year, this is tough. On a positive note, all our fruit trees look great. We have pear, plum, apple and Dan thought that some of the peach pits mum planted last year were starting to come up. I think just imagining tasting a juicy pear in 5 years is enough to help me get over those bloody cutworms. And best of all, though we probably won't be around to harvest them, the nuts we planted are coming up. We don't know which ones but every morning there's a new sprout. We planted hazelnuts, black walnut, Persian walnut, heartnut, hickory and butternut. And the Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes are coming up and aren't being eaten. I saw a flower on the peas today. Mushrooms are appearing in the forest. The rhubarb is healthy and we are getting a bunch more plants soon. So lots to feel good about.


And on the mushroom front we are actually cultivating mushrooms using sawdust innoculated with spores. Dan, Mark and Ina a few weeks ago prepared a bed for the spawn and covered it with hay. And we cut down a tree and drilled holes and filled them with spawn. We don't expect mushrooms this fall but are hoping for a crop next spring and summer. They are growing patiently by the brook in a damp and shady spot. The mushrooms are shitake and garden giant (I think). Can't wait.

Valley Memories

I worked the provincial election yesterday, crossing out voters from the voters' list like a good little democrat. The result was unprecedented, an NDP majority. Most people are already proclaiming the destruction of Nova Scotia and I too am concerned about the result. Having experienced this election, I must say that Nova Scotia may have three major parties and the Green Party but the major parties are all clones of one another. Each party occupies the middle ground and don't have any major policy differences, only different "leaders". So maybe people just found Darrell Dexter more palatable than Dalton McGuinty clone Stephen MacNeil and our very own Rodney MacDonald. So don't expect anything revolutionary from these NDP. They just watered down Liberal red a bit.

But more important than the election was the nice lady that I worked with at the poll. We had so few voters that we had lots of time to get to know one another. Her story was amazing, as are the stories of many older people in Cape Breton, people who were born during the Depression and lived dramatically different childhoods than you and I.

She grew up down the road from our current house. She described a childhood with food produced completely at home, from a healthy vegetable garden and animals. One might purchase certain items from a shop (flour, sugar, tea) but this would be rare. Carrots, beets, turnips and potatoes were common.

She went to the local school which was a one room schoolhouse. She played with her brothers and sisters because while meeting other kids was possible, it wasn't common with the distances involved. She had a large family, which meant lots of little hands to help with chores, essential without an invisible pack of energy slaves.

The horse and buggy might take to the dirt roads on occasion but this would only be to church, dances and to visit with neighbours. That's it. And visits were so important, sharing food and tea together, cementing bonds. She almost never went to Mabou and other towns and the only way to go was catching a ride with the mail car.

Anyway the point of all this is that in my colleague's experience I see my future and the future of our children. A geographically constrained life but a life of intimate connections with the land, one's family and one's closest neighbours. It's coming and thankfully we can still learn from those who carry the not so distant past in their minds.

Have you met anyone who remembers these bygone/coming days?

Wwoofer Wisdom

Wwoofing is wonderful! This summer we've been in touch with a number of people looking to exchange their labour for a place as part of our family and good healthy meals. Some have come and gone and some have yet to arrive, many from quite a distance.

My friend Mark was here for about three weeks in May along with a wwoofer from Ontario via Halifax named Ina. Both really helped us to prepare the garden and to split and stack the massive pile of wood. I can only imagine how much longer it would have taken us to do by ourselves. And apart from the labour they contributed, there were all the other things that come along with these lovely new people: late night scrabble games, laughter, dancing, sharing music.

This weekend we have been joined by two new wwoofers, Karin and Erin. In talking with them, like most new people I meet, I am amazed at the amount of wisdom that flows from their lips. This weekend I have particularly been aware of it--maybe it's the full moon.

Apart from lots of politics, Karin helped me to think about lost loves and what really matters in life. She said very plainly that the hardest thing in life is to find love, harder than money, fame, power. So when you find it you should do anything to keep it. So what does this mean that I should do about my faraway love? What happens when love isn't enough? Maybe all you can do is keep in touch and trust that the stars will guide you into each others' arms again.

And tonight Erin got me thinking deeper about my desire to build a community out here. As we walked down the road in the deepening twilight with Buddy trailing behind, she mused that maybe what we seekers of community (basically most humans; are you one of us?) are really looking for is to return to the community of life. We regret looking at trees, ants and bears, not as our brothers and sisters but as resources or pests. Our death civilization has ripped us from our family and we want to go back, we prodigal sons and daughters. So we talk about building community, reconnecting with our fellow humans. But maybe we really want to go a lot further.

So maybe in the end, after all the sweat and laughter, that's the greatest gift that wwoofers and hosts provide each other: wisdom.