Wool hood and scarf for Winter Biking

I'm inevitably prone to catching the knitting fever this time of year.  It's the crisp temperatures and the adding of layers... what would winter be without wool?  We have wool long-johns, wool sweaters, double-layer wool mittens, and the usual plethora of wool socks, hats and scarves.

But never are these wool garments tested more than when winter biking.  The wool long-johns have proved their worth in stitches, wool sweaters always form one of the 3-4 layers in our full winter biking garb, and nothing could be more important than a pair of wool socks (or two) for fast-pedaling feet.  But there have been gaps in our woolen armor.  Even the double-thick wool mittens only make it to about 0-5 C; stationary hands get quite nippy, wind chill is always a factor on a bicycle, and the cold finds it's way through the stitches.  Ski gloves work best for winter biking.

The other cold spot is the face and neck area.  I have usually tried to cover all the bases with a hat that covers most of the ear, a face scarf that covers ear lobes, face and chin, and a scarf wrapped copiously around the neck.  But there's always a little gap that forms between the hat and the face scarf, exposing tender ears.  Our goal in winter biking is to comfortably transport ourselves, not lose various extremities to frost bite.

Hence the latest woolen duo: hood and face scarf.  The hood fits neatly under a helmet, and generously covers all those little gaps left by too much mis-matched head garb.  The face scarf provides a double covering for the ears and neck, with a single breathable layer over the mouth and nose.  A heavy scarf can sometimes prevent easy breathing, and once you are moving along on a bike, the face is warmed by a cloud of warm breath.  In the event that the face becomes too hot, the face scarf can be slid down to the chin, and easily moved back into place upon cooling off.

We are now looking forward to comfortable journeys on our two wheeled steeds this winter, covered in wool from head to toe.

These two pieces are quite simple to knit.  Find a gauge that works with your favorite worsted weight wool yarn, and calculate your stitches for 16 or 17 inches, depending on the size of your head and whether you want a close or a loose fit.

For the hood, work in the round for 4 inches, in 1x1 ribbing.  BO one inch at the beginning of the next row, then work back and forth in stockinette (or find a more decorative stitch such as cabling, herringbone, etc) for 11 to 12 inches.   Now pick up stitches along the side edge, including half of the bound off stitches in the chin.  Work one side, then the other, in 1x1 ribbing for 1 1/2 inches, BO in pattern.  Sew the seams, beginning with the top of the hood, then the seams on the edging.

Work the face scarf in the same 1x1 ribbing, but add one more inch of stitches per row than the neck of the hood.  Work in the round for 6 or 7 inches.

The wrap up

The garden is all but finished for the year, just a lonely row of cabbages, kales and Brussels sprouts, along with a patch of frost hardy parsley, and a few late onions in the ground. Everything else has found a place in the pantry, the spice rack, or the cool room. Tomatoes of all stages from green to yellow to pink are ripening, an abundance of green, yellow and red peppers will keep for a few weeks at least. The potatoes are in their bins, carrots and parsnips in their sacks, pumpkins and squash on their shelves. Even the rooster and the bucks have found their way to the pantry this weekend, as canned meat and rich broth. Well, the rooster only got as far as the table really, one of the many harvest feasts we enjoy this time of year. So it's quite a bit quieter around here.

It is interesting, wrapping up the season, but this time, not making those thousand preparations in anticipation of next year's garden. No seed saving since we want to start again with bio-regional varieties, although I am a thousand times tempted to stash away a few packets, out of a reflexive sense of preservation. But we have no rare varieties in need of salvation. And the practical consideration of moving cross-continent by bicycle keeps our load light. (Of course there are some things we will be shipping across like my trusty pressure canner, my treasured spinning wheel, our solar panel, etc.) But there is no safe passage for seed, so I let them scatter, and smile at the thought of all of these volunteer vegetable seeds, springing up in the re-planted pastures after we are gone.

When we go, no one will take over our garden, it will go back to pasture, cut for hay once a year. But I take heart in knowing we have made some small improvements to the soil, we leave our treasures for the worms, the insects, the invisible biota living out their secret lives, and for the birds that have become our constant companions in the garden.

The kitchen this time of year has the feel of industry: the pressure canner sputtering, wood stove chugging along, and food, always food, in every stage of preparation and storage. There's always a job to do, but not in a bad way, each job has it's pleasure and satisfaction. I sometimes feel as though I have a thousand clocks in my head, or rather kitchen-timers, each one set sometime in the spring, when seeds were planted, kids born, each one with it's own duration. This is the time of year when everything ticks down, I'm constantly scanning the timers, and tending the tasks that are nearest to completion. I just have to scan my overflowing kitchen (spilling out into the living quarters this time of year), to see herbs in various stages of drying, baking beans to shell, curing pumpkins behind the wood stove, shrivelled ground cherries in the warming oven nearly dry, ripening fruit to sort and process.

It used to be quite overwhelming, in my first few fledgling years as a, well, a housewife. I no longer object to this word because I understand the skill, competence and dedication it demands. Well, truthfully, I'm only a part-time housewife, and only when it's too cold to pleasurably work outside! Now, I don't mind the small circuit of my daily routines, always in proximity to the warm stove, the heart of the household. But as soon as spring breaks, I'm a caged bird, set loose, I'm a gardener, a homesteader, and grudgingly maintain the house, emptied of it's stores of food, hollowed out, dormant.

But this winter feels different, we are spinning a cocoon this winter, weaving new dreams, with new adventures. And making room for a new beginning. Instead of the thousand preparations for next year's garden, we have the thousand preparations for a move. And mostly what consumes our immediate interest is our cycling adventure. We are bike obsessed. Researching tandems, anything we can find about them, and touring gear and routes and tips.

A tandem bicycle is perfect for us, I love the idea of the cooperation and coordination required. On a tandem we will be so much more in tune with one another, and working together on tough climbs, the same way we work together in the garden and household, coordinating our efforts, working with efficiency, and enjoying the companionship. Besides, tandems are fast!

I've also realized that I've come full circle with this blog, I've written about a 12 month cycle of growing and preserving our food. It has been good, it is a good record of what we have achieved, on a bare piece of land, on an empty road. And I hope it has been informative, after all, I know how much I have learned in the process. But we have come to a natural end, realizing there is only so far the two of us can go on this road to self-sufficiency, without turning to capitalism's infrastructure to support us: the ironic hypocritical conclusion to the independent quest of self-reliance. From where we are, we can see that communalism, collectivism, eco-socialism, whatever tag you want to put on it, is the least destructive way forward, perhaps the only way.

So this blog may find it's natural conclusion, or it may evolve, or we may move on to a new blog, leaving this one to archive the food-skills we acquired, perhaps returning to it when we plant our next seeds. Either way, we'll let you know.

Chocolate and Collaboration

For the last three years we have been living in a conservative rural area, where the unemployment/ welfare and illiteracy rates are well over 50% (before the recession even). There's plenty of places like this, all across North America. We both came out here, from large centers of Environmental and Social activism, as an act of going to the "frontlines". At the time, I felt that if all the activists stayed clustered in self-affirming sub-cultures, that we would all end up preaching to the choir, so to speak. I had never lived in a rural area, and I had grown quite cynical about the effectiveness of my urban protests, boycotts and activism through selective consumption. I wanted to become a producer, at least of the majority of my own goods, but our ultimate goal was to start a micro-CSA. We knew that we could keep our costs down in a rural area, and have ultimately outdone our own figures, living comfortably on $100 a month (including rent, utilities, food, transportation, you name it). Granted, it is a very different life than I had once lived, but it is full of rewards I would not have otherwise found.

There is one undoubtedly necessary piece missing: community. I am quite satisfied with the practical aspects of our lifestyle, I would not easily go back to flush toilets, grid power, or anything less than fresh, high-quality, organic food grown by the output of my own physical labor. But I'm simply aching for some creative community outlets. I recently heard an interview with Frances Moore Lappe and she quoted a study done on the physiological effects of collaboration: it stimulates the same brain center as chocolate, a well known pleasure center of the brain. I have proven the inverse of this study, though experience, that social isolation is impoverishing, unhealthy and ultimately depressing. It saps my energy from the work I love to do in the garden. I have grown to realize that what we do out here is ultimately unsustainable without community, and that creatively working in collaboration has always filled my reserve of energy, rather than draining it.

Our original plans for a micro-CSA, growing a variety of vegetables, grains, meats, eggs and dairy products for just one or two families or individuals, would easily have supported our financial needs, and allowed us to make responsible choices in investing in the tools and machinery for growing food in a post-Carbon Climate Change context. In our plans, we gave ourselves two years of building our soil, and providing for our own needs first, while we put the word around in the local communities, mostly having to explain what a CSA is, and why it is a more sustainable model than a market food economy. We also gave our rural neighbors time to get used to us, used to new ideas and ways of doing things, (and there is no doubt that people were curious about us when we moved here), before trying, let alone accepting, these alternatives. We lived by example, and watched as the same cars drove slowly past our raising barns, grazing animals and growing crops of vegetables and grains; very few actually stopped to meet us, they just watched, and definitely talked (we heard some pretty amusing rumors about us, accidentally making their way back to our ears).

In other words, I do not feel that our expectations were unrealistic, we had a solid plan, a realistic idea of the amount of hard work it would require, and had scaled our income requirements to fit a very modest local interest in fresh, organically grown food, available at or below supermarket prices. But I am still at a loss for words to explain the utter lack of interest in what we offer. Anywhere else I have lived, we would have a waiting list. And this lack of interest is intimately tied to our social isolation, we simply have not met people who share our same concerns about the world, and about the future. Individual people have shown us kindness, done us favors (which we have enjoyed returning almost more so than the acceptance), and tried to make us feel welcome, but not one of them has been willing to collaborate with us. And that is the one thing we simply cannot do without, the one thing that makes our life unsustainable.

When I started this blog, it was my attempt to find that sense of community and collaboration over the internet. I wanted to explore the possibility of using virtual spaces to organize and activate, while remaining on the "frontlines", in the communities where alternatives are hard to find. I have found friends, and supporters through this blog and other online platforms, but I need to feel that the work I am doing every day is contributing to a larger social goal, not just maintaining our existence here, and that is hard to do "virtually".

I have only occasionally referred to the social aspect of our life here, partly because I am sometimes at a loss for words about it, partly because it sounds like a bit of a sad story, and I only want to share it publicly if it has some sort of point. And I suppose it is only just recently that I have put the pieces together, and fully understood the power of collaboration. Without community, we are constantly hobbled, unable to reach our potential. And it is really that: constantly striving to reach my ever growing and changing potential, that defines my purpose, my goal, my spiritual practice in life. Being hobbled for too long has begun to trick me into thinking that I cannot go any further.

Which leads me to a decision we have been ruminating over since winter, we're moving on from here. It's difficult to know when it is time to move on, but there's simply too much work to be done for us to be stagnating. I have used our three years here well, getting some serious gardening and animal husbandry under my belt. I have also gained confidence in my resilience, my ability to adapt, and in my great satisfaction in living an agrarian life. The cynicism I once held for the effectiveness of my actions on making a positive social and environmental impact has been transformed into resolution, courage, faith.

Where? We are going West, we are looking at certain areas from Oregon to British Colombia. But most importantly, we are looking for a community in which our skills and desire to work creatively, collaborate, and contribute to building a sustainable local food culture are welcomed, appreciated, and allowed to flourish. When? Next June is the goal. We have our garden and market garden this year to bring us through the winter, and time enough to organize the move, and begin to make contacts. The market garden was our last compromise to try and work within the established market food economy, and possibly influence it from within. The conventional farmers around here are skeptical at best, about organic production methods, and we hoped that our flourishing garden, high-quality produce, and low levels of disease and pests would give them a new impression. But those are mostly pipe dreams, and we mostly knew that already. In reality, the market garden is what we thought it would be, one big gamble. If we hit our luck, we will take the money and run.

Regardless, we are moving under our own steam, by bicycle. It will be a grand adventure, decompression time, a journalistic look into how climate change is affecting the land and agriculture, the best way to travel, and an opportunity that a dairy-maid hardly ever gets: a month of exploration with nary a bleating, clucking mouth to feed.

There is one place we have our eye on, the Slocan Valley in South Eastern British Colombia. They have some very inspiring community initiatives going on there. Including an Integral Forrestry Innitiative that sustainably manages a massive region of the local forest. As well as Canada's first Grain CSA in the Creston Valley. (This is just one of many sites and articles describing the Grain CSA, if the link eventually breaks, simply search under "Grain CSA Creston") This project really got me excited. In it's first year there were 200 shares sold, and 600 plus a waiting list for 2009, for local organic Wheat, Spelt, Kamut, Hulless Oats and Lentils. I have become particularly interested in the question of supplying regional grains, especially as more and more people are growing their own vegetables, but do not have space to grow grains. And in my own experience of growing and hand-harvesting our grains, it is a task more efficiently done with a community investment in small or appropriately scaled machinery.

We will continue to blog about the season of growing and preserving our food this year, but as you can imagine, our focus has shifted in many ways. Our eyes are on a broader horizon. And we invite you to continue following us on our next big adventure.

This summer's crop of organic bread wheat

Local resources

We were graciously gifted this week with some treasures, to us anyway, another's throw-aways. We have been looking for a stationary bike like this, to experiment with bicycle-power generation. There's countless uses for a sturdy stationary bike like this, grinding flour, threshing grain, spinning butter... But the way that we currently do these chores is pretty efficient, and the bike would not necessarily be a great improvement in these areas. The most valuable part of this bike is the heavy wheel, it acts like a flywheel once the bike is in motion, and would work great as a generator. So we are on the lookout for a 15amp alternator and regulator, like you would find in a ride-on lawn mower. Our solar panel generates enough power when the sun is out, but on cloudy days, we run a gas generator for 30 minutes to charge up the batteries. So the pedal-power generator could conceivably be used to supplement our solar panel, and eliminate the gas generator, and the monthly cost of the gas. Usually, on sunny days, we are outside doing plenty of physical labor, but on cloudy/rainy days and in the winter, 30 minutes on the stationary bike would be welcome. So we'll post more when we get some parts to play with...

And from another neighbor came a collection of Mother Earth News from 1977-81, the good juicy peak years before all the adds. So you can guess what I've been doing this week...

There's an article with Helen and Scott Nearing in each magazine...

And oddities like this steam powered bicycle.... hmmm, well we've got plans for a wind-powered electric bike....

And we've been brainstorming about a solar oven, for the summer months when the wood cookstove is unbearable... of course, there's dozens of designs that Mother Earth tested and trialed through the years. This one looks good, we are going to modify it a bit, but we definitely need something that will focus the light up here, we really only have strong sun and heat for a few weeks in late July, early August.

And of course there's piles of recipes and interesting tidbits, lots of solar heat collectors and solar hot water designs... It's the original blogosphere. But to be honest, I find a lot more relevant and useful tips, designs, news and stories on my favorite blogs. But we are grateful for the gifts.

A conversation on ecological sustainability: Part 2

In my post A conversation on ecological sustainability, I made these statements: "I no longer believe that over-population is the dominant problem, or even the root cause of many of our ecological crises. I firmly believe there is more than enough for everyone alive right now on this earth to be nourished, clothed, housed and enabled with dignified work. This is not an utopian ideal, but an ethical principle." I am aware that overpopulation is one of those controversial hot-topics, which is why I feel it is so important to return to this issue and keep churning it.

First off, by simple mathematical equation, arriving at a concrete number for the carrying capacity of the earth, no matter how large or small, requires a calculated footprint for each human being. If we take the current available arable land on this earth as a base, in order to calculate how many human beings can live on that land mass, we need to know how much land each person requires. So which standard of living do we use? When we first began homesteading, one reason we moved into an underpopulated rural area was because we thought that we needed 100 acres to homestead on a largely self-reliant basis, and these depopulating areas held the best chances that we would be able to afford a piece of land that size. In the three years we have been on a 100 acre parcel (10 ac cleared pasture, 90 ac wooded), we have found, through practical experience and meeting the majority of our material needs, that we need a lot less land. Really, 10 acres would almost be too much. Even with wood as our sole source of heat and cooking fuel, and harvesting wood for building all of our barns, fencing and sheds, we have only begun to thin 4 to 5 acres of bush that was clear cut 20 years ago. The trees we harvest are primarily quick growing poplar and fir, and they are not large, average diameter of 6-8", and at least half of the trees we used were dry-rot because the regrowth was crowded and had not been managed. So if we were harvesting our wood out of a sustainably managed woodland, with hardwood for fuel, we need only 2-3 acres, at most. As we develop more solar hot water and solar cooking technologies, we need even less. And this sustainably forested area could also serve as a source of grazing for goats and rabbits, wildlife habitat to shelter natural beneficials in the garden, and food sources such as bramble fruits, orchards and nuts.

As for arable land for gardens, grazing, hay and grain, we first thought that we would run out of room on the 10 cleared acres. And these unamended, unimproved, tired pastures were just enough to carry one dairy cow, a horse and some pigs and poultry, so our first approach was to improve the pastures to increase the carrying capacity. The real revolution for us was to change the kinds of livestock we carry. One dairy cow provides enough milk and dairy products for a large extended family, and without a sustainable community approach to dairying in this area, this one cow was consuming most of the land resources as well as our time and energy, and even with my best effort to use up every drop of milk, in reality, we were producing too much. In switching to goats as dairy animals, and grazing animals such as rabbits and ducks instead of the grain intensive pigs and chickens, we are now able to meet our dairy, egg and meat needs (including growing the grains to raise them) on less than half the land. So as we continue to improve pastures and soil, we can grow all of our food (except coffee, tea and salt) on less than 3 acres, in Zone 4b. The carrying capacity of this zone is just about equivalent to the marginal lands surrounding deserts, we have a 3-4 month growing season, and 8-9 months dormancy, trees grow slowly and pastures do not provide more than one cut in a season. It is the same in a semi-arid climate where the growing season after the rains is only 3 months, with the dormant dry season extending throughout the rest of the year. So in a temperate zone, we could easily decrease our footprint by half or more. A large majority of the land mass of this earth is in the temperate band, if these lands are managed on a sustainable scale, using very low-tech methods and traditional fuels and foods, I would suggest that one acre is plenty to support one adult and a child. If we then continue to innovate, improve and build soils, push back the deserts, and use the types of methods Bishop's Homegrown detailed, the potential is endless.

We also thought that we would run into water issues, even here with a large snow pack and heavy precipitation, because we moved on here with a shallow, hand-drilled well. The well consists of a 2" diameter pipe drilled down to about 25 feet. The water table is usually between 10-15 feet below the surface, but it replenishes slowly because it is only ground water. We are not tapped into any water veins or the fossil water 100" below the surface that our neighbors access. We have to manage our water usage, both in the summer if we go 3-4 weeks without much rain, and in the winter when the ground water and precipitation is locked up as ice and snow. We have often thought of drilling a deeper well, or of using water catchment to meet our non-drinkable water needs. We cannot irrigate the garden on this scale, and even meeting the water needs of the dairy cow began to drain our well, especially in the winter. We mulch the garden and build up water-retaining humus in the soil, and only water tender transplants. On this level, even without rainwater catchment, we use about 10 gallons a day to meet all of our water needs, including livestock, garden, laundry, processing our canned food, etc. Our shallow well only taps the groundwater in a small diameter around it, I would guess that our water footprint, in an area with heavy precipitation to be only 10 cubic feet of ground water. Mr. Fritillary farmed on the edge of a desert, and using permaculture and water management techniques such as heavy mulch, shade houses, etc, he was able to catch enough water for 6-12 months with 5 inches of rain off of a 112 square foot roof. Most semi-arid zones receive 5-10" of rain a year, so with the appropriate rain catchment and storage techniques, water needs can easily be met on the land scale suggested above.

So now for manufactured goods, materials such as metals that require mining, electronics and technology such as solar panels and wind generators. We do our best to make either life-time purchases or buy used goods. We spend well under $1000 a year on purchases such as electronics, bicycle parts, solar panels, generators, tools, grain mills, cookware etc. And that number gets smaller each year. We could easily meet our fiber, clothing and leather needs on the footprint given above. We do not purchase things that are considered "consumables" or pure entertainment. Local theater, arts, artisan crafts and the like are sustainable ways to fulfill our desire to express and entertain one another.

Our power system is on the same micro-scale. We meet our power needs, including powering a laptop, radio, mp3 player, cell phone, household appliances (including a fan in the summer), small power tools, lights and electric fencing on 1200 Watts a month. On this scale, designing and building a power system to meet household or community power needs are easily achievable. Villages in Africa are building their own wind generators out of "scrap" and bicycle generators to power their cell phones, laptops, radios, lighting, etc. The more localized the power generation, the more efficient, because power is lost the further it is pushed down a line. Google is beginning to source renewable power to run the large server farms that provide the Internet. By locating these server farms in appropriate places where there is a consistent power source like tidal, geothermal or wind/sun, we can sustainably build up the global communication network that the Internet provides. Access to the internet can be broadcast over radio-waves, requiring only simple receivers, and data can be stored on-line at these renewably powered server farms, eliminating the need for fiber-optic lines, tele-communication satellites and power-sucking desktop computers.

Transportation is a pretty easy issue to resolve, it just takes a lot of reworking, and restructuring the way we live, but it is technologically and practically possible for us to transport ourselves and our goods without the use of fossil fuels, with low-impact mining and manufacturing. For ourselves, we use bicycles as local transportation, even through our winters, and carpool trips to town a few times a year. But we are working on an electric bicycle design, using a tandem and a trailer, powered by a compact marine wind generator to keep the battery charged. With this bicycle we can comfortably carry 100 lbs in the trailer and 50 lbs on the bike, and travel 100 miles a day at a maximum.

We do not usually "boast" of these facts about our life because we are typically met with a combination of pity and aversion. But we live this way, and are comfortable, nourished, healthy, happy, fulfilled, we have friends and a great marriage, so as far as standard of living, I think we are very well-off. We work hard, but we are not breaking our backs. We live within restrictions, but we are not stagnated by poverty. We are not Luddites by far, and use the latest innovations in technology when they improve our quality of life without harming another's. These are ethical choices, at heart, but they are also practical solutions. It has been a kind of experiment for us to live this way, and because of what we both have learned, we also have a high sense of security and confidence that we are able not only to survive, but to thrive and contribute to our community under incredibly adverse conditions, including the climate disasters to come. I looked into the definition of pragmatism, because I know that I am no longer an idealist, since we have been living by and redefining the ideals that we only held in theory when we lived in an urban environment. By the definition below, I believe, if these kinds of labels really matter, that my approach to this issue has been entirely pragmatic.

"The goal of pragmatist theorizing is not to solve abstract philosophical problems but to attain knowledge of a concrete, social reality and to focus on the problems of actual experience. This knowledge and experience will then direct political action and social change: theory and practice are interrelated. Based on this experiential and practical foundation, pragmatists hold, among other things, that there is a plurality of values and meanings, that human action can better the human condition, and that there is a relationality between the experiencing subject and the experienced object."

So to re-state our belief that overpopulation is not the problem, to us, it is not a question of whether the solutions are out there, the question is whether those of us who have been used to a higher material standard of living are willing to make these changes before it really is too late.

In doing a basic google search for concrete numbers on the arable land available on earth, I found this page:

Surface Area of the EarthEarth has a surface area of 196,940,400 square miles, slightly less than a perfect ball with a diameter of 7913.5 miles (which is the mean diameter of the Earth - see "Prove it" under 103).

The surface area of the seven continents and all the islands of the world is about 57 million miles, while the total area of the six habitable continents (Antarctica excluded) is around 52 million square miles.

Including Antarctica , over one fifth of the globe's land mass is under water (oceans, lakes, rivers, etc.) or ice. This leaves about 45 million square miles of exposed land.

The human population on earth has crossed six billion. If we distribute all the exposed land evenly among all mankind, 133 people would have to share one square mile. What that means is that every single person on Earth, man woman and child would have close to five acres of land for his or her use. More precisely, each person would get 209,000 square feet of land, or a square plot of land 457 feet on each side.

Not all this land can be used beneficially however. A significant portion of the Earth's exposed land is unhabitable or cannot be used for any agricultural purpose. Large portions lie in the far north. Large portions are extremely arid. Large portions are very mountainous. In sum, only about one fourth of all the land on earth, or somewhat more than 12 million square miles, is arable.

Today, over half of the arable land in the world is in fact not under cultivation. Bringing the unused land into service in many cases would require huge investments of money and effort, and would do considerable damage to the environment. For example, only about 28% of the arable land on the African continent is used for growing crops. Immense tracts of forests or jungles would have to be cleared to bring the rest of the arable land on that continent to productive use.

Thus, only about one eighth of each imaginary plot of land distributed to each person is land which is under cultivation. In effect, each person has a piece of land about 26,000 square feet (a square 161 feet on each side or just a bit more than ½ an acre) at his or her disposal on which to grow all that he or she needs.

I believe that this is possible, and if our earth were being tended on an ecologically sustainable scale, we would be building soil and increasing the amount of arable land. By this I do not mean huge agro-tracts of monocrops, because these farms contribute to the loss of soil and arable land. I am starting to digress into another branch of this issue, so I will save the rest of this discussion for the next blog.

Tasting the sauerkraut

Boy, you can't beat homemade kraut! I have this revelation every time I try something homemade for the first time, that I had never really tasted it until then. I was an ambivalent eater of sauerkraut until this week. Now I'm a convert.

We came home from the internet access center, late one afternoon, both of us particularly hungry, for it was a cold evening and we work up an appetite on our bikes. But it had been a busy morning, and untypically, I did not have a hot meal waiting for us in the oven. But we had boiled some of our brisket cuts in salted water, from the two year old bull-calf we recently butchered. This makes a kind of pseudo corned-beef that will keep in the cold room for a week, as a cold cut. And there was bread in the cabinet, and the sauerkraut was due for it's first tasting. So into the frying pan went olive oil, a few cups of kraut and some dill seed and caraway seed. I could have chopped a few onions in there too. And next some sliced beef soaking up the remaining oils and flavor. A little gravy on the side and toast in the oven. With a sprig of fresh parsley from a plant I transplanted into a pot for winter nibbling. And within 10 minutes we had a delicious nutritious entirely homegrown and homemade meal that not only satisfied our appetite and nourished our bodies, but put a smile of satisfaction on our faces, just looking down at the plate in front of us. What a blessing.

Winter delights

Penelope and Juniper are looking quite pregnant. The books say that most of the development happens in the last two months of prengancy, and they are due anytime between 6-8 weeks from now. The previous owner did not write down the breeding dates, so we have to watch them closely. One tip I read is that the careful goatherder will be able to observe when the first kid moves into the birth canal, by a slight slimming on the right side. This gives about a 12 hour notice before labor. The kids are carried on the right, the rumen on the left. Overall I am happy with their condition, we have been feeding them our homegrown grains to bring their condition up to snuff before they kid, and they are doing a great job picking off the heads and digesting the whole grain. The chickens do a great job at it too.

Winter has certainly arrived, we got about a foot of snow on Saturday. This is our winter road. Mr. Fritillary did some maintenance on the bikes, pumped up the tires and greased everything well, to resist rusting from salty winter roads. In the summer our 15 mile round trip commute down to the internet access center takes about 15 minutes each way, but slick winter roads can slow us down a bit. Although cold usually doesn't deter us from making our way down here about twice a week, wind and snow can. I wear quilted overalls, a down coat, and my treasured handknit long underwear, and wool bra, along with copious scarves, hats, gloves and a few pairs of socks. I barely feel the cold, even when it gets down to -20C. Haha, I look like a marshmallow, but I can still pedal!

But I have quite a number of blogs that I want to write, and two a week hasn't been covering it, so I am going to post a couple of blogs when I am down here, to make up for not having daily internet access.

Our driveway does not get cleared until spring, we pack a trail over the snow with snowshoes, and our occasional visitors park up on the road, and walk in. The dogs have to leap to get through the snow on our morning walk, as we head out to road for a good stretch.

Winter has beauties that rival summer blooms and breezes. Icicles hang off our rough-cut porch roof. The light reflecting off the snow on a clear day is dazzling. The solar panel collects nearly as much energy from a short winter day, as a long summer day, with the added boost of reflection.

The south-facing kitchen window always forms these fan shaped intricate ice crystals.

And the north-facing windows form sharp angular ice crystals, quite beautiful really.

Brussels Sprouts are practically designed to withstand frost and snow. The leaves protect the little cabbages along the stalk. They have finished growing, but I am still harvesting bits of green. The winterbore kale is doing very well, I am still harvesting a pound a week, but will probably get one last harvest or two. As long as we still have some greens from the garden, I can put off opening my canned green beans and peas, our only greens except sprouts and sauerkraut, until spring.

The last of my green tomatoes are ripening well, they have stored, and slowly ripened over six weeks in the cold room. Again, the longer I can use these, the longer I can put off using up the canned tomato sauce in the pantry. Afterall, it has to last until next August!

Generating Alternative Power

Generating your own power is much like growing your own food. The first step is to change your relationship to your power, much like your relationship to food is changed by eating seasonally and locally. Most households use more power than can be efficiently or affordably produced by alternative sources, so the most important thing to do is to reduce and reorganize your power needs. Reducing the first 50% is the easy part, like growing your family's fresh produce needs for the summer. After you bring your power consumption down, somtimes through outright sacrifice, but mostly through a creative process of doing things differently, then you have a chance at going off grid.

After reading reports from the UN lead Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change, and other independent sources, it appears that we should be setting our greenhouse gas emmission reduction goals at 80% or more. That means we need to get extremely creative, and look around at what we can use and afford right now.

We are off grid. We are not fossil fuel free yet, but we are carbon neutral. We have one Sharp 80 watt Solar PV panel, a 1200 watt gas generator, running through a 40 amp battery charger to boost the power, six 6V deep cycle batteries in a 12V configuration, and a 1200 watt moderated sine wave inverter. All of this cost us about $2000. We run the generator an average of 40 minutes a day, and are looking at pracitcal ways to replace it, using 1/2 liter of gas a day (200L or 50Gal a year). With this system we run 1-2 compact flourecent lightbulbs, radio, electric fencer, occational TV and DVD player, charge a laptop, cell phone, ipod, use a fan in the summer, and run kitchen appliances like a cream separator, blender, etc. We do not use electricity to move water, heat water, heat air, cook food or preserve food. Generally speaking there is usually a better source than electricity to provide these domestic needs.

Producing your own power also means looking at what resources you have locally. Wind, sun, water, wood, vegetable oils and human/draft power are all sources of energy, and one or more is bound to be abundant or at least available anywhere on this earth. Generating power is one side of the equation, storing and using the power is on the other side. Below are some things we have learned about renewable energies.

Power Generation:

1. Wind power: HAS TO BE in the right location. Look closely at the startup speeds on individual generators to match it to the average wind speed in your area. Get a wind meter and measure your own wind, don't rely on what other locations experience. If the average wind speed is 12 mph then you are going to be on the low end of wind power generation. You need a consistent 12-25mph wind speed to get real economic and efficient use out of any wind generator. Best to be on an open plain or ocean.

2. Solar voltaic PV generation: With PV technology changing in material composition, efficiency and cost within the next 5-10 years, it may be best to wait or take this into account when investing in a PV system. A general search on Photovoltaics will give you more of an idea of what is going on in the industry. Possibly some exciting stuff. Other important factors to take into account regarding PV's are pollution, smog days, contrails, and climate change. We have found that living under a flight path has cut out our power from 6amps to 3.5amps on high flight days. And they don't have to be directly over you, they can spread out from hundreds of miles away.(see The David Suzuki Foundation). For climate change, if you are living in a climate model expected to go dryer or wetter (meaning more or less sun), then take these into your estimates.

3. Draft power: We have looked into the possibilities of using draft animals: oxen, dogs, horses and donkeys. We have come across a few websites that have interesting ideas and working systems, it may be appropriate for many areas or situations, most possibly as as a seasonal, portable standing motor for farmwork, more than a daily home power source. We have a working standard bred horse, and have worked on some designs to power a DC generator, but not one that would be efficient enough in both time and money. Our horse would be better employed to pull in firewood or cultivate the garden than to waste time and energy on generating power at this stage.

4. Steam: We have looked into it as a stable power source, being that we have an abundance of wood. But anything under pressure has it own state regulation and safety issues. Steam has a lot of potential for small scale sustainable carbon neutral generation, especially for community shared power systems.

5. Bio fuels: At this point a controversial issue. Large areas of rainforest are being cleared in Indonesia to grow Europe's demand for biofuels. This is not sustainable or ecological. Biofuels can be grown on the homestead. They would never have sold a tractor if farmers could not run them on their own corn oil or homegrown ethanol. One acre of sugar beets can produce 1000 liters of ethanol, but again state regualtions apply.

8. Pedal power: We are looking into the possibility using a pedal powered generator to replace our gas generator.

9. Geothermal: This is not likely a realistic option for a single household, but on a community or urban scale it may be the best source of power available. It is constant, and can be used to create electricity as well as heat and cool both water and air. Wikipedia gives a good overview of the technology as well as links to more research and working geothermal power stations around the world.

More on batteries next time....