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Your own poetry is always welcome in the comments.
Bongos, berets & turtle neck sweaters optional.
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Our beans are sprouting!
I already wrote a diary about planting the first plot of our vegetable garden,
last Wednesday:
Feelin' good.
Yesterday, Monday,
I dug up some more crabgrass and dandelions,
and planted more seeds.
As I looked closely at last week's plot,
I saw about a dozen of the beans,
about six green beans
and about six yellow wax beans,
sprouting.
My second 4' x 4' plot is a continuation of the first,
so I now have four rows,
each eight feet long:
one cabbage,
one green beans,
one yellow wax beans,
and one row of carrots.
The next seeds I plan to plant are
green onions,
turnip greens,
cucumbers,
and tomatoes,
eight foot long rows of each.
I plan to plant one more 4' x 4' plot,
at the end of all that,
with 80 yellow onion bulbs.
That's how many come in the bag,
80 yellow onion bulbs,
for $1.58,
guaranteed to grow.
The front of the house faces West,
so,
after planting all that I just wrote about
in the back yard,
I want to plant
strawberries
and watermelon
in the front yard,
so they get the afternoon sun.
As I was digging up the back yard,
just that tiny plot,
in that big back yard,
I was reminded of a few things:
The past:
Our house was built in 1950,
and in nearly each shovelful of soil,
there was trash:
broken glass,
chunks of plastic,
a metal jar cap,
a smashed aluminum pie pan,
a Wonder bread bag.
Mostly lots of broken glass.
This trash was not a problem,
just gave the experience an interesting dimension,
looking at the past,
by way of what I call
urban archaeology.
Fertile soil:
In each shovelful of soil,
there was at least one earthworm,
and a few insect larvae,
a few millipedes,
and,
in one shovelful,
there were tiny ants,
and two large larvae that may have been queen ants.
And the texture was great.
I'm feeling confident about a great harvest,
with such great soil.
The future:
I've been writing for years,
about the coming famines,
and the house of cards we've built,
by relying on diesel fuel
to produce and transport nearly all our food,
here in the USA.
Unless someone,
very quickly,
starts making nuclear powered tractors and combines,
or wind and solar powered,
or electric,
truly practical electric tractors and combines,
quickly.....
Even then,
what about the water it takes to grow the crops
to feed the livestock....
New Dust Bowl
I found a kindred spirit
in the comment thread:
It's not about water ... (7+ / 0-)
Nor is it about energy, nor CO2 levels.
It's about too many people. Overpopulation is the root of humanity's problems. Malthus was right, although he got it wrong by thinking that food production was the limiting factor.
Try this thought experiment. Suppose there were only 700 million people on the planet instead of 7 billion. We would be burning only a tenth of the fossil fuel we now burn. We would not be draining our aquifers; we would rather be growing all our food in areas where there is sufficient rainfall.
There are just too many fucking (oh, the irony of that expletive) many of us. And there will be even more next year, and the year after that. Evolution (and religion) has instilled in us the urge to "be fruitful and multiply". Like fools, we happily keep on doing so.
I would love to be able to propose a remedy; unfortunately, there is none. Reducing our population to a sustainable level is not possible without having an enormous number of people dying prematurely. The cure is much worse than the disease.
Nature will eventually force us to arrive at an equilibrium. I fear that it will be a very painful process.
Note to Boehner and McConnell: "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." --Bob Dylan-- (-7.25, -6.21)
by Tim DeLaney on Mon May 20, 2013 at 09:56:05 PM CDT
I do not agree that there's no hope,
but let me highlight
one small part of that comment:
we would rather be growing all our food in areas where there is sufficient rainfall.
In my thought experiment,
I go up to 10 billion,
then move the decimal point two spaces:
not 10 billion humans,
not 1 billion humans,
but 100 million humans on planet Earth.
For America,
not 300 million,
not 30 million,
but 3 million.
For my home town,
Wichita, Kansas,
not the current 500,000,
not 50,000,
but 5,000 humans in Wichita Kansas.
If there were only 5,000 humans
in Wichita, Kansas,
every one of that 5,000 could do what I'm doing,
plant crops in yards,
but one family would have about 200 yards,
200 empty houses,
the yards ready to plant.
Forty acres and a mule,
as the old saying goes.
And the large trees,
and the houses themselves,
gives enough shade
that the area holds water well,
so crops might survive relatively dry years.
Many of the larger trees could be cut down,
if they create too much shade.
To reach this lower number of humans on Earth,
young folks will need to
voluntarily
get their tubes tied,
four out of five of them,
and one couple,
after one child,
do the same.
That produces
one child from ten adults.
Do that for two generations,
then wait for old folks like me to die,
and you will reach the goal.
Then each couple could have two children,
maintaining a stable number of humans on planet Earth.
There is hope.
But you must hurry!
Young people,
get your tubes tied!
Most folks say it's too late,
but it's never too late
to make things not as bad as they would be
if nobody ever did anything
to make it not so bad.
Get your tubes tied!
Thanks for reading.
And,
Build a Chicken Coop,
Before Catastrophe Comes.
(BCC is my symbolic name for efforts
at feeding ourselves,
since eggs provide the nine essential amino acids,
complete protein,
for rebuilding our cells.)
Will someone take a Tuesday?
May 28th
June 4
11
18
25.
Pick one.
You think you can't host for next week?
Your nose I should give it a tweak!
It's a great ego boost,
you'll be ruling the roost!
And no one will call you a geek.