July 29, 2009- Manifesto

Since the first warm days of the past spring, a culmination of passions has led me down a path of urban homesteading. These passions developed into cultivating my front yard, installing rain water catchment and irrigation systems, sustaining a herd of rabbits and a flock of chickens, pickling various fruits and vegetables and voraciously researching modern modes and past practices of agriculture, sustainability, community, and self-reliance.

The first passion pulling me towards these activities is enjoyment. I get a kick out of eating rabbits I raised and processed. Engaging the neighbors' kids in the changes happening in the garden and teaching them to squash striped cucumber beetles and seeing their excitement makes me feel whole. In the morning, when I can go to my front lawn and choose the potatoes and onions for my hash browns, it is the best high I have ever had.

My second passion is the quote, "Think globally, act locally." Coming of age in a society of entitlement, I am daily confronted with a world of shrinking resources, demands of instant gratification, and a constant faith in "growth and progress" where hyper-individuals have eschewed the concepts of sacrifice, patience, temperance and moderation in the face of dire consequences. Through my recent activities I have attempted to provide food for myself that does not require petroleum for fertilizer or transportation with the hope of reducing my impact in the largest petroleum using field in America, agriculture.
My garden has become a source of interest and interaction in the neighborhood. As each neighbor stops to share a memory of food or farming, offer a tip or explain amazement over their realization that potatoes don't grow on trees, he or she is recreating a community and experiencing nature's patient pace as each plant grows. This community and experience in patience provides a contrast to the digital world of instant information and impersonal "personal" relationships.
As seen in the examples above and unlisted others, I am trying to confront the emotionally and physically unsustainable system by ameliorating my role in American society that exists in the larger world.

History is my third passion. In the last three generations, human society and existence has changed drastically in many parts of the world. As each day passes, our lives grow farther away from how humans spent the majority of their past in the paleolithic as an integral member of a relationship-rich band and, more recently, tied to the land in cultivating our own food.
Growing up in a rural Pennsylvanian Dutch region the remnants of the tight agricultural community offered a glimpse of a different world. The stories elders shared created a world which offered a salve for some of my own societal longings. I believe that my generation and possibly others have these "societal longings" which we constantly try to fill with More: cars, clothes, facebook friends, McMansions, etc. Being close to others while tied to the soil has a power that is unmatched by any of the More.
Also present in these generations is the loss of a heritage. Whether one of the first immigrants on the Mayflower, a forced migrant from Africa, or one escaping a famine, most traditional food cultures and the community it has created have largely been forgotten and replaced by a broken food system. In my present activities, I am trying to reach back and reconnect to my own past.

In writing this blog, I am not trying to trying to change the world but document how I think I should be living my life. More importantly than that though, is to have an accurate calendar for my crops and harvest. Please respond with your thoughts and comments.