Update and Rant

The first frost is looming. My gourd plants turned black and wilted due to temperatures in the 30's last night. Cover crops are blasting and, with the first sun in a week, the radishes and oats I planted on last Saturday are pushing up through the soil. In researching natural pest remedies I realized that the big white grubs I have been finding in my softest and richest soils have been Japanese beetles in larval form so I have been diligent in picking them out and letting the chickens have games of grub football. I hope it isn't weird that I get a sense of satisfaction knowing that I am eating processed grubs when I make a sweet omelet.

The demands of livestock have been weighing on my mind. Each time I leave the homestead, my chores burden those around me, mostly Sara. I have decided to create a fowl rotation where I get a new set of chickens each Easter and keep two sets up until December when I process the older set which would be 1.5 years-olds. With this system I would have roasters (if they are tender enough) for the holiday and would most likely be able to find a chicken sitter for the break.

This system does not allow for rabbits though. I forget who said it when I started raising rabbits, but he said people who start raising rabbits rarely do it for long. At the time I did not think so but it proves so for me. I will not be able to process the two breeding pairs I have. They have been with me too long. Luckily I have been building a reservoir of favors through rabbit meat. The rabbit products have been pretty fantastic though. Paul has perfected a braised rabbit stew, and I have started the week long process of tanning pelts with the hope of making a hat.

Each day the tobacco hanging in the garage smells better and better. I have been researching how to make plug tobacco and decided to make a tobacco press which will consist of a wooden box with a lid in which I will layer the cured leaf moistened with a mixture of molasses/honey/sugar and water/bourbon depending on the desired flavor. I will then press this in my vise for up to 30 days or until it is like a block of wood. Hopefully I can execute this project before I head home for the holidays.

Rant:
My trip to SoCal made me think an awful lot about a culture that can create the American ideal of middle class in the middle of a desert. As I reflected on the green lawns in the developments and the South African oranges in the Louisville Kroger when I knew California oranges were ripe, I became disappointed. The concept of place which has defined lifestyles, architecture, knowledge, language, religion, nutrition and, in general, the foundation of our culture, has become a non-factor in American society. On account of this, I believe people have lost the cultural context from which to build a healthy personality and ego to function in society.

Besides roofing materials, the houses which are quickly constructed in the growing suburban developments are mainly the same: stick construction, kitchen flowing into the over sized living room, 3-4 bedrooms, two baths, and a green lawn. Each house provides a place for each family member to define and become a separate individual while leaving out the past community architectural feature of a front porch. Little concern is given to the climate of the region as suburban houses in Tuscon, Arizona look the same as those in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Many people in my generation and my parents have been provided a mobility that has mixed up the regional cultural definitions to where the past rural practices are overwhelmed by the immigrant traditions of the American middle class mass.

My students at school every Monday explain how they spent the weekends playing soccer, pressing buttons on controllers and sending text over the internet. The small minority has been exploring the natural character of north central Kentucky. I am positive this trend is consistent across the country as children have little contact with the natural world around them and the synthetic world of technology that breaks down the regional cultural differences accepts them and connects them. The children reflect the lives of their parents who get in their cars in the morning, adjust the heater or AC and cruise to work with the windows up, spend the day at the office, and cruise home to cart their children from sports to playgroups and then home to the comfort of the living room and glow of the television. Most parents only interaction with nature is manicuring their lawns which contain some of the most exotic and intensive plant cultivation in the states.

The fall festivals during this time of the year are a remnant of the connection that tied people to a place, the bounty of the earth around them. Consuming what came of the soil on what you lived made you a part of that place. If we take that idea and look at what we are now, we are made from nutrients and minerals from across the globe. Let us not forget that many of the compounds that become part of us originate in fertilizer and pesticide factories.

As we try to standardize the surface of our earth to the American middle class ideal of existence, as accents are erased by text and region-neutral newscasts, as deserts are made into lush green lawns, we still have the weather to affect our lives. Although we have AC and forced air heat, in some places it still stays warm all of the time. In some we have seasons. In some we have snow, and in some we have rain. This is the last shred of the cultural context that "place" is allowed to have on our lives. Through this loss of a regional foundation, I believe that people are provided with a blank canvas in developing their own personalities. Without the guide of "place" which provided the sketch on that canvas, I believe we lose a sense of the past and the wisdom that resides there. We lose the food cultures and local traditions fade as people disconnect from the land. Without the connection to the land, people lose a sense of patience as nature grows, humility in the face of the majesty of the natural world and, most important, conservation as the American ideal of entitlement of wealth defines the new person and ego. I am not a Luddite. I do not propose dismantling the Internet, but I do believe in acknowledging the world around us in more than the role of an obstacle. In this recognition of something larger than ourselves lives our humanity.