Another transition family

Another post-peak oil family is described by one of its members in this Washington Post piece. Doug Fine, his fiancee, and son live a life similar to ours in many ways, even though they're in New Mexico:

• Goats for milk (no word on meat)
• Chickens for eggs (ditto)
• Gardens for produce
• Far from nearest town

Some of his concerns resonate with us, namely relying on others for a lot of repair skills, and possible security worries.

Unlike us, they've made a lot of progress in generating their own power, taking advantage of the American Southwest's terrific sun. We have another key difference, which is that we're doing fine for water (too fine, this summer); Fine's Butte has to irrigate mechanically.

Perhaps a more subtle difference is that Fine writes as though community networks are of minor importance to his family. Ceredwyn and I, in contrast, have been working hard to grow our Ripton relationships, in part because of the things we lack (skills, tools, etc.)

The regional differences (they in New Mexico, we in Vermont) are obvious, but also telling. Fine doesn't seem to worry about heating their home, while wood burning and preparing for it is a crucial part of our daily lives. We look forward, too, to March and getting maple syrup.

Are we a Transition family?

We've been reading about the Transition Town movement, concerning towns seeking to redesign themselves to better survive peak oil. We then found this story about what seems to be a "transition family."

Concerned about climate change and the rising price of oil, the couple, from Alvaston, are going back to the good life and preparing to transform their garden into a new-age allotment.

They hope to soon be feeding off home-grown vegetables, fruit and seeds and are working towards a self-sufficient lifestyle...

That certainly sounds like us. That family contains both adults and children, as do we. The Masons are working with a local community interested in post-oil shock life, as are we.

It's heartening to find more people engaged in this kind of practice.

(via Peak Oil News)

The blight hits us

The tomato and potato blight has hit the American northeast, and hard.

Up here in Vermont, folks are nervous. Our little farm got hit this week, as we spotted green plants starting to turn yellow.

We've yanked four plants now, bagging the afflicted things. The spuds under ground were in good shape, so we harvested 'em from the wreckage. A mix of ages resulted:

What a horror this would be, if we were solely dependent on these for our family's survival.

Hopefully the other plants will survive.

New potatoes

Our first potatoes, fresh from the soil:

One of the tools in our tool box

This is my doomer bookshelf. Every household should have one. Some are practical, some inspirational.

Books on the left:

Books on the right:

Into July with our food crops

Some of our food gardens are doing ok, as we enter 2009's seventh month. It's exciting and satisfying to see the green driving ever upwards. Small horizons lift up about our legs, and higher.

Most visibly, the snowpeas are burgeoning:

That's a raised bed, blocked out by leftover wood. On the left you can see one of our tomato experiments, growing in a heat-holding old tire.

Here's the first snowpea pod of the year, held by mistress of planting Ceredwyn:

That's actually the first fruit (literally) of our experiment in organic gardening. It's quietly dizzying to realize that. And it tasted fabulous, moist green and crunchy, richly textured, somehow layered even in its thinness.

Meanwhile, our potatoes seem to be flourishing. Here is one row out of eight:

There are rows on either side of this. That's the goat and chicken enclosure behind it.

I have high hopes for the spuds. This is serious food for our family. Not only will everyone eat potatoes, but they remind me of my Russian ancestry.

And yet they fill me with anxiety. I can't see the tubers thickening under the soil. Moreover, two weeks of nonstop rain and drizzle make me fear for rot and blight.

early June planting

This weekend we added some more plants to our land.

New potatoes. Some gaps appeared in our potato beds, due partly to chicken raids. So we redug holes, and dropped in already-sprouting spud bits. With luck these will come up later in the fall, perhaps September, as new potatoes.

Tomatoes. We made beds out of old tires, filled with topsoil. The rubber should hold heat well. It's warm enough to try these now. (Pic above)

An apple tree. Should bear fruit in 2011.