From bubble to peak

The summer oil crisis has itself peaked, and prices are dropping slightly. As we've said before, there's a danger here of people losing their newfound focus on energy, along with the (momentary) relief.

Meanwhile, the Arctic is increasingly seen as an oil bonanza. And American conservatives beat the drum for more local drilling. There's something fascinating in the argument which goes: there is no peak oil, because oil is now expensive enough that sites previously considered too hard to exploit are now revalued as doable.

Looking at the peak, mid-July

Sunday morning peak, from our household's vantage point:

• We're having bad luck with our garden. Goats plowed through one new fence's weak spot, devouring green things and opening the way for chickens to finish off the remainder. We've fixed the fence, and are scrambling to figure out next steps.
• The US government is opening up some protected lands to usage, thanks in part to the ethanol boom. Peak oil's onset is literally changing the landscape.
• A Forbes story covers various negative effects of $4/gallon gas, including hits to charities, everybody's operating costs, truckers, and movers. And this is just early, early days.
  

Early July, price, and the ship metaphor

Oil his $145/barrel.

Meanwhile, at home Ceredwyn and I are thinking of our home as a sort of wooden ship, circa 1800. We make do with everything we have on-board, most of the time: our family's skills and muscles, our animals, our crops, what else the land offers. Everything else we get when we're 'in port' - the increasingly rare trips to a town.

I've got a little list

Our car is in the shop, so we've been practicing for the day when a once a week trip into town is the norm. I'm thinking about what we'll need from town when we go down the mountain with our neighbor later today.

Cheesecloth for cheesemaking
8 quarts strawberries for jam (its strawberry season)
8 quarts tomatoes (some for eating, some for canning)
If they've come in, a big basket of cucumber for eating and pickling
Also, if available, a basket of beans
50 lbs flour
20lbs sugar
5lbs butter
Bleach

This is looking less like a shopping list and more like Frontier House