Brad’s Take

Last summer I didn’t get around to hacking down the Johnson Grass growing along the barn, in the pasture, and in the yard behind the barn. So every once in a while, when the tops towered over the pony, I got out the scythe and laid some down. Then a day or two later, I turned it, then came back with the wheel barrow, fork, and a ball of garden (sisal) twine. Gather a bundle on top of the wheel barrow, stretch a span of twine around and snug it tight, and call it a “bale” (though it looks more like a ragged bundle with a string around the middle). I stacked it in the barn “for now”, on some boards I have been saving, and I think there are some extension cords and air hoses under there, too.

I figured, hey, I can flip a bundle, er, bale, over the fence to the pony every day or two, and we can eak out the winter that way.

The last month when the first frost was due, I looked behind the barn and there was all this half-grown Johnson grass just waiting to lose most of it’s nutrients when the frost hit. So the day before the frost I scythed a bunch. I am not getting younger, I don’t do physical stuff all that often, and I get tired, so a “bunch” isn’t like taking down a 20 acre hay meadow. More like about 20 or 25 minutes of huffing and puffing.

I had read about hay stacks, and you you need to do them correctly to keep the hay from spoiling before you can use it. And I looked. A neighbor claimed he played in haystacks a lot as a boy, but never learned to build one. I found an online story where a guy build a frame using four “uprights” leaning to the center where they were bolted together, a frame build about the ground and bolted to the uprights, and used a plastic tarp over the hay instead of doing the traditional haystack building. This story intended to add to the stack over the season, which you don’t do with a traditional hay stack.

I have a hay ring. This is a round steel ring a couple of feet high with eight loops that make eight openings for horses to get to the hay. You roll the thing on edge up to a round hay bale (5×6 foot, nominal), cut the strings/net from the bale, and drop the ring around the bale. The point is to keep the horses from pulling the bale apart and trampling much of the bale instead of eating it.

I have a hay ring, and some used boards. I set two 2×6 boards, on edge, between feeding spots, so the boards are parallel and maybe 5 feet apart. I laid four 2×4 boards crosswise on the 2×6′s to nearly touch the edges of the ring. And I forked that downed, dried Johnson grass onto my new “hay stack”. It turns out that “a bunch” of Johnson grass, when I am scything, doesn’t make that much of a stack on an 8′ diameter. Maybe 6′ high in the middle of the mound (remember, the bottom is already 2′ up off the ground). I tied a plastic tarp over it, using cotton sash cord to tie to the hoops of the hay ring.

The tarp fell.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the cords, which had been at the top of the hoops, were now near the bottom (nearly level with the bottom boards). The mound looked a little flatter, and was definitely shorter. And the pony? Showed a bit less rib than before The Great Haystack Improvisation.

Last weekend I untied part of the tarp, and plumped down three of the bundles, er, bales, from the barn in the middle of the stack. Well, middle, right. Johnson grass gets to be six to eight foot tall, and in casually stacked, ragged bundles I gathered, they stick out both ends. So the bundles were plumper in the middle of the stack/hay ring, but were right there at the edges. Anyway, I cut the baling twine, er, garden twine, retied the tarp, and the pony has been munching right along. It was empty today, and I put out two more bales. Er, bundles.

I put up hay a bunch at a time, and the grass is usually growing by late February/into March, so I don’t need *all* that much more hay. But the five-ten bundles I gathered each haying exercise makes big stacks in the barn. And the bales I have fed so far make a noticeable dent.

Small square grass hay bales are going for $8.50 each, now, if you can find any. There isn’t much here, and most of the time the price is much higher. The round grass hay bales that sold for $25-40 last year have sold for $135-150, and can be tough to find.

So I am glad the pony is doing OK with the Johnson grass, I am pleased that the tarp hasn’t blown to pieces in the wind, and seems to adjust it’s tie-downs as the pile gets smaller, and I am surprised that the Hackney pony doesn’t mind munching hay from under the flappy blue tarp.

I would have fretted myself a treat if I had planned this to come together this well.

Okay, so Crunchy Chicken is just thinking about another Pioneer Week low-impact, off-grid practice experience.

But she does outline some important lessons for living a frugal and sustainable life. “Little House on the Prairie” stories nicely illustrate the 10 lessons she found.

Sod.

So I got to thinking. How much sod does it take to make a sod house or sod hut? If you life in a sod house, do you bite your tongue instead of observing, “Dear, there seems to be something growing on the wall.”??

Can you use straw bales for insulation and structure with a sod house? If you drop a bit of sod, and it breaks, does that make you a sodbuster?

Should the roof on a sod house be sod, thatch, or should it be rock (slate)?

Do you paint a sod house, or water it?

Yes, I am being facetious. Well, mostly. The questions might sound silly, but I do kinda want to know. And I figure the amount of sod needed “depends”. Like, how thick the sod is where you dig it up. Like how wide you make your walls. Like how big you want the structure, and how many rooms, I guess.

And is building sod houses where the phrase comes from, “Oh, sod it all!”??

Enjoy!

I don’t use a lot of hay. My pony gets a round bale October/November, and that usually lasts until grass starts growing. So I want a bit to tide over rough spots.

A few years back I welded up a hay storage bin. About 5 feet square, and a bit over six feet high, whatever would fit out the shop door. I used 3/4 inch square tubing for the frame, and 2×4 welded wire for three sides, with the front open above a ‘keeper’ bar about 1 foot up. This worked pretty well with loose hay.

Where I live is old-growth pasture. The local story goes that it was virgin prairie, and has never been plowed. After 70 years of grazing pasture use, I doubt that there is much original prairie grass left, and Johnson Grass has moved in around the buildings and in the pony’s pasture. Johnson grass was introduced to Oklahoma for hay and pasture, and does well at both. The problem with Johnson Grass is that it is very persistent if you want something else to grow there, and it tends to spread. Widely.

So what I have around the buildings to harvest is a mix of short grasses including cheat, and Johnson Grass, mostly, and a few patches of bermuda grass, sometimes occupying the same space. Next to the driveway is a solid stand of Johnson Grass. When I cut it early, it comes in solid bermuda. Cut that, and it is Johnson Grass again. But it mostly stays green. . .

I have a book on ‘farm implements you can make’, from the 1800s, that shows a wood frame for baling hay. This spring I got to thinking, and got out the two-hand scythe a friend cobbled up out of stainless tubing and regular handles and a brush blade.

The first part of making hay, after the planning and hoping, and watching the grass grow, is cutting. I am still learning to use the scythe, but I did manage to put down some short and tall grasses.

Next is curing. Curing is when sufficient moisture leaves the hay leaves and stalks, so that the hay is dry enough to store well, keep it’s nutrition value and not decompose. Hay put up too damp can rot, and at times generates enough heat to catch fire.

The sun and open are do the curing. I leave the hay a day or so, depending on the condition of the hay and weather, then get out the hay fork (four tines, wider than a three tine or manure fork) and turn the hay so the stuff on the bottom is exposed to that curing sun and breeze.

For short stem hays, a day or so after turning the hay may be ready. Long and coarser stem hays may take another day or three, and another turn or two.

Almost anticlimactic is gathering the hay and tossing it in storage (for loose hay) or baling.

Dad baled hay, and my neighbors bale hay. This includes a tractor, and first a mower or conditioner, then a rake, and finally a baler. The result is, usually, a very consistent stream of round or square bales laid out in the field, to be gathered and stacked until needed.

I don’t have that kind of equipment. I have a ball of Sisal twine, a blue plastic muck bucket, a box knife, and a hay fork.

Baling implements

Using the same fork I used to turn the hay, I laid some hay on the bucket and pushed it down in, about centered. A couple-three modest forks full, and it is time to mash the center of the bundle of grass together, grab one end of the twine and reach down one side of the hay to the bottom, reach down from the other side of the grasses to the bottom of the bucket, grab that twine, and pull it on around. A quick (!) square knot while mashing the center of the bundle together and pulling the twine tight, and cut off the bale of hay. Lift the bale out (it looks a lot like a bundle of grass with a string around the center), and repeat.

Twine just about wrapped around bundle

When I tried it using the wheel barrow instead of the muck bucket, it was easier. The wheel barrow allowed for a bit bigger bale (fewer baling operations), and reaching around the bundle was easier than stuffing my arms into the muck bucket full of hay.

My bale of hay.

The hay fork is useful transporting the bales, too, as I can usually stick the tines through two stacked bales. I estimate the bales range between small muck bucket size, about two pounds of short grasses, and maybe ten pounds for a moderate sized wheel barrow bale. Toss them into the hay bin, and let them complete airing out.

My problem with Johnson Grass hay is the weather. We have been getting rain showers with little accumulation, just enough to wet everything, and that delays curing. This isn’t great, because the wet/dry cycles are letting the sun bake out the nutrients in the hay, and keeping the moisture up so I cannot gather the hay yet.

The pony stands about three feet, five inches. Johnson Grass runs from four feet to seven feet. The pony likes to nibble the tender ends of the grass. So fully grown Johnson Grass doesn’t feed the pony that well. Where I have cut the Johnson Grass, the new-growing returning stems are short, and the pony (“Little One”) gets a better nibble in. And I get (some) hay put by for later, if it is needed.

I reckon that gathering hay is something folks with livestock could be considering. Hay from along fence lines, along unkempt roadways, on unused lots. Chickens will eat some hay, and use it for bedding, hogs eat hay and use the bedding, cows, goats, and sheep, too. Learning to hay takes practice to learn the grasses you harvest, the tools you use, the process and exceptions of curing, and the techniques for transporting and storing hay.

I turn 59 this year, with back pains and lowering heat tolerance. Gathering in fields at a time is for the young folk. I don’t have a lot of storage, and find the hour or two a day very satisfying (that is, I don’t want more, at the time).

The sisal twine I got from Big Lots, in the garden section. It is light, strong, and traditional for haying. The fork I picked up at a farm sale, a treasure that too many people decided isn’t needed, since they went to crops-only, or automated livestock farming. A modern three tine fork can run from $30 to $40 dollars, hay forks and the larger field hay forks would be much more expensive.

Last year I sharpened the scythe blade with a flap sanding disk on my angle grinder. Last winter I ordered a ‘scythe stone’ from Amazon.com, and it works a wonder. The package the stone came in mentioned wrapping the stone in cloth. I whacked out a six inch wide strip from the leg of a pair of rag-bag bib overalls, about two and a half times the length of the stone (about 10 inches by 1 1/2 inches). I lay the stone in the center of the cloth, lengthwise, and fold the top and bottom over, then the sides. I can stick that wrapped bundle in my pocket for convenience; the stone unwrapped would catch and hang in my pocket something fierce.

Little One, in Johnson Grass just starting to grow

MatronOfHusbandry writes about The Pot (of butter!) at the End of Rainbow.

The article is great, and covers a lot of topics which expand even further in the comment, including the impact of choosing industrial-style farming – right down to imported, Irish butter – over finding and choosing locally produced butter.

“I suppose farming will keep on going how it is”

I think that is pretty obvious. Climate and economic instability make our ability to feed our neighbors, our nation, and the world an issue worthy of concern. The current affluent-era, industrial style farming currently meets that need. I don’t see anyone winning anything if industrial style farming were dismantled before local, sustainable, superior food quality production is ready to replace it.

The currently aging industrial farm population, without an incoming legion of apprentice and journeyman farmers supporting, learning, and preparing to continue the practices make such a transition not just desirable, but pose a looming threat to food security.

The current debt deflation crisis (eroding the affluent credit market that makes industrial, Monsanto-style farming feasible) and rising energy costs, as well as threats to oil availability as world demand continues to erode the ability to produce enough oil to meet demand (that is, erratic availability and rising prices of all classes of energy) contribute to that looming threat.

I think looking at so-called “modern” farming practices, and farmers, is the wrong focus. Yes, there will be some fringe few willing to experiment and change. One focus might be to influence state agriculture colleges to investigate alternative practices and promulgate better ways through state extension services. Unfortunately, the focus on what a small farm can do doesn’t relate well when an operation is already at the level of 500 head of livestock, or several thousands of acres under cultivation.

One thought I had was a form of homestead program. An area of an existing, large farm might be set aside, and leased out in a rent-to-own proposition to “homesteaders” – people that would occupy and farm the land, perhaps a 10-40 acre parcel, for 10 years at modest rent (much below industrial-style farm land rent!). County extension or some similar service would be ready to educate, equip, and counsel the occupants on low-energy, sustained fertility, sustainable farming practices. The donor farm and occupants should receive tax benefits during the “settling” years. At the end of the 10 years the occupant would acquire clear title, the county tax base would increase, and hopefully the local food security would improve. Possibly applicants could be targeted to those with backgrounds or interest in farm life – or just desperately unemployed but educable. Farm life, after all, is scary as all get out, for those used to a highly structured corporate or union life.

I don’t see getting all the pieces ever getting put together for such a scheme. But there may be opportunities, where a local farm ceases to operate on the death of the operator – and China and other nations are kept from buying the land for producing food for their own people.

Many of today’s farmers have families that provide ballast that keeps them on the track they are now. Convincing an adult’s mate to choose chores over convenient shopping, making do over the latest advertised fashion or widget, or tearing up part of the yard for (more) garden space goes way beyond the issue.

It gets all the way back to how we choose a mate. The “pioneers” that took wagon trains from their beginnings back east picked a mate, for the most part, that was capable of and willing to work for security and survival. Many mates today are chosen for willingness to cuddle or whether they dress and act like Playboy or Chippendale icons. I can see revering a school football team – with a success record of providing a high number of armed services soldiers and sailors. The local acclaim that is the most any teams today boast is pretty petty and transitory – but it gets a lot of couples together, that have little cultural guidance or values established that emphasize respect, honor, and character. Or service. Too many people in the last several generations have known only the relatively forgiving, affluent life we see eroding around us today.

The real place to start for change, is going to be with the children. This is something the government in the 1950s and 1960s convinced my parents and grandparents not to do – that the nation needed every child to be an engineer (or fashion model or trophy wife), not to learn the culture and craft of their family and neighbors.

Check out Matron‘s delightful photography and presentation of her various small farming techniques – all chosen to maintain and improve the fertility of the soil, improve the quality of the beef and produce she raises, and joy in her life.

The girl and the camera

The little girl, maybe four or five years old, was dressed very nicely, as if just returned from church services with her family. She was bright eyed, impeccably groomed, and very respectful and energetic. She rushed to the Wal-Mart Santa, had her picture taken with a great smile – and rushed to the back of the camera to view the results. She hovered there, watching what the camera captured as her siblings took their turns with Santa.

I was moved. I intervened to speak to her mother. “Please consider a camera for her (indicating the girl). She has been all over that camera.” Mom looked surprised at the suggestion, as if the thought of camera and that girl had never come together for her. I was satisfied.

I was satisfied with my intervention, not because I got that girl a great camera, or even that I was glad her mother was now considering a camera for a Christmas present.

I was satisfied because now I was sure that her mother *noticed* that her daughter *noticed* cameras, capturing images and information. Mom now saw more than just another little girl.

Further thoughts

I don’t know that the camera was the seat of the girl’s attention and interest. Perhaps a sketch with charcoals or water colors – or crayons – would have expressed the core of what drew her attention. So the correct response should not have been an expensive camera, nor one much beyond her current knowledge and skills. I imagine that underestimating her abilities to use a camera is more likely, but still, any basic $12-30 camera should do.

Because the real gift should be the parents’ time. Time to be sure the girl knows how to use the camera – and begin to see how to view the world and capture that image. Her parents should take the time to help explore the things that camera images can build and contribute to – from documenting accidents and injuries, to furnishing family trees, to capturing portraits, to building a portfolio of images that express her feelings and appreciations for some aspect of life, nature, and belief (that is, art).

The gift should be recognition that the camera and the images it captures are a way to view, express, explore, and share the world. Recognizing that kind of gift of the spirit of that girl is an immense treasure. Appreciation by the parents of that sensitivity and artistic flourish is expressed in attention and participation – time – and not in dollars.

Cafe Hayek prints a letter from Don Boudreaux about the spin-doctoring of the Democrats, when they claim choosing not to raise taxes should be seen as a ‘tax break’.

First off, Don makes an unwarranted assumption. No where is there a fundamental limit on what a “tax” means. A tax is whatever a government takes, to fund operations or for other purposes. Taxes are a big part of the cost of government. Regulations, inspections, fees, and mandates to perform certain functions to government standards are indirect costs. Prohibitions against using things, or performing actions – such as growing hemp fibers or carrying a weapon to defend yourself, your family, and your community, these are taxes against the nation. The time of service of anyone drafted into or employed in government service is another cost of government; the services of government workers and soldiers are not available to the national economy during their term of service.

Under most Presidents that swear to protect and defend the Constitution, prescribed limits on authority tend to keep the cost of government reasonable for the demands of the nation upon that government. The common practice has been to assay taxes on the income of citizens. But the estate tax, excise taxes on luxury items including new cars, taxes on capital gains, taxes on the income of businesses – when that income will be taxed again when it becomes income of owners – these are clear examples of taxes on money other than personal income. During wartime, the military draft was a direct tax of people of the United States. Mandates against states, doctors, and police forces to implement various provisions from building roads to serving Medicare patients constitute another non-income tax.

So I think Don’s initial complaint about misleading by calling an extension of tax relief a “tax break” is quite accurate. But his assumption that the government can’t tax anything, anything at all, is wrong, if you allow that an unscrupulous government won’t abide by any constraints.

Threatening farms with the Estate Tax.

I think there is a side issue that should be addressed with the estate tax.

Farming is a marginal activity, perhaps especially modern type farming as directed by Monsanto and the US Dept of Agriculture. In good years there can be a really impressive cash flow when harvesting crops from hundreds or thousands of acres of highly productive crop land. In other years, the vast costs of purchasing and maintaining the equipment, of buying the increasingly expensive (patented, GMO Monsanto) seed, of artificially made and transported fertilizers and cost of purchase and application of crop chemicals to manage diseases, weeds, and insects, of the costs of transporting grains to ever fewer and more highly regulated (remember the three biggest lies, ending with “We are from the government, we are here to help”??) grain elevators. Because there is so much grain being harvested and so few places to handle it, harvest “season” gets horribly compressed into days and weeks – and most grain must then be dried down to survive even temporary storage, at cost of fuel and money to the farmer.

And in years that the yield, due to inclement weather, crop diseases, etc., is rather meager – not all the bills get paid. Debt accumulates quickly on a farm, waiting for the next harvest.

Now consider that the average – the average, mind you, ’cause that means half of them are older – age of farmers in the US is 57 years. For the most part, the next generation of farmers left the farms. And the generation after that. For the first time in human history, according to one ASPO USA presentation, the people that will be raising an impressive portion of the world’s food – including the food the US depends on – won’t be raised by farmers. The next generation of farmers won’t have their parents and grand parents to teach them about the land, about the crops, about the equipment, about the markets. About debt, and combining farm operations with off-farm employment, as most farms are forced to do.

Now look at the remaining “farm families” – and the estate tax. Too many farms, when the owner dies, had to be sold to pay the estate taxes, back before the Bush tax cuts. That is a quandary facing farm families, and America’s farmers, with the “tax the wealthy” cry we here from Obama and the Democrats. While farm land might be worth $3500 an acre in parts, on paper, when a family sells the farm – who can afford to buy it? Few banks want to sink that much money for land and equipment into a farm with such a low historical return – on an unproven young farmer. So the land becomes part of a larger spread, and gets farmed, and the US muddles along with a few less farmers ready to operate in the next generation. That, or speculators pick up the piece – we know China and other nations are purchasing crop land around the world, to raise crops to feed their people – crops that *won’t* be available to feed Americans, or to contribute to sales of food overseas.

There are international and food security issues that make the estate tax a very real risk to national security, and a risk to the ability of America to feed itself should supplies of energy (peak oil, peak coal, over-subscribed national electricity grid) or vagaries of weather, or mere passage of time and this last generation of American farmers, come to pass

Sharon Astyk makes a compelling argument that local food production can be safe and wholesome.

The cost, though, is prohibitive. Regulations regard every operation as if they are selling into the mainstream, national exposure of industrial agriculture.

Consider the hamburger, a chunk of meat taken from the ground up parts of perhaps 1,000 different cows, or maybe just one. The point is that the meat industry takes all the pieces and blends them together, so that meat from grass-fed young animals won’t taste one way, and retired (old) dairy cows and bulls (tasting of their stronger hormones) won’t taste another. Blend them all, and the taste stays consistent, hiding the healthier taste and quality into the mix.

Or milk. Milk is gathered from the cow, mixed into the daily gathering’s tank, gathered into the bulk transport, gathered into the processing plant vats. Each gathering from transport, from farm, from cow, must be clean and safe, in order for the bulk tank to be safe, and then for each container filled from that tank to be safe.

When Joe down the road milks his cow, and pours it into a quart jar with his name and date, you need the cow to be healthy, and Joe to work cleanly. And that is it. If Joe makes a mistake, maybe 20 people will be affected; if Joe were selling to a big dairy association (they won’t take Joe’s milk if he has less than a hundred cows), his mistake could affect thousands of households. It economically affordable to be extra sure the big, bulk processing inputs are all regulated and mistake-free (or almost).

Joe and his cow, and the folk that prefer the taste of non-watered milk from Joe’s cow, should be allowed to buy what they want. Even if it doesn’t have enough water added to make it USDA-compliant so-called “whole” milk.

My thought has been to limit regulations to those selling 10,000 servings per year. That would place a fairly reasonable definition of “small producer” on the books.

A local supplier selling their own products, under their label, means that tracking problems back to the source gets quite simple. Different regulations should apply when your products aren’t mixed in with someone else’s products. The tomatoes in a bin labeled “Brad’s Tomatoes” should have different regulations than the bin labeled “Product of Chile”. (I have nothing against Chile or other places, and I am happy to have their fruits when they are available.)

If I sell Sharon a bushel of, say, loofa (if I can get the dang fruit to grow nearly as well as the vine), and it keeps that “Brad’s Garden” identifier right to the sale to the customer, so the customer can call and complain to me or identify me to the county health or doctor or whoever needs problems reported to – that satisfies, and should set that bushel aside from, public health concerns. Because at that point, the exposure isn’t “the public” to “the product” – it is “my community” exposed to “Brad’s Garden”. And that is a personal, entirely different kind of relationship.

Just one for-instance. Try suing Brad’s Garden for $10. I go out of business. And anything I might have been growing is lost to the community. If I should be shut down, then everyone (but me) wins. Should someone think twice about cost to the community, before suing? I think so. Especially if any problem could be corrected in person.

This kind of approach would pose a problem for a roadside stand or grocer that wants to lump the last of apples from Brad’s Garden with the apples from two neighbors into a remnants bin. Maybe.

I read a lot of science fiction, including David Weber and others that refer to “laser head” munitions. “David’s Sling” by Marc Steigler informs a number of innovative weapon systems some of which closely resemble weapon systems deployed to the Mid East.

I read a piece pointing out that most of what we know about so-called renewable energy, short of hydroelectric, really isn’t. Wind farms are expensive in money and energy for an intermittent power source – meaning they cannot displace coal fired power plants, and that the national distribution grid isn’t designed to make good use of such diverse, modest sources of electricity. Nuclear power, ultimately, consumes a non-renewable resource, uranium, uses a lot of precious resources including water, people, and besides, nuclear power produces wastes that pose problems of national scale for security and toxicity.

So I was thinking – how to capture the energy difference between an asteroid in orbit, or even de-orbiting, and the surface of the earth?. Since I was young, when Project Mercury introduced the nation to the hazards – and heat – of reentry, I have “known” about the way heat accumulates in the path of an object deorbiting into the atmosphere.

And I wondered – what if . . What if there was a way to capture, to encapsulate that heat of friction as an object at orbital velocity begins to impact the upper atmosphere. That heated almost-air, that blanket of superheated . . plasma. Some SF writers, including David Weber, posit a magnetic field to encompass the plasma of a high-output, nuclear-related (fictional) space drive. Could some type of mechanical or magnetic field hybrid container be constructed, to save and store the plasma – the heat – generated by a rock hitting the atmosphere?

That would be an astronomical quantity of elemental plasma, at temperatures similar to a nuclear reactor, I imagine, at times.

And that could be a mechanism for generating reasonably inexpensive energy: send men into space, reclaim an asteroid or section of an asteroid, shift it (I apologize for the hand-waving here, in the blithe assurance that if SF authors have figured it out, then industry and rocket science could, too. Solar sails, for instance, would be reasonably sustainable, and not contribute to carbon accumulation in the stellar field) to Earth orbit. Then carve it into 10 kilo size or whatever size is useful, fit with the “US Deorbital Plasmotic Energy Process and Collection Kit” (USDPEPCK, “Peck” for short, as in “a peck of plasma,” but name is subject to change), and drop the package using a powered ‘sled’ type minimal craft to deorbit the package, and release it in a way that the package lands somewhere innocuous but useful. The sled returns to the work site for the next chunk. Repeat until the asteroid (or fraction) is used up.

(Note – if you get an asteroid into orbit, there may well be more things to do than drop rocks – things like build manufacturing facilities for space-born processes, and processes that are toxic in the atmosphere. Or even building space colonies, interplanetary exploration and research launch platforms – the “airport” and “island outpost” raised to Low Earth Orbit.)

But – what about de-orbiting spacecraft? Or satellites? Could the heat that we currently ablate with consumable shields be captured for useful purpose? Could capturing plasma act as a shield to the spacecraft?

What if the compression of air in front of a vehicle in motion could be capture – by a rail train, or a freight truck? Or commercial aircraft?

Hmm. I wonder if DARPA has looked into this?

I wonder if you got an asteroid into orbit, and cut it into small chunks – could you drop each into a certain lake or reservoir, and just capture the heating to the targeted water?

Peak Oil

Peak oil is a looming crisis for the world, as current oil fields lose productivity as they empty, as world demand for oil grows with additional nations approaching the oil consumption rates per capita that made the United States wealthy, and as newly found and developed fields promise new sources of oil – at one fourth the rate that oil is being consumed today.

The Peak Oil crisis is hitting now, as demand outstrips – now and forever – the ability to produce oil, on a day by day basis.

The risk: Shortages and rising prices for energy

Whether or not the climate change movement’s contention that burning fossil fuels returns carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that was removed ages ago – unbalancing the content of the air we breathe, and that traps more heat against the Earth that in decades and centuries past – we are facing shortages and volatile prices for oil and other energy sources.

The personal, private automobile is one of the symbols of America’s wealthy lifestyle. The car runs on gasoline, or diesel fuel – oil, that is – or increasingly, electricity from coal-fired power plants (which are still being built, even as Peak Coal approaches). One way to lessen the impact of short supplies of oil, and increasing energy costs, is to – reduce commutes.

Instead of investing heavily in exquisitely energy intensive roadways, or rapid or mass transit, one way is to abandon the concept of commuting to work, to school, or for shopping.

The Proposal

Cut commutes.

Many urban areas contain housing “communities” – regions, some vast in size, built by a single or small group of builders or investors, some at significant distances from stores, employers, worship centers, and schools. Other cities have seen vast shopping centers and other shopping districts “consolidate” – and expect the community to travel tens of miles to shop. Employers build offices and factories and other business facilities in areas remote from where most of their workers live. I think a “commute” tax on employers is needed, to gain understanding about how far workers commute each day, and the community infrastructure burdened by employers not being engaged with the community, and not taking responsibility for how much commute each employer imposes on that community.

But today the idea is – recognize the impact of letting “city planning” stray, and encourage long commutes – and the attendant costs of providing and servicing the infrastructures and private and public vehicles needed to support the commuting lifestyle.

Social engineering through taxes

What I recommend, is an excise tax, a Residential Excise Tax on the purchase of an existing residence or materials, land, and attendant costs of building a residence. The tax would be calculated for every residence purchased that isn’t located on, or adjacent to, a farm.

The Residential Excise Tax (RET) would be 2.5 percent on the accumulated and total cost of purchasing a residence the first year, increasing by 2.5 percent per year, to an eventual (20 year) target of 50 percent of the cost of buying.

The RET would be forgiven if the following conditions are met:

1. Schools. Public school (grades K-12) within one mile walking distance
3. Stores. Grocery and hardware stores within one mile walking distance, or qualified combination grocery/hardware store
4. Sufficient employment. That is, the total of all employees employed and working within one and a half miles (1.5 miles) is greater than one half (0.5) of the population within one mile of the residence.
5. Sidewalk. Whether or not the property borders a street, if the property includes any land surface, it includes a sidewalk for general pedestrian traffic in the direction of general traffic (vehicle or pedestrian) flow, that connects to sidewalks on adjoining properties.
6. Parks. Parks, play areas for children, and green zones within 1.5 miles, containing at least 1 square yard of area for each adult living within 1 mile of the residence.
7. Retirement. Or, the residence might be sworn to be a retirement residence where no commute or school is required by any resident. The retirement exemption would need to be re-sworn every year, and the first year that a resident commutes to work or school, the RET is due on that year, and the Retirement exemption would be set aside. For the Retirement exemption, all above requirements must be met, except Sufficient employment and Schools.

The Residential Excise Tax might be tailored to also encourage supplemental local food production, by requiring every resident have access to a minimum of space for a garden. Customary certification that water is available for the next century before the residence may be occupied should certainly be required. Certification about whether sufficient electricity can be provided might be worth implementing.

An alternative to calculating the sufficient employment factor might be to impose a factor relating distance to employer for each adult in the household, though that would be subject to abuse (fraudulent claim of distance to employer, fraudulent employer identification until after the RET is paid, etc.). These concerns would be covered by the Employer Commute Tax above.

The intent is to make the choice to live near one’s work cheaper than otherwise, or at least put a halt to the practice of planning communities requiring commutes of more than 20 minutes, or distances too far to walk, for work, shopping, and school. Secondarily, as energy costs rise, the current practice of living way over ‘thar, and working way over ‘hyar, will become increasingly a factor destabilizing employers, communities, and the lives of workers. Limiting the long commutes to the decidedly more wealthy will, in the future, leave fewer people stranded by an unsustainable planning bias toward accommodating big developers.

Communities have to understand the burden imposed by developments, by employment, and by centralized schools, shopping, and employers.

Net Right Daily’s Frank McCaffrey reports that President B. Hussein Obama wants to cut spending, but doesn’t know where to start.

I could think of one place to stop spending. ACORN. But that would bite the hand that helped put him in office. I doubt he will change his priorities now. (Barry Soetoro/Obama keeps paying off the unions, foreign interests, etc.)

I posted a comment on where to cut spending. I like it – here it is again.

I might suggest moving the controlled substance list to the IRS, impose a 50% VAT on anything “controlled” and disband the DEA.

Disband the Dept of Ed.

Disband the Dept of Homeland Security. Disband all Patriot Act activity, and hold the FBI accountable for security within the borders of America.

Cut past-Congressmen and past-Senator pensions in half. Reduce future pensions.

Reduce Air Force 1 to the weight and capacity of a C-130.

Cut BATFE enforcement activities by 30%. Make advancement and raises in the BATFE conditional on the number of rifles sold and number of gunsmith and gun seller licenses issued.

Remember President Reagan and PATCO, the once-upon-a-time air traffic controllers union? Disband SEIU.

Terminate and forbid federal mandates on states – including ObamaCare, NAIS, FSA (S.510) – and terminate funding states.

Terminate and forbid federal mandates on citizens of the US. Eliminate exemptions from income taxes, most especially for tax shelters, capital gains, and charitable or religious contributions. Capital gains should be untaxed by regulation, not exemption. Only individuals should be taxed, not organizations or business entities. Eliminate estate taxes, they disenfranchise descendants and those with vested interests.

Forbid and prohibit courts from imposing continuing judgments – including establishing post-divorce obligations and relationships, punitive oversight and auditing, and ongoing “legislation from the bench” such as bussing school children, etc. The judgement of the court is supposed to evaluate the evidence presented. The judgment should be restricted to the conditions present at the time verdict is rendered – and not capable of future control of anyone outside a recognized department of correction’s custody.

Congress should require that every agency review every federal regulation under their purview, and testify to Congress, within two years, why that regulation, in detail, should be retained. Anything not reviewed in that time, or that isn’t presented for review should be automatically invalidated, marked obsolete and no longer in effect. No regulation should be permitted to stand longer than 10 years without Congressional review. Repeat above for each item of each Federal law, within four years, and as the 15th anniversary of each item approaches. Where timely review isn’t possible, those laws and regulations would have to be written again, and passed and signed, again, subject to then-current needs and priorities. Re-authorizing in blank would only be permitted for items reviewed in full detail, through deliberative testimony.

Review the USDA. “We are from the government, we are here to help” should be a lie. If the government is acting to help someone – we cannot afford it, and government assistance is paid for in loss of liberty and freedom. The USDA should be concerned with farm produce safety to the extent they are involved in inspections and review today. And that is it.

The National Labor Relations Board should be disbanded. Today’s worker has access to attorneys and civil and criminal courts and processes that make labor unions a simple canker on the American economy, costing every American in loss of productivity, in diversion of investment capital, in reduction in service, and in diversion of taxes on income. Labor unions and members should explicitly be liable to civil and criminal penalties for intimidation, slander, fraud, deceit, violence, criminal mischief, and inflammatory speech. And especially for harm to image and productivity to any employer. Craft guilds have a purpose, but labor unions as collective bargaining units have a monopoly, and should be prosecuted as an errant, criminal monopoly.

Campaign finance. No federal matching money should be available for any contribution not directly and explicitly attributed to, as reported under sworn oath subject to perjury penalties by the campaign staff, to a registered citizen voter, in a state not suspected of failing to purge registered voter lists on a periodic basis as required by law. Impose a 50% excise tax on all other donations (business entities, foreign entities, or anything not explicitly donated by an citizen of the United States who is currently registered to vote in the local state.

Revert government procurement regulations to pre-Secretary McNamara’s tenure during President Kennedy’s administration. The notion that a paper chase is more “fair” – or even affordable – is patently false. Any procurement should favor the vendor best suited to meeting the need. Helping newcomers and competition is in the best interest of the nation, but not at the cost of multiplying program costs – or casting utility of the eventual procurement into doubt. Which is what often happens today. I note that the specific industry adaptability – and procurement agility – won WWII. Today’s procurement costs and bureaucracy employs thousands and thousands, introduces programmatic delays and oversights that further federal careers – and don’t demonstrably serve the nation’s best interests.

Introduce a moratorium. Restrict federal pay scales from the President and Congress on down to 1973 levels until annual Federal expenditures fall below collected revenues for three consecutive years – while no longer combining earmarked collections (Social Security, etc.) into the general fund. Restrict House of Representative and Senate staffing levels and budgets to the 1973 average until the budget balances for three consecutive years.

There – does that provide a starting point?

Frank’s story is short, but includes a good video of Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn’s proposal to cut NPR and Corporation for Public Broadcasting support to: none. Duh. That is about as likely as cutting ACORN funding while Obama is still in the White House. But the video is still worth watching.

Ooh! Good ideas are still coming! Sell Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Auction them off for whatever anyone wants to bid. Revert FHA policies and authority to pre-Carter and pre-CRA (and pre community organizer) regulations.

Require English competency for all applications for citizenship. Forbid any government interaction with citizens – most especially voting – be conducted in any language but English. Immigration and Naturalization should spend more an English as Second Language classes as raiding employers suspected of employing undocumented workers. Anyone facing deportment should spend a minimum 60 days in Sheriff Arpaio’s tent jails in Arizona, or in a similar facility with similar accommodations and costs of operation.