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.

Over the past couple of weeks I have learned a couple of things, learned while responding to John Michael Greer’s Archdruid Report articles on Peak Oil, the economic decline and speculation on the coming post-industrial society/culture. JMG refers to the current changes in America as “becoming a third world nation.”

1. Affluence. This is the distance between a person and rote labor.
2. Efficiency. This is the elimination of waste that affects return on investment, almost always measured in currency, and taken from the perspective of the owner/investor in a commercial or industrial venture.

The Archdruid Report.

JMG uses the term household economy to describe the production, exchange, and consumption of goods and services amongst the home and family, that doesn’t involve a cash flow. This is somewhat akin to Sharon Astyk’s informal economy, which I prefer. Setting an informal economy in relationship to a formal, cash-based economy makes the distinctions easy to label and to comprehend. The term informal economy has the additional benefit of identifying why it is disparaged by those involved in maximizing profits for employers, investors, and tracking cash flow for governments.

Can there be affluence in an informal economy? Yep. If affluence is avoiding the need to perform physical labor, then have kids. As the children mature, put them to work. Presto. Work gets done that Mom and Dad don’t have to do – affluence.

Today JMG advocates many families re-evaluate the cost of that second income. He points out that, in pure cash terms, it makes sense for many families to abandon that second income, and keep one adult at home. Reduce paid child care and housekeeping costs, qualify for a lower income tax bracket, and garden and cook from scratch instead of ready-to-eat dishes and meals.

And JMG laments that no one will take this eminently sensible advice.

Affluence.

There have been people in recorded history that turned from a cash-based affluence to lead a “simpler” life. Others refuse to leave enlisted ranks in the military, or advance into supervisory or management roles, because they prefer the craft and skills they exhibit every day, to the affluence and isolation of a strategic, rather than a tactical, definition of their work life.

But most people are driven to accumulate more assets than they consume this week. The taste of “running out” or sometimes lessons from elders that survived shortages of food, water, shelter, and other necessities of life, warns us that in bad times, we may need to rely on things saved in better times, when more assets were available.

Formal economy forces turn this cultural drive to conservation into . . ambition.

Ambition.

Ambition comes in many forms. Ambition is the need to build up the pantry, so that low-cost food is available when needed. Ambition is investing in a growing business, so that more money is generated for later times. Ambition is a community or business recognizing that good managers and supervisors are able to increase the efficiency (rate of cash return to the investor) of an organization. And convincing people that they are worth more to the community and business in advanced levels of responsibility and authority – and thus ambition has come to be a societal imperative to advance one’s career. To improve the efficiency of the company. For more efficient returns of cash to the investor, the owner.

A change in perspective.

A couple of points JMG overlooked, in advocating single-family incomes. While he acknowledges derision about becoming a house-husband or house-wife, he only recognizes that choosing to abandon outside-the-home income is a sacrifice. That is, choosing to live with less cash and greater home autonomy now because the need is coming soon anyway, and getting a head start while society still provides lots of options while gathering tools and implements to better survive coming harsh times just makes sense.

At the same time JMG describes his household economy he doesn’t make plain that it is described in different terms than the formal, commercial and industrial cash economy. Sharon’s informal economy, however, makes fairly plain that the services and goods are evaluated on a barter system, on an ad hoc basis. Applying my own, new word – I would contend that affluence, avoiding rote work, is present in the formal economy by hiring or buying necessities. What affluence there is in the informal economy is expressed by doing work one enjoys, or that can be traded for what is desired.

A different affluence.

What JMG suggests – reducing unemployment, reducing the clutter and waste of pre-packaged, pre-prepared foods and goods, reducing out-of-home costs by choosing one partner to function at home, is nothing less than redefining affluence from dollar terms, to a more fundamental “distance from rote labor” – and recognizing that we aren’t really all that affluent today.

Thoughts?

Abbie commented on the post,

This post really speaks to me. Both my mom and my mother-in-law can go overboard with presents, and I fear that next Christmas will be way overindulgent for our baby. I’ve spoken to each of them about guidelines for what will be appropriate, and spent time reminiscing with my brothers and my husband’s siblings about our favorite toys: blocks, sticks, cardboard boxes, dolls… and of course our favorite things to play with were our pets. So I think (hope) that the moms will understand and give presents that reflect our simple values. I don’t want an overwhelming sea of plastic for each birthday and holiday!

My reply to Abbie, as usual, is bigger than a simple comment should be. So here is my reply to Abbie:

@ Abbie,

The honor of the recipient of a gift is to use that gift in a manner that the giver doesn’t regret the giving. (I read that in a science fiction novel.)

That said, I think the issue of respect must be addressed. You might approach your mother and aunts, and state you are concerned there is a problem coming up for the holidays. Explain that you and your house have chosen to address meaningless values of things, vs. values of spirit and self esteem. Explain that you see much danger in commercial gift giving, that you are focusing on enriching the inner life, and reducing the distractions of clutter and overabundance.

Explain you would prefer gifts of a recorder and song book, to a popular CD or Guitar Hero add-on. Song books and instrument books guide one to the beauty of culture, history, and art. They take time to master, and have no arbitrary “end of game”. The perseverance of learning to play well or sing well is a justly earned discipline, and builds character – instead of merely passing time, admiring an arbitrarily assigned idol.

Don’t get me wrong, there is much to learn from music, whether classical (endurance?!), country, rock, rap, etc. Some lessons should not be learned, but knowing that such a message is false and to be avoided is a valuable lesson, too. Also books, drama, movies, even TV. But electronic versions tend to represent more commercial interest than personal growth. And I am convinced that it is the short, bright intrusions of advertisements into TV programs that largely explains the growth in ADD and ADHD diagnoses – ads disrupt and distract from story telling, which destroys concentration and persistence over the seven (7) minutes between commercials. Some computer games return to the epic story format, and engage for protracted periods of concentration, effort, and persistence. Yet there is little, oftentimes, to learn about people or life from computer games. There are exceptions, yet they require the player to be willing to transfer game knowledge to life skills, something computer users tend to disassociate very early on.

Accept that you can and should not impose your own beliefs on others. But watch closely what they do. Gifting is *always* about respect and responsibility. Pay attention to what your gifting, and the gifts you receive, say about each relationship.

Giving an unwanted gift should be a disappointment to the giver. Within reason the recipient should acknowledge the gift – that is being “polite”. Giving a child a gift in despite of a parent’s request is a clear and aggressive act of disrespect. Disrespect through inappropriate gifts might be a slander to the parent’s parenting skills, their lack of adequate assets to parent, or it might be a simple bullying of the parents (perhaps a continuation of the poor parenting skills the now-parent survived as a child.)

A well-chosen gift is an endeavor of love, not a trip to the “most popular” aisle of a store. Using the above example of a recorder – a first recorder should be a gift. It should be chose with the finger agility and reading ability of the recipient. A certain amount of knowledge is needed to find an instrument suitable for a beginner – not just the “beginner” model the local store happens to carry. It should be easy enough for a beginner to play, and play adequately in the ranges a beginner will manage first. Like ponies, horses, bicycles, books, etc., buying a professional, Olympic competition model is great – when the craftsman that will be using the tool chooses one that fits his or her needs. For a beginner, a hammer is indistinguishable from a concert-grade recorder, a sawhorse from a world champion race horse, jumper, or other performance horse. Buy what the beginner needs. For later acquisitions, enable the craftsman to acquire the tools needed for the next level of growth, next usage. Overbuying kills dreams, because the beginner doesn’t get the tools to begin, and cannot acquire the skills to advance to the advanced tools.

If you have someone bent on a mega-huge purchase – ask for a good, solid, used upright piano, maybe a couple of beginner books. And a visit from a good piano tuner to condition and tune the piece.

Actually, I think the piano is an insidious family endeavor. Because the practice advances from “hit a key” to “hit the right key”, everyone in ear-shot learns about correct timing, correct notes, phrasing, etc. Plus, old tunes get dusted off.

Where electronic games create a world of fantasy, music and music lessons return awareness of earlier cultural values.

I suppose threatening Mom with picking a third-rate nursing home, when the time comes, next week, would be a bit of over-reaction. Depending on Mom, of course.

. . . Like the majority of the 60 million people who now live in the country’s roughly 300,000 private communities, Ms. Saylor was forbidden to dry her laundry outside because many people viewed it as an eyesore, not unlike storing junk cars in driveways, and a marker of poverty that lowers property values.

In the last year, however, state lawmakers in Colorado, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont have overridden these local rules with legislation protecting the right to hang laundry outdoors, citing environmental concerns since clothes dryers use at least 6 percent of all household electricity consumption.

The dispute is serious.

“It seems like such a mundane thing, hanging laundry, and yet it draws in all these questions about individual rights, private property, class, aesthetics, the environment,” said Steven Lake, a British filmmaker who is releasing a documentary next May called “Drying for Freedom,” about the clothesline debate in the United States.

The film follows the actual case of feuding neighbors in Verona, Miss., where the police say one man shot and killed another last year because he was tired of telling the man to stop hanging his laundry outside.

Tree ‘em.

But I have a solution. For communities with restrictions, and that don’t want to gaze, rapt, at the holes in the neighbor’s knickers flapping in the breeze – plant trees. Poplars, evergreens. Establish a wind-break zone about the homeowner’s association boundary, plant with wind and view-blocking, carbon dioxide-fixing, trees. Maybe hazel, pecan, or walnut trees for their annual bounty of edible nuts. Maybe apples and pears or oranges and plums. Cherries or peaches. A bit of gardening and landscaping, and in a brief time, watch the cycle of nature cover up those unsightly undies for four to six months of the year or more.

And all without bothering the neighbors. Or would the green-laundry types, intent on saving the air and the climate, object to the extra trees? Naw.

If the roof caves in.

If the homeowners association were to change it’s policy, the mature trees could double as clotheslines. They could use something like the Tuff Enuff Tree Saver to keep the rope from scarring the tree bark (could damage the tree or limb).

More on clotheslines at Project Laundry List.

Proof positive: Global warming

Project Laundry List is making air-drying and cold-water washing laundry acceptable and desirable as simple and effective ways to save energy.

Look at the information and products at The Clothes Line Shop, LLC. Or shop clotheslines and clothesline accessories at Amazon.com.

Casaubon’s Book.

Hat tip to Sharon at Casaubon’s Book.

The South Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project

Along in the comments to Rob’s piece, Risa B mentioned the Bean and Grain Project. So I Googled that. It turns out the South Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project is a modest start to reintroduce the practices of growing food on farmland. Currently 60% of the rich farmlands of Oregon’s Willamette Valley is planted in rye and fescue grass seed. I read about this on the Post Carbon Eugene site, Mud City Press Bean and Grain page, and the Friends of Family Farmers Bean and Grain page.

Small Farmers Journal

Now, the Friends of Family Farmers site name got me thinking of Sisters, OR, and the Small Farmers Journal – a long time and important publication to the Draft Horse, Oxen, and horse farming communities. So, I checked their site, www.SmallFarmersJournal.com. And, yep, there it is. Still publishing after 25 to 30 years.

The cover picture up today includes a farmer striding from the field, with a smile, and bundle of something under an arm, and a bushel basked of vegetables under the other.

And that got me thinking.

I told you that story, so I could tell you this one.

Containers used to tend to last a bit. When a bucket was an empty five gallon purchase of grease – the steel thing lasted until it well rusted through. While it was tight, you hauled water or whatever. After it started leaking, you just carried dry feeds and things. Rusted badly? Trash can. Or final container for used parts that might be useful to cobble up a fix for something else that breaks. “Reuse” isn’t all that new a concept.

Baskets.

I can remember having a few baskets around Dad’s farm, when I was a little nipper. I imagine they came with peaches in them, or maybe apricots. So I Googled that. Baskets, that is. And found the Texas Basket Company. They sell bushel baskets by the dozen, about 30 pounds for 12, the minimum order, at $2.53 or so each, that would be $30.36 a dozen, plus shipping and tax. Unless you want them colored – there are bunches of color options, single and two colors. And half-bushel baskets, etc.

Wow. The old-timey thin wooden baskets. Board bottom for seafood, or round bottom, etc. With care, I imagine they will gather and store apples and other fruits and veggies for years. Get together with a neighbor for a handful each, or stock up for a CSA gathering of tomatoes. And Texas Basket isn’t the only one.

Hubert.com (866-482-4357) lists many and varied styles, shapes, and sizes of baskets for active use, or fruit and vegetable presentation accessories.

Little Rock Crate and Basket lists baskets for Home Decor, for Fruit and Vegetables, and for Seafood use.

All three carry peck and bushel baskets. A peck is 1/4 bushel, in case you notice they have bushel, 1/2 bushel, peck, 1/2 peck, and 1/4 peck sizes.

The song.

I guess the song (Bushel and a Peck, from the musical show Guys and Dolls) just really harps on the bushel full and overflowing – 25% more than full.

I love you,
a bushel and a peck,
a bushel and a peck
and a hug around the neck!

Whatever. But baskets are still around, and at moderately reasonable prices for a durable work tool for gathering garden, field, and orchard produce, leaves and clippings, or other bulk management needs when you really don’t want to buy a plastic bucket from Wal-Mart, or another 5 gallons of paint from Sherwin Williams. Or a five gallon pail of grease.

An amazing calculator link is to the LDS (Mormon) library (http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm), that estimates the food a family needs, for a year. You may not have a year’s food stored, yet. But if things get tight(er), getting started now will be a comfort then.

As Verde put it today,

.. She has been encouraging level headed, balanced food storage. This includes buying what you eat and eating what you buy and buying extra each time you shop. ..

and

Please note: I by far favor a long thought out stocking up of things you will actually use and beginning to adjusting your diet to eating closer to whole foods. We eat beans and home ground grains and fruit from the tree every week, but if you eat a lot of fast food, you have to develop the ability to digest this stuff so start slowly. If you start all at once, you will feel ill. Food storage must be rotated and maintained.

What do plan on cooking in an emergency? OK, make it for dinner this week and see how well you digest it. Don’t like it? Don’t store it.

When Verde mentioned buying a bag of wheat from a farmer ($25/50 pound bag; about market price now. If you buy ‘seed’ wheat, be sure it has *not* been treated or inoculated, and it is *not* the Monsanto and other ‘Roundup Ready’ tailored commercial species – you get into serious copyright and patent crap, if they think you might keep or sell or trade some of the wheat to plant.

But I wondered – wheat. The last thing I did with ‘wheat berries’ (seed) was to drop a couple tablespoons in a quart jar of water, and let it ferment in the cupboard until the water got cloudy and it bubbled. Then I started drinking a cup or so, and replacing the water, each day for a week. And repeat. Called ‘rejuvelac’ (I lived in California, just south of San Francisco) this was supposed to be part of a ‘colon cleansing’ program, and made ‘lactobacillus’ from non-dairy sources. That was 30 years ago, and hasn’t killed me yet. CA was strange.

So I Googled for ‘home grain grinder’. And, wow.

• http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/
• http://www.internet-grocer.net/grinders.htm
• http://goldengraingrinder.com/
• http://www.haferboy.com/
• http://www.beatingstrong.com/grain-mills.html

Yes. There are grain grinders, and other home gadgets. Not cheap – several are $200-$400 dollars. Some are manual, some for one grain only. If you are thinking Peak Oil, you are probably looking for something that works after the electricity is disconnected.

One site, allexperts.com, offers some advice in choosing a grain grinder.

Now, if I can just figure out how to process sugar beets. I mean, I feed sugar beet shreds now as part of my pony’s feed. The beets don’t seem hard to grow. And having a supply of sugar to trade seems attractive. (Sugar beets are shredded at the factory, to release juices better. After the sugar juice is extracted, the resulting pulp is dried. After the goat, horse, cow, etc. eats it, the digestion process converts the beet pulp to a high quality feed – good calories, low starch and sugar, fair fiber. Use to provide safe, extra energy for slicking up show animals, etc. I use it to simplify feeding my pony vegetable oil instead of grain. It is better for most draft horses (EPSM), and good feed plan for all horses, mules, ponies. 2 c. veggie oil/1,000 lbs/day). Which reminds me. I need to figure how to produce vegetable oil, too. Carrots, grass hay – I might be able to guess at that.

Where today a single family dwelling is the ‘American Dream’, suburb life and horrendous commute to work in mostly single-occupant vehicles, and easy access to cooking and heating fuels, and access to the electric utilities grid, will all be challenged.  Sharon advocates growing your own food, re-learning canning and housekeeping from times before the first electric appliances, and relying on ecology-friendly approaches.  Other Peak Oil views expect a massive shortfall in food availability – farmers that can’t afford to plant for the low price of produce, and transportation costs so high no one can afford the available food.  Loss of municipal water sources, fire and medical services may well follow, making the Great Depression and the attendant deaths from starvation and disease and suicide likely to reappear.

Me?  I think we should plan for something like Sharon plans for.  That rural communities and groups of families and neighbors will gather to share resources, skill sets, tools, and trade labor.  I grew up in 1960′s NW Iowa.  Some of our neighbors had a flat-rack (made for hauling hay bales),  A few had a baler.  Dad helped three or four neighbors bale their hay, then they helped bale ours and put it up in the barn.  No muss, no fuss – and no begging off.

That is certainly doable again.

I enjoy working with draft horses.  Working draft horses can be the center-point of a rural lifestyle of hard work, rewarding life, and a great place to raise kids.  Ask the Amish - they have believed that for centuries, Their Anabaptist forbears were persecuted for witchcraft in Europe – when their fields outperformed their neigbors.  The Anabaptists introduced what became today’s modern agriculture.  Simply rotating crops, devotion to maintaining soil quality, fertilizing – were weird and suspect practices, and caused many martyrs before they migrated to the New World.  Today their lifestyle mingles only lightly with the modern world.  And they still believe that working the soil is the right way to raise children.

We have Amish examples that we can live today without the electric utility that some Peak Oil analysts believe will be too expensive for half the families in the US to afford, by about .. umm .. 2012.  Three years, give or take.

Our grandparents and great-grandparents that lived through the Great Depression of the 1930′s, and the food rationing of World War II, grew much of their own food.  Even in cities and apartments, there were ‘victory gardens’ to supplement what food was available.  And there are many people that concede the Peak Oil worries are valid – that are already growing their Victory Gardens.

For a number of years, people have been  interested in a slower-paced life.  Small Farmers Journal, published quarterly in Sisters, OR, covers rustic skills and early recipes, working and training workhorses and oxen and goats, etc.  Rural Heritage magazine from Jackson County, TN, covers an Appalachian perspective of regressed living styles.  The venerable FoxFire books detail the elder skills and implements for those looking to retreat from modern life, Mother Earth News helps the back-to-nature people find their way.

I think, if Peak Oil hits as the analysts claim, that we will see prices skyrocket – then return to a higher level, then keep ratcheting ever higher.  Companies will lay off workers and close doors as costs to provide services and produce and transport products put them out of business.  Those few tilling the land in the old ways will have the best access to the food – that they grow.  Small communities of like-minded neighbors will share work and resources.  Many will find themselves sharing a home with others, some with families, some with others.  Ready, continuous access to propane, natural gas, electricity, heating oil, diesel fuel, and gasoline and ethanol will become intermittent and prices will become prohibitive.

Most food will be locally produced.  To assure the best availability of local food, the time is now to begin preferring and seeking out local producers.  Establish the market now, so that production increases to keep up – and will be available when food from other counties, other states, or across the ocean will become rarities.

What is the down side of preparing?  If it doesn’t happen in our lifetimes – we recover some skills from history, we learn to live with less reliance on fossil fuels, we (eventually) live healthier, more active lives, we save a ton of money.  And we provide a useful, sane role model for our kids.