Brad’s Take

Tam at View From The Porch mentions (commends) a Dennis Ranch post on “Whining“. That is, a working rancher reflects on – rants about – people (city, or non-ranch, folk) stranded and torn from their regular routine by the recent blizzard.

The rant:

We get a three day doozy of a blizzard. How long has it been since we had one of those in this country at Chriustmas? Been awhile. Setting here this morning reading all the comments and talk on the internet from blogs and Facebook, of people I read and know who have just went thru’ this. And what do I read? Whine, whine, bitch, bitch and moan, moan! “Woe is me!”

Oh how sad that your poor little lives have been upset by Mother Nature. On all the farm/ranch blogs I read, I never saw one person who whined about the extra work to feed the stock. Just the satisfaction of knowing they got the stock all fed and taken care of. Mostly (sorry town and city dwellers) all I read was whine, whine, cry, cry. because we can’t get somewhere we WANT to go. Oh my!

Things didn’t go your way!

How sad!

I grew up in rural NW Iowa, and have been snowed in – mostly every winter, at home. We had heat and running water, food, and barring emergency, accepted the situation and went on. The lane from the house to the road was most of a quarter mile long (house set in the center of a quarter-section of land), and we walked to meet the school bus, whether there was snow drifted or not. If school was on, we headed out; we could see the school bus a couple miles away so we just had time to make it, if we hurried.

So I understand that DennisRanch has little patience for people that haven’t organized their life, from the vehicle they drive to how they heat their home and plan for water when the power and roads are down. That knowing the neighbors and being ready to help – or ask for help – when needed is a matter of planning for regular natural interruptions.

Look at Sharon Astyk’s take on this at Chatelaine’s Keys. Sharon doesn’t mention the blizzard; she is concerned about the nation falling off the common electric grid. That is, the Peak Oil community expects the average (read: more than half, not counting those living in poverty) American family will *not be able* to afford local utilities by 2012. That number came from expectations about instability of oil and coal prices, and much before Obama decided to tax the utility industry into rubble. Kathy at The Just In Case Book Blog looks at all kinds of preparation for emergencies. The Original Modern Urban Homestead is one family’s example of creating a microfarm in Pasadena, focusing on sustainable and alternative energy practices, and food security.

I venture to say that DennisRanch hasn’t “prepared” for transportation cost to overcome market value on his livestock – so he could no longer afford to sell. I venture to say that DennisRanch would be hardpressed to manufacture the appliances and clothes in his home, or the homes of “city slickers”. A recent fairy-tale movie, Juia Stiles’ “The Prince & Me”, makes a point that we are all interconnected. That no one gets hurt without hurting all of us.

And I don’t think DennisRanch adequately takes into account, that storm surprises that catch folks unprepared for what he experiences rather regularly – the isolation and danger of show storms and road travel – is that over time, the rural folk have learned to cope. Others don’t yet have the experience. Where DennisRanch likely, as I did, learned from parents and neighbors what works and what is a hazard over the course of a year, others have family heritage that includes office work and urban interests and hazards. The rural bragging about weathering harsh storms over city slickers is as much a truism and a joke, a the green out of towner or rural rube getting mugged or lost in the big city.

The answer, I think, is to be aware of what the natives know and how they act. Anything different might be due to ignorance – but might be due to hazards and opportunities that we are ignorant about.

Even the village idiot has a story to tell.

Coming out of a local restaurant tonite, I noticed the front plate on a truck. “Oklahoma Dressage Association”.

Dressage (I was told, something like “training” in French) is about riding a horse. Riding in a standard-sized arena. Riding standard test patterns.

The competition test might include various gaits – the walk, the trot, the canter. Maybe a variation on speed – a relaxed trot, a working trot, an extended trot. Maybe a change of direction – and accompanying change of “lead” – which leg moves forward first, on the horse, in the given gait. It matters, in circles, in corners, etc. The horse is much less likely to stumble over its feet or miss a stride if on the correct lead – which is the rider’s responsibility to train for and command.

But – Transition? This “rich people” exercise of buying expensive horses, buying expensive feed, hiring teachers and trainers, renting stable and practice space? Learning to work with livestock, understand “what goes in, must come out”, understanding that nutrition and practice are essential to get the expected results when you climb aboard?

To learn about finding feed, dealing with people that know hay from supplements from complete feeds, to meet people that understand large animals as livestock, as companions, and as competitors.

You might never use a horse as transportation. But being able to raise, train, and work horses takes a lifetime’s experience – and learning can start in a couple of months. Working horse farms depended on the adults knowing how to care for their horses and other livestock, and we are sadly poor in this tradition. By learning the discipline and precision of dressage, we prepare our children, and ourselves, for thinking “outside the car”. If and when the need comes.

At the least, dressage teaches the rider precision, respect, consistency, caring for the horse and learning they are dependent on the comfort and communication to and from the horse. By striving to achieve, riders learn to apply effort, overcome problems – and meet their test.

Peak Oil posits that energy will get more expensive, that demand will outpace the supplies of oil and other energy sources. They call this the end of cheap energy, and see the result as partly depriving the economy, and people, of petroleum products, but more immediately, pricing public utility electricity and other economic commodities outside the reach of the average American.

More than half of Americans, according to Peak Oil, will be unable to pay for utilities, by 2012.

Is the electric grid about to shatter?

We all know about what ice storms do to electric power. In places where the power lines are still strung on poles, and around trees, the lines come down. Or a car knocks a utility pole over. Or a squirrel gets fried in a substation and lights go out for several blocks.

Or there are too many air conditioners running, and people experience “brown outs” as the voltage on the line falls when over-demand for the energy available. Or the power company pulls a “rolling blackout” – when the power company deliberately cuts off power to a segment of their customers. Then turns it on as they turn off another segment.

Stacking another layer on a house of cards

There are experimental installations in Ohio for transmitting broadband Internet hookups over the power grid. Talk and technology is progressing for “smart meters” – meters that charge different rates according to varying schedules. And can turn off your power if the meter “gets the signal”. Or when your neighbor opens his garage door?

Increased exposure to risk of failure of the grid.

Wired covers a story from the Wall Street Journal, about foreign adversaries targeting the electric utilities.

Peak oil advocate focus on surviving without the utility grid. And they want to develop local sources of food and expertise.

Perhaps an intermediate step would be to return to regional and local sources of power, not just personal solar panels.

Just as chickens in California and sheep in Wyoming won’t feed anyone, if the cost of getting them to hungry people is too high for the hungry people to afford, I am not real happy about losing power in Oklahoma so that California air conditioners keep running.

Parasite regions.

I have nothing against California, I lived there from 1984 to 1989. But even then they were making stupid choices, legislating away their ability to live on the water available, the ability to generate the power they consume, or to raise the food they eat.

Southern California is merely one of the best recognized regions for making foolish energy and food choices. Most cities require vast regions to supply food for their people, power for residences, commerce, and industry, and often rely on tourism for enough revenue to support themselves.

i drive my tractor in pearls…, writing at My Modern Country Home, takes pride in the independence of the Oklahoma state constitution. I wonder – is she comfortable that Oklahoma could supply enough energy for Oklahoman use, if the national grid came apart?

“Walk this way!” the attractive sales lady tells Groucho Marx, sauntering down the store aisle.

“If I could walk that way, I wouldn’t need talcum powder, now would I?”

At least, that is how I recall the story being told of a Marx Brothers comedy skit.  But it brought to mind some of the in-jokes of the black and white depression era comedies.  When people might have one suit of clothes, could carry all of their possessions in a single case or box.  When washing was an important part of hospitality – and not always available.

The old Beverly Hillbillies series was funny mostly because the characters were engaging.  But the story line was about how different the affluent lived from the poor.

The Ma and Pa Kettle stories showed some of the rural cabin lifestyle – not what everyone had, by all means, but not that uncommon either.  If you are contemplating how dark the days must be if you have to live off the grid,  check out the nearly modern “Witness” with Harrison Ford – set in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County Amish community.  Look at the Lapp house – you have to look to see there is no electricity,  that there are ways of dealing with washing, cooking, and enjoying life.

How do you deal with vacuuming your carpet, when the electricity goes?  Watch the Three Stooges and other films to see carpet beaters in action, and sometimes cleaning the carpet, too – while the carpet is draped over the  porch rail or clothes line.  There are manual ‘carpet sweepers’ with brush and pan that sweeps across the carpet – OK for a low-nap carpet. And a broom will help dress the fibers, and stir some of the dirt.  You might want to consider putting a hard floor under your carpet, and going for a moveable pad or giving up the pad.  A carpet uncleaned for too long accumulates a *lot* of dirt, and mold, and ..

Right now the oil companies are conspiring to support Republican election campaigns by holding prices down for the  next week or two, maybe as long as until election day.  But the artificial relief from inflation, rising prices, will be biting us again all too soon.  If the Peak Oil people are to be believed, we are embarked on a series of  alternating tumbles and almost-recoveries, each time losing a bit of ability to buy necessities, each time seeing the cost of energy rise above previous levels.

We can haunt Grandma’s attic, and Uncle John’s basement, and we can also look at those old movies to pick up pointers on ‘getting by’.

Sharon Astyk posted an unusually angry message today about how to handle the currently eroding economy. Her point is that with intelligence, we can use our resources to preserve lives and options – but the bailout seems awfully short sighted, self-serving, and inept – and squanders resources uselessly.

Verde at Justice Desserts (Of things from just desserts, to just deserts. Urban Homesteading in an uncertain world) is counting down 16 more days, trying to meet a food storage challenge.

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.

Dating may well change, in post-peak America. With people working closer to home, less money for leisure activities, and more awareness that a mate is needed to make a family, to support each other – casual dating will be less common.

Arranged marriages, where social and economic considerations, and family genetics, may be considered before the happy couple begin to see each other, socially.

I expect to see not a ‘class’ society emerge, but a return to cliques and communities, and snap judgments based on family and reputation that a person is ‘not our sort’.

The benefits of living a sober, work-centric life, a reputation for respect and discipline, will again influence choices about dating, marriage, and careers. Especially in the transition years, people once referred to as ‘pillars of the community’, ’salt of the earth’, will guide and center the groups and families most likely to survive intact.

Gasoline past $1 a gallon years ago. When will you begin planning for post-Peak Oil America?

If you are planning for Peak Oil, food and shelter are the first serious concerns.

Hazelnut trees produce hazelnuts. Hazelnuts are reasonably edible raw, can be preserved with due care, and hazelnut trees are pretty productive. For the ground occupied, hazelnuts can be the most food produced of any food crop.

You can eat the nuts, chop them into stews, vegetable dishes, and ground to an oil-rich meal. Once shelled, the meats need to be frozen or used right away, or the oils begin oxidizing and spoilage sets in.

If you are considering planting trees on your property, remember the common nuts such as hazelnuts, pecans (in the south) or walnuts (in the north), even acorns, as well as the fruit trees.

Pruning mature trees can produce kindling and small firewood pieces while maintaining the health of the tree. Managing shuckworms and other parasites can be as simple as keeping windfalls picked up. Wormy or damaged fruits from nut trees can be used for livestock feed – hogs and cows may need to be shown that nuts are edible, but pecans can provide at least part of the feed for either.

Instead of a flowering tree or shade tree, consider nut trees and fruit trees. In exposed areas, investigate how to use trees and shrubs for windbreaks. A windbreak can block wind, partially, to reduce heat loss to wind and require less heating in the winter. A deliberate row of trees can help provide habitat for birds and other ecological niches – for managing pest insects and weed seeds, as well as other benefits.

Your county extension office can provide information about windbreaks, managing health of fruit and nut trees, and help identify types of trees that grow well in your area. If you look at pecan trees, consider whether you want native (smaller, tougher shell, more resistant to worms) or hybrid types.

As you consider your post-peak-oil community, consider skills such as someone interested in pruning trees for tree health and grafting trees to splice productive tree types onto hardy rootstock.

Peak oil – not just about nuts. Ahem.

If the people touting Peak Oil are correct, we are nearing the end of ‘cheap’ energy. While the projected $5/gallon gas, and rise in heating oil, natural gas, and propane costs to 50% more than last winter, may seem horribly expensive, the fact is that we may be seeing $12 gas in the next .. um .. four years, now. Cheap energy may well be over. Assuming it is, or for those looking to live a lifestyle with a lower carbon footprint, I ponder .. recycling!

I read some years ago that glass is the only consumer material that it pays to recycle. The energy needed to reprocess aluminum cans and plastics, transporting the materials to recycling facilities, then to manufactures to process the reclaimed material into new products – is still higher than the energy needed to produce those same products from virgin sources. Only government subsidies make the effort pay for those involved.

But now transportation and fuel and electricity costs are rising. Even government subsidies won’t be enough to keep recycling working.

And recycling has only ever been a philosophical or emotional benefit to the family and individual (unless they work for a recycler). A luxury, low cost by little cost benefit.

Scrap Iron and similar metals has been with us for a long time, and still pays. You might call your local scrap dealer, and ask what the prices are like – for metal being processed to ship to China, today’s current largest user of scrap steel and iron. Is this recycling, salvage for later use, or scavenging resources that will be lost to us?

With the end of cheap energy, we will have fewer luxuries. Luxury in four years will mean something that today looks like a necessity. What value the microwave oven and freezer when the electricity bill is too high to pay? Luxuries will mean something different to many of us, in the next few years.

Re-use.

I grew up poor, on a farm in Iowa. For the parents that might read this, it didn’t feel like poor, then or now. It was the way our family lived.

But I recall the Pioneer Seed Corn bag. A few years Pioneer Seed Corn handed Dad a plastic bag. Thicker plastic than today’s Zip-Loc bags, quite durable, the Pioneer logo in yellow and green (not that they wanted to look like they went with John Deere like butter with rice). Mom used that bag for years. She kept cookies, brownies, and other food in that bag and the several that followed, in later years. A simple, clear plastic bag with a Pioneer logo. Maybe 12 inches by 18. Re-use. It kept food in nice condition, was handier than Saran Wrap. I think the last I saw of it was many years later, filled with sewing patterns, another with scraps of material, etc. Mom may still have one or two.

The Amish consider clothes to be luxuries, and live quite frugally. They wear their good set of clothes for worship. When they get worn, they get a new set for worship. And wear the old set for everyday work. We did something like that. I wore jeans almost all my life. When they got worn from going to school, they were chore clothes. Most of my clothes were that way – used for ‘good’ occasions when new, more casual when they started showing wear.

And this is a powerful way to reduce the clothing budget. Consider carefully every garment purchase: How long will it wear? Will it work for nice occasions, then later casual, and later as chore or work clothes? Will it wear well enough to be handed down for wear to someone smaller or younger?

I have t-shirts I bought at Sam’s Club four and five years ago. I liked the feel of the (logo free) fabric. Last year I discovered that the manufacturer went out of business. When the t-shirt starts showing wear, first fading, I start wearing it only for work around the shop and the house. When it starts showing holes I use it at night for sleeping. Then they are cut up for shop rags. Comfortable and useful, even as rags. I seldom find a printed t-shirt intended to last as long as the print on the shirt. This kind of ‘expensive energy’ thinking flies in the face of all the t-shirt sellers out there. Everyone from community to community fair to church to people that want to sell anything someone will buy wants to print stuff on a t-shirt. It won’t be long, once we really get into expensive energy, before the garment, not the printing, will determine the sale.

Re-use means going back to the wood handled kitchen knife and hammer. The steel tool will last a long time. The time may come again that we need to replace the handle rather than the tool. We may even need to learn to make handles.

We can start now. Avoid garments, tools, and other purchases intended for single use. Borrow a wedding gown or prom dress, or make one intended to be handed down or re-used. Leave recycling to those that will be rich enough to afford the luxury.

Right now, there is a truck.  A big truck.  Rolling down the road.

That truck has an engine that drives the gears that makes the wheels go round.  The wheels grind their rubber against the pavement or blacktop or dirt or gravel, and scrape by to nudge the truck on it’s way.

While the engine is metering a tiny bit of fuel, a measure of air into each cylinder, waiting for the time to come that the fuel and air combine under pressure and heat, and explosively drive the piston part of the cylinder chamber away, to push a crankshaft, to twist a gear, to turn a wheel – the aftermath of the explosion in the cylinder is cleaned up.

After the fuel and the air have been burned, their exhaust products, water vapor, unburned fuel, any impurities in the air, will be vented through various mechanisms to limit the impact of the aftermath on the environment around the truck.

A bit of heat will remain.

When the air and fuel burn, they will heat the cylinder, the piston, the valves.  The heat will be conducted to the outside of the engine, and will warm the air around the engine.  This big truck engine is water cooled – water treated to manage boiling and impurities, is pumped into the engine to absorb heat.  The heated water is sent to a radiator that uses a driven fan to draw massive amounts of air through the coils of the radiator.  The radiator is designed to convey heat from the water to the air efficiently, and the cooled water is circulated back to the engine.  The heat carried from the engine is important.  Keeping the engine from overheating prevents overheating related breakdowns.  Too much heat can warp bolts and cylinders and pistons and gaskets and seals and ..  The potential for overheating damage runs from minor to quite major component failures.

So – why is the extra heat thrown away?  Instead of a radiator to heat the air around the vehicle, can’t that heat be transformed into stored energy, in the form of heat, or of ice (an ammonia-cycle freezer?), or of electricity, or compressed air, or ..?

We burn the fuel.  Why are we wasting the heat?