The City Mouse in the Country

The original post that inspired this piece was removed by the moderators of the Solarpunk subreddit.   In a nutshell it was a comment about how many in the Solarpunk community are simply not grounded in reality.    Or at least that was the way I interpreted it.   The original poster could have simply been trolling the group, but before I get into the meat of this opinion piece I need to take a moment and introduce those that are unsure of what Solarpunk is to some of the concepts of it. Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement primarily but has grown into a movement that strives for the integration of community, technology and nature.  It's a hopeful future that imagines renewable energy as our primary sources of power; this includes geothermal , wave energy and other sources as well as solar and wind power.   What I love about the movement is that it encourages action through a variety of means and understands that change, real change, requires actions that are based in the

A few days ago we had a series of very hot days, where the record for the hottest day was set and then broken the very next day.  Here in the United States we have various parts of the country that are under Heat Domes and other weather conditions have resulted in temperatures in the triple digits. One of the reasons that my wife and I moved to the country was to avoid increasing heat and humidity that we were experiencing in Florida.  However in moving to the country we bought a home that did not have central air or heat.  We were lucky enough to adapt to both extremes in a variety of ways and have adopted many of the concepts discussed here.  I have covered the topic of staying warm without central heat before in this blog and decided that I should talk about staying cool without central air this time around.  As the temperature rises in the future it's going to affect how we work, play, eat and even the decisions that we make .  It's also going to affect the most disenfran

  Where I live in Western Pennsylvania was mostly spared the worst of the soot and smoky skies caused by the recent Canadian wild fires.   However it still managed to blanket most of the North East in some of the worst air quality we've ever had . In some ways it was a taste of our near future. It's just one more thing that is piling up on the scale leading to an eventual tipping point.   It's not all doom and gloom of course...but it is mostly doom as study after study after study are all pointing to a difficult and deadly future. Now...that being said I'm still an optimist about the future.   I don't believe we are going to prevent "the worst" from occurring.   I do believe however that we can do what we can to at least delay the worst of it.  We are still going to have to deal with global warming and all the consequences it brings; from submerged coastlines to super storms to the forced mass migration of people. Delaying the worst of it gives us time to

Life can be stressful here in modern America.  Sadly we have become a country where a parent may worry that they will never see their child again as they board that school bus or go out with friends.  Not to mention the additional stress of worrying about our countries direction; and the direction of the planet, as a whole. We live in trying times, but worrying about the future all the time is only a recipe for sleepless nights and ulcers.  We all need that proverbial margarita by the pool sometimes.  In many ways I looked forward to taking the past week off and traveling to Niagara Falls and upstate New York with my wife. It has been nearly 30 years since either of us had been to the Falls, and on the way up we passed solar farm after solar farm and more than a few windmills generating power, we even passed a hydroelectric plant.   Green power is the future and in a way my heart sung that so much renewable power was being generated. However I also thought about the gas that we were bu

I could not let this Earth Day pass without acknowledging some things.  So let's talk about success stories, and why we should have hope for the future. For the first time in a long time I have hope in the environmental movement.  Yes, there are still a lot of climate change deniers out there - and they are becoming more doomsayers than anything.   I used to be one of them, a doomsayer, meaning that I didn't have much hope for the future, and would gladly tell you we were fucked six ways from Sunday.   We still are in a lot of ways...but like the first flowers that are poking through their lovely heads through the ground...we have reasons to hope. In some ways I believe that the pandemic was a shot in the arm for the environmental moment.   Bird watching boomed.  People had time to watch nature shows and documentaries.  Home cooking became something pleasurable for people to do again.  Frankly my interest in cheese making flourished as well as I looked for something to do to e

  I never expected to live out in the country.    I never expected to enjoy it.    I never expected to plant my own food, or do much of the day to day “manual” labor that living out in the country requires.   I was a city boy, I had come to enjoy the distractions that a city offered. I never expected to love where I live, I love the quiet.   I love the stars at night.    I even love the deer that nibbled at my garden, or the wild turkey and foxes that live around me.    Which got me thinking, what can I do to improve the community around me?   Other than what I already do with the Odd Fellows ? Basically we live in an area of three closely knit towns, and despite the title of the blog – it’s not considered the “boondocks” but it is rural.    I live in the small town of Stoneboro, close to the small towns of Jackson Center and Sandy Lake.     Small communities that are all knitted together by country roads and a local high school.   We are 70 minutes from Pittsburgh, 100 minutes

If you have been following this blog, or our Facebook page , for a while, then you know that I'm trying to eat healthier not only for my health, but for the health of the planet as well.   I believe that we have a moral obligation to do so. The whole reason behind this "Trendy" series is to introduce you, the gentle reader; to something you may not be familiar with...in the hope that you'll try it.   So when I buy a "plant based meat" I'm really not that interested if it tastes like chicken or steak.  I won't lie, it helps, but for the most part I'm concerned about three things. 1)  Is it healthy?  If I am being completely honest with myself it's probably not.  Any time you buy a prepackaged meal it's most likely going to be highly processed and preserved food we're buying and as such may contain a variety of chemicals and preservatives. It's not something I've grown and made myself.  Thanks to advertising companie