The City Mouse in the Country

As I write this the temperature is climbing.  We have a window or two open, knowing that soon enough we will be shutting up the house for the next three months or so we can protect ourselves and our cats against the onslaught of winter.   Our wood stove burned overnight to take the chill out of the air and I found myself buying new boots and gloves and driving home with the windows down. This is the nature of autumn in Western Pennsylvania and as I sip on my pumpkin flavored coffee, I cannot help but praise the fruit of the season, and yes it is a fruit, the simple pumpkin. A few things are still growing in our garden, the last of the herbs and tomatoes...a stray pepper or two that needs to be picked.  Yet I find myself interested in growing pumpkins next year after realizing their potential and that they are high in nutritional value.   It's easy to forget in our modern world just how easy we have it as compared to our great grandparents and their grandparents....

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...

 Generally speaking I don't trust the government when it comes to climate.  Here in America we basically have an Oligarchy - where a few rich asssholes are more concerned with maintaining their own power than doing what is best for the country overall.   This has not given me much hope for the future.  In fact, I've reached the conclusion that we simply will not be able to relay on the government going forward.  I'm not a doomsayer but the government at the highest levels simply isn't functioning the way it should and because of that it's simply not going to be able to handle the environmental and other climate related challenges in the future - such as massive immigration caused by failing crops.  Due to their age, most of our leaders are living in a world that no longer exists. So, why does President Biden's American Climate Corps pigued my interest? Two reasons really, it is an understanding that we have to do something sooner than later.  Wel...

Hope is the poor man's bread. Somehow I started watching a video about "Poor Man's bread" that was bread made from various flours in the 1700's and early 1800's.  This popularity of this type of bread has waxed and waned in popularity at times when wheat production faltered for whatever reason. The history of bread is an interesting one and their have been lots of substitutes for wheat bread throughout times of drought or diseases; or when other issues like poor soil and wheat diseases affected production.  Wheat has always been the preferred crop when it came to bread. While wheat farming practices and yields have certainly increased since the late 1700's this most important of crops face new problems in a ever heating world. I started to wonder....could some of these substitutes make sense in today's world?  Or better yet, what about the world of tomorrow?  What would replace wheat bread if the crops failed today? Quick searches for things lik...

  Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter. Rachel Carson     This past week or so, I've been stuck for a topic.  Not much has really happened as I've dealt mainly with leaving one job and searching for/accepting another.     Several quiet anniversaries were celebrated (we moved into our home 3 years ago this month) and I volunteered to man the Odd Fellows booth at the local Stoneboro Fair several days last week.    Months ago I had applied for a Master Gardener class through the Penn State extension program.  I promptly forgot all about it as I have only done container gardening in the past, and I saw this as an opportunity to learn more. ...

Every job has it's problems, it's good points and its bad points.  Evey one has had that boss from hell or that co-worker that you loved.   We spend a majority of our lives with complete strangers, sometimes seeing them more than our family. The average American commute to and from work is slightly under 1 hour round trip.  That adds up to a little more than 10 days a year spent in our cars going to and from work. I recently left my job in the Insurance industry.  I've been involved with insurance, banking and finance for most of my adult life...and this voluntary departure was based on several reasons...but it got me thinking about work, anti-work and significant work. I am not afraid of work. We all have to put food on the table, we all have bills to pay.   When I first started looking around for a new job, which at the age of 57 I thought it would be daunting, I quickly discovered it wasn't.   A lot of employers actually contacted me directly w...

I've started and stopped this article several times now as I assessed my mental state over the last couple of weeks.  However I did not publish anything because all the previous drafts made me think that I was whining. Part of that "whining" was deciding to leave my job as of September 5, 2023.  It's easy to blame someone else, and the company I left does have some serious issues that they simply are not addressing, but the final responsibility for leaving is mine.  I just felt like I had nothing to contribute nor was the company addressing my needs and wants.    Money really isn't everything. I quickly interviewed for several jobs, but in the end decided to take something "completely different" for a bit.  I can always go back into insurance and banking...but my needs and priorities have changed.   In fact, I was offered a "Green" job with an energy company that really excited me.  However when I stopped and thought about what I would ...