Freeconomy Blog
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16 Apr
The Transition experiment expands beyond just food...
| 7 comments |
I’ll be honest with you, I am not much of a movie man. I would like to say it is because the embodied energy of most modern day movies is the equivalent of roughly five thousand long haul flights. But the truth is that they rarely excite me.
Having said that, in the last month I have watched two free online movies (both involving little pollution) after almost all my close friends recommended them to me. The first called The Story of Stuff and the other, Zeitgeist. The former consists of things I mostly knew already, though it did teach me a method in which to relay it to the masses, whilst the latter, which is about religion, 9/11 and money, is just a great piece of documentary. Some of the facts could be disputed, and it is quite controversial for many.
What the first movie did though was really make me question my habits beyond just what I eat. I am really finding my feet now, by the way, regarding food – my bread has vastly improved, I’ve got a batch of homemade raw sauerkraut on the go, and I’ve managed to find a supplier of unpackaged UK purple sprouting broccoli and beans, an organic farmers co-operative called Somerset Organic Link. My foraging skills are on the up too – (its surprising how quick you learn when you have to!), and lasts nights expedition got us huge wild garlic, a load of Jews Ear mushrooms and some hawthorn. Tip - soak some rye grain overnight and boil with the all the above plus spinach steamed on top (leaving in the stems of the broccoli), with some sauerkraut lightly fried with the mushrooms and welsh onions (use the cooling down hob that was used to boil the rye to save energy), and you have got one of the tastiest meals you will ever have. If you can get organically harvested salt from your nearest ocean, even better.
On the allotment front, I am making progress though it is slow due to the fact the soil is mainly clay and is full of bindweed. Good news on that front though – I’ve managed to get a tonne of topsoil for free on freecycle, which should improve things for next year, and some local freeconomists are going to help me work it in. I am planting potatoes to help break down the soil whilst getting a crop, and broad beans to put some nutrients back in it.
Anyway, back to the point. I can’t just limit my experiment to food, so I decided to examine the rest of my life! Having long given up body soap products - and before you say ooohh, he must stink, all you need to wash is actually water, and vegan sweat doesn’t really smell, though my friends may disagree - the next thing I thought of was toothpaste. The question arose, when the shit hits the proverbial fan, what am I going to use. My investigations can be found in the above link, but it mainly consists of a combination of a course bit of material wrapped around your finger, the dried flower stalks of fennel and chewing various herbs for both their topical fluoride benefits and their breathe freshening effects.
Spurred on by my success there, I decided to sort out my other washing activities. So I got my hands on some soapods. Not only can I now wash my clothes with something that grows on trees, but if you boil it you can also make your own washing-up liquid for dishes! Even my very sceptical friends agree that their clothes never smelt better, and no chemicals whatsoever are involved! Having said that, they are not local so I need to research even deeper. I’ve also decided that now is also the time to start hand-washing again – I can’t bear to watch that machine spinning around anymore!
On top of that, I realised that peeing in my water supply was a bit silly, something only a human would dream up. From now on, it’s out the back in a pan - just on that, liquid gold isn’t good on the soil directly, it should be watered down. If my housemates are reading this, I apologise, but that’s just the way it is. Pissing in our water, pah!
Now I’m off for a rare half glass of Stinger , one of my favourite drinks made using hand-picked nettles from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls farm in Devon (UK).
And maybe a listen to one of my favourite musicians, a guy called Michael Franti. He is one of those rare musicians who can make the most amazing music accompany the most powerful and inspirational lyrics.
I’ll leave you with a few words I read in a recent edition of Resurgence magazine by a legend called Ken Saro Wiwa - “Dance your anger and your joys, dance the military guns to silence, dance oppression and injustice to death, dance my people”.
Ken, by the way, was executed by the Nigerian government for peacefully protesting against the oil company Shell’s efforts to rape the land of the indigenous Ogoni people in the Niger delta. Shell pressurised the government heavily for the execution. Keep that at the back of your mind the next time you enter one of their forecourts…
Lots of unconditional love xxx
[PS: WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF CHANGING THE ‘COMMENT’ SYTEM (below) HERE DUE TO SOME PEOPLE TAKING ON A NUMBER OF PSEUDONYMS AND SOME EVEN PRETENDING TO BE ME! WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF IMPROVING IT BUT ARE ALL A BIT STRETCHED HERE AT THE MINUTE.
AS IT STANDS, TO ‘COMMENT’ YOU MUST SIGN IN FIRST, THEN GO TO ‘BLOG’ ON THE NAVIGATIONAL BAR AT THE TOP, CLICK ‘READ THIS STORY IN FULL’ AND THEN CLICK COMMENT, USING YOUR USERNAME IN THE NAME FIELD
Comment on this Post:
Digger comments ...
Good work my friend.
I’ve been brushing my teeth with sodium bicarb for several months and it works great, once you get used to the taste. And along with borax and soda crystals, it does the household cleaning too. Although how good it is for transition, i don’t know, it stores well so maybe I can find a bulk supplier. I buy it in 2kgs ATM from my local bin shop.
This week, I have become the proud owner of 3 container fruit trees, 2 blueberry bushes and 3 goji berry bushes. And the dandelion flower wine should be on the brew this weekend.
Thanks for the SOL link man, I was looking for something like that.
Christine comments ...
Every allotment takes the first year for you to get to know it and to get it the way you want it. Most people who succeed reckon that it takes five years before you are really in full production. So don’t give in - and having clay soil on the allotment too start with growing root vegetables like onions and beetroot. Put compost in big tubs 18" high raised on wood to allow drainage and grow your carrots there - you get straight carrots and don’t have to worry about the carrot fly that way - seed beds are hard on clay. Do the same with parsnips. You can have carrots and parsnips this year doing that. Here speaks experience and mishap and advice from other allotment holders next to me. Getting non plastic pots will be your biggest head ache but I inherited many and refuse to send them for recycling (no facilities here). As there is no easy way of disposal that is environmentally friendly I will use them till they disintegrate as being the least damaging thing to do.
Digger comments ...
And, while we’re in the movie mood, heres one on peak oil, horribly monotonous, but a good introduction:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3846
NoelLourdes comments ...
People deserve good life and personal loans or just collateral loan can make it much better. Just because people's freedom bases on money.
BartonMara31 comments ...
If you are willing to buy a house, you will have to receive the home loans. Moreover, my father all the time uses a secured loan, which is the most reliable.
Jensen27Eliza comments ...
If you want to buy a house, you will have to receive the home loans. Furthermore, my sister all the time uses a small business loan, which supposes to be really fast.
