self reliance | Plastic Farm Animals

Working for Peanuts

Camille Armantrout — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 16:47:09 +0000

It’s another cold morning, and Garth and I are walking across the frozen lawn to Edible Earthscapes, the farm next door. The birds seem impervious to the temperature. Garth carries a baggie of home made peanut brittle. I’ve come along to see the look on Haruka’s face when he hands her the sweet treat.

Jason and Haruka grew the big, fat Virginia peanuts over the summer. Shelled by Bob, Amy and Garth, they are full of sunshine and energy, protein and fat and have flavor to die for. The peanut brittle came out perfect – golden, airy and scrumptious. Haruka’s face glows with a smile that warms the air between us. My day is already complete and it’s only 10am.

Heading back to the house, I pass through the green house. The air in here is tropical – warm, moist and alive. I close my eyes and inhale deeply, savoring the vibrant aroma of plants, sweat and soil. I’m transported. The world glows golden on the other side of my eyelids. This is bliss.

Hours later I return to the greenhouse to find everyone hard at work. Brussel sprouts, Swiss chard and Butterhead lettuce are fluorescent in the late afternoon sun. The speakers pour music into the humid air. Haruka is planting seeds into trays.

Jason, Amy and Garth are building a bed. With broad forks and rakes, they break up the soil, rake it smooth and cover it with mulch. No petroleum based fertilizers are being used here. No pesticides. Again, the rich smell lifts me from my world of to do lists and deadlines into the real world. And when I step outside again, I recognize life all around me in what had seemed to be a frozen, dead landscape.

We share the bounty produced by Jason and Haruka’s hard work through our CSA boxes. In addition to greens, peanuts and dozens of other vegetables, they also grow rice and beans, which really excites me. Complete protein, right next door! In terms of self reliance, beans and rice is a huge accomplishment.

Garth has been accepted as an apprentice and Amy plans on volunteering in exchange for learning the secrets of growing organic food. Their labor will feed us in the months to come.

If the world economy were balanced, farmers would earn more money than bankers, politicians, investors and accountants. Instead, the folks who grow our food next door are working for peanuts.

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Being Good

Camille Armantrout — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 17:53:14 +0000

It’s so hard to be good. One day I get a perfect score with my To Do list while getting a poor grade on my Personal Well Being list, the next day I balance the two to perfection but score poorly on my Self Reliance list by burning too many BTUs of fossil fuel. Some days I floss. Some days I don’t. Ditto with drink, drive, stay balanced, get caught up and over eat.

I’m within a day of finishing Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” and looking forward to checking it off my To Do list. I’m jazzed to be armed with some cool new tools of self-awareness but worried that I’m still not very good at being fully present. At the same time, I know I should be ignoring my “egoic mind” which whispers to me of competitive edges.

It’s winter in North Carolina. To northerners, this sounds lovely, so close to the Keys and all. Our pals on Maui feel for us and are taking the opportunity to finagle us back to the islands. Meanwhile, the people we left behind in Belize and Nicaragua get excited by the thought of tiny white crystals falling from the sky and only wish they could see snow one time.

At first blush, winter here seems cold. Sometimes very cold. And brown and dead. Just like it was for us in Colorado and Virginia. And dark with its shortened days.

If I take winter one day at a time, I find that many of winter’s days are golden. Bright, blue sky, single jacket wearing weather. Dry and clean and perfect for long, rustling walks through the woods, spotting details formerly obscured by lush undergrowth.

There are days when quick trips to the compost pile turn leisurely as I contemplate the mystery of avian nesting routines. On those days I find myself standing beneath the red tips, mesmerized by the music of dozens of tiny peeping voices.

These golden days of winter are good days for hanging laundry and raking leaves. Good days for trimming otherwise untamable vines and hammering replacement staples into fence posts. Good days for sitting on the porch with the sun on my forehead. Good days for being good.

The post Being Good first appeared on Plastic Farm Animals.

grow food

Camille Armantrout — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:23:36 +0000

Rob Jones dropped by this evening and answered a question we’ve been wrestling with for months. He was in town for Catherine’s birthday, planned to sleep out in the field beyond our houses and stopped by Camelina to visit.

For some time now, Bob has been searching for the right words to bring the concept of Victory Gardens into the current decade. Back in their day, Victory Gardens signified Yankee ingenuity, self-reliance, pride and plenty in a world of uncertainty.

In today’s uncertain world, many of us are returning to a reality where tomatoes grow on vines outside the kitchen door rather than on super market shelves. Most people can understand why it’s better to step outside and pluck fruit from the vine than it is to hop in the car and drive to the store to fetch tomatoes that likely traveled hundreds if not thousands of miles. Few know that it can also be easier.

When Rob came over, the three of us moved flats of heirloom tomato seedlings into the house. These are plants that Bob is growing from seeds he saved from last year’s tomato crop. Next, Bob took Rob outside to look at the mushroom logs they’d plugged months ago.

Then we settled into the living room and got caught up. Rob brought up food-related concepts such as community gardens, crop mobs and economic solidarity. Bob talked about the bio-intensive gardening class he’s teaching. They peeked at the Petri dishes of mycelium growing in one of our spare bedrooms.

And before we knew it, the nugget we’ve been seeking dropped out of Rob’s mouth: grow food – a simple concept, a meme to spread, a path towards economic independence. Grow food sounds a whole lot less intimidating than growing a garden. Anyone can grow food anywhere with any kind of process. Step outside and plant a seed and before you know it, you are growing food!

So we printed up some stickers and cut them out with scissors. Link tapped on the window and came in to collect Rob because it was time to go make their beds out in the field. But first we snapped a photo of them with a handful of memes for a new path towards economic solidarity.

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ALASKAN SKY JUICE

Camille Armantrout — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 13:31:36 +0000

Water comes from heaven. This fact is often obliterated by the convenience of tap water. When we were staying on Ambergris Caye in Belize 9 years ago, many of the restaurants proudly advertised “sky juice” or rainwater on the menu. They all had zinc roofs with gutters that emptied into rain barrels.

Today, I discovered the joys of Alaskan sky juice.

Our friend, Pamela invited us to stay with her for a month in her home outside Gustavus. When we arrived, the water pump was cracked and Pam was hauling household water from the stream in two 5-gallon buckets. It took about 4 buckets a day to handle the three of us.

We didn’t mind. Trips to the stream were a good excuse to go for a little walk past the red squirrel burrows and look for moose prints and cowslips. At the house, we used the water straight to pour down the toilet, or boiled it and filtered it for drinking and cooking.

Then it started raining. Water began spilling from the roof gutters into the rain barrel. Water so clean it only needed to be boiled and not filtered, too! It was amazing how convenient this felt! With a silent thank you aimed at the heavens, I plunged into a myriad of projects requiring water.

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