In the 70's CoEvolution Quarterly stood as the child of The Whole Earth Catalog. The Whole Earth Catalog was the hippie 'tool' catalog (think Google not Sears Roebucks catalog) much as the Pope is just another Catholic. While the Catalog had reviews and some conversational tidbits the Quarterly was the inverse. Essentially, the hippies of the 60's had bought the 'tools' and wanted to talk about using them, what they had found out, and what they were looking towards doing with them. The Quarterly and the Catalog were the progenitors of what I consider to be some of the most interesting niches of modern study. You didn't have to be sitting in an outhouse in Vermont to find them fascinating.
The music is from the Wayback machine landing me in the same time period as the Catalog and Quarterly. It's a mix of Paul Simon, Van Morrison, and starts with Crosby Stills & Nash Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
Like seeds in a garden the ideas and experiences chronicled and explored in the Quarterly grew in different ways. The ideas of self sufficiency and Do It Yourself are similar yet different. Mingling appropriate technology with advancing technology a sense of what about this or that promising idea, the ideas grew but in their own ways. As an example the garden in my yard is type of self sufficient agriculture. Growing tomatoes and zucchini in a suburb of Denver is however vastly different than a wheat field growing just a few hundred miles east of here. Yet, they are connected. So if you will, check out these two fascinating tidbits of the future. The first is less an article than a progress report on perennial wheat . The second is essentially a 'discovery' notice 10 years delayed because the discoverers couldn't believe what they'd found.
Agriculture is perhaps the arm of this body of ideas that extended down to my little garden. My little garden tho' also holds hands with some other ideas that reach back to that dear Catalog.
If you are by nature a cheap bastard like myself, you can't grow an ugly tomato and just toss it away. I can easily pass over a tomato with a spot on it at the grocery store and really is 88 cents a pound a good enough deal - perhaps I'll wait till next week to buy tomatoes. That inability to throw away an ugly or over ripe homegrown heirloom tomato leads down a whole host of wonderful and positive avenues. Is environmentalism created by this ethic or is it the inverse? Is it the ownership of growing the tomato that imbues it with value? Is it this sense of value that ... hmm how to say it.
The first reaction to a wealth of anything in the garden is give some away. This is by itself a whole brain stimulation. You certainly create social capital when you show up at a neighbors door wanting to give them something as primal as food. Neighbors become less terra incognita with a passing of produce. If you keep repeating this you become better known to your neighbors and they to you. Some you realize are blackholes of neighborliness. Who inspite of multiple giving of the richness of your efforts barely have a wave to give in return. Others bring you zucchini bread and others still try their hand at growing a little something. Charity is a whole mind bending experience. If I always can be counted on to give you beautiful heirloom tomatoes do I in essence de-value them? It is part of the reason I always sell my extra tomato starts in the spring. Some higher functioning gardeners can have any they want for free. As the old drug dealer adage goes "first ones for free, second ones on me,..."
The second reaction to garden abundance is "I can't eat another bloody salad!" Now, you feel down right superior when you hit the scale at the gym and see it drop another pound. It might be a diet like mine which intersperses M&Ms with those salads but your walking tall "Yep, that's right I'm eating healthy all you fat overweight Americans" It's hard not to get cocky about eating all those catch words you hear are noble - fresh, organic, heirloom, sustainable. Till you've saladed out - and the garden just keeps pumping out more. So you start learning to cook. Maybe something simple like some salsa or a tomato sauce or roasting a few beets and carrots. A garden will drag you down a path of healthy eating. (you'll have to find another cure for all your other bad habits - Travis!)
The third reaction is you start thinking about the garden system. You firmly commit to never again planting more zucchini than your entire community could eat. This naturally leads to trying to be more diverse in what you plant. "Wouldn't it be cool if I could make that salsa entirely with things I grew and traded for." The 'traded for' aspect of that leads you back to thinking about your neighbors and realizing Tom & Dave really grow great hot peppers I need to make sure they get some nectarines. The real benefit to thinking about the system is it stretches your mind. You start wondering why you can't grow cilantro or could these shallots ever be grown large enough to be worth the trouble to peel. That's when you start becoming a little more humble and listening to the guy down the streets theories on 'keeping a root in the ground' and wood chip mulch, and searching the internet to learn about potato onions. One of my favorite Youtube gardening vlogs is One Yard Revolution . Gardening is a revolution - a revolution of the mind, the body, the community. All roads might lead to Rome but garden paths can take you everywhere.
Van Morrison is singing Baby Please Don't Go but I must. So I'll leave the world of politics for another day and simply wish you all a good holiday weekend.
OK, maybe just a small juxtaposing on politics. Where does politics lead you? Does politics make you love your neighbors or just leave you thinking that stupid SOB I'll show him? Does politics increase your health? Does politics make you more humble more able to be the solution or simply demanding that others join your solution. Government needs politics like plants need water. Thus if (while watching yet another political ad) you don't like politics I would suggest smaller government needs less politics. Think about it out in the garden and drop me a comment. Doug A.
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