sastyk
Posts by this author
It is that time of summer here - the one where you can't eat all the vegetables pouring out of the garden, and the farmers can't keep up with all the stuff their farms are producing, and many things that are precious and rare much of the year are cheap and abundant. Besides eating yourselves into…
Busy week here, as Eric attempts to wind up his online teaching class, my parents descend for a week of family projects and fair going, and we deal with the daily realities of a rapidly-onrushing fall, complicated (happily) by a long trip and an early Jewish holiday season. So I give you something…
This is the the time of year for most of us when everything is ripe and abundant in our gardens and at local farms, and learning to put food up can make it possible for you to enjoy summer in winter, and continue eating locally as long as possible. It can be overwhelming when you start preserving,…
Actually, it isn't all that slow, because a decade ago, all of this would have been largely unthinkable. The problem is that we don't see the gradual decline and fall - we are only vaguely aware that some things aren't quite what they used to be, and our progressive narrative tells us that they…
"Sauerkraut!"
She said it with an absolute certainty, as though it was an order - get yourself some sauerkraut! It was said kindly, but as though I should have figured this out already for myself.
And she was right. The woman sitting next to me on the bench outside my synagogue was a Russian woman…
You asked for baby goat pictures - we've got baby goat pictures!
(Calendula meets Rubeus the cat)
(Basil, one of Bast's two boys in her set of triplets)
(Goldenrod, the other buckling - not sure if you can really appreciate his gorgeous coloring!)
(Asher holding Calendula, Goldenrod and Basil's…
I'm pleased to see Grist exploring Urban Agriculture in the US in their "Feeding the City Series". America needs a focus on urban ag particularly because we have so deeply abandoned the ordinary and routine participations that city dwellers have always made to their foodshed. If you look at…
I didn't know Matt Simmons personally, and after some of his frankly ridiculous claims about what was happening in the Gulf, I am a little ambivalent about writing about his demise. One is supposed to speak well of the dead, and while I think some of his work on the Gulf (including his early…
Dr. Isis is reconsidering the work-life balance issues with her usual thoughtfulness over at her blog, following on a longer conversation about the ways that this problem is (unfairly, obviously) shunted exclusively onto women. This is something I agree with - and I think her "Sack up, Dudes" is…
Wendell Berry has an essay in which he argues that the greatest single evidence for the merits of British culture is that they developed sixty-five breeds of sheep:
What does it mean that an island not much bigger than Kansas or more than twice the size of Kentucky should have developed sixty or so…
I was planning to whine a little. You see I got back from Maryland and I was really, really tired. Got up at 4am after a late night to get to the train the first night. Four hours sleep the second night, because I was (you pity me, right?) drinking wine with Dmitry Orlov, Megan Bachman, John…
You can be doing more fun things. I'll be out of touch and my blog will be quiet. But you could be reading some of my old colleagues and some new cool stuff at the new cooperative blog group "Scientopia." Zuska's there and Dr. Free Ride, and a lot of awesome folk - so have fun!
Sharon
I'm about to go out of town for three days to a conference on dealing with poverty issues, energy depletion and climate change, and I'm a little nervous. We've had no babies born since Meadowsweet's appearance two weeks ago, and I have three does due in the next week - not only am I a little…
Now it is no secret that I think that we are facing a major shift in our society, and one that will not be entirely fun, to put it mildly. It should also be no secret that while I love to write jokingly about when zombies come, I don't actually believe we're facing an apocalypse of any kind.…
It was a busy weekend here - figuring out whether we were moving, my sister was visting, other friends were visiting, we hit the local County Fair, worked in the garden, you know, life. So until just now, I hadn't paid any attention to the empty meanderings about science blogs in the Times…
When Aaron Newton and I conceived _A Nation of Farmers_ we began each chapter with a framing image from World War political posters about food, energy and gardening. We wanted to bring home the point I make in writing in _Depletion and Abundance_ - that at critical moments in our history,…
We almost did it. We really did. We went so far as to get mortgage pre-approval, meet with a builder about the costs of repairing the barn and the house, and make an appointment to make a written offer. And we decided to stay here.
There were several reasons for doing so. The first was that our…
Something told the wild geese
It was time to go,
Though the fields lay golden
Something whispered, "snow."
Leaves were green and stirring,
Berries, luster-glossed,
But beneath warm feathers
Something cautioned, "frost."
All the sagging orchards
Steamed with amber spice,
But each wild breast…
Pursuant to my previous post, today's project in the decision making process for Eric and I (we'll finally see the inside of the house tomorrow) is to find how long the commute to Eric's job and our synagogue is. These two things make up about half of our total driving - only half simply because…
Hat tip to reader Abbie who pointed me to this video. When we talk about local and organic, one of the central things that often gets lost is this - who does the work? And how are they paid? And how do you change this so that they get paid fairly - because right now the way we pay for food…
It might have been Serendipity - we happened to be driving by, just Eric and I on our brief solo trip. Or it might have been the survey ribbons that went up across the road a few weeks ago - the suggestion that our neighbors who have been building a 5000 square foot house with a special dog-…
Interesting query and discussion at Martin Wolf's blog about how economics came to conflate natural resources and capital, and whether it should continue to do so. You'll want to read the comments too!
The idea that land and capital are the same thing is evidently ludicrous. It requires us to…
Dave Pollard's latest at Salon is an interesting cry in the dark about how hard it is to connect with others when you see collapse coming. My guess is that some of my readers will respond with a great deal of identification, while others will be annoyed by Pollard - but I think it bears some…
C'mon, you know you've always wanted to. This is the chance - if you've never made a comment (or you've made a thousand), tell me who you are and what interesting stuff you are doing to save the world - or even just to get along decently. Or tell me something interesting and cool I should know…
Once upon a time, I advised people looking for a peaceful and happy future to choose land under which there were no energy resources. I should have taken my own advice - I'm on the fringe of the Marcellus Shale and the discussion and debate is becoming heated here. Like everyone, I don't…
I assume you noticed the quiet demise of the Climate Bill, consented to by most of the people who claimed they gave a damn about the climate. It was a lousy, weak, inadequate bill, but that's still no excuse for giving up the ghost. This makes the 1 bazillionth time in my lifetime I've been…
Ugo Bardi has a lovely article about both peak oil and intergenerationalism:
I sort out again my old watch, "You see, this old watch is still working, more than 70 years after it was made. Whenever I look at it, I feel a kind of kinship to the man who had left it to me. I am grateful to him because…
Yesterday at 3pm EST, I was part of a critical stage of labor negotiations between SEED Media and Science Bloggers, and I'm happy to report that through the sole grace of my diplomatic skills, the strike was resolved. There were some other folks there too, but I cannot tell a lie - it was your…
Betcha giving head to a movie star betcha gotta llama riding in
Your car betcha u gotta tv built in your jet skis, betcha giving
Head to a movie star betcha gotta llama riding in your car
Betcha u gotta tv built in your jet skis.
Hidee high, lowdy low, get up and go to the show.
Ain't it funny how…
The first two pieces of this series were largely comic pieces. This one is more serious. I have said this before, but I'll repeat it - I came to science blogs for one reason, and one only - because there was no one else talking about facing up to our material limits on this kind of site, with…