Old 99 Farm, week of Feb 8 2015

Yes, you can wish me Happy Birthday, I am fully enjoying being a senior citizen! Just recently I was offered the seniors’ discount at the petfood store; what a bizarre moment of recognition.

I like to put content up here that has nothing, and everything, to do with local food, health and eating well. Sometimes it sounds like a soapbox tirade I suppose. But I wonder how many readers have gained an insight or felt challenged in their presumptions about how life is? Let me explain my motivation…

For example, “we” are currently wrangling about how much to devastate the Earth. That’s the long and short of it when it comes to fossil energy, climate upset and species extinction.

As Susan Solnit puts it in her essay, “Climate Change is (global-scale) Violence” against places and species, as well as against human beings. Once we call it by name, we can start having a real conversation about our priorities and values. Because the revolt against brutality begins with a revolt against the language that hides that brutality. http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/28933-climate-change-is-violence

In every arena, we need to look at industrial-scale and systemic violence, not just the hands-on violence of the less powerful. When it comes to climate change, this is particularly true. Exxon [and the other Alberta Tar Sands miners] has decided to bet that we can’t make the corporation keep its reserves in the ground, and the company is reassuring its investors that it will continue to profit off the rapid, violent, and intentional destruction of the Earth.

But what do we do, the locals? Well, we shop and patronize, invest and borrow, read and converse, etc. All this could be informed by a morality that prizes earth care. But we are all gamblers, with a fatal mental malfunction, we think we can dodge the bullet (win the lottery) next time because so far we have (or haven’t). In the end, the gambler’s fallacy is one of the factors that lead people, companies, and entire civilization to a rapid collapse. It is what Ugo Bardi has called the “Seneca Cliff” from the words of the ancient Roman philosopher who first noted how “the way to ruin is rapid”. In the case described here http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2015/02/senecas-gamble-how-to-create-your-own.html, we might call it the “Seneca gamble” but, in all cases, it is a ruin that we create with our own hands.

This week we have root crops, especially carrots, wheat and spelt flour, garlic, meats, eggs and honey. I’m making a batch of beef bone broth for sale by the liter.

Healthy eating, and unstoppable caring,

Ian and Cami