End of Nature?

Over the past week I read The End of Nature by Bill McKibben. It was written in 1989 so many of the environmental issues that he talks about have either happened or are happening. It is interesting, if not depressing to read something that lays out and predicts catastrophic occurrences, while realizing there were few things done to prevent those occurrences. I would strongly recommend someone to read it provided that they are not on any depression medicine. You do not walk away in a cheery mood.

Near the end of the book McKibben addresses the fact that in all reality nature is dead. Sure you can preserve parts of the planet, but the real independent nature is either almost dead or dead. In place of Nature we seek to control it and modify it. Whether it is genetically engineered food so that there is more protein and less fat in a chicken, or an engineering structure such as a dam to block up a river. We have, through our needs and wants, destroyed the once symbiotic relationship between humans and Earth.

We all know growth is good, but there has to be an end to growth. What are the consequences for growing too big? One may only have to look to the obesity epidemic that has hit many in America. What happens when you become obese? Your body systems do not work properly and will shut down if nothing is done. This is what we have to look forward to with too much growth. The Earth's systems will not be able handle the multiple of human needs/wants. This is happening already. For example the droughts in the Southwest use to happen and it was no big deal. Now we have so many people living in the southwest that we need to build dams to block the rivers like the Colorado. However, the regular ice melt that use to fuel the mighty Colorado River are decreasing due to global warming. This is just one example. There are other places all over the world that are suffering from the same overload. The great Pacific Garbage Patch, the ever growing death of the coral reefs, I could keep going.

So you might say. "Hey, we are smart beings we should be able to halt the global warming process through technology? If something goes extinct we will just clone it ." I do not doubt that we have the potential to halt or even reverse global warming, but the problem is that it is not the same. It is not natural. Nature is: The material world and its phenomena, untouched and uninfluenced by civilization or artificiality. What would it be like to walk through a genetically engineered forest, and see cloned or genetically engineered rabbits and squirrels. How much would we really cherish those things. In essence the sacredness of their existence would cease to be. We would cherish them no more than we do our cheap plastic stuff we buy at Wal-Mart. When we do not want it anymore or need an "new" one we discard it. Would we really put that much care into a creature that was grown in a laboratory that if it dies, we could just make a new one. That is the real second danger here. That we lose our values of things that are real not just manufactured.

So the question is do we have the ability to stop the end of nature? To allow it to flourish on its' own? No. I would cherish the moments we have with it. Have your children immersed in it now while there are still some vestiges of real nature left. Because there may be a day when there will be a loss of memory of what real nature was. McKibben gives an analogy of that once we realize it is dying there may be a reluctance to become attached to it. Like one has a reluctance to choose friends that are terminally ill. However, I say that we should choose this terminally ill friend and spend as much time with it as we can. Perhaps in doing so we can slow the inevitable end of nature.

What Would Jesus Buy?

Over the past few years Christmas has become a bittersweet holiday. On one hand I do enjoy making it magical for my children, but on the other hand I think capitalism has killed Christmas. I came to the realization that Christmas is the penultimate catch 22 of our consumer culture.

On one side you have the religious institutions proclaiming that we must capture the "true" meaning of Christmas which is the birth of Jesus. How God gave his only son to us to be a testament of his love for humanity. We are told not forget this, usually as a cursory prayer or reflection prior to a meal or opening gifts. So my question is if that is the "true" meaning of Christmas, then why all of this anxiety over buying things for people. Why did people have to die this year when the "official" start to the holidays began on Black Friday? Isn't this season about sharing your happiness about the coming of the lord through prayer, singing, giving people your time, giving to people who are less fortunate then you?

That was the question I posed a few years ago and when I did, people called me a "Scrooge". The epitaph was thrown at me in order to shame me by creating a sense of guilt for questioning the modern consumption behavior.

Thus the catch-22. If you want to celebrate the real meaning of Christmas, shopping has very little to do with it. However, if you don't shop then many will view you as a scrooge, lacking the "Christmas spirit". So damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Which brings me to the topic of my post. If Jesus was alive today, what would he buy? And who would he buy if for? I hardly think he would purchase a Wii for one of his disciples. I can't quite see Jesus sitting down with his 12 followers, shopping bags filled with stuff from Best Buy, Gap, and Target. Although I am amazed that no store has used that in the advertising campaign. I am sure it would get a lot of attention.

This question was asked in a film aptly named "What would Jesus Buy?' Which follows an activist group as they travel across the nation during the frenzied holidays. The fictional character, Reverend Billy visits, Starbucks, Mall of America, and Disneyland and preaches his gospel of stop shopping. It is a very humorous movie, but at the same time very sad.

One part that really hit home for me was when they interviewed a pastor from a church who works with Chinese Christian dissidents. He was given a gift of a 10 Commandments sculpture. He turned it over and ....of course it was made in China. He thought it was rather ironic that a religious artifact like that was made in a country that persecutes their citizens for being a Christian. They interviewed a Chinese girl from the church who had been imprisoned by the Chinese government for being a Christian. She was beaten severely and had an electric shock stick used on her numerous times, which included having it inserted in her mouth and getting shocked inside her mouth. As part of her punishment she had to work at a labor/manufacturing camp where she spent over 14 hours a day making Christmas lights. She saw the irony in it and in her misery she felt some happiness knowing that those lights that she was making would bring joy to someone. However, she made it very clear that she would never buy Christmas lights in America. So the next time you see lights on sale and when you look at all those glittering houses, think about her and where those lights came from.

As you can guess this had a great impact on me emotionally. AS a result, when my kids opened up several gifts that were "Made in China" I had to fight back the tears thinking about who the person was who put their toy together. How old were they? How long were they working? How much did they get paid? Could they even afford the toy that they were manufacturing? These questions will go through my head, every time I see something that is not made in America.




If I depressed you too much for Christmas I apologize. Flip on the T.V. and look for "Its' a Wonderful Life" that should cheer you up. Merry Christmas!

Harvest Time : Part 2 Garden of Plenty

Here are some semi-official numbers of the amount of food grown this year


Onions-1Lbs Planted -15 Lbs Harvested. I just ran out 2 weeks ago

Potatoes- 2 Lbs Planted 37 Lbs Harvested. I still have lots to go

Tomatoes-4 plants from seed. 40 Lbs Harvested. Grown in Earthboxes

Green Peppers- 4 plants from seed. 7 Lbs Harvested

Misc Hot Peppers-4 plants from seed. 2 Lbs Harvested

Blackberries - N/A. 16*Lbs Harvested

Grapes - N/A. - 5*Lbs Harvested

Peaches - N/A. -10 Lbs Harvested

Corn -30 seeds planted. - 0 Lbs Harvested. Big bummer!!!!

* the blackberries is a general estimate due to the weight of the pints collected and obviously I can not weigh the ones that were eaten right off the plants by myself or children.

I am pretty happy about the numbers. The potato and onion yield was lower than I had wanted, but that was because of some mistakes from me.

For the potatoes I needed to plant them lower in the wine barrel so I can create more layers as they grow up.

As for the onions I did not fully till the bed for them so the ground was too hard for them to get big. The few that had softer soil were double the size of the ones in the harder ground.

The blackberries had A LOT of dieback this year. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of berries that came in. There was prolific growth this year, so I am expecting a bumper crop next year. In addition to that there were a few that crept into my aster bed. I will leave those alone and they should produce a fair amount of berries too.

The grapes and the peaches got effected by squirrels so I have to figure out a way to stop them or at least slow them down. I know....stopping squirrels. Stop laughing!!!

My blueberry plants are growing ok but are still too young to produce a measurable fruit yield. I will be transferring them to Earthboxes next year to help them grow stronger. It will keep the soil the perfect acidity for these temperamental shrubs.

Corn I usually planted in the earthboxes and I have had excellent results. This year I moved it to a raised bed. It grew fine, but it tasseled way before it silked. So as a result when the silk came up there was no pollen left so fertilization could not take place. No fertilization. No corn.
Next year the corn goes back into the EB.

Also next year I will be putting the peppers in the EB too. It will be interesting to see the difference in the yields.

Harvest Time:Part 1- Halloween Pumpkin

I am back posting. It has been a while with getting things cleaned up and other fall activities. Honestly, the weather has been so nice that I find it hard to stay inside when I do not have to.

This year we only had one pumpkin plant survive and actually bear fruit. I had two that I started by seed. They got mowed down by my uncle while we were on vacation. So I bought two more plants and they never quite thrived to produce fruit. The one that did survive was a castoff from last year's pumpkin that I threw by my raspberries. I guess it found and nice little place between the bricks of my house and the dirt and the rest is history.

Since this one plant only had one gourd on the vine it grew pretty well. My daughter had a delightful time checking on it every other day and watching it grow from a small little golf ball to a huge sphere. As Halloween approached the pumpkin was still green in several areas, but she decided we should cut it and carve it before Halloween and not wait until it was fully orange.

My eldest son helper her cut it from the vine and she estimated that it would weigh a 1000 lbs. It seemed like a logical number for a four year old. After washing it off, it officially weighed in at 20 lbs.

Once weighed, my three children started a lively discussion about what we were going to carve into it. Would it be a cat, a flaming skeleton, words, a traditional pumpkin face? That is the problem with having three people and one pumpkin, no one is going to get exactly what they want. In the end they decided on a Pikachu from Pokemon.

I looked at some pictures of Pikachu and decided a simple one would be best. I drew the design on the pumpkin and my two sons carved it according to the design. My daughter did not want to touch it. You can see how it turned out below.


We were all happy how it looked.

There were a couple of interesting things that I noticed upon growing and caving my own pumpkin. First when we opened it up, it didn't have that nasty rotting pumpkin smell. You know that smell that makes young children flee in horror when you start actually carving it. The second thing that stood out was it actually smelled like a cantaloupe. So I ate some raw. So did my eldest son. It wasn't bad. I usually hate any pumpkin taste, but this fresh pumpkin tasted like a mild cantaloupe. It was a pleasant surprise.

Right now the seeds are outside drying out and I am hoping to use them for next year's pumpkin. My children want to plant a whole patch that will cover the yard. I told them that they say that now, but will probably be against it when they are dodging pumpkins while running around next summer. I told them we will bring it up in the spring.