There's been quite a bit going on since we moved in to our new place a couple of months ago. We're already working towards building out our garden and setting things up for chickens in the near future. We've already got a harvest of peas and blueberries and are expecting a lot more good food this summer.

The Garden

We started with a garden that was already set up by the previous owners of the property. We really didn't have a lot of time to prepare and got stuff started kind of late, so things are a little late in coming up. It's all working out though and we have the entire garden planted with (hopefully) good things to eat. It's currently about 300 sq ft and planted with peas, green beans, assorted dry beans (some bought from the grocery store, which somehow sprouted better than the ones bought from a seed catalog), zucchini, pumpkins, cantaloupe, watermelon, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, corn and Lima beans. We also dug a second garden where Kelly and Amy have planted broccoli, sunflowers, chard, and various other random plants.

The peas are doing well, although I skimped on building a structure for them to grow on and am now seeing them strangle each other as they reach for higher ground. I figured that was going to happen and plan on building a couple trellises over the summer for next year. We've already had a side serving of the bush peas and I need to get out there and pick a lot of the snap peas since they're ready to eat. I, like most everyone else, used to hate peas, but then realized that I've never actually had peas before since the sludge that comes in the cans can't really be called the real thing.

The zucchini are starting to flower and I hope to get something from them very soon. The super hot weather should help them along since I hear they like that sort of thing. I'm trying to train them to grow outside the actual garden so they don't start strangling the tomato plants. I'm only watering them on one side to try and get them to reach in that direction, but they're not long enough yet to know if it's working. That seems to be working much better with the watermelon, but we'll see how it goes.

I think one of the biggest successes has been the beans. We did some contender green beans last year, maybe about 7 plants, and the output was amazing. We've stepped that up this year since we liked the beans so much and would love to get a couple more meals out of them this year.

I also got a couple of dry bean varieties from a seed catalog, and they didn't sprout well at all. But I planted some I just grabbed out of a bag of dry beans just for a fun experiment. I planted a couple of pinto beans and some black beans (black turtle beans, apparently) and they sprouted great! I always thought that store bought beans were irradiated or otherwise rendered dead but it looks like that's not true at all. I'm pretty excited about this since I would love to grow my own pinto beans.

I've planted them all together in the garden and they've kind of built their own little mini-climate and I find I don't really need to water them as much as the tomatoes which are more spread out. They also seem to love the hot weather and are starting to bud.

I'm also trying a experiment with the corn (I love experiments). I've planted them a little further apart than normal and planted a pole Lima bean in between each plant. I understand this is not a grand experiment since many, many people have done this for hundreds of years before me, but I'm just trying the timing of when I should start them. The beans have now begun sprouting and it's a race to see who will grow the fastest. I'm hoping the beans don't go so fast that they overwhelm the corn, but we'll see how it goes.

We're also getting a huge crop of blueberries. I can't say any of this is my doing since they were here before I was, but at least I get the benefits! We have so far picked almost 10 pounds of blueberries off of two of the bushes. We have four bushes on the property and two of them aren't even ripe yet so we've got a lot more blueberries to go! It's a good thing I like blueberry jam. We're planning on having a "picking party" this weekend because I have a feeling that a lot more will be ripe very soon.

Compost

I also built a compost shelter out of some scrap wood that was in the barn. It's already got a good pile going that will give us compost in about two years. I've read up a lot on how to do this right to get the most useful and rich compost possible and I've been able to get the internal temperature of it to stay around 100F (which isn't hard in this weather). This usually indicates good microbial activity in the pile, so I have my hopes up that I've got the right mix of carbon and nitrogen working away in there.

The shelter is a two part system that I picked up online somewhere. You basically fill up one side until it's full, which could take up to a year. You then let that sit and cure while filling up the other side. After another year, you can then empty the first side and apply it to the garden and start the process all over again. The bad part is, you need a least two years before getting any compost at all. I'll probably buy something next year to apply to the garden like rotted cow manure that they sell at the farmer's exchange, but in a couple of years I'm hoping to keep the compost in a sustaining system all on the farm.

We'll see how it goes. I guess it's all just one big experiment.

Farmer Jake from my local CSA just wrote a post on why he's no longer growing corn, mainly due to the general inability to control the pollen coming off of GMO corn. This is a real problem in Ohio due to the sheer number of farmers who grow GMO corn as their only crop. With all that pollen flying around in the air, it's impossible to control what gets on your corn versus what doesn't. Farmers who don't want to grow GMO and want to save seeds can run into problems in this environment; from not being able to control the pollination of their crops to actually being sued by Monsanto because they're accidentally growing GMO crops they don't even want!

Even considering this, I still plan on experimenting with corn on my own farm this year. We're going to plant Painted Mountain corn and see how we do. I'm hoping that since this corn is so unique and colorful that we'll be able to tell if a "bad seed" gets in and discard any kernels that don't look right. Since corn is fertilized by the kernel and not by the ear, this may not be so easy, but it's an experiment we'll run this year and see how it turns out.

It's sad to think that one of America's native grains, corn, may soon be all but useless on the continents of it's birth, but we may soon be rapidly approaching that reality.

This is a response to a friend about a post on her blog about the movie "Zeitgeist". I couldn't get a comment to save on blogspot to save my life, so I decided to just post it here.

Amy and I went ahead and watched both of these movies. I think for me, none of it was anything totally new. I was glad to see it all brought together and condensed into a format that anyone could grasp and understand (and possibly even agree with!).

I think there are important points that need to be understood in order to move forward that are explained very well in this movie, namely:

1. Our currency system is based on debt and since we are forced to use it, we are sucked into this same debt cycle. We should be able to freely use other currencies, especially goods-based currencies like silver. Ron Paul has been fighting for this for a long time, but if the Federal government ever let us off the hook, everyone would flee the dollar and the whole government-owned monetary system would crash. When you can't print your money and force people to use it, you can't spend like crazy anymore.
2. A powerful government is not our friend. Government is run by people and power corrupts people. Many people seem to believe that only selfless people run for government, but there is no such thing as a selfless person. Anyone who has tried to become a better person knows that it's a hard thing to do and power over others is the ultimate tempter. Even if only good people ran for office, once they have the power to basically do whatever they want, they would fall victim to believing that ends justify the means. Ends never justify the means. There are no ends, the only thing that matters are the means.
3. The influence of bankers in our society is at dangerous levels. The illustration of fractional reserve banking was very clear and shows just how fraudulent the current system really is and how fragile it's become. With most of the wealth concentrated and magnified, there are a lot of "too big to fail" corporations out there. But it also goes to show that most of the "wealth" we think we have in this country isn't even really there. It's a mirage and it will eventually fade, and most people aren't prepared to deal with that reality.
4. Most people have religion all wrong. Things are taken too literally when talking about religion and we really need to step back and re-look at what religion is really trying to tell us. I think the movie unfairly picked on Christianity, but it was an illustrative example. All religions can be perverted to serve a group's self-interest. We see that all the time with Christianity and Islam. Even my poison of choice, Buddhism, is the reason for war and strife in Sri Lanka and Thailand. The problem is that people need to see that underlying themes, interconnectedness and impermanence (called emergence in the movie, basically that nothing ever stays the same). Religions were designed with allegories and stories to help us understand these concepts on a very basic level and help us integrate them into our lives. Even though these concepts are truth, we don't have the ability to see it on a day to day basis and religions help us to integrate these concepts into our daily consciousness. To take religions literally does a great disservice to ourselves and the world, and we see where it's gotten us.

I do have a problem with the proposed solution in the second movie. First, the solution requires that everyone become enlightened to the world all at once for it to work. Buddhism's been trying to do that for the last 2,500 years, so I don't see it happening any time soon. It will also require a huge amount of central planning and very directed work, which of course is the dream of Socialism. I think that Socialism has been fairly proven not to work simply due to what I said about large, powerful governments. Something will need to be set up to run the whole thing, and that something sounds like a world government that we were warned about in the movie. Should we set something up to force people to live in this world even if they aren't "enlightened" enough to appreciate it? No, simply because of the means and ends argument.

What we need to do is get back to having responsibility over our own lives and, in fact, demanding that we have responsibility over our own lives. And I don't just mean having governments leaving us alone, but taking direct responsibility over what we do. If you buy meat that was grown unsustainably, you have directly contributed to that business. Don't like how Wal-Mart destroys local economies? Stop shopping there and if you do shop there because it's "cheaper" (for you, not for the markets the good come from) or convenient, then understand that you directly have destroyed your local shops. Wal-Mart can only offer low prices, it's you and you alone that chooses what to do with your money. Same goes for banks, restaurants and other large corporations. Sadly, the same does not go for governments since they can take your money by force. Hopefully a change in that arena will help, but I'm not holding my breath.

What we need to do it figure out what's important and get back to that. Profits aren't important. Having more food than you need isn't important. Video games and a wide screen TV isn't important. Living longer just to live longer isn't important. Money isn't important.

People are important. Making sure future generations can live on this earth is important. Having freedom over yourself and your choices is important. A child's laugh is important. Life is important. Love is important.

You're important, and what you decide from all of this will shape everything to come. Choose with wisdom.

The young human being responds to the challenges of its environment by turning to its parents for advice, support, and protection, and before it can be trusted as an adult, this patterning must be altered. Accordingly, one of the first functions of the puberty rites of primitive societies, and indeed of education everywhere, has been always that of switching the response systems of adolescents from dependency to responsibility--which is no easy transformation to achieve. And with the extension of the period of dependency in our own civilization into the middle or even late twenties, the challenge is today more threatening than ever, and our failures are increasingly apparent.

A neurotic might be defined, in this light, as one who has failed to come altogether across the critical threshold of his adult "second birth". Stimuli that should evoke in him thoughts and acts of responsibility evoke those, instead, of flight to protection, fear of punishment, need for advice, and so on. He has continually to correct the spontaneity of his response patterns and, like a child, will tend to attribute his failures and troubles either to his parents or to that handy parent substitute, the state and the social order by which he is protected and supported. If the first requirement of an adult is that he should take to himself responsibility for his failures, for his life, and for his doing, within the context of the actual conditions of the world in which he dwells, then it is simply an elementary psychological fact that no one will ever develop to this state who is continually thinking of what a great thing he would have been had only the conditions of his life been different: his parents less indifferent to his needs, society less oppressive, or the universe otherwise arranged. The first requirement of any society is that its adult membership should realize and represent the fact this it is they who constitute its life and being. And the first function of the rites of puberty, accordingly, must be to establish in the individual a system of sentiments that will be appropriate to the society in which he is to live, and on which that society itself must depend for its existence.

-- Joseph Campbell Myths To Live By

Emphasis mine and are parts that really jumped out at me as I read.

I've seen a lot of discussion about the Federal Health Care Bill that eventually devolves into name calling or 'rah-rah team' style arguments without getting into actual facts about why people are for or against nationalized health care. I sometimes wonder if people even know why they are for or against it or if they're just saying what all their friends say or what their party tells them is right. I've thought a lot about this and this is the conclusion that I've come to.

First off, if you think giving health care to everyone is a dumb idea in and of itself, then you are a heartless prick. If universal health care were possible, I would be all for it and I would hope everyone would be all for it.

The problem is, it's not possible, and it hurts me to say that. I wish we did live in a world where everyone could be taken care of and kept safe, but we don't. This country is in a severe debt crisis, a debt crisis brought about because we thought we could take care of everyone and we're realizing that socialism on a grand scale doesn't work. We saw what happened in the USSR when they tried it, the economies of Greece, France and England when they tried it and now we're getting the same results; a weakened economy, loss of wealth and a government with it's hands in every aspect of our society.

I'm not saying socialism as an insult here either, which a lot of people seem to be doing lately. I mean socialism in the way Karl Marx meant it; the pooling of capital and resources to be used in the collective benefit of the community. I actually think socialism can work on a small scale within a larger free market society and I have respect for anyone who chooses that kind of life.

However, it can't and hasn't worked on the scale of an entire country. When people are forced to to become socialist and pay taxes for services and programs they don't want or don't believe in, that is wrong and immoral. If they can't use money they earned to better their communities in the way they see fit, all of society loses. Then governments, that are run by human beings just like us, gets power over the people since they are the sole deciders on how money, just a stored form of labor, is used in a socialist country. Power breeds corruption in all people and the more power you have consolidated, the more corrupt individuals you attract and the more power they want to have. Lobbyists come in and try and grab a little for themselves and work to get the government bigger so that they can keep getting a bigger piece of the pie. Soon lobbyists and those attracted to government positions feed off the government and government feeds off the people until the country is bankrupt and in so much debt and with so little freedom that it won't be able to survive.

It's hard to name a program that the government has actually gotten right. We keep being told that the reason we need universal health care is because Medicare and Medicaid aren't working (and are going broke). More and more doctors are going out of business or turning away Medicare patients because they can't afford to take them anymore. When costs go up, the doctor's get blamed for it even though the government's been monkeying around in health care for the past 50-some years and helping drug companies do whatever they want. The problem isn't people, the problem is the government's influence and regulation of the health care industry which drives out competition and drives up costs.

Another problem I have is just taxes in general. Distribution of wealth is just legalized theft.

Say you're walking down the street and see someone begging for money and decide to give them $10. That's a noble and right thing to do.

Let's imagine the same scenario, but you see five other people on the street too. You tell them all, "Hey, let's give this guy $10." Maybe some of them do it, but one of them says no. The begger got $50 from you and four of the other people but you feel angry about the other guy who didn't give. Are you allowed to beat the crap out of the guy? Should you be able to get all of the other people together and force him to give up his $10, even if he needed it for something else? What if you called it "taxes"? Can you do it then?

That is what taxes are, a forced way to make people give to your cause. You are being forced to have police frisk your kids at school, pay for someone who isn't working, give money to banks to prop them up (and get huge bonuses), imprison people for using drugs, maintain the parks, run the libraries, teach kids about sex in school, give grants to non-profits doing things that you don't agree with, maintain old lighthouses, etc. I'm against some of these things and for some of them, but no one should be forced to pay for any of them. How many don't go to the library but still pay for it? How many will never have children but will still pay for others to go to school (and a shitty school at that).

People would say that if the government didn't pay for these programs that no one would. That's bullshit. If everyone suddenly had 33% more income, you would see a lot more charity donations and giving in general (and paying for many of the programs above). You would also see a lot more investment from people who had more money which would mean more jobs and more productive growth. The fact that people wouldn't put money into some of these programs probably should tell you that people don't want it. One of the most democratic things we can do in this country is vote with our dollars. Voting with our dollars has more impact and more use then a vote for a representative will ever have and that vote has been taken away from us in many areas of our lives. Would you buy bombs for the military for their wars overseas if you had the choice? I know many who would and some who wouldn't, but it's not our choice and we can't regulate how much money is spent on that war. I would much rather spend that money on domestic charities, but I don't have that choice.

It's a running joke that government wastes most of the money they take from us, so why do we always keep hoping that it will somehow change and do it right this time? It has never done it right, so let's all please stop hoping and instead try something else. With the government's track record, it is clear to me that a Federal Health Care program is going to cause way more problems than it solves and waste way more money then they're saying it will. That is why I'm against the Federal Health Care Bill.

And just to be 100% clear, Democrats and Republicans are both filled with corrupt power-hungry bottom feeders. I don't like either one of them or what they stand for. I'll talk about that in a future post.