Nose to the Grindstone

Recent Peak Oil Prep at our place included buying a manual grain mill so we can grind our own flour, corn and beans. It sat forlornly on the flour unused till Hubby made a super duper new kitchen shelf for it to reside on. Now we're away! The novelty of hand-milling wore off after five minutes as I thought it would;-) We're using a mixture of 1/2 home ground & 1/2 store bought flour till we get a better rate of milling going. We got this one specifically so we could add a motor to it at a later stage so Hubby is planning that as his wee "craft" project.

I often joked to friends that I wouldn't ever be a "true" homeschooler with less than five children unless I ground my own flour - so maybe I really fit into that crazy hippie homeschooler mode now?

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

We're challenged by Sharon Astyk's list of "Things you can do to get ready for Peak Oil, Climate Change and Difficult Times" in her Depletion and Abundance.

Firstly, we're trying to feel encouraged about the things that we are already doing. Here are a random selection of some of them that have been very achievable for our family, so maybe yours too:
* Plant a garden and grow some of your own food.
* Start walking and biking more.
* Start baking your own bread.
* Start a compost pile outdoors.
* If you don't have a lot of space but are trying to grow much of your own food, grow root crops like potatoes.
* Encourage your religious community to reconnect with the agrarian roots of your faith.
* Learn to preserve food.
* Teach kids how to ride a bike and about basic bike safety.
* Put up a clothesline! (Actually I consider it a patriotic duty for New Zealanders to do this!)
* Buy a hand-pushed lawn mower.
* Have you considered homeschooling? Why yes, Sharon, we have!
* Brew your own beer.
* Learn a skill that can be done in very low light conditions. Knitting, crocheting;-)
* Now is the time to convince your business, school, church, mosque, synagogue to add a garden on that empty lawn.

And our exciting new one!
* Join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) if you don't garden, and learn to enjoy the bounty of a seasonal diet.

We are anticipating our first delivery on Thursday from the Simply Good Food CSA that we just joined. It feels right to "invest" in an alternative positive venture in these times of instability in the traditional financial sector. We know we are unable to grow ALL our own food in our small suburban back yard and our allotment at our community garden so this is another step towards food security.

Where we are at...

Our ever-increasing Peak Oil Prep library of books by my afternoon coffee armchair.

Worth a read

Make a large cup of your poison (Fairtrade home-roasted coffee for me) and read this brilliant article by Sharon Astyk of Casaubon's Book. If you're like me, with many little voices not in your head but near your head, then it'll take a couple of sessions to get through but her thoughts on where and HOW we will live in a post-Peak Oil world are well worth getting to grips with.

Money Earner and I are only just getting our head around the fact that we will more likely be "urban homesteaders" than country dwellers as we had previously thought.

One quote that tickled my fancy: "Suburbia is so tied up with children and family life that I feel like I should say something about that. The suburban model of childhood will simply have to come to an end. Many more children will probably be homeschooled, many more children will probably be put to work sooner helping out at home, and the child-centered model will probably disintegrate, replaced by a family-centered model in which children are expected to pitch in, listen and are not treated always like visiting heads of state to be deferred to and offered the best. " (Italics mine.)

Your thoughts?

Peak Points to Ponder

My resident Peak Oil Freak drew my attention to a paper by Richard Heinberg and one paragraph jumped out in particular. I'm going to ponder his points this coming week and get some thoughts together.

"Are there some good things that are not at or near their historic peaks? I can think of a few:

• Community
• Personal autonomy
• Satisfaction from honest work well done
• Intergenerational solidarity
• Cooperation
• Free time
• Happiness
• Ingenuity
• Artistry
• Beauty of the built environment"

He writes: "Our central survival task for the decades ahead, as individuals and as a species, must be to make a transition away from the use of fossil fuels - and to do this as peacefully, equitably, and intelligently as possible."

I'll be back with my ponderings.

Surviving Peak Oil

Do you think we could fit Mummy and a two year old boy on there too? I guess they do it in India, eh?
(Don't worry too much about the lack of proper kid's helmets. The girls were driven very slowly and carefully to four doors down.)

For Such a Time as This

We've been doing a lot of thinking, talking, reading and watching around current global issues of peak oil and climate change and trying to figure out our perspective and response as a family.

We were remembering back to when we first got together 17 years ago, being alt-rock hippy types with an interest in alternative lifestyles, eco-living, justice, poverty and environmental issues and generally "swimming upstream". Somehow in the move to the 'burbs, the addition of 3 children, and working for "The Man", some of our dreams and ideals were put on the backburner. With our awakening interest in some serious issues, we are now reconsidering the important things that drew us together, and pondering important decisions for our family.

Some interesting viewing we've done or are planning to do:
The End of Suburbia
An Inconvenient Truth
The Crude Awakening
The Community Solution

I'm keen to explore these issues in the context of an Abundant God of Hope, without being blinkered to current realities. Like Esther, we are considering the choices we make in "such a time as this" (Esther 4:14).