GranolaBox

On a gold forum somewhere, someone asked, how did everyone here get into precious metals? And since THAT INCLUDED ME!, I wrote:

For the first time this year I had some meaningful cash to stash into a 401K. I realized I didn’t have the slightest idea of how to invest it. I started reading up on oil investments, which started me reading on all kinds of novel things like M3 and toxic tranches and derivatives and ABSs, which eventually led to peak oil. I realized we were screwed.

which is basically it. If I hadn’t stumbled onto a successful (for me) vein of capitalism and continued on in my lower-middle class demographic indefinitely, I’d still be a card-carrying Sheeple member, with my equanamity only slightly disturbed by those damn documentaries Sweetie kept bringing home.

Fast forward to now. I’ve read PowerDown. I’ve read Kunstler (even his suburbia-bashing books — which are great). I did the usual shrapnel-research thang — because I’m a big believer in the hive mind, which used to be derisively called GroupThink, but got a whole new shine due to a NYT bestseller called the Wisdom of Crowds — and found a PeakOil discussion list on YahooGroups. A really good one. Which not only attempts to penetrate the rocky soil of my head devoted to “how to” topics, but serves as an important reinforcer, since the advent of peak oil doesn’t come up much in the checkout line yet.

So anyway. One of the PeakOil messages is,

Prepare to Farm.

For most of our history, if you were born human — after the stone age anyway — WhatD’YaWannaBeWhenYouGrowUp? didn’t come up much. The answer was, a farmer. Without the helping hand of the 5 billion years of concentrated solar energy … which effectively functions as a FREAKIN’ ENORMOUS slave class in our society, and which we’ve managed to blow through in about 60 years … the human race necessarily devotes most of its time and creativity to raising food.

This is kind of gloomy news for me. I mean, yeah, for everyone. But gardening is so not my strong suit, not exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up, or grow doddering, even.

In fact, none of the probable peak oil careers bode well for me. I’m an idea person. By which I mean that I can’t nail together a decent bird house. Or sustain a house plant. Or repair a bike tire, even with a kit. And the things I turned out best at have no intrinsic value whatsoever … which pays pretty well in this world.

But the post-petroleum superstars? Those are the guys you always knew were somehow cooler than you. The ones who learned a real trade or craft. The guys that limp along on subsistence wages now that we outsourced our manufacturing base to China, but used to do much better. Framers. Carvers. Butchers. Chimney pointers. Plumbers. Masons. I-can-fix-anything guys. Gardeners. Glass blowers. Livestock handlers. Ranchers.

SHIT.

So, In Preparation for a Brave New World,

Sweetie and I are developing a tight-knit coterie with our two nearest sets of neighbors. One we can talk a little peak oil with. The other, not so much — but it hardly matters. We give each other coffee and lentil soup and wood and wine and sometimes cash. It wasn’t always like this, but we’re deliberately working at it now. We know we can’t go it alone. And funny enough … life is better this way.

But sometimes I wonder how I could be useful to my neighbors and family in a post-oil scenario.

Big blank.

DOUG!, to our left, is relentlessly competent. He’s a big man, the kind you imagine as a skirt-wearing non-union extra in I Am Spartacus, towering over some creepy inbred tribune. He can kill deer and build furniture and frame up buildings and sell used cars and split logs and charm nonagenerians and take down 100 year old black walnuts and seduce women. (The only thing he can’t do is housetrain his cocker spaniel). He’s best friends with an even MORE competent guy who’s even BETTER at killing and building and masonry.

Empress Liz, on the right, knows everyone, and has Done Favors for all of them, and flirted with at least half. If you’re within 30 miles of here and not a Friend of Liz, chances are you don’t see much in a mirror, and people wouldn’t curse if you stood in front of the flat screen at the bar. If Liz doesn’t make it, none of us will.

One of my feeble attempts to bring something to the table is to canvas our local terrain for wild food.

Euell Gibbons, a wild food guru, got his SchoolOfHardKnocks PhD during the Depression, in the Texas dustbowl. As a teen, he saved his family from starving by canvassing the countryside for roots, salads, bark, nuts and berries to fill out their occasional base of rice and pinto beans.

This was pretty unusual, as Americans without a familiar food supply have made a habit of starving. Even the early settlers, as hardy and determined as they were, frequently perished from lack of food while in the middle of a relative bounty that sustained the Indians year in and year out. (And how many families on food stamps grow grass, not food, in their pocket yards? WTH?)

He left a great record of oft-overlooked food sources, and so did others. And with a few of these stuffed in my handy thrift store leather backpack that someone earned by redeeming the UPCs from, like, 500 boxes of Camels, I’ve been setting out to see what the local terrain might offer some hungry households.

As it turns out, quite a lot.

Filed under: EWAKI on February 9th, 2008