The Next Great Thing to Kill Us All

We are both repulsed and fascinated by survivalists.  In Texas, we usually just call them "neighbor" but we do occasionally have to stop and shake our heads at some of the things they come up with.  We suspect the ascendancy of the survivalist meme has something to do with the geography, the lack of funding for public education, and the popularity of bad beer.  And let's face it, no news story can end well if it includes the phrase "just outside of Waco."

Those who follow Myrtle's musings are aware that we are fully willing to write about issues which lend themselves to apocalyptic thinking.  Things like oil spills, mass extinction, poisonous public water supplies, global warming, regressive educational policy, and so on.  On occasion this leads some persons to misconstrue our perspective; we are often asked, in response to the news that we are seeking to be self-sufficient, whether this is in preparation for "End Times".

We wish to unequivocally, once and for all time, put this to rest:  we are not delusional paranoiacs prone to magical thinking.  John of Patmos is credited with authoring the Book of Revelations; we believe co-credit should be given to an unknown ergot alkaloid.  And Nostradamus is a great name for a cat, but as a rule and measure for how to live one's life, we suggest looking forward, not backwards.  We raise chickens, grow our own herbs and vegetables, and are digging a fish pond not because we are trying to survive the final days of humanity, but because we wish to be healthier, and we don't believe mainstream commercial agriculture can be a part of that equation.  Crazy conspiracy theories or dreams of global disaster have nothing to do with it.

That having been said, we wish to now muse upon "The next great thing that's going to kill us all!"

The words "Carrington Event" will be percolating their way into the mainstream media over the course of the next two or three years, and accompanying those words will be the singsong cries of hysteria from the Tribulation crowd.

In 1859, English astronomer Richard Carrington observed the largest solar flare ever witnessed.  His astonishment was matched the following morning when aurora borealis, typically observed only in far northern reaches, were seen as far south as Cuba and Hawaii.  Most observers were merely astonished, or perhaps annoyed -- lights blaring like the noon-day sun waking you up well before dawn could be considered annoying regardless of how pretty or divine the poets may find them.

However, a footnote to the event has given modern observers pause -- the impact of Carrington's solar flare on the telegraph system was remarkable.  The recording paper in several stations caught fire; the lines were hypercharged by the energy pelting the Earth; even after the battery power to the telegraph machines was removed, they continued to operate.

What would happen in modern times if such an event were to occur?  By some estimates, the damage to electronic equipment could reach $2,000,000,000,000.  That's 2 trillion dollars, for those who lost track of the zeroes.  Roughly 20 times as much damage as was done by Hurricane Katrina.

There are others who argue that the damage would be far worse; the most recent NASA estimate quotes a fairly optimistic recovery timeline of several months to about a decade.  Others argue that there would be no recovery.

Why?  What kind of damage are we talking about here?

Actually, the apocalyptic thinkers have a point here.  One of the most vulnerable pieces of equipment in a Carrington Event would be the transformers you see up on power lines all throughout your local version of "the grid".  These boxes are fairly difficult to install, but on a planned basis, electrical engineers are able to keep up with demand.  In a Carrington Event, however, they would all have to be replaced.  All of them.  And there is just no quick way to do that.

Which means most people would be without power for several months at the very least.

Think about how many things we take for granted which rely on electricity.  Wow.

How likely is that, really?  Not very.  But... as recently as 1972, there was a solar flare event which knocked out communications worldwide for about 10 minutes.  The only major grid failure reported was in Quebec, Canada.  But that was in 1972.  Far fewer forms of communication existed then, and they were of less vulnerable kinds.  Land line phones, though they seem archaic now, were much less susceptible to the influence of solar weather.

Were the 1972 event to be repeated today?

In that 10 minutes, would you want to be on an airplane making an approach to a busy and crowded airport?  Would you want to be on an operating table having open heart surgery?  Would you want to be on a ship, or on the dock, during the docking operation of a multi-ton cargo vessel?

Neither would we.

And a Carrington Event would be much bigger.  On the plus side, solar activity is cyclical, and the Carrington Event seems to have been a once-in-a-millenium event.  However, there is tremendous uncertainty in the cycles; we are coming out of the "solar minimum", which has lasted now far longer than astrophysicists had predicted when it began earlier this decade.  The consensus seems to be that by May, 2013, we should be out of it again.

We haven't even discussed the impact of Space Weather on climate change, or how the global warming denialists step all over themselves trying to find new ways to contradict their own a priori presumptions; perhaps another time.  What we at Myrtle's place wish to do now is let you know that the world is not going to end any time soon -- to paraphrase our favorite Michael Crighton line, "The world is going to be perfectly fine.  We're the ones in trouble!"

So, what can we do as individuals about the coming solar apocalypse?

As it turns out, quite a lot.

The theories which suggest that solar interference with all-things-electrical will lead to the collapse of society depend on a couple of related propositions.  First, people are connected solely by electrical and electronic equipment, or things dependent upon such equipment, and second, people are incapable of working together in the absence of such equipment.  There are several layers of independence which, ironically, would function to unite our communities were they to be more widely adopted.

Food independence.  We have written before about the need to start shopping locally, in addition to growing as much of your own food as possible.  There are a variety of reasons for this; the most important relate to health, as local food is more likely to be organic food, and thus free of poisonous pesticides and herbicides.  However, at present, the average comestible travels over 1,000 miles before it gets to your plate.

That needs to change now.  If you can garden, do so.  If you can't, buy or barter with those who can.  Even in the Solar Armageddon, if you have a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) agreement, you are far more likely to get help from a friendly farmer than are those who depend solely on the goodwill of national chain grocery stores.

Also, get some chickens.  There's nothing like fresh eggs from happy chickens, anyway, so even if the disaster never happens, you'll be glad you got the birds.

In addition, we suggest you look into a Mormon Pantry.  Yes, yes, we know, the Latter Day Saints don't exactly fit the description of non-apocalyptic thinkers, but remember, we said such thinkers both revulse and intrigue us.  We don't agree with them on much, but preparedness is one area where we are in accord.  A two year supply of dry goods in your pantry does not strike us as a bad idea, although you probably want to exercise some discretion.  Pumpkin pie mix and lima beans would be as unappealing at the End of Days as they are on a typical Saturday evening.

Water independence.  Given how many times Myrtle has pontficated about pollutants in our drinking water, it should come as no surprise to you that we recommend doing everything in your power not to be dependent upon others for clean potables.  Rainwater collection is step one; after you are sure that you will have sufficient water on hand, step two is some method of purification.  Provided you have the power, we recommend distilling the water; this not only gets rid of microbial infestations, it also removes chemical pollutants, which will be just as big a problem if the grid goes down as they are now.

Energy independence.  In the absence of electricity from the grid, where can you get electrical power?  For those who do not generate their own electricity, there is the obvious alternative--a generator.  However, what would happen if you were not on the grid when it went down?  There is reason to believe that not all home solar panel installations would be as adversely affected as others -- you would need to take proper precautions when installing your system, but it is highly possible that given enough lead time for a warning, you could protect your home solar installation from the total blowout the city power is likely to experience.

If enough homes were independently solar by the time the Carrington Event took place, there would be a hub in every city in America of completely unaffected neighborhoods.  We aren't sure how many it would take to make a tipping point, but just one out of every ten households would be more than enough to power distillers for clean water for everyone.

Getting enough people off the grid before catastrophe strikes would also enable a quicker recovery for the energy utilities; fewer users would mean fewer blown transformers, etc.  Which would mean a quicker overall recovery time.

Social interdependence.  Here is the biggest place in which we diverge from the survivalists.  While they would have you watch your neighbors suspicously and arm yourselves with Kalashnikovs and tear gas, we would have you take them poundcake, and invite them over for lemonade and fried catfish.

Get to know your neighbors; this is ultimately the best defense against any catastrophe.  The powers of paranoia revel in gated communities with huge St. Augustine lawns, but this is madness.  Our species is a social species; we only survived against saber toothed tigers because we banded together.  A bunch of puny, weak, bipedal apes threw dirt clods at our much bigger predators until they went away.  And now, even the most steroidally enhanced of us is still puny when compared to the forces of nature against which we find ourselves aligned.  If we are to have any chance at all, whether facing hurricanes, or oil spills, or solar flares, it is by caring about what goes on in each other's lives.  And not as a nosy means of self-promotion, but as a genuine expression of interest. 

So, next Saturday afternoon, when you had been planning on hand-washing all your camo long johns, why don't you instead trow a block party and learn the name of all those people you have so studiously ignored all these years?

The likelihood of a Carrington Event in our lifetimes is extremely remote; there will soon be a lot of sound and fury which we predict will signify nothing.  But that doesn't change the fact that in the face of potential disaster, humanity really only has two choices:  we can be delusional fanatics who run around like chickens with our heads cut off, or else we can roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Happy Apocalypse!  And....

Happy farming!

Scientia, Pietas, Fides

"If you look at U.S. performance on various international metrics, depending on which one you use, we come out something like 24th or 25th in the world. A lot of people might argue: “Well, who cares? It’s just science.” The only problem with that theory is we’re moving into a time in the development of the world economy when innovation and the formation of novel approaches will clearly come from countries best situated to create a population that can innovate in science and technology."  --Dr. James S. Gates, University of Maryland

 The proprietors of Big Myrtle's place never in a million years pictured ourselves as the type of people who would abandon the public school system in favor of a private institution.  Yet here we are -- next year, our daughter will attend St. Michael's Episcopal School, an expensive-ish institution of classical learning that can be described as anything but typical of contemporary American public education.
 

Our experiences this past school year finally convinced us that this country, and the state of Texas in particular, are just not serious about providing a high quality educational experience.  The World Bank's 2009 report on rank of nations in terms of expenditures on public education makes plain where this nation's priorities lay -- or rather, don't lay.  The United States spends less per child on education than 47 other countries, including Tunisia, Barbados, Cyprus, Estonia, Slovenia, India etc. etc. etc.

Depending on which survey you believe, the United States ranks somewhere around 25th in terms of science and math technology, in spite of having a larger literate population than practically every other country in the survey.  We are sending our children to school more than anyone else, but what they are doing there is a mystery.  They certainly aren't learning to think.

In Texas, in particular, Myrtle has made comment before on the utter insipidity of the curriculum.  The Texas Board of Education recently voted to gut the history textbooks of commentary on the Civil Rights movement, among other things.  This we find egregious.  However, we find it outright crippling that the Theory of Evolution, though it is perfectly demonstrable in a classroom -- few things are easier to demonstrate, in fact -- is not taught as a validated scientific theory, it is taught (if at all) as a sideshow myth that needs to be hushed because it might contradict someone's religious beliefs.

The straw that broke the camel's back this year came when our daughter informed us that her science teacher (and we use the term loosely) argued with her students about whether an orangutan is a monkey or an ape.  She insisted it was a monkey.  And would not entertain the idea that homo sapiens sapiens was a fellow primate to the orangutans, monkeys, et al.  She also denied global warming, which might be excusable in a Fox News editor's meeting, but not in a science classroom.  The Argo Float data alone provides all the evidence of warming you need -- the oceans are warmer than they were ten years ago; they contain 30,000 more times heat-retention ability than the atmosphere; the Earth is warming, QED.  This is hardly a proof, it's almost a tautology -- the ocean is warmer, therefore the Earth is warmer.

Enter friend of Myrtle, Dr. Kathryn Lucchese.   At Myrtle's place, we usually just call her "Kate So Great".  She has been a tremendous friend of our family for the past few years, and is one of the most interesting people we have met.  In addition to being a geographer and a classicist, she writes a pretty fascinating travel blog.  She also makes some wicked-good cinnamon popcorn, but that's a story for another time.

Kate was, for many years, a Latin teacher at St. Michael's, and this past winter, when the position of Head of School came open, decided almost instantly to apply.  We were strongly in her corner, hoping she would get the post, because, frankly, she is the most like Albus Dumbledore or Minerva McGonnigal of anyone we have ever met.  She seems like she was born to be a Head of School.  So when she got the job, we were thrilled for her.  We still, however, had no intention of enrolling our children -- public school had always been the great equalizer, the pathway to social justice, the place where everyone starts on an equal plane.

Then Kate invited us to her first open house ("Domus Aperta" quoth the fliers), and we went, merely to support her in her new role, and she casually suggested we ought to fill out an application.  For no particular reason, naturally.

We start in August.  Our reasons are pretty simple:

• Our 6th grader will be learning Latin and Physics this year.  Most public schools don't offer Latin; few offer Physics; none are trustworthy, given the state of the textbooks and the anti-science attitude of those who vote for the State Board of Education
• St. Michael's as a private school does not have to use the State of Texas mandated textbooks; they shop around for the best available textbooks for the subjects in question.  At the open house, we made note of the fact that they have something on the order of a dozen different Calculus texts on hand ("We still haven't found one that's quite up to snuff," says the new Head of School, "but we're trying.")
• There is no TAKS testing in private schools; what standardized testing they do really is limited to purely metrical testing (do students improve in a given area over the course of the year, did they learn core concepts).  In public school, half the year is given over to teaching to the test, and the tests are, let's be honest, incredibly stupid.
• Science classes do include subjects like evolution ("Of course we teach evolution.  We're teaching science, aren't we?")
• Climate change is subject to the same critical scrutiny as any other scientific theory.  The fact that the evidence shows climate change is occurring will not be ignored for political convenience.  ("We're teaching science, aren't we?")
• Literature and science start from early grade levels
• Math is taught at the student's level (high or low)
• French and Spanish are taught from Pre-K through 12th grade
• 100% of the most recent graduating class were accepted to their first choice of universities

We find it particularly curious that in an age when fundamentalist christians are having their way with the public school curriculum, we are sending our child to a private Episcopal school, replete with daily chapel meetings, to get her away from the dark side of religious bigotry.  Ignorance is not bliss; maybe by the time our youngest is ready for school the Texas education system will remember that.  But we aren't holding our breath.

Go Saints!  And...

Happy farming!

Of Ghost Towns and Dinosaurs and Oil Spills, oh sigh...

The cliff dwellings and kivas of the Anasazi indians in the American desert southwest were abandoned virtually overnight.  The same is true of the villages and temples of the Maya in the Yucatan and throughout Central America. 

There are several other examples of seemingly instantaneous mass exodus throughout human history, but most modern people pay little attention to these stories.  “It can’t happen here,” you see.   That’s the sort of thing that happens to ancient pagan societies that don’t have cars, and toasters, and digital watches.

Life on Earth is not going to end any time soon, we want to start with that caveat.  But life as we have known it is soon going to be a distant memory; we are witnessing a mass extinction event, but no one in an official capacity has yet caught on to that fact.

There is now strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that the geyser of oil spewing from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico cannot be capped.  There are multiple leaks below the floor of the ocean, and stopping the flow where we currently see it would only cause more oil to flow from the places we can’t see.  British Petroleum has shifted their long-term strategic thinking to capturing as much of the oil as they can, rather than attempting to stop the flow.  Their efforts to stop the flow now appear to be token efforts designed to show the world that “Hey, yeah, we’re doing all we can!”

As an example, the relief wells which BP says they hope to complete drilling sometime later this summer are expected to have a roughly 1 in 6 chance each of working.  So you would expect them to drill at least 6 such relief wells, right?  Guess again.  They are drilling two.  There are only a handful of possible explanations, none of which are very encouraging. 

The most likely scenario is that the entire reservoir tapped by this well is going to find its way into the ocean; some percentage of it – probably a relatively small percentage of it – will be captured by BP.

The outpouring of anger at both BP and the U.S. government, however, is misdirected.  Yes, BP engaged in irresponsible and probably even criminal behavior, and yes, the federal government did not immediately take an active role in disaster mitigation, but there are several reasons why anger at this point is an exercise in self-delusion:

• There is nothing either BP or the federal government can do to prevent catastrophic, wide-spread damage.  Boons and barriers which Gulf Coast residents say should have been put in place months ago are, to be blunt, a stupid idea.  The amount of coastline to be covered, to start with, is impossibly large; stemming the tide of oil with any kind of manmade structure is very much akin to the little boy sticking his finger in the dike; it won’t work.  Going to the moon was child’s play in comparison.
  
  
• Further, protecting the shoreline misses the real danger, anyway.  Damage to marshes and tidal flats will be bad, but not appreciably worse than what was already happening due to low-level toxicity which occurs in highly drilled areas even without a spill.  James Carville may be under the deluded impression that wetlands improvements would be a reasonable response, but even though they are necessary, they cannot repair the damage done by this oil spill. 
  
  
• The real damage caused by the BP well leak is below the surface of the Gulf, not on the shoreline.  Coral reefs will die, whole colonies of whales will die, several species of turtles face near-certain extinction, numerous migratory fish populations will be dramatically excised, shellfish and shrimp will be eradicated.  The majority of the species on our planet do not live on shore; they live in the ocean. 
  
  Not on the ocean, in it.  Below the surface, which Joe NASCAR fan in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama does not seem to care about.  Yet.  They will learn their folly soon enough.  The usual response to oil spills is the spread of "boon", devices which trap the surface level oil and allow it to be collected and burned; when the spill is a mile below the surface, surface level oil is almost entirely irrelevant; the species who are in trouble are being poisoned long before the oil reaches -or doesn't reach- the beach.  The death of these species we never see in our daily lives will reshape the world we live in, and for some of us, it will not be pretty.
  
  
• The time to be angry was not after the oil started spewing from the Gulf floor.  The time to be angry was when offshore drilling was first approved.  The only reason no one was angry was because our nation is addicted to oil.  This is not the government’s fault, nor is it BP’s fault.  It is the fault of the American consumer.  We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.  The glorification of the internal combustion engine (see earlier NASCAR reference) is directly related to the current mess, and while our government has, so far, not done anything to intervene, the responsibility for our disgraceful continuation of self-destructive behavior lies on our own shoulders.

Talk about what the government or BP should do to clean up the mess is beside the point – the mess was inevitable, just as for a drug or alcohol addict, the disintegration of their personal relationships is inevitable.  There is no “fixing” the relationships without getting off the addictive substances.  There is no “fixing” the Gulf without ending all consumption of oil.  There may not be any “fixing” of the Gulf anyway, but certainly it won’t be fixed so long as there is a single drilling platform there.

Our government’s coziness with big oil is a direct result of our public coziness with big oil.  Democratic and Republican administrations alike have been beholden to corporate petrochemical interests for the better part of a century now; why did anyone think this was going to change overnight?  Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has sold his soul to oil; why single him out, though?   He is only the most recent in a very, very long line of politicians who came to power funded by the pusher-class.  Oil executives are powerful precisely because the American public has wanted them to be powerful for as long as anyone can remember.

So how bad is this event likely to be, long term, really?  Isn’t “extinction level event” a bunch of hyperbole?

No, it is not hyperbole.  There are 28 different species of marine mammals known to occur in the Gulf of Mexico. 

All 28 are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), and six are also listed as endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (Sperm, Sei, Fin, Blue Humpback and North Atlantic Right Whales).  There is a resident population of female sperm whales in the Gulf of Mexico, and whales with calves are sighted frequently.

In addition, there is a long list of threatened and endangered reptiles and fish:  Kemp’s Ridley, Hawksbill, Green, Loggerhead and Leatherback sea turtles, Gulf Sturgeon, and Smalltooth Sawfish.  And then there are the “Species of Concern” who will also face potential extinction:  Alabama Shad, Dusky Shark, Key silverside, Largetooth Sawfish, Mangrove Rivulus, Nassau Grouper, Night Shark, Opossum Pipefish, Saltmarsh Topminnow, Speckled Hind, Sand Tiger Shark, Warsaw Grouper, and White Marlin.

All of that is not even mentioning the supposedly healthy populations which we will later discover were not so healthy after all.  Fish like the Blufin Tuna, which is a migratory fish, or several varieties of gulf shrimp, shellfish, and crab and lobster.

“But just because there’s oil doesn’t mean they’ll go extinct, right?”  Wrong.  Small changes to habitat can lead to catastrophic changes in species populations.  Why would a catastrophic change to habitat not have a catastrophic change in population?  If you don’t yet understand the scope of what is happening, Myrtle asks that you pull your head out, por favor.

So what happens to an ocean which has lost its native flora and fauna?  Maybe the listed species won’t return, but something will live there, right?  Not necessarily, and probably not in our lifetimes.  There will unquestionably be massive algal blooms and large populations of bacteria colonies due to the high hydrocarbon content of the water; oil companies even utilize oil-munching bacteria as part of their supposed “clean up” repertoire.

But algae and bacteria don’t just consume oil; they also consume oxygen.  And fish, turtles, and whales all need to swim in oxygenated water.  No oxygen at sea equals a “dead zone”.  As its name implies, nothing lives in a dead zone.  And dead zones don’t become live zones for a very, very long time, not until changes in chemistry and ocean currents cause oxygen to no longer be sucked out of the water before it can be used by aerobic organisms.

Which brings us back to the Anasazi and the Maya.  If you have never been to Mesa Verde in Colorado, let us recommend it.  This is a beautifully maintained national park, and the ruins of the cliff dwellings are quite lovely in addition to being fascinating.  The main thing, though, is to notice how quiet they are.  We don’t think of them as “ancient ruins”, we think of them as ghost towns.

There may soon be a whole host of new ghost towns, from the Yucatan in Mexico, to Port Isabell in Texas, to Pensacola and Tampa Bay in Florida.  Any of the communities in-between who depend on fishing or tourism may soon be abandoned, and it may happen so quickly that future archaeologists will say it happened “virtually overnight”.  It will be unfathomable to many that they have to leave towns they have lived in for generations; that won’t change the facts, however.  If you can’t make a living there, you can’t live there.  QED.

Life will go on, but not as we know it.  If we want to prevent future disasters, don’t go looking for “safer drilling methods”, and ask the government to take giant centrifuges and trash bags to the beach.  It’s too late to save the Gulf.  But if we stop oil consumption cold-turkey, we may just be able to save ourselves.

Happy farming!

Of Herbs, and Science, and the Space-Time Continuum

There is no simple explanation for the measurable and demonstrable fact that space and time are the same thing; either you take enough science classes in college to finally stumble across the one teacher who can explain this to you sufficiently well for you to understand it… or you’ll never understand it.

This bizarre factoid crystallized for Myrtle Maintenance Personnel when space and time were graphically compared to electricity and magnetism  -- viewed on one three-dimensional wafer, a particular wave is electric, on a perpendicular wafer it is magnetic -- but we have tried this same reference point in explaining space-time to other people with no success.

Everyone, it seems, is hardwired to handle universal truths in different ways.  The world can be divided into two categories:   those who are comfortable with this reality – that “how things really are” looks different to everyone – and those who are incapable of emotionally inculcating this wild uncertainty into their points of view.  Whole religious paradigms are built on this difference.

We are not going to discuss theology here, however.  We are going to discuss herbology, a field of inquiry in which seemingly all sides have been eager to sow the seeds of confusion. 

The medicinal value of certain plants in treating certain diseases and conditions is unquestionable, or at least, should be.  The only real question medical science can have regarding the use of herbal medicines relates to specific species and their application for specific uses; the quantitative and qualitative questions related to hypothesizing about, testing for, measuring and evaluating the effect of, etc., as pertains to particular plants and natural substances used in particular circumstances.

In other words, does naturally occurring substance ‘A’ (vitamin C in citrus fruits, for example) have any effect on pathogen ‘B’ (say, a particular influenza virus) when introduced to mammalian host ‘C’ (let’s call him “Fred” for convenience and personability)?  And if so, how large an effect at what levels, and what consequent side effects may be observed?

For those who really want to get into the scientific nitty-gritty, of course, there are millions and millions of variables and questions to be posited in any such study, and the general public will quickly grow tired and bored reading about them.  We recently saw a study regarding the effect of phytoestrogens in Pomegranate pulp on the rotavirus – at least, that’s what we think it was about.  Translating from the very precise language of the study was a large task in and of itself.  We will, however, be using our pomegranate leftovers in our compost and perhaps even in our pond in an effort to mitigate naturally occurring breeding grounds for this ever present noxious microbe.

Which brings us to the flip side of the equation – for those who wish to be more practical and less pie-in-the-sky “pure science” oriented, the possibility of endlessly studying the effectiveness of substances found in nature is not exciting; actually using substances found in nature is what it’s all about.

This tension reflects a very real problem of the ethics of natural medicine:  “natural” remedies are big business, and the promise held out by homeopathic cures appeals to the common sense sensibility of people burned out on the pathologically technophilic 21st century research machine which, after all, is responsible for horrors like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Agent Orange, Chernobyl and BP Deepwater Horizon alongside of accomplishments like polio vaccine, test-tube babies, iPods and blue ketchup.  People are naturally skeptical about promises held out by scientists who have too often sold out for profit, but this has left them vulnerable to pseudo-scientists who didn’t just sell out, they were charlatan wolves in tie-dyed sheep’s clothing to start with.

It is some comfort that herbal medicines have labels reading some variation of “Claims made by this product have not been evaluated by the FDA, the USDA, or, in fact, anyone with a 9th grade science education” but it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem, which is that some of the claims made by herbal medicines are true and valid, and some are not, and Jane and John Consumer don’t have a reliable tool for determining which are which. 

It doesn’t help that Big Pharma, which stands to lose a considerable chunk of its profit margin if people start growing their own medicine in their own yards, has helped write and enforce most of the regulations affecting this particular niche market.

Nor does it help that medicinal herbs for which there are thousands of years of historical anecdotes providing clues for investigators end up on the invasive weeds database.  One of the most popular diagnoses of the last ten years is Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).  Another is Metabolic Disorder.  And the same medicine is typically prescribed for each – Metformin.  The chief active ingredient in Metformin is galegine, a functional cognate of guanidine, which happens to be naturally occurring in an “invasive weed” called Goat’s Rue.  Midwives have used this medication dating back to Roman times to encourage lactation in new mothers.  Its very name comes from the fact that this Rue, when fed to goats, causes them to produce more milk.  But, the U.S. Forestry Service wants you to eradicate this plant when you see it.

It would appear to us, based on the long history of anecdotal evidence supporting the use of this herb for a wide variety of conditions related to endocrine system abnormalities and malfunctions, that it would be a very good thing for a medical school with a strong specialization in endocrine systems to study the effectiveness of home-remedies created with organically produced Goat’s Rue.  But who’s going to pay for that study?  The makers of Metformin?  Not likely.  We are planting large stands of Goat’s Rue this fall; we’ll let you know what we discover, though we are not equipped to give you any kind of titration charts or other specific data.  Barring an unexpected visit from the National Science Foundation for a grant we haven’t applied for, you’ll have to settle for anecdotal evidence.

There are other plants going in at Myrtle’s place this fall for similar reasons.  With children running about the place, we would be irresponsible not to have a large bed of Aloe Vera for sunburns and wasp stings.  Garlic and Leeks have long been known to be powerful anti-viral agents.  Red Clover and Goldenseal have, among other uses, cancer-fighting properties which hold promise.  Goldenseal can be used as an infection-fighter; it also makes a good companion planting for Raspberry, whose leaves are another favorite among midwives and nature-oriented gynecologists. 

And all of these plants are attractive groundcover for hardwood forests; since grass wouldn’t grow under our oaks even if we wanted it to – and we really don’t want it to – we have been looking for just the right things to grow on the shady side of our house. 

We aren’t alone; the economics of home-grown herbs are getting more favorable by the day.  From The USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Plant Guide for Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis L.):

“Previously available only in specialty health and natural foods stores, goldenseal and other medicinal herbs became part of the general marketplace during the 1990s, and since then the demand has been increasing dramatically. Between 1991 and 1996, the wholesale value of goldenseal in the U.S. increased by as much as 600%. Since 1994 goldenseal has been one of the top six best-selling medicinal herbs in the U.S., and remains so today. Between 1995 and 1997, the medicinal plant market as a whole, as well as demand for goldenseal, experienced in excess of a 30% growth rate. Goldenseal is also available in numerous drug products and in a wide array of herbal products on international markets, e.g., in France, Australia, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, and other European countries. Since demand has increased greatly, and supplies have declined, the price of goldenseal has increased dramatically. In the early 1990s, the price of goldenseal ranged from $18 to $24 per kg. In 1999, the price ranged from $66 to $110 per kg. In 2000, the price of goldenseal was over $110 per kg, with some companies charging over $220 per kg. The current goldenseal shortage and the large increase in its demand appear to highlight the need for cultivated supplies to satisfy a growing domestic and international market.”

What little science there is on the subject also suggests that we are probably on the right track.  If you have an interest in natural remedies, the solution is not to buy more packaged products; the solution is to grow your own natural remedies, or if that is not possible, buy directly from someone who grows the herbs you need.

In fact, the biggest complaint regulators make about the natural remedy market is that there are no quality controls regarding the manufacture of homeopathic remedies, and to us at Myrtle’s place this sounds like a legitimate complaint – if you buy capsules purporting to contain red raspberry leaf extract, shouldn’t those capsules contain red raspberry leaf extract?  Since there is no way to guarantee they do, wouldn’t it be better to simply grow red raspberries, and make your own infused red raspberry leaf tea?  In addition to being fresher, which is usually better, it would actually be what it says it is.

And whether you’re talking about herbs or about the space-time continuum, things actually being what you think they are can only come as a relief.

Happy farming!

Small Counterpuncher Sloop vs. Lumbering Brawler Frigate? Take the Sloop!

Maritime history holds numerous lessons for families navigating the treacherous waters of a modern economy.  The story of warfare at sea is the story of a conflict between those who attempt to package the most power on a single platform and those who take a more precise approach, attempting to deliver a discrete amount of power on a smaller, more maneuverable platform.

Basically, frigates vs. sloops.

There are other examples, of course, besides these storied sailing vessels, but the frigate and the sloop are the best exemplars.  And the story we are slowly plodding towards is the story of the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada.

The Spanish, of course, had the ships-of-the-line, the galleons, huge ships with hundreds of large guns.  The English had a lot of little ships – sloops – with far fewer and far lighter weapons, but with a tremendous advantage in being able to tack into the wind and to change direction far more quickly.

Thanks to tricky weather, the sloops had almost insurmountable advantages in that battle, in spite of the conventional wisdom which held that the Armada was nigh invincible.  Conventional Wisdom, much like Common Sense, is wrong far more often than it is right.  Like Horatio Hornblower, the intrepid fictional adventurer of another age of British sea power, proves time and again, a simple calculation of facts and angles is far more reliable than is the related “wisdom” of what “everyone knows”.

So it is at Myrtle’s place.  We strive to be more of a sloop and less of a frigate.  This will prove more important as time goes by; economic uncertainty coupled with a changing climate mean our family will have to adapt in ways that quite simply cannot be predicted.  So, we need to lighten the gun decks and increase our sail-to-beam cross-functionality.

One of the first ways in which we are attempting to accomplish this goal is to completely re-evaluate how we consume energy.  According to the Energy Star website the average home spends about $2,200 on energy bills every year.  This makes energy consumption a low-hanging fruit in terms of where we can save money and streamline our family operation.  How can we cut this number and make our family more adaptable?

First and foremost, we had to evaluate what, exactly, goes into our consumption habits:

• Air Conditioning and Heating
• Water Heating
• Clothes Washing and Drying
• Food Storage
• Food Preparation
• Dishwashing
• Computer
• Entertainment (television, radio)
• Lighting

Some of these areas are more readily downsized than others, but each provides ample opportunities for sloopification.

Air Conditioning and Heating:  Really, given that this is Texas, heating is not a concern.  We don’t even turn on the central heat each winter; we do sometimes put a space heater on in the chicken coop.  We have not yet thought of a more energy efficient way to heat the birds when temperatures go sub-freezing, but since that only happens a few times each winter, this is not a high priority item.

A/C, on the other hand, is a major concern.  When a “cool” week is one in which we don’t get over 95° more than twice, we obviously need to keep the air conditioner running more often than not.  How to keep it from bankrupting us in less than a month is, therefore, a major concern.

There are several steps we have taken to reduce cooling expenses.  First and foremost, of course, we bought a smaller house (900 square feet) on the theory that the less house there is to cool, the less expensive it will be.  Next, we have a relatively new unit – less than five years old.

Then there are the not-so-easy steps.  We blew insulation into our attic a few weeks ago; for the money, this is one of the easiest investments most people can make.  Very few homes have so much insulation already that they would not benefit from more.  While we went with the blow-in cellulose, there are numerous innovations in the insulation market which it would be well worth your time to investigate.

Our roof, thankfully, is galvanized aluminum, which has reflective properties far superior to those of practically any tile materials available today.  However, as an older roof, it had begun to wear and rust; the solution to extending the lifetime of the aluminum, it turns out, also aids our quest for lower utility bills – there are a variety of products on the market which make claims to “heat reflective” properties, and anecdotally we can confirm that some of these claims actually have merit. 

Perhaps the most important “heat reflective” property, of course, is color.  White paint does not absorb heat, it reflects it.  Once again, consult your elementary school science text book.  Well, maybe not if you live in Texas… In any event, where we had not yet painted, we have the heat blisters to prove what happens when skin comes in contact with galvanized aluminum exposed to the sun.  Once the paint was applied, we were able to sit comfortably on the white metal roof while painting other sections.  The difference between the untreated and the treated metal is somewhere on the order of 50° cooler temperatures, which, obviously, makes cooling the house much, much easier.

Add tinted windows, additional weatherstripping for our doorways (if you live in the Brazos Valley, your foundation has shifted, is shifting, or will shift soon), and paint on the interior and exterior walls with a ceramic micro-tile additive, and we’ve done everything we can to minimize the expense of surviving the interminable Texas summer.

Water Heating/Clothes Washing and Drying:  Water heating expense is inextricably entertwined with clothes cleaning.  Given how hot it is in Texas, hot baths are not really a huge expense for us – there are times, of course, when this luxury is necessary, but warm is plenty hot enough, usually.

Clothes, on the other hand, don’t really require hot water at all.  Again from the Energy Star web site, “Hot water heating accounts for about 90 percent of the energy your machine uses to wash clothes - only 10 percent goes to electricity used by the washer motor.”  Given that most of the cleaning done in a washing machine is done via solvent qualities of soap and friction from clothes rubbing against each other, coupled with scrubbing agents like baking soda, most wash can be done in entirely cold water.  “Switching to cold water can save the average household more than $40 annually (with an electric water heater) and more than $30 annually (with a gas water heater).”  Sounds like free money to us.  If it weren’t so blasted humid here most of the time, we would also take advantage of Passive Solar Textile Dehydration technology more often, too.  (That’d be a “clothesline” for you pre-21st century thinkers.)

Food Storage:  Of the numerous advantages of eating fresh produce, one of the easiest to overlook is the energy saving possibilities.  The supersized refrigerator is an essentially American phenomenon.  It is, sadly, starting to become more popular throughout the world, but we are hoping that this trend desists, particularly as fresh foods make a comeback.

When you visit European households, one of the first differences you notice between the American way of doing things and the European style of living is that mealtime is much more deliberate.  There are no huge refrigerators full of weeks and weeks worth of food.  You make a trip to the market – and markets are smaller and closer for this very reason – and pick up fresh produce for the specific meal you are about to prepare and then eat.

There are several ramifications to this way of doing things.  For one thing, portion sizes are much more reasonable.  You don’t buy three times as much as you need.  Also, there is much less waste.  You eat what you have prepared; it doesn’t sit in the refrigerator where you will then a week later say “I meant to eat this before now, but since it’s moldy, I’ll just throw it away.”

And the refrigerator in which it is not sitting getting moldy?  It’s a much smaller fridge.  It typically looks more like what American families buy for their kids’ college dormitory rooms.

We at Myrtle’s place have such a fridge.  A miniature fridge, by most people’s way of thinking.  It goes where our dishwasher used to be.  It consumes much less electricity on an annual basis than the typical refrigerator, and it makes us much more deliberate in our food choices – we don’t do “leftovers” very often.  If “leftover” food does not fit in our tiffins for lunch at work or school the next day, then it is fed to the chickens.  The refrigerator is for storing dairy, butter, and condiments.  “Leftover” is a four-letter word.

Food Preparation:  We probably have some room for improvement on this score.  We use an electric stove/oven, which is in and of itself less efficient than would be a gas cooking station, but we just plain prefer not to have gas lines in our home.  Maybe we’re just superstitious.  However, there are several tips on the Energy Star web site for reducing energy usage in food preparation.

1. Use the right sized pot on stove burners. A 6" pot on an 8" burner wastes over 40 percent of the burner's heat.  Using the right sized pot on stove burners can save about $36 annually for an electric range, or $18 for gas.
2. Covering pots and pans also helps you cook more efficiently and keeps your kitchen cooler.
3. Have a gas range? Keep the burners clean to ensure maximum efficiency. Blue flames mean good combustion; yellow flames mean service may be needed to ensure the gas is burning efficiently.

We don’t use a microwave, nor do we use a lot of other countertop gadgets.  In fact, something we do purely for taste has the added advantage of costing us less, too -- we use a french press for our coffee instead of using an electric drip coffee maker.  We boil water on the stove, and then pour that water over the coffee grounds in our french press, and let it steep.  This makes for the best tasting coffee in the world, at a fraction of the energy costs associated with the typical countertop coffee machines.


Dishwashing:  It’s easy to understand why dishwashers became popular, particularly when listening to our daughter complaining that washing dishes is “the single most disgusting thing anyone has ever been asked to do, anywhere”.  However, this is an expense we simply cannot abide, particularly given that dishwashers are among the worst culprits at outgassing in the home.  Formaldehyde and chlorine droplets in the air are telltale giveaways that the dishwasher has been in use.  This, more than anything else, is why one of the first things we did when we bought our house was to tear out the dishwasher and replace it with a mini-fridge. 

It’s a better use of space, and it doesn’t cost us anything in additional electricity.  The water was going to get heated anyway, as it is when we wash by hand.

Computer/Entertainment:  We are extremely fortunate to be a family of bookworms.  We spend too much time on the computer, no doubt, but at least our usage of other forms of electronic brain composting are extremely limited.  This, no doubt, helps with our energy expenditures.

Lighting:  Rheostat, rheostat, rheostat!  It’s on the to-do list, we promise!  In addition to turning off lights in rooms where you are not using them, going with fluorescent wherever possible, using solar powered lights for all exterior fixtures, etc., using dimmer switches for all overhead lighting fixtures is one of the best possible ways to trim energy use.  A rheostat allows you to only access as much energy for a given lighting job as is actually required in order to give you only the light you need, no more.  Installing a dimmer is a relatively painless task; just make sure you turn of the proper breaker before messing with the wall switch.

We are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the crème de la crème of conservationists on the home energy front yet.  We have a very, very long way to go before we are satisfied on this score.

But to return to the sailing metaphor, if you picture going from the supersized frigate mentality which has driven American lifestyles for more than half a century to a leaner, meaner, sleeker sloop mentality, there are two elements to consider.  First is forming a reduced size hull capable of handling both shallow and deep water without getting swamped; next comes fitting that base with rigging – sails capable of maximizing speed and agility to allow for lightning maneuverability regardless of weather.

Getting off the grid by going to solar energy and home small-turbine wind are examples of setting up powerful rigging.  Getting rid of energy consumption hogs like an oversized refrigerator or a dishwasher, those are examples of downsizing the hull.  We’re halfway there.  Myrtle’s place is doing everything we can to get ship-shape; we hope you join us in this quest.

Happy sailing!

Going Organic -- It's not Just for us Hippies Any More

Since the late 1990s, U.S. organic production has more than doubled, but the consumer market has grown even faster. Organic food sales have more than quintupled, increasing from $3.6 billion in 1997 to $21.1 billion in 2008. More than two-thirds of U.S. consumers buy organic products at least occasionally, and 28 percent buy organic products weekly, according to the Organic Trade Association. This fast-paced growth has led to input and product shortages in organic supply chains, and several new issues—concern about premium-priced product sales in a tight U.S. economy, as well as competition from newenvironmental labels—are emerging in the organic industry.

“Emerging Issues in the U.S. Organic Industry”
– A report from the Economic Research Service, an office of the U.S.D.A.

We have written a lot lately about the advantages of buying locally.  In many ways, buying locally is even more important than buying organic, particularly in terms of impact on the environment due to transportation and other factors related to mainstream commercial production.

However, we haven’t spoken much about organic foods and organic farming.  This is not an intentional sleight; we simply haven’t looked all that closely at “organic” labelling for a couple of fairly self-centered reasons:

1. We are not presently aiming to sell any of our produce anywhere which would recquire labelling (either traditional or organic)
2. Our household income has, until recently, not been adequate to consider paying the premium associated with the organic label.

The first factor may not be changing any time soon, but the second, thankfully, has changed pretty substantially over the course of the last few years.  As a consequence, as we look for ways in which to get our family free from the petrochemical tyranny gripping modern life, we are starting to pay more attention to things we simply couldn’t afford in prior years.  “Organic” is one such thing.

A quick perusal of available organic foods reveals some curious limitations which require explanation:

• Not every food item typically found in an American diet has a readily available organic alternative
• Fruits, Vegetables and Milk are overwhelmingly the most common organics
• Organic meats are disproportionately lacking, and expensive
• Local and Organic are not always words that play well together

Many of these facts hinge on common factors.  First and foremost, there has always been a very large percentage of vegetarians among consumers of organic products.  The reasons for this are fairly self-evident; the more educated the population, the higher the percentage of vegetarians in that population.  Those who have historically been organic consumers are primarily concerned with personal health and nutrition – again, vegetarianism and nutritional self-awareness are linked in a directly proportional curve.

The first impact of the link between vegetarianism and organics is obvious – there is a larger market for organic fruits and vegetables than there is for meat and poultry.  The disparity between these markets has steadily been declining, however, as organic conscioiusness has spread throughout the general public.  In particular, organic milk and eggs have been leading indicators for omnivores bridging the veggie gap to organic goods.

What causes meat and poultry to lag behind even as the typical consumer wakes up to the benefits of chemical-free foods, however, is a hidden truth about organics:  grains and cereals are woefully underrepresented.  Quoting from the aforementioned USDA study, “Only 0.2 percent of U.S. corn and soybean crops were grown under certified organic farming systems in 2005, according to ERS estimates.”  0.2% is not a large number.  Given how prevalent corn and soy are in animal feeds, there just isn’t a lot of incentive out there for applying organic principles to traditional farming techniques when it comes to raising meat and poultry.

To bring meat production up to snuff, farmers and ranchers could, of course, just wait until organic corn and soy production comes up to par.  Or… farmers and ranchers could start looking at alternatives.

The best available alternative to the feed lot mentality (which we have warned about as a pestilential nightmare waiting to happen) is to abandon feeds altogether.  Why not turn to grass feeding?  The cattle industry originated on grass-fed beef; you can’t get more traditional than that, right?  There are, of course, questions arising from grass-feeding of whether or not to use fertilizers and pesticides on the hay crops, but these are sufficiently answered by organic horticulture already as to be trivial questions.  No one needs to use chemical fertilizers anymore; their overuse is one of the great comic tragedies of the last five thousand years. 

And the simple truth is, steak built on a diet of clover and rain water just plain tastes better.  Ruby’s Bar-B-Que in Austin, Texas, is home to the tastiest beef we at Myrtle’s place have ever eaten.  There are other, more famous, ‘que joints around, but Ruby’s is the only one which features organic cuts of meat, and their brisket is just plain ridiculously good.  They are good cooks at Ruby’s, true, but we suspect with those cuts of beef, even we couldn’t screw it up.

The bottom line, of course, is that brisket from Ruby’s is more expensive; meat from the organic shelf at your local butcher’s shop is more expensive; organic lima beans are more expensive than their conventional counterparts.  There is a premium on anything organic. 

Again from the USDA:

“At the retail level, organic produce and milk, the two top organic food sales

categories, receive significant price premiums over conventionally grown

products. ERS analyzed organic prices for 18 fruits and 19 vegetables using

2005 data on produce purchases, and found that the organic premium as a

share of the corresponding conventional price was less than 30 percent for

over two-thirds of the items. The premium for only one item—blueberries—

exceeded 100 percent. In contrast, organic price premiums for a half-gallon

container of milk ranged from 60 percent for private-label organic milk

above branded conventional milk in 2006 to 109 percent for branded organic

milk above private-label conventional milk.”

So, if it costs more, we should be getting a higher return in value, correct?  Maybe.

Organic certification has more to do with standards for feed and production than it does to do with quality and nutritional content.  Clearly fruits, vegetables, meat and poultry which have been produced on farms where no pesticides or fertilizers are used more than likely will be lower in chemical contaminants than the equivalent foods produced using industrial agribusiness methodology.  That does not, however, necessarily translate into “healthier” food; buyers should still do item-by-item research to confirm nutritional values, even for organic foods.

There are other factors to consider, as well.  One of the primary bones of contention in the organic community involves the use of immunization in poultry.  Organic eggs are produced from chickens whose feed is free of a score of substances, not the least of which is a group of immunization agents which are standard fare in the factory farming poultry industry, for obvious reasons.  Eggs from the typical factory farm come from chickens who spend their entire lives (and they are surprisingly short lives, at that) in the same two square feet of space.  With thousands and thousands of birds piled on top of each other in this way, disease is almost inevitable.  Immunization is therefore absolutely necessary.

Sane poultry farming methods (not that we have opinions on factory farming, of course) are far less unsanitary.  Free range birds have the easiest time avoiding the diseases of overpopulation, since they spend the majority of their time wandering around quite casually, only encountering other members of their flock when they wish to do so.

Even in a cage, however (as is the case with Myrtle and her sisters), the need for immunization becomes a debatable topic.  Most literature suggests at least 4 square feet per adult bird (double what the factory farms provide), but at Myrtle’s, just counting floor space, there is closer to 14 square feet per bird, and that’s not counting the top of the laying boxes, nor all the space on perches.  Overpopulation and associated epidemiological concerns just don’t factor into the equation.

Then, too, there is the question of what to feed a bird.  Organic certification stresses a particular list of do-and-don’t items.  At Myrtle’s, we are a little more relaxed.  Our birds love fish, for example, and we really don’t care to limit them to just organic certified fish, as we would have to do if we wanted their eggs to likewise be certified organic.  Myrtle is an omnivore; making her an organic omnivore would simply be more work than the return on investment would be worth.

And so, with the benefit of organic certification not being great enough, we tend to be more lenient on the immunization question, as well.  The dangers of immunization have not been sufficiently proven for us to abandon the less expensive feeds which supplement Myrtle’s weeds-and-table-scraps diet.  When and if that changes, we will just have to adapt.

Meanwhile, even when lacking the “Organic” label, there are numerous advantages to at least thinking in organic terms.  The USDA certification process means you can only label a product as “100% organic” if every ingredient or material used in production is itself organic; a product may be labelled as “organic” if 70% of the ingredients or materials used in production are themselves organic.  Clearly, even products falling short of those measures may be superior as ecological advancements to industrial agribusiness approaches.  Why?  The USDA outlines some of the chief advantages:

• Reduced pesticide residues in water and food. Organic production systems virtually eliminate synthetic pesticide use, and reducing pesticide use has been an ongoing U.S. public health goal as scientists continue to document its unintentional effects on nontarget species, including humans.
• Reduced nutrient pollution; improved soil tilth, soil organic matter, and productivity; and lower energy use. A number of studies have documented these environmental improvements in comparing organic farming systems with conventional systems.
• Carbon sequestration. Soils in organic farming systems (which use cover crops, crop rotation, fallowing, and animal and green manures) may also sequester as much carbon as soils under other carbon sequestration strategies and could help reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere.
• Enhanced biodiversity. A number of studies have found that organic farming practices enhance the biodiversity found in organic fields compared with conventional techniques. 

Which brings us back to the question of non-organic “local” foods.  The stack of literature suggesting “local” and “organic” are labels in competition with each other is fairly high, and not without some reason.  To be “local” all a product has to be able to prove is proximity.  There are no certification hoops to jump through, so a food could theoretically be considered “local” even though it represents an appauling lack of ecological concern.  A good example would be chicken from Sanderson Farms here in the Brazos Valley; they are definitely “local”, in that they are just down the road.  They are, however, a factory farm.  We strongly recommend against buying eggs or poultry from such a facility.

However, most “local” foods are produced in a more environmentally friendly manner.  Again from the USDA report:  “Some organic certifying entities, both State and private, already certify producers and processors to a number of other standards—including food safety standards and international organic standards that incorporate a social justice component. A product might easily carry both an organic label, denoting the ecologically based production system used, and a locally grown logo, denoting the number of miles to deliver the product to the consumer.”

The key, again, is personal responsibility and research.  We cannot stress enough how tremendous is the advantage of going out personally and meeting the farmers who grow your food.  When you sign on for a Community Supported Agriculture agreement, even with a farmer who is not certified “organic”, you can find out exactly why.  Maybe they are using immunized feed for their poultry.  Perhaps they are using a fertilizer for their vegetables which, while not strictly speaking ‘organic’, is nevertheless not a nitrite or nitrate hazard.  Maybe they don’t presently use non-organic fertilizers or pesticides, but they reserve the right to change their minds.  Or perhaps they simply don’t want to have to go through the bureaucratic hassle of getting certified.

For whatever reason, it is much easier to find out the truth if you know whom to ask.  A CSA makes that a lot simpler.  Simpler still?  Grow it yourself!

Happy farming!

Fewer Ding-Dongs, More Plums

Our big sister is a nurse.  This makes for uncomfortable pauses when we reflect on those hypocritical little things every person who ever gives health advice knows they do – eating refined sugar, for example, would be one of our personal favorite hypocritical little vices.  Yes, we know.  It’s bad for us and we ought to give it up.  We’re getting there.  Getting bees so we can harvest our own honey will help, but in the meantime… dessert is just so yummy.  Is that our fault?

There are other uncomfortable pauses Sister Carol causes us, as well.  Recently, after linking our thoughts on contamination in drinking water supplies to Facebook, she chided us that she can’t very well preach “Hydrate! Hydrate! Hydrate!” to her clientele if hydration is, itself, adding unhealthy elements to the mix.

While we would like to see everyone purchase a distiller for their home (there are a wide variety of models available if you search popular sites like Craigslist, EBay, Amazon.com, or other online overstock sites), we recognize that for some, compromise will just have to be the order of the day.

While waiting for that perfect day to arrive when all new homes and apartments come equipped with solar panels, passive heating and cooling elements, wind turbines, electric car recharging outlets, and full-service water distillers, we hope to focus on things we can all do to improve our own health in the face of an increasingly toxic world.

We have written before about the advantage of either growing or buying locally produced fruits and vegetables.  This ought to be the centerpiece of an overall plan to eat healthy.  Note that eating healthy is not the same thing as “going on a diet”.  Eating healthy is a lifestyle change that reminds us to pay attention to etymology – the lifestyle change we are recommending is that we must change to a style of life which involves, for lack of a more effective way of putting it, not putting so much crap in our bodies.

There’s a reason Mother Nature does not produce any equivalent fruit or vegetable to the filling of a Hostess Ding-Dong.

There is a maxim in the Taoist writings of ancient chinese medicine:  Eat nothing which does not rot, but be sure you eat it before it does.

This is good advice vis-à-vis Ding-Dongs, but it applies equally well to fruits and vegetables, canned goods, and even dry goods like legumes, flours, etc.  This ties nicely to the suggestion we have made before about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) agreements, or buying from farmer’s markets, or from grocers who are supplied primarily from local farms.

It is easy to see that the particular produce we consume is better when it is in season, but how do we eat a balanced diet following this advice?  This is a trickier question than many dieticians and locavore purists give the questioner credit for, because it strikes right at the heart of the most difficult question faced by those who live in quest of “fresh”. 

Anyone can eat well when it’s the middle of a harvest season.  Right now in Texas, we have corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans, zucchini, early peaches, blackberries, and who knows what all else just picked and sitting on the counter waiting to be turned into scrumptious meals which are good tasting and good for you.

But what about in the middle of winter?  We get kale, and carrots, and….?  Where does the vitamin C come from?  If it isn’t from preserves, where does it come from?  There is plenty of readily available citrus on the typical grocer’s shelves, but… it all comes from miles and miles away.

This requires research on the part of the consumer.  You have to know your local environment, you have to know what you are capable of producing yourself, and what local growers are capable of producing for you.  Then there are the questions about innovations – some of them, like hothouse tomato farms, seem harmless enough.  We enjoy fresh locally grown tomatoes year-round in the Brazos Valley thanks to places like Millican Farms where their greenhouses don’t seem to know when it is too hot or too cold to grow tomatoes.

But what about other innovations, like Texas apples?  The chilling requirements for apples are generally well outside of the ranges met by most Texas orchards; hybridization techniques, however, have created several varieties which can produce fruit here.  But the red varieties often fall to the ground before being ripe due to the late summer heat; in addition, the quality leaves much to be desired, because the best apples all ripen in cooler fall temperatures, which sometimes never happen at all for most Texas gardeners.

It is good for a fruit and vegetable gardener (or “wannabe farmer” as our daughter calls us) to take a page from the playbook of our more decorative floral friends.  A good perennial bed has a wide variety of plants, some of which are in bloom at any given time throughout the year.  It may not be possible to get complete year-round production for each group in the food pyramid, but the better a stab you make at it, the healthier your overall diet will be. 

For some things, like vegetables, there are readily available guides of what to plant when, and getting year-round veggies in Texas is not a great mystery.  But fruit is a different puzzle altogether.  Here is what Myrtle’s place has in terms of fruit production, for those ever vital vitamins:

• May/June:  Blackberries and plums.  We grow Brison and Brazos blackberries, an early harvest and a mid-season harvest variety.  The plums are still a year away from production, but when we start harvesting, we will not be needing to purchase any additional fruit at this time of year.
• June/July/August/September:  Figs.  Most years, we will also have melons, either small watermelon, or honeydew and cantaloupe.
• August/September/October:  Pomegranates.  Because of their leathery hides, pomegranates actually store rather well, too.  We don’t yet know how long, but if we can stretch this crop into December and January, we will be exceptionally pleased.

That just leaves us with the deepest darkest winter to cover for fruit; until further notice, we are afraid we are going to have to rely on citrus from the Rio Grande Valley, which is several hundred miles away.  But all things considered, that is a far cry better for the environment than importing from Chile or Argentina.

Before we leave you to scramble for your local zone charts to see what comes into harvest in your area when, a brief note about canned goods:  there are people who manage to avoid them completely.  We are not yet among them, but we hope to someday be in that illustrious group of venerable foodies.  Why?  Because minerals leach from cans, and they are frequently not the good kind.

One of our favorite episodes of the televsion show Northern Exposure found the intrepid chef cum secret agent “Adam” mocking Dr. Joel Fleischman for his canned seafood; Adam’s palatte may be more sensitive than the typical consumer’s, but not by that much.  If something tastes metallic, chances are it is metallic.  There are probably better ways to get your iron than from a can of stewed tomatoes, that’s all we’re saying.

So, in summary, no Ding-Dongs, and eat what’s in season!

(Where did I put those Ho-Hos….?  Sister Carol hasn’t been by to throw them out yet, has she?)

Happy farming!