tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343122535318547716.post3541777712459110533..comments2024-02-25T13:25:26.434-08:00Comments on Owl's Farm: A Pig's TaleOwlfarmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15373358232893937182noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343122535318547716.post-153222699744884222010-06-27T07:56:29.574-07:002010-06-27T07:56:29.574-07:00The real challenge, it seems to me, is to balance ...The real challenge, it seems to me, is to balance modernity with reason, which gets harder as we go along. I'm an admitted Luddite when it comes to most technologies, but I do have my weaknesses--in part because I work in a high-tech environment and can't be totally independent of digital tech and still be able to communicate with my students. On the other hand, as I'm fond of telling them, were an EMP to hit the earth and we were to lose all that stuff, I'd be quite happy to go on without it. That's actually what my book is about: living well, respectful of the earth, and without most of what we take for granted as "necessity" in the modern world. <br /><br />Of course, keeping up with the Peak Oil conversations has made me realize that most of us are not well-suited for a radical readjustment of our ways. Sharon Astyk's notion of Adapting In Place requires community and space--something not everyone has. I've got a bit of space, but little community. So I might be able to grow some food, but not obtain water (time to dig a well?), and I doubt that I'd be able to grow enough to survive. I guess that's why my adjustments have to be small and incremental. Perhaps one day I can actually use that old metate in my back yard to grind some of the grain I might eventually get around to growing. Sigh.Owlfarmerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15373358232893937182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343122535318547716.post-10764212154821230662010-06-26T19:15:15.473-07:002010-06-26T19:15:15.473-07:00Growing up in my Hungarian Post WorldWar 2 family,...Growing up in my Hungarian Post WorldWar 2 family, the only chicken we ate was what we butchered ourselves, the only pork from the yearly pig we bought and had raised for us on a nearby farm, where pigs ranged and rooted and were treated humanely. Beef was a scarcity. The first time i got a good look at a large pig farm in the Fraser valley, back in the 80s, had me horrified. A concrete floored prison where pigs were incarcerated cheek to jowl living in their own excrement which as taken out by a mechanical scoop, and never dry or clean enough was the place they had to live out their lives. Pigs are as intelligent as dogs, and yet our culture would react with harshness if dogs were treated in a similar way.<br />The true fact is that we as a group are largely inured to be several stages removed from all manner of things we consume, and as a result have scant respect for the entities we do consume, and absolutely ignorant of the processes that our consumables undergo, never mind where they originate.<br />A woman who walks to get her grain supplies, employs a mano and metate to grind it, hauls the water to add to it to form flatbread, cooks it on a flat scrap iron heated by gathered sticks, twigs and dried dung has much more respect for life than the most aesthetically living North American woman. And guess what, she does it without labels of "natural", "organic" or "sustainable. GGEMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11525848943689396086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343122535318547716.post-70355233812459320452010-06-26T14:20:24.536-07:002010-06-26T14:20:24.536-07:00My middle daughter would applaud! She has been a d...My middle daughter would applaud! She has been a dedicated vegetarian for 20 years and never misses an opportunity to declare her philosophy, which doesn't always go down well with her siblings trying to raise their children, her nieces and nephews! The rest of the family members are ambivalent, lazy I suppose, paying lip service to the ideal, buying 'organic'and 'free range' but we wouldn't consider eating dogs, cats or horses, no matter how compassionately farmed and transported and humanely slaughtered. Gandhi said, 'The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.'<br />Oh dear - time for a rethink!jabbloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12176958811589489979noreply@blogger.com