Pons Asinorum

From my Library window,

, I can see the developing Mesquite Beans…trees are full, this year…

It’ll be a good crop.

I am confident that we are the only folks around here that will take advantage of it.

The Trucks still run, after all…three times a week, to what passes as a supermarket.

Soon, now that the Garden is done, for now…I’ll set to work on the Grey Water.

How many thousands of gallons wasted, sent down the drain to be mixed, irretrievably, with the Black?

A simple diversion, of the kitchen sink, and the bathtub..and the Garden is taken care of.

It’s all illegal, of course.

I won’t even ask the city…

I have the intention of running this cast off water through a Biofilter…a kind of built Wetland, of stones and gravel and sand and cattails(an almost perfect food,btw) and papyrus…then off to the Garden.

The Conventional “Wisdom”, that set of assumptions, that Entities like the city operates under, is no longer applicable.

We, here in arid Central Texas, cannot afford the wanton waste we are accustomed to.

As Ive said, great herds of cattle pass through this tiny outpost every week…yet, when one goes to the supermarket, the beef comes from hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away…lamb, when available, originates in Australia! This, after driving past 1000 sheep!

When I first arrived at the idea of Peak Oil, it was considered “Fringe”, “Conspiracy Theory”. In the almost 10 years since then, it has become less and less so…It’s in all the magazines that matter, Natgeo, Economist, Time…but it’s not on TV…so it must not exist.

35 years ago, during the Oil Shocks of the 70’s, we faced a crossroads.

The idea of PO was well known at the upper levels, of course(since the 50’s, at least)…but the Oil Shocks threatened to wake everybody up. Jimmy Carter came on TV, in a sweater, and said that we’d have to get used to a lower standard of living, start reworking our Civilisation to use ever less oil and gas…Solar Panels on the White House.

The Movers and Shakers of the world had other ideas…Reagan, Morning in America(when it was really late afternoon), a return to big cars, conspicuous consumption…just about everything needed to make the situation exponentially Worse.

Asinus ad Lyram, indeed!

I’ve been thinking, for years, about building a Gas Digester…a compost pile/latrine that takes Waste, and turns it into Methane (“Natural Gas”) and safe, nonpathogenic Fertilizer. I have a 55 gallon tank for a prototype…this is likely illegal, in the city, as well

I’m not even gonna ask.

Better to beg for forgiveness…

Even all this ain’t gonna save us…it’s just whittling.

There are 4000 folks within 30 miles of me…and there ain’t a one of them thinking about these things…

Or, if a few are, they are paralyzed…the Problem seems insurmountable.

Any solution would require enormous expenditure, short and medium term…and yield results only after the Conventional “Wisdom” , BAU, has Failed.

That scenario grows closer by the day.

Part of me, when observing the current shenanigans in DC, is breathless…it’s finally collapsing.

I’ve thought this before, of course…the PTB always seem to find a way to keep the rickety Machine lurching forwards…At some point, however, the Baling Wire and Bandaids will no longer be enough. The sand of reality, in the gearbox of Civilisation, will have it’s effect…and things will no longer work.

I have always said,”the sooner the better”…in spite of the pain and suffering that will ensue, even a Die Off.

Better to get the Burning Times over with, while there’s still a functioning Biosphere.

I maintain that the longer the Machine holds together, the worse it will be, when it finally Fails. The Machine’s intolerance of Alternative Means of Survival ensures that we all go down with the ship.

Alternatives must be pursued in relative secrecy, and relative solitude.

…as in the above City Policies….and the stories that come from all over, about folks being made into criminals for such silliness as growing a Garden, in their front yard.

Barba tenus sapientes! “Wise, as far as the Beard!”…as a Habitual, if Feral, Philosopher, these musings always lead me to uncomfortable places…

Are we, as a species, that stupid?

Sadly, it appears that we are.

Still…a Fool’s Hope, is still Hope.