Eric and Janet on the road!

Capital Controls and Other Mischief

2010-02-06T08:23:00.001-08:00

I wrote in a previous blog that the government would be coming for our 401Ks and IRAs and now that appears to be happening. That's going to hurt a lot of people, but even more thefts of our money are on the horizon.

This stuff isn't hard to predict once one awakens from the State-induced slumber. Official government policy appears to be loot everything in the shortest possible time, so in addition to grabbing retirement accounts, they will do lots of other nasty stuff. For example, we will be required to pay higher taxes (sales tax, value-added tax, financial transaction taxes, “global-warming" taxes, etc.) The tried-and-true technique of hyperinflation will be used to extract money from us through stealth (as if one can't tell!). Eventually, there will be a currency devaluation where over a weekend--or a "banking holiday"--the currency will be declared to be worth one half or less of its current value.

Capital Controls Coming
Traveling outside of the U.S. we have met a lot of people who are very aware of the things I've described and it is refreshing for us to be able to talk openly about topics that get a negative or defensive reaction from mainstream Americans. And while it is good to meet people who are awake and are moving themselves and their assets to friendlier jurisdictions, their growing numbers will create a defensive reaction on the part of the U.S. government: it will pass laws to prevent money from leaving the country. These are called “capital” or “foreign exchange” controls (and they are usually imposed before a currency devaluation.)

What Can One Do?
Here are some ideas:
Open a Goldmoney account
Get out of the U.S. (or the U.K., etc.) and travel around, perhaps acquire residency status somewhere and think about acquiring another passport
Open a foreign bank account
Buy foreign real estate

Longer term:
Never, ever again vote for a Republican or Democrat. That system is being used to enslave us.
Pay no more taxes than what are legally required (losthorizons.com).
Boycott multinational corporations, especially Wall Street banks.

Remember that taking these steps will be characterized as “unpatriotic”, so be ready for that. The U.S. is basically at the same point right now as Nazi Germany in 1933, and Americans' sloppy sentimentality for their country isn't just a frustration; it may well turn quite dangerous for those who question it. You should hurry.

Isla Boca Brava

2010-01-31T13:19:00.000-08:00

Public transportation in Panama appears crude to western sensibilities, but our experience is that it works very well. From Cerro Punta, a small town in the corner of Chiriqui province, we bussed down to David, then caught a bus to Horconcitos (another tiny town), and hired a taxi to the Gulf of Chiriqui. A short water taxi ride later we found ourselves in a tropical paradise called Isla Boca Brava.

Because traveling in Panama can have its disappointments, we weren't sure what this trip to the island would be like and we had committed to a week here, so we were wary. But when we saw how beautiful and peaceful was the place with a nice room besides, we felt a huge weight fall off and the peaceful feeling never wore off for the next ten days.

In the jungle on this island is a troop of howler monkeys that make a throaty and fabulous racket. Some mornings they were right outside our window! Needless to say Isla Boca Brava is a rustic gem of a place, and it won't stay secret for long. The travel guides haven't caught up to the fact that the road to the gulf has been paved and getting here is easy, and I predict that in the next five years this area will change dramatically as people come in and invest money.

Well worth going.

Zip Line in the Boquete Rain Forest

2010-01-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

We did a tourist thing, the Boquete Tree Trek, a zip line that "zips" among the trees in the rain forest. Very, very cool!

I'll post more pictures soon.

This video was taken by the guide as he zipped down the longest cable in the park (400+ meters). All of us Groses have already gone ahead and are waiting on the landing. You can see us just barely at the end filming YOU filming US!

Update, January 31st, 2010: I said I'd post more pictures...

Observations on Panamanians

2010-01-16T05:20:00.000-08:00

In this cultural immersion we have observed a few things, though we can't usually say WHY they are, and of course, these observations are subjective too...but here they are:

The women wear really, really tight pants (sorry, no pictures). But nudity seems forbidden; we never see men going shirtless. In fact, people are usually pretty well-dressed.
There are dogs everywhere. They are usually used for guard duty. Locals seem reluctant to neuter them. They don't neuter their horses either.
Panamanians are not sentimental about animals. They treat them in ways that gringos find appalling. We've been told they think Americans—who dote and fawn on their pets and animals generally—are crazy.
There is trash everywhere. The gringos carry their trash with them until they can throw it away in a trash can. The Panamanians throw trash on the ground or out the window.
Everything—except their buildings—is on the verge of breaking. The method of construction here is cinder block, rebar, and cement; wood isn't used because it gets eaten by termites. In the town of David we passed by a trailer being propped up by a milk crate, a common scene.
Everything is imported from China, which appears to be a country without a single shred of conscience, but is good at making money. (I know I've just abused 2 billion people, so I'll have more to say about China later. We will ALL have more to say about China later.) Panama seems to be a dumping ground for products that are so poor in quality they were rejected by more modern nations. Panamanians are sweet but naive, and they are poor so they go for the cheapest solutions, something at which China excels.
Panamanians are not good at capitalism, which has both good and bad angles. On one hand, they often offer poor service, or they are out of something for too long, etc. But on the other hand they are not out to smother the competition because that wouldn't be nice to the competitor who might be a family friend. Community is more important than competition.
Panamanians make loud noises. They love firecrackers. They honk their car horns often, they install car alarms that go off frequently for no good reason, and they play their stereos loud. Peace and quiet does not appear to be valued.
On holidays Panamanians put stereo speakers out the window and play loud music for all the neighbors.
There appear to be few rules on the road.
Panamanians don't queue. Like Italians, they mob.
Panamanians love sweets. There is sugar in almost everything and they will spend a lot of money for desserts.
Panamanians don't walk much, instead they drive.
Panamanian children seem to grow up loved.
Sometimes this guy drives by blaring a loudspeaker. He is selling fruit.

Las Turistas de Boquete

2009-12-24T15:42:00.001-08:00

The Panama countryside is beautiful. We went for a hike into the high country with our friends and neighbors, Roger and Margaret. It's a rain forest so there is lots of water and waterfalls. I later learned that the tall trees you see us walking through harbor a community of howler monkeys. They were laying low, apparently, when we were there.

We visited a coffee farm, or finca de cafe. Connor and I stayed another day to pick beans ("recogemos los granos de cafe"). For a day's work we earned $5 (that's $2.50 each and I'm sure we were being generously tipped!) Between us we picked 2 latas or tins. The record in a day on this farm was 14 latas by a native man and his son. This particular farm is organic, which matters a lot otherwise we'd be rubbing against pesticided plants.

We also rented scooters one afternoon and rode around the narrow mountain roads above Boquete. The views of the surrounding countryside are pretty incredible, but the roads wash out occasionally, and there are usually pedestrians so drivers have to stay aware (but as you can see I did it with my eyes closed!) Some of the roads are so steep our little scooter couldn't make it and we had to push!

Just the other day we all went horseback riding. It's funny because we usually have a lot of trouble communicating to any depth with the locals and when we told them we were from Texas they immediately concluded we were all vacqueros and took us right to the pampas. In truth, Connor had never been on a horse before and Janet and I had not ridden since childhood. (Alexis is the most experienced.) But we didn't hurt ourselves, though there was a close one when I let my horse ride up too close behind Janet's and her horse kicked almost throwing Janet off. I think by the end they figured out we were a bunch of fakers.

The quest for health food in Panama

2009-12-22T16:28:00.000-08:00

Healthy food is important to us. We try pretty hard to eat only organic, non-genetically modified food. Plus, we must avoid gluten grains which are so common in the mainstream American diet we sometimes feel like we are on the outside of society looking in. Over many years we have learned that we do best on the "paleolithic diet": fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, and meats. On this diet leafy greens are a staple.

What we discovered here in Panama is discouraging. It's hard enough to find healthy food in America, but in Panama it's almost impossible. For one thing, grains (corn, rice and occasionally wheat) are abundant in panama, but vegetables are not, especially leafy greens (it's too warm and humid for lettuce and spinach to grow here.) Starchy fruits and roots are very common, and they are usually deep-fried. I'm not sure of the history where corn and beans became the staple diet of Latin America, but I'm pretty sure it's a distortion created by colonialism. In any case, these starchy foods elevate our gringo blood sugar (and the natives don't look like they're doing so well on this diet either.)

Another issue is labeling. We read food packaging carefully and what we find here in Panama is rather shocking. Almost all packaged food contains sugar, and it is almost a rule to find toxins like monosodium glutamate, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, hydrogenated fats, soy, etc. Because of this we eat as much raw fruits and vegetables as we can find. But that brings up yet another problem.

Pesticides are sprayed all over the place here and they are not regulated. We are talking the really nasty ones that have long been banned in the US. This is a picture of the pesticide wall in the local hardware store. We now realize that virtually all of the raw vegetables we find in the grocery stores are toxic. So, our strategy is to buy all that we can from the one organic source, and to eat few of the vegetables that need a lot of spraying like potatoes, bell peppers, and apples (imported from Washington!)

It's strange because in many ways coming to Panama is like stepping backward into time to the bad old days when farmers stirred chemicals with their bare arms, motor oil was dumped on dirt roads, and racism was institutionalized. Things are like this because this society is so new; it only got a chance to develop after the last dictator, Noriega, was thrown out in 1989. Panama is ripe for entrepreneurism--and there are many opportunities--but it deserves the right kind: that which benefits the people and doesn't exploit them.

Getting fatter down in Panama...hasta luego!

Pictures to share

2009-12-18T09:31:00.001-08:00

Here are some pictures we thought we'd share...

Why we came to Panama

2009-12-10T06:23:00.000-08:00

We've often been asked why we chose to visit Panama.

First, it's warm and beautiful. Anyone who has experienced a winter in Oregon, Missouri, or even Texas knows there are better places to be, and Panama is one of them.

Second, we want to get out of the crazy consumer-uber-all US bubble and experience something completely different. It will be a welcome new challenge to be in another country, learning a new language, and seeing how other people live.

Also, it's a very unfortunate truth, but the US is toast due to the financial debacle unfolding there. So much debt is being tossed onto the backs of Americans that it will smother them. The people's industriousness will be siphoned off to debt service and we will see a rapid decline in living standards and in services generally. The future for our children will be bleak. Crime will rise. For the first time in its history we will see a wave of emigration out of the USA to find better opportunities. (This future could be averted if Americans get furious and repudiate the debt. I don't expect this--but it could happen.)

Due to the above we want to get started on a second passport. I've talked to Americans who thought getting a second passport—or becoming a citizen of another country in addition to their US citizenship—is illegal! But it certainly is not illegal. In fact, it makes a lot of good sense to give one's family additional options, especially as the wheels come off in the US. We're not saying that Panama is the place we've chosen to establish residency, but it has a lot going for it which I may mention in future updates, so it's a good place to take the plunge into.

So far the people in Panama are friendly and helpful, both native and expat alike. The expats here seem fully informed about what and who is behind world events, which is refreshing. It's nice to be among people whose minds are free.

More later...

The day we cleaned the squirrel monkey pen

2009-11-28T16:35:00.000-08:00

I mentioned we are living next to an animal rescue facility called Jardines Paraiso (Paradise Gardens) where we've been going to help clean and repair animal pens. One day we got to clean out the squirrel monkey cage and here are a couple of short videos we took.

Note: monkeys are crazy. In the last video one of the monkeys jumped up on me. But shortly after the video I made one wrong move and he bit me!

From Panama with Love

2009-11-22T17:14:00.000-08:00

Here is a succinct account of our recent past...

As the days passed in our trailer in southern Oregon watching the summer turn to fall we knew we didn't want to brave another Oregon winter without substantial shelter over our heads. So just before the end of September we drove down through California on I-5 and then through

Arizona and New Mexico on I-10, and back into Texas. I feared a breakdown the whole way because my Jeep's bearings had been whining even before the trip. Though it was an eventful journey I'm happy to say we made it to Texas healthy and whole.

Once in Texas we proceeded to go through the “stuff” in our storage sheds and sell or give away items we no longer wanted. (Unfortunately Texas received a record amount of rain during
October so we had to sit on our hands a lot of the time.) We sold our van, then our travel trailer, and lastly the Jeep. It felt strange and even sad to wave goodbye to all these vehicles that had supported us for so long, but we didn't want to pay storage while we went south for the winter and each vehicle had its own set of problems that would have taken more money and time than we wanted to spend. Once the Jeep sold we stayed with our very patient and loving relatives until we caught a bus to Fort Lauderdale.

I don't know how many of you have ridden long distance on Greyhound Bus Lines, but you should do it at least once. And you will only want to do it once, I'll bet. Anyway, from Fort Lauderdale we flew on Spirit Air to Panama City, Panama. (Spirit Air is so much cheaper than the majors that it cost less to take a bus to their Fort Lauderdale hub than to fly to Panama from Dallas.) Once in Panama City we stayed in our first hostel for two days, and then took a bus to David City, where we stayed at another hostel for a couple of days and then we took another bus up the mountain to Boquete, Panama, and it is from here that I write.

In Boquete we stayed at local hostels and tried to figure out how we could avoid staying at them any more. These places are fine, but not the best for a family and certainly not a value for staying in an area long term. We began asking around and checking bulletin boards outside local markets, made a few calls on our new skype account (oicu812ic) and voila! We are now staying for two months in a beautiful local apartment for much less than the hostels would cost us. Not only that, but we are a short walk from Boquete town center and across the road from us is Paradise Gardens, a garden and animal rescue facility. The children have already made friends with the capuchin monkeys there.

So, we will update you frequently and please stay in touch.

Withdraw from the System

2009-05-26T11:42:00.001-07:00

If you reflect on national politics something becomes obvious: YOU can not control ANYTHING. You are locked OUT of the political process. National policies are decided for the benefit of somebody, but not YOU.

Need examples?

You don't want the U.S. army in Iraq or Afghanistan, but the imperial stormtroopers are there and there's nothing you can do about it. We have even learned that the Iraq invasion was made on the basis of lies, but your current "representatives" didn't reverse policy, did they?

In 2008 Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives but their leader, Nancy Pelosi, slapped the new "representatives" in line when they wanted to prosecute George Bush. These periodic purges of "voting out the bums" has no practical effect. Again, they all represent Big Business and NOT you and me.

No one wants illegal aliens crossing our borders but there are many millions of them in this country now and over the decades amnesties have been granted to many millions more. The decision has obviously been made at the highest levels to flood the lowest stratum of the System with poor people to exploit for cheap labor. (This also undercuts the middle class, which is an apparent goal, but that's a big discussion for another time.)

Nobody wants taxpayer money to be paid to bankers and record numbers of people told their "representatives" not to do this, but TRILLIONS have been handed over to them anyway. We are told "they are too big to fail" which is a feeble rationale for crime.

The vast majority of Americans oppose gun control legislation, but our "representatives" vote it up anyway.

Who would possibly want to eat genetically modified foods? But the big corporations will not have informative labeling and they make sure their servants, our "elected representatives", will never approve such a thing.

You are disgusted by the atrocities committed against the Palestinians by Israel, but your "representatives" continue to send that vile country billions, even as you become poorer.

I could go on and on with this, but I think you get the idea. It doesn't take much pondering to realize that if the System is completely unresponsive to your demands, but you still are expected to support it with your taxes, then you exist merely to provide sustenance to it. Let me spell it out: you were born into a System that keeps you in place and extracts money and life energy from you. YOU ARE FARMED. YOU ARE A CROP!

I know that's depressing, so go ahead and be depressed. Depression is what you feel when you've lost something, and if this idea is new to you then you HAVE lost something. But what? How about the illusion of the American dream?

The question you should be asking is what do I do about this, and there are many, many things you can do. I'll present a list soon, but I would like you to do what I did: WITHDRAW from the System. Take yourself and your family outside of it and refuse to give it sustenance. If enough people fought back against the System by withdrawing their support from it, the System would have to surrender to the awesome power of the people. Massive, non-violent civil disobedience is the one thing to which the System can not respond.

Helping this to happen is the reason I do this blog.

Obama: Meet the New Boss

2009-01-22T16:47:00.000-08:00

“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.” --Barack Obama

Barack Obama first came to my attention when he spoke at the 2004 Democratic Convention. My SUPERVISOR--back when I was a HUMAN RESOURCE--mentioned how impressed she was with this guy. Back then I feigned interest in such mainstream topics, but in truth I never watched TV and regarded presidential politics as theater and orchestration.

The best thing about Barack Obama being elected is that it proves Americans can elect a dark-skinned man to be president. But is there more to be happy about? What justifies the misty-eyed giddiness I am witnessing about this guy? I had the misfortune of being in Ashland, Oregon on Obama's inauguration day. Everywhere I turned it seemed someone was waxing out loud about how great it was that Obama is the new president, but what is it about this guy that has everyone so impressed?

First off, can any serious person think it possible that a senator from the political cesspool of Chicago would be squeaky clean? Seriously! A quick look at Obama's voting record as a senator shows fairly consistent support for the war machine, and a spotty record on individual liberties. I see nothing there to justify the claims that this man is going to be a source of HOPE AND CHANGE, though.

And how could anyone listen to the presidential debates and take either candidate seriously? The one time I overheard the Obama/McCain debate it was "Al Qaeda this", and "Al Qaeda that" but give me a break! These men were parroting the official fairy tales. AL QAEDA DOES NOT EXIST, people. This "organization" is a concoction of the CIA to keep us all afraid and more easily controlled. (I realize that for some of you that statement will sound unbelievable, but it's time to wake from your slumber!)

I did not hear Obama bravely challenge the official account of 9-11 or the bogus reasons to wage war on Afghanistan and Iraq. Now THAT would be real change!

Obama lied
I paid close attention to the conflict between the countries of Georgia and South Ossetia when Georgia surprise attacked the other country (at the urging of the U.S.) and Russia responded by immediately halting the attack and kicking Georgia out. The U.S. claimed that Russia attacked first, a claim that was proven false by an international inquiry. When Obama was asked about this, he simply lied when he accused Russia of starting the conflict with Georgia. (Sarah Palin did the same thing, which bolsters a claim I will make that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats.) This was a big moment for me in assessing Barack Obama's character.

Obama's appointments don't lie
His cabinet picks are where Obama's presidency moves from lofty rhetoric and starts taking shape, and what an ugly shape it is! He has chosen entrenched insiders who each have a history of suppressing the people and the truth. Where's the change?

Without going through each candidate, certain strong themes stand out from Obama's appointments.

He leaves in place Bush's secretary of defense (!!) which tells us the war machine will go on as before. The imperial slaughter of dark-skinned peoples, including the Palestinians, will continue unabated.
His economic team is much the same set of scoundrels that are systematically looting the country as we speak. The looting will continue.
Obama's environmental picks signal a separation from policies that benefit Big Oil, and this actually gives me hope! Unfortunately, the premise behind this will be "The Climate Crisis" which is a huge fraud (and one that is steadily unraveling.) But watch for the carbon tax!
Obama will promote global government. Most of Obama's picks are members of the Council on Foreign Relations, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Obama's foreign policy advisor. The Council on Foreign Relations exists for only one purpose, to end national sovereignty and deliver us into a system of global governance.

Politics as dialectic
Here's what's really going on. From brainsturbator.com:

We find ourselves up against an entrenched power structure composed of a relatively very small group of wealthy elites. They seldom rule directly or even visibly, and maintain their power through building huge armed bureaucracies who enforce power for them.

In America, the two-party system is a fraud, which controls the people and forces them to choose among candidates that do NOT represent their interests. The people are bounced back and forth like a pinball between the hard-right and the soft right, but the underlying agenda keeps moving along. Each election cycle we are given--not the right to choose who our candidates will be--but to select from the men we are given, and if you pay attention you'll notice that the candidates from either party are basically saying the same things. From the Clinton velvet-glove we are swatted over to George W's iron fist and now we are given "hope and change" in the form of the friendly-looking, dark-skinned candidate Obama.

Here's what Carroll Quigley said about our system in his very important book, "Tragedy and Hope":

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can "throw the rascals out" at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy.

When Barack Obama repeals the Patriot Act, and the Military Commissions Act, and other heinous legislation from the Bush era, that's when you'll know he's worthy of your trust.

Gifts for the chillens

2008-11-29T14:27:00.000-08:00

Relatives have been asking what our children need for Christmas, so this post is for them. But nobody get trampled, now!

Alexis
Guitar case, Alexis is playing a lot lately and needs a better case for her guitar.

Guitar capo, Another item for Alexis' guitar playing.

Strings, players always wear them out.

Diabolo, since Connor got his diabolo (and is getting rather good), Alexis decided she really wanted one too.

Feltmaking kit, Alexis loves crafts and discovered this recently. She's been asking for a kit like the one called FELTMAKING KIT: INTRODUCTION a little down the page.

Tumbling mat, Alexis has been doing circus classes and could use a mat to practice her moves!

Gypsy skirt, and another, Lexie is becoming interested in looking pretty and likes earthy styles.

Connor

Connor has picked up mandolin playing, and so needs accessories like strings, instruction books, DVDs, and a music stand.

He loves camping gear, such as a mess kit, a quality sleeping pad, a pro backpack, a tiny stove.

He built a bow and arrow and has become interested in hunting. A youth bow would be an ecstatically welcomed gift.

He rides his bike everywhere and has asked for one of those bike computers (also called 'cyclocomputers').

He likes juggling and eye-hand tricks: Juggling balls

Many thanks to you all for your kindness and generosity. Merry Christmas, wish you were here.

Your IRA belongs to Uncle Sam

2008-11-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

I once read an article by Gary North on tax-deferred retirement plans like IRAs or 401Ks. He said:

Want to know what I really think will happen? The worst-case scenario? A demagogue gets into office and pushes an emergency order (which Congress will not override) which deposits all these funds into the Social Security system, for everyone who has a net worth (not counting home ownership) of [$__________]. Fill in the blank with whatever the tyrant thinks he can get away with. We could see an envy-grab of the retirement programs of the upper middle class.
...
The time to start thinking about a premature liquidation is when a new President is elected on a radical platform, probably with a shift in Presidential political parties, and with both houses of the new Congress belonging to his party.

Wow, pretty good call Gary!

The demagoguery of IRAs has begun in the person of Teresa Ghilarducci, a wacked out professor who recommended to Congress that retirement accounts should be confiscated and replaced with Treasury bonds, "to spread the wealth" (she actually said that). This kind of behavior is not at all uncommon among governments. The government of Argentina has stolen its people's money at least twice, most recently when it confiscated all pension funds, to protect their value of course.

Any president coming into office in the midst of this economic chaos is certain to look at all possible ways to raise money, and higher taxes are a certainty. But the Obama administration has foreshadowed a particular willingness to squeeze the cash out of the people. For instance, they will probably attempt to pass a global warming tax, a debate I'll particularly enjoy since global warming is such a grand hoax. I think confiscating retirement accounts and freezing bank accounts are very likely too, so be prepared. It's going to get even weirder.

I feel sorry for my friends at Intuit who will probably have little choice but to watch the government take their 401K money. To get their money out of harm's way they would have to quit their job, rollover the plan into an IRA, and then liquidate. At this point, there's probably no time left for all that, even if they wanted to do it. The government may also attempt to make a confiscation law retroactive to the first of the year, a trick Bill Clinton successfully used when he raised taxes in 1993.

These are times to be very wary of one's money, people. Don't be afraid to make bold moves. The politicians certainly aren't.

What was Biden talking about?

2008-11-08T16:17:00.000-08:00

On October 19th at a fundraiser in Seattle, Joe Biden had some very interesting things to say. Go to the source article and see for yourself:

In the first six months after Obama's victory there will be an international crisis.
It will be a "generated" crisis.
Obama's response will be very unpopular with the American public and his approval ratings will plummet.
His response will be different than what Americans want, because they are too stupid to know the right thing to do anyway.
He ended his comments by saying he had said too much.

One might interpret these statements as the musings of an experienced politician, except for a few things: Why would Biden say the crisis will be "generated". That's certainly a weird thing to say, don't you think? Second, how does he know that Obama's ratings are going to plummet?

Knowing this crowd, I would advise you to prepare for the worst.

The story of selling our house

2008-10-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

We saw the financial chaos coming when we were living in Dallas, Texas. The housing bubble had already started to pop a year before, though gently at first and only for areas that had the most dramatic rises, but we knew it would make its way to Dallas (and everywhere) soon. One reason for our certainty came from the frequent walks I took around our neighborhood. I liked to walk to work off the frustrations from my wage slave job, and after walking down one block after another, seeing house after identical house helped convince me that the suburbs are doomed. What an unnatural way to live! We knew that these endless tracts of suburban houses would drop substantially in value, but we also anticipated other problems like wide-spread layoffs and even interruptions in the supply of food, and we began to feel like remaining in our suburban house was a trap of sorts. So, we decided to sell it.

We put our house on the market in early 2007, and--because we were in a race with time--each month that went by we lowered our price by $10,000! (This caused some big arguments in our household, I should add.) We didn't have many showings, but after two months we received an offer, although it was so low-ball we refused it. Apparently, these buyers thought we were desperate, but we weren't desperate--just determined. Eventually, this person came up to our (low) price and so bought our house.

We sold at the last possible moment because immediately afterwards the housing market began to fall in earnest. When the press gave the phenomenon a lot of attention house sales plummeted. At the time of our closing we felt we were cheating ourselves of profits, but when we walked away from it and we were completely out of debt for the first time in many years, it felt good. And it still feels good!

Debt-free is the correct posture to be in for the period of economic chaos we are entering. If you do have money it is a good idea to put it into REAL things like land that can support a big garden and skills and tools that will help you make a living during hard times. We are entering a period of chaos that will be unlike anything any of us has ever experienced. You should try to join or build a local community of friends and family who will hang together. That's certainly what we are doing.

Zoning is a problem for communities

2008-09-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

One reason there are not more intentional communities are zoning laws (true grammarians won't like that sentence--sorry). These were set up to control how land is used and they have their place much of the time. Who wants to live next to a cement factory, for example?

But zoning laws make it illegal for groups of people to live together on a piece of land. This presumably “keeps property values high” and it ensures more tax money to the government. (Notice how the money system lies beneath every official rule.) Unfortunately, it means that friends and families who come together to form a community must do so illegally.

The above picture shows a typical situation where land is subdivided, and each parcel is owned by a different person. Each property must have a clearing within it for a house. Each property must have its own well drilled, its own driveway, and of course each property must be patrolled by a large, noisy carnivore to make sure no wild creatures come near (sorry you dog lovers). You probably couldn't dream up a more damaging system to the local ecology than this.

And on each property sits a single, solitary family.

They are called “homesteaders” and they are some of the busiest people around. This is because living out in the country is a ton of work. Nothing happens automatically like in a city, so hauling trash, chopping wood, clearing and patching roads, and endless trips to town are a basic fact of life. Then throw in all the things that people who move to the country want to do, like raising chickens and goats and horses, growing herbs and vegetables, raising honeybees, building outbuildings, etc., and you are occupied full time. To make matters worse, most homesteaders have to leave their property to earn money to support the whole affair. This means, basically, that the average homesteader is working two jobs: the money-earning one, and maintaining the homestead itself!

In a community, of course, these tasks would be shared among the members, which gives rise to the old saying, "Many hands make light work". The search to find a part of the country where zoning laws allow a community to form and grow unhindered led the Dancing Rabbit folks to move to the hinterlands of Missouri, which certainly wouldn't be my first choice of places to live.

We have found that sometimes homesteaders are agreeable to having cool people live on their land to help them with their property, providing work in exchange for rent. There are also farmers who need help with growing their crops, packing vegetables into boxes, and selling at markets. Sometimes a property owner needs help with a specific project, such as constructing a new building. Some of these situations are very short term, and sometimes long. I have to say that most of the people doing work trade are young, twenty-somethings, but often a family can be accommodated and sometimes a family is specifically advertised for. Here are some websites where such matches are made.

http://attrainternships.ncat.org/

http://www.wwoof.org/

http://www.organicvolunteers.com/

Zoning laws derive from a model of property ownership that was invented by the banking industry. Owning one's own land is a highly appealing idea, but this current system of one family per plot is an obstacle to a healthier way of living for humanity and the natural world. I see no hope that this system will change until industrial society slams into an ecological wall. I wish I saw a more hopeful path. In the meantime those of us who seek to form eco-communities will have to do so discretely in the hinterlands.

End of summer 2008

2008-08-26T14:54:00.000-07:00

I've not posted a lot lately because I've been busy living a life in the country and typing our latest doings into the internet has seemed less important.

But this week I've had a couple of experiences that encourage me to pick this blog thread back up. Two different people--friends I haven't yet met--contacted me to tell me how helpful they've found my postings, something I still find extraordinary...and very encouraging. Breaking away from the dominant system has been a huge leap for us and it remains my hope that others come along after us. Only when enough people abandon it can the dominant system falter.

Since January we have been living on the homestead of some new friends, paying our rent through work trade. This isn't an official "intentional community", but we find we've been doing all of the things we wanted to do, and we are all happy, so here we remain. If you'd asked me a year ago if I wanted to be living in a forest, growing my own food, learning how to recognize wild medicinal plants, building cob houses, and playing my guitar I'd give an enthusiastic yes! We've been busy raising vegetables, learning natural building, and meeting other good folk around the countryside.

For the last couple weeks we've helped with the workshop that built this cob house. People came from all over the place to learn how to build a house made of cob. This was a pretty big structure, and the temperatures spiked right at the beginning of the workshop, so we all worked pretty hard. I'm pooped.

It's also that time of year around here that the blackberries are ripening. We were invited to pick on one of the many local wineries, which we are happy to do because these berries get lots of water and so they are fat and juicy! Now that the workshop is over we'll spend a couple days gathering pounds of them and then we'll can them.

So that's what we're up to lately. Next month we'll go back to Texas and Missouri to see la familia.

Summer projects

2008-07-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

We've been spending our summer learning a lot of new things. For instance, I strung up some hummingbird feeders. The thing that attracts hummers is the red cap. The bottles are filled with sugar water (1 part sugar to 4 parts water). And no, the sugar will not make their beeks rot off! Turns out this mixture is not too different from their natural energy drink: nectar.

I helped put the roofing on this pole-frame building. Some friends are doing a lot of building out here in the country and sometimes hire me to help out. I'm fascinated by all forms of building so I'm happy to help and learn.

I also recently helped a friend put in a cob bread oven. This is the third oven I've worked on. She lives in a very rural setting and patiently--over months--dug away the hillside to make space for her oven. We used the excavated clay to build the oven itself, but there was almost no sand. This means the clay will crack, so she'll have to seal the combustion chamber initially, and it's possible the whole thing will collapse. The good news is all the material can be re-used if need be.

Connor spent a week near Mt. Shasta at a wilderness camp. This was a hard one for us, to let our Connor go away for a week. But, now that he's back it's all good. He was one of the younger boys in the group, but as the instructor said, "he was the heart of the group". He learned a lot about camping, outdoor craft, and people, and refers to the course frequently.

More on gardening soon...

Solar Water Heater

2008-06-06T16:26:00.000-07:00

I built a solar water heater. It is perhaps the simplest style of solar water heater in that the heating part and the water containing part are together in one unit.

I stripped a water heater down to just the tank, painted it black, put it in an insulated box also painted black inside, and covered the box with glass.

The first picture shows the box during construction where I packed insulation in between the box framing. This insulation came from the original water heater and so did the sheet metal I sealed it in with. The wood was mostly scrap laying around the place, so everything was free!

The second picture shows the box with insulation in place, and the
third picture shows the inside of the box painted black.

The picture missing here (because it's still in my camera which I forgot because we left for town in a hurry and so much for casual, stress-free life in the country, but anyway...) shows the completed heater sitting out in the open under the sun warming up our shower water for free.

Just painting a tank black would provide hot water. Placing it in an insulated box will keep the water hot overnight, and will extend the season well into the autumn.

Capitalism American Style

2008-03-24T06:34:00.000-07:00

This Bear Stearns thing has me upset because once again the people got screwed and the perps made colossal fortunes.

On March 12th, Bear Stearns' CEO scoffed at rumors of liquidity problems at the bank:

"Schwartz also denied rumors that the company's liquidity is under threat. Bear Stearns still has a $17 billion cushion against losses, he said.
"Our balance sheet has not weakened at all," he said. "We don't see any pressure on our liquidity."

The day before Mr. Schwarz's appearance on CNBC, somebody made an enormous purchase of put contracts on Bear Stearns stock. A put contract is a bet the stock price will fall. These put contracts were an extremely risky purchase as they would make money only if Bear Stearns stock lost HALF its value within TEN days. The size of this purchase was over 55,000 contracts at an average price of 15 cents a contract at $30 strike.

Of course, if the purchaser was an insider they knew what was going to happen and that there was no risk at all, and they won the lottery, because...

The following weekend on March 16th Sunday, a day when the stock market is closed and shareholders could do nothing but watch, JP Morgan announces they are buying Bear Stearns at pennies on the dollar. Not only that, there is very little risk to them as the deal is "guaranteed" by the Fed.

In just days Bear Stearns stock had fallen from $60 to $2.

Jim Rogers had this to say about the bailout:

You know the reason they did it this way was because, if Bear Stearns had to declare bankruptcy, you'd realize that Bear Stearns paid out billions of dollars in bonuses in January - six weeks ago. If he let them go into bankruptcy, they all would have had to send back their bonuses.

This is what they're doing, they're doing it so they don't have to give back their bonuses. That's why they didn't put them into bankruptcy. Jamie Dimon has gotten a great deal because the Federal Reserve is paying for it. The Federal Reserve is using taxpayer money to buy a bunch of Bear Stearns traders' Mazeratis.

As if this weren't bad enough here's what one of the Bear Stearns executives demanded of his new boss, JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon:

"How will you make me whole?"

How about them apples? If this were the exception to an otherwise honest system that would be one thing, but it isn't. This is capitalism American style.

Illegal maneuverings of this type come to light all the time. For another example, remember the California power crises in early 2001, which it was later revealed were caused by Enron restricting power supplies to make colossal profits? Here is a transcript where an Enron employee asks a utility employee to do something "interesting" and cause a power outage.

POWER PLANT WORKER: Las Vegas Co-Gen, this is Rich.

ENRON EMPLOYEE: Hey, Rich, this is Bill up at Enron.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Bill.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: How you doin’, man?
POWER PLANT WORKER: Junior or Senior?
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Heh, heh, the Third.
POWER PLANT WORKER: The Third! What’s happening, Bill the Third?
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Not much, man. I’m giving you a call. We’ve got some issues for tomorrow.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Are you ready for some issues? You’re just about out of there, aren’t you?
POWER PLANT WORKER: I got a couple more hours, I ain’t going anywhere. All right, shoot. I’ve got pen and paper.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: All right man. I’m not—this is going to be a word-of-mouth kind of thing.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Tonight, when you finish your normal QF, so for hour ending 1, which will actually be tomorrow—
POWER PLANT WORKER: Right.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: We want you guys to get a little creative—
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay.
ENRON EMPLOYEE:—and come up with a reason to go down.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Anything you want to do over there? Any cleaning, anything like that?
POWER PLANT WORKER: Yeah. Yeah. There’s some stuff that we could be doing tonight.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: That’s good.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Yeah, we need to do some—we need to come down and inspect this switch on the steam turbine, this one switch on this induction steam valve that’s been failing us, and we need to be down in order to pull the switch and adjust it.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: No sh-–?
POWER PLANT WORKER: Yeah.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: I like that. And, I don’t know, I guess around 11:00 for hour ending 11—
POWER PLANT WORKER: Right.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: You got to go back—we need you to go back down.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay, shut back down for hour ending 11?
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Yeah.
POWER PLANT WORKER: So, we’ll do our normal afternoon shutdown tomorrow.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Yep.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: But we’re not wanting to have it prescheduled.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Right.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: It’s supposed to be, you know, kinda one of those things.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay, so we’re just coming down for some maintenance, like a forced outage type thing.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Right.
POWER PLANT WORKER: And that’s cool?
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Hopefully.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Because the schedule I just got over here, well, you know what it says.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Yep, I’m looking right at it.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay, it’s the new schedule.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: You just got a new one?
POWER PLANT WORKER: It says “new schedule” on the bottom. It’s showing 52 all day.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Oh, right, and so that’s the one you’re going to want to ignore.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Exactly.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: I knew I could count on you.
POWER PLANT WORKER: No problem. I’m sure I’ll have a good time.

Again, that’s an Enron employee asking a worker at a power plant in Las Vegas to take the plant offline. That same day energy supplies were so tight, Northern California experienced a stage three power emergency, and rolling blackouts hit as many as two million consumers.

It's too bad you can't listen to the conversation. Hearing these smirking chimps is something else. I have a recording, but this bloggin software won't let me upload it for you. Don't use Blogger. Google bad.

Endemic corruption like this might just cause a person to abandon the system and head for the hills, you know?

Early spring activities!

2008-03-13T17:21:00.000-07:00

We've been busy this early spring. Here are some of the highlights:

We planted pine trees. Drier conditions are thinning out the Douglas Firs, so these little pine trees should do okay.

We have been building a cob oven. The foundation is shown first. This was one day's work filling bags with sand, filling the donut hole with rock and rubble. I'll post a detailed story on this oven later...so it will be a little hard to piece together what we did from just this.

A layer of bottles forms an insulation layer below the heating chamber. (burp!)

Next we built a sand dome and covered it with a "thermal layer" of clay and sand--no straw.

Once this thermal layer dries a little we cut the door opening and scoop out the sand.

Herb spiral

Just outside our kitchen I built an herb spiral so we can fetch a few fresh herbs for breakfast without getting our slippers wet!

Happy Birthday, Alexis!

2008-02-13T12:01:00.001-08:00

Alexis turns 10 today. I can't believe how quickly my children are growing up, I say in cliche.

We had some very nice folks over to celebrate. One of Alexis' presents I was most impressed with was made by her friend Ariana. It is a shepherd made by her hand of natural materials. Pretty fantastic, eh?

Alexis had a great time and we all had fun too. Bless you all.

Weather Breaks
My last post spoke about the rather depressing blanket of winter that had fallen about this place. Well it broke this week, so we had the pleasure of resuming our gardening in full sun!

Snow!

2008-02-03T11:37:00.000-08:00

One feature of the Oregon winter is its unpredictable nature. Sometimes it may snow once and melt right away. Other times it's like this one: intense!
For going on three weeks we have had snow and rain. We are warm and cozy, but are getting cabin fever.

Recall we are living entirely off our solar panels, and are nursing our batteries through this. Sometimes, like now, we escape to town and get on the wi-fi at a coffee shop.

Of course, all this snow is a winter paradise for the child within us (I'm pretty good with a snowball, and my young friend Julian is a good aim too). Here a snow ball fight is on-going.

Gardening in winter
One afternoon it was pleasant enough to mulch a bed in the garden. The garden has a lot of slope and we want water to flow evenly across the plants so we built the bed on contour, which we find using an A-frame. (It's surprising how deceptive the eyeball can be in these matters).

Once the contour line is found on the hillside, we carve a level bed, dump on a couple of inches of compost, and cover it with cardboard and then straw. From here we let mother nature do her thing with earth worms and microbes. We will plant directly through this mixture, and could even plant seeds in little soil pockets in the straw. Ideally, this would have been done last fall, but it's not too late to do it here in January.
We debated whether we should test the soil and add amendments, and in foregoing the expense of this step we join company with every other organic farmer we've met!

Circus Class
Connor and Alexis are taking "circus classes" where they learn silks, juggling, unicycle riding, and so on. Here Connor gets instruction on the trapeze.

Stay well everyone!

New home in Oregon!

2008-01-23T09:51:00.000-08:00

Recall that we arrived in Oregon at autumn just as it was getting cold and this left us with a tough choice. Should we go south where it's warmer and risk not returning to the Pacific northwest? Or should we stay through the winter and experience Oregon in the springtime? Chant and Susanna at Trillium Farm made it easier to decide by letting us power our trailer off their electricity in exchange for work around their place, and so we stayed there from October to January. In fact, we spent Christmas day in their warm farm house while they went to Hawaii.

We were able to learn some interesting things while we were at Trillium. We helped them build a bath house out of cordwood, where logs are "mudded" into a wall with a cement mixture (with an insulating layer in the middle). I helped Chant cut the hardibacker flooring before tiles went in and rough in his wood stove. Over the winter there was applesauce to be made, firewood to be cut, runs to the dump, and pottery to be spun. (Susanna is a talented artist and teaches art at the highschool). And of course, there was the special place called Trillum to experience and explore. Over the course of four months we had many dinners and good times together with Chant and Susanna and consider them to be of the highest calibre of awesome good people.

Since we were in one place for a while, mingling with locals, new opportunities came up. We were invited to move onto the land of a young family and work around their place in exchange for rent, "work trade" it's called. And so, that's where we are now. We have moved into their hobbit hut cob cabins and plan to stay here at least until October of this year.

Our main activity will be cultivating their vegetable gardens, and there will be many opportunities to learn how to build with cob, a mixture of clay, sand, and straw. We are off the electrical grid and so through the winter months with short days we have to watch our power use. We have a dial up internet connection which we're still getting used to, and we see our children less often now that they spend many hours playing in the woods with the other family's two children who are just about the same age.

So, here's where we'll be for a while. Stay tuned!

Review of the novel, "Island"

2008-01-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

I just read the novel, "Island", by Aldous Huxley. This book came out in 1962 and tells the story of Pala, a mythical island where oil has recently been discovered. The protagonist of the story, Will Farnaby, is a British journalist and economic hitman who has been hired by corporate tycoons to negotiate with the island's royal elite for the right to extract the tiny country's oil wealth.

The job of the economic hitman is to bribe a country's leader to betray his people so that a western corporation can steal the nation's assets from them. Economic hitmen are very real and have been a major strategy of the United States to steal the wealth of the third world since Mossadegh--the democratically elected leader of Iran--was driven out of office by the CIA. For more read "Economic Hitman" by John Perkins.

During the course of his visit to Pala Will Farnaby entertains himself by taking a guided tour of the island and its remarkable culture. Pala is a utopia: its people are well-educated, well adjusted, superbly healthy in body and mind. It soon becomes obvious that Huxley's main purpose with the book is to wax on about his social theories for reasons that should be known to you, but sadly are probably not.

When one understands who Aldous Huxley is it should become clearer. Huxley was the son of T. H. Huxley, a British intellectual and member of The Royal Society. The entire Huxley family was active in British politics and policy and are, in fact, propagandists for the British empire. For example, Aldous' brother, Julian, was the first director of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) promoting world education congenial to empire. Aldous' role was to write books that introduced key ideas (memes) into society so that when they were later proposed as policy they would not seem shocking, a phenomenon called "predictive programming".

For example, he spends a lot of time in the book describing the education of Palanese youth who are given training in the hard sciences, but also in physical and emotional health, and Buddhist spirituality. They are selected, based on their abilities and personality type, for special instruction. This may sound appealing but in the end what is revealed is education of children for the benefit of society at the expense of individualism. And what Huxley doesn't share with us is that the country's leaders get to decide which behaviors are promoted and which are not.

I was very impressed with Huxley's intelligence and insight into human nature, as it is obvious upon reading him one is dealing with a superior mind, but there is a certain tragedy to the man that came through in this book particularly. His own education was, of course, British boarding school with the attendant alienation and estrangement from family and deep love. The character Will Farnaby is, I am certain, patterned after Huxley himself, and is a thoroughly unsympathetic character who exhibits all the traits of a psychopath. This is what he had to say about his girlfriend's attempts at pregnancy:

"He was not much interested in babies and had always been thankful for those repeated miscarriages which had frustrated all Molly's hopes and longings for a child."

The best propaganda buries the lies within a spoonful of sugar and "Island" does just that. It is fitting that Huxley writes himself into this story as an economic hitman because that is what he was in real life too.

Trillium Farm autumn activities

2007-11-08T07:31:00.000-08:00

There's a lot to do to put a homestead ready for winter. Trillium has lots of fruit trees that were planted years ago so they are mostly heirloom varieties. Here we are picking apples. We've been enjoying applesauce and apple pies, yummy!

Trillium Farm is located in a valley and unlike most valleys with steep walls and a mischevious river at the bottom, Trillium valley has broad, open meadows. This makes it an attractive site for outdoor get-togethers. Every summer groups rent the place to hold conferences.

But in the autumn the leaves take over and they must be raked up for compost. See that little speck of color to the right? That's Janet raking away. Go Janet! When we're finished I'll post a picture of the huge pile we are creating.

We have done a little hiking here. It's not uncommon to see huge bear poops on the trails which tends to knock oneself out of one's reverie and become very present in the here and now! (But I'll spare you the picture.)

This was a scene Connor captured at the top of a "knob" above us, looking down the Little Applegate Valley. I asked my friend Chant to explain the word, "knob", which is an intermediate high spot on a ridge on the way to a still higher one. Chant is fascinating to listen to because he has such a vast and precise vocabulary. He says things like "knob", and "draw", and "fine-fuel", and "underburn" and I'm always slowing him down to explain them to me.

I'll leave you with a picture of the sunset that Alexis insisted I take. I told her it probably wouldn't come out well but took it anyway. Having children that are smarter than you can be humbling. Oh, and you should see the stars at night!

Global warming is a ruse

2007-10-31T07:41:00.000-07:00

We've encountered a few sacred cows on this journey and one of them is global warming. We've found when it is apparent to our ecologically-minded friends that we don't believe in global warming we are greeted with a response of incredulity and even indignation.

We are not certain that the globe isn't warming up, maybe it is, but the questions we have are 1) is the warming (if it exists) abnormal, and 2) is it human-caused? To claim with certainty that the globe is warming and that humans are causing it is unscientific, more like a religious position than anything else, and we remain wary of any and all religions. Consider this quote from Al Gore:
"The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level."
You should be very skeptical when a politician starts talking like a baptist preacher. Lift consciousness to a higher level? Seriously, what kind of gibberish is this?

We see a conspiracy behind all this global warming news that most are missing and it starts with the premier think tank, The Club of Rome, to which Al Gore is a member. Best known for their book, "The Limits to Growth", The Club of Rome made the case that industrial civilization is on a collision course with disaster (with which we concur). In a lesser known book, "The First Global Revolution", written by two Club of Rome founders in 1991, one finds this extraordinary statement:
"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill ... All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."

Read that again and picture world leaders and their minions searching for a "new enemy to unite" (control) the world's masses and deciding on environmental issues as the key! Doesn't that put the media hyperblitz on global warming in a new light?

And then there are quotes like these from our so-called world leaders:
"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony...climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." -Christine Stewart, then Canadian Minister of the Environment

"...we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." -Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology

"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels." -Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh

"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal." -Ted Turner, major UN donor

"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis..."
-David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive member

"...current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable. A shift is necessary which will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations..." -Maurice Strong, former Secretary General of UNEP, opening speech of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit

That last quote is important because it reveals the global warming agenda, namely one-world government.

To us the global warming hype looks like a psychological operation, as it offers an apparent solution to a world incredibly frustrated with the corporate damage being done everywhere. And like any psy op it is effective because it plays upon the deepest desires of most people, to live in harmony with nature. But in reality it is a misdirection, designed to throw people off the real cause of the environmental devastation and that is our money system itself. We refer here to the monetary system where the amount of "money in circulation" and the "growth of the economy" is based on how much debt can be absorbed by individuals, businesses, and governments. See the video Money as Debt to learn more.

This may sound weird because most of us are so embedded in this system and its pathological logic that we have trouble distancing ourselves enough from it to see it clearly, but just think about it. We hear things like "the economy grew only 3% this year" and that's 3% on top of last year's 3%, so we have an economy growing exponentially! Of course, the raw materials for this economy ultimately come from the earth itself, so it's not hard to see why an exponentially growing economy is completely unsustainable.

We also think humanity is not the problem because they themselves are enslaved by the system just as everything else is. To prove this to yourself, just try to live completely independent of the dominant economy for any period of time, if you can do it at all. Then think how the dominant system relies on just about everyone being in debt, and ask yourself to whom is all this debt owed? Now, you are asking the right question that will point you to the real culprits behind environmental destruction, wars, and most human misery.

No, people, don't be fooled by the hype, the problem is the corporate money system that nearly has the whole world in its clutches and is hell-bent on an agenda of complete and total control. Did you know the Islamic world considers usury immoral and rejects central banking? They are the last outpost of cultures to do so. This may put the invasion of the middle east in a new perspective for you. Once the Islamic societies are dominated the whole world will be taken over by the corporate monetary system we've all come to love so much.

Global warming is a corporate agenda, a psychological op to seduce good people into giving up their rights and freedoms, just like 9-11 and all the other ones going on all the time. Wake up.

Trillium Farm in Southern Oregon

2007-10-31T07:11:00.000-07:00

We've been staying a Trillium Farm for two weeks now. To say this is beautiful country barely scratches the surface. Located out in the woods near Jacksonville, Oregon, Trillium is a wilderness wildlife sanctuary, so the landscape here is not so screwed up as most places.

Trillium has a long history and used to be a thriving community, but the combination of people issues (folks not paying dues and keeping up the farm) and a couple of floods knocked the community back to just Chant and Susanna Thomas, whose goal is to rebuild the membership with the right folk.

We've hit it off really well with Chant and Susanna, who are very educated and cultured and generous. We've been learning ten new things a day hanging out with them.

We are living in our trailer, pulled onto their property, of course. It's been getting cold at night and fortunately, they're giving us electricity without which we probably wouldn't be able to stay in this part of the country at this time of year.

There are a million things to do around here, so they are grateful for our energy to help get things ready for winter.

Yamhill Co-op

2007-10-29T07:26:00.000-07:00

We made a short trip up to Portland to visit Yamhill Co-op. Here is their description:
Forest Agriculture Co-op Forming in Yamhill County, Oregon. Couple looking to share 30 idyllic acres of trees, meadows, pond and seasonal creek in wine country 30 miles southwest of Porland. Live in main house or build own yurt. Many skills needed; flexible arrangements. We are literary, artistic, secular humanists connected to the natural world through reason and experience. We are looking for like-minded people who are industrious, community-minded, tree-huggers. Contact Pam & John.

Sounds good, eh? I had to look up what a "secular humanist" is, just so I wouldn't appear illiterate when I called them up.

Yamhill is a nice piece of land (30 acres) owned by a middle-aged couple who want to preserve the land, and also want to make it more productive by applying permaculture principles. They just don't know how nor do they have the time and energy required. Another great feature of this situation is their neighbor, Jim, who owns 60 acres further up the hill and who is in accordance Yamhill's plans.

There is a lot of great potential here for a small livelihood selling to the city of Portland, only 30 minutes away. We could envision U-pick berries, a goat farm, a bed and breakfast, etc.

We only stayed for a couple of days, unfortunately. We've had the same experience every place we've visited where our hosts establish the duration of our stay before we arrive. This is wise from their perspective because what if we turn out to be insufferable jerks? But when they realize we're cool the deadline disappears. Unfortunately in this case, we took it seriously and had made other plans!

So, we hope to visit Pam and John again soon.

House Alive

2007-10-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

House Alive is not a community, but the private homestead of Coenraad and Khaliqa Rogman (pronounced Con-rad and Kah-lee-kah). We first met these good people on the web and they invited us to stay with them when in Oregon. Well, we made it to Oregon, didn't we?

What the Rogmans have done is a fine object lesson for anyone. They have a lovely property in the country and have built a very nice business teaching workshops on how to build with natural materials, "cob" and "bale" being their specialties. People come from all over the world to learn from them. This kind of entrepreneurism takes a lot of initiative and attention to detail and is quite admirable. Any community would benefit by taking similar steps.

The Rogmans built their home with conventional sticks and plywood, but on the interior they used straw bale so their walls are two feet thick and very well insulated. "Cob", a mixture of clay, sand, and sometimes straw is used to cover the straw bails.

Their home has a cozy, inviting feeling and the vaulted ceiling makes it seem larger than it is. The place is charming and just plain livable.

Their front porch has a very high ceiling and they have strung silks from the rafters for their children to learn on. You may have seen performers working the silks in a circus perhaps. Cirque du Soleil often features silk performances.

We got to learn a little about cobbing while we were there. We had just missed a workshop, but there was still some finish work to do on a couple of the structures. Here some windows needed to be added after the cob had dried, so Coenraad cut an outline with a rotary saw, and Janet dug two inches of cob out. Then, the window is mudded in.

Cob produces some of the most beautiful, compelling, and sweet buildings I can think of. This is the stuff that Tolkien's "hearth and home" is made from! Below is an example of a nearly finished cob house that we saw at Cobville, near Mountain Home.

I particularly admired Coenraad's teaching style. He understands that a person learns by doing and so he gives just enough direction to get you past a rut and lets you experiment to find your own style. Khaliqa made some wonderful meals and we really enjoyed sharing meals and good times with these wonderful people.

If you are interested in learning more about cob, take a House Alive workshop.

Mountain Homestead in Oregon

2007-10-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

After a month-long journey across the continent we arrived at Mountain Homestead in Coquille, Oregon. This was a community that Janet had picked out of the Communities Directory and they were nice enough to host us. We've found communities need a fair amount of advance warning before your arrival so they can “be ready”. What they need to be ready for is less clear, however. Every place we've been we just show up with work clothes on and ask where we can help, an approach that has been pretty well-received.

Mountain Home is in a valley on the Pacific side of Oregon's coastal mountains, so it stays pretty dry in the summer but gets a ton of rain in the winter.

The valley is steep so there is a great deal of slope on the land, which the community is dealing with by building a series of terraces that add topography and serve to keep water on the property. It is a lot of hard work to do this, and while they could do it by hand they use a tractor instead. This is the work I did during the two weeks we stayed there.

Because the land is heavily wooded trees must be pushed over where the terraces are to be. A cable is wrapped around the tree, the other end tied to a tractor and the tree comes crashing down. But it's rarely that easy. Often roots need to be chopped, or the tractor may not have room to pull, or the tree must fall in a different direction than the tractor is pulling. In these cases, the cable is routed through a pulley attached to another tree which causes the tree to fall in the right direction. (Without a tractor a “block and tackle” would be used.)

Doing this kind of “ecoforestry” I got to drive the tractor (thanks, Eli) operate a chain saw, and swing a machete, so I am even more of a man now than I was before. I also got a horrendous case of poison oak so the trees had their revenge!

Janet got to do a lot of gardening and helped prepare the lunch meal one day. She dug up potatoes, preserved kale seeds, and helped build cold frames.

Children!
There were some wonderful children at Mountain Home roughly the same ages as Connor and Alexis. A boy named River was Connor's bud, as was seven year old Julius. Imani and Nia, Julius' sisters, made wonderful companions for Alexis. There have usually been children where we stay, but at Mountain Home we hit the jackpot. Unfortunately, the families with children appear to be moving away soon, so bummer!

Vegans vs. meateaters
A conflict was in its end-game when we arrived. Apparently, the vegans in the community opposed the raising of animals for food, and those who wanted to raise goats for milk and meat apparently lost out and were preparing to leave (perhaps for other reasons too). Unfortunately, these were the families with children.

Throughout this journey we've encountered vegetarianism (may eat eggs and dairy, but no meat) and veganism (eats plant sources only). The main justification we've heard for these diets is a sort of spiritualism that translates to “I don't want to kill anything for a meal.” We don't want to kill an animal either, but we think meat is part of a healthy diet so we'll do what we must. We are open to a biological or anthropological justification for vegetarianism/veganism, but haven't heard it yet. Instead we see a lot of dietary practices that are obviously unhealthy like the consumption of soy. Becoming malnourished has never been an interest of ours, even if it feels good spiritually, and an omnivorous community remains one of our criteria.

Winter comes on
We arrived in Oregon in September, just when it started getting cold. Unlike the flat places in the country, here in the mountains there are what are known as “micro-climates”, which may be warmer or colder for various reasons. In a valley bottom, like Mountain Home's, the air rises during the day as it is heated by the sun. At night, however, the cool air goes back down the valley and causes people living in trailers to shiver uncontrollably. Also, because we were in a valley, the sun shown on our solar panel only a few hours a day, and since we rely on the battery for lights and most especially the refrigerator (electronic ignition lights the propane) we had a very hard time keeping the battery charged. We're still working out this solar thing!

So, in a quest for warmth, we moved on from Mountain Home, but we'll go back there and help them out. They are doing a lot of interesting things and are laying the groundwork for a fantastic food forest.

Thank you Mountain Home!

Spectacular vacation!

2007-09-02T17:23:00.000-07:00

When we got to South Dakota we slowed down and took in the fantastic natural phenomena in the area. Janet had vacationed in this area as a child and knew it was special.

Crystal Cave

There are numerous caves in the limestone formations of the Black Hills. This one, Crystal Cave is basically still unexplored.

Panning for gold in the Black Hills
Connor and Alexis each walked away with a small vial with gold flakes in it! Woo hoo!

My impression is that gold miners worked pretty hard for their money.

Custer State Park in the Black Hills
Connor hangs out with this gang of mules that shakes down passenger vehicles.

Mato Tipila
The Sioux call this Mato Tipila which means "bear lodge". It is known among tourists as "Devil's Tower", but this name was invented by some white devil and it unfortunately stuck. Too bad there are no bear anywhere near this area any longer. White men love cows better.

Wyoming's Yellowstone!
Before you die--and before it goes super-volcano again so hurry up--you must see Yellowstone National Park. This place is a magic landscape of spewing geysers, flowing waters, and big mammals. I will go there again.

Black-tailed prairie dogs inhabit only 2% of their original range.

Deer munching

Elk munching

Fox hunting

Moose munching

Bear hunting munching moose. We didn't see a bear until we left the park and just outside on our way out we saw this one lumbering beside the road. It scared the moose off.

Buffalo crossing the road. A buffalo can run faster than a horse, can jump over a 6 foot fence, and are more dangerous than bear in Yellowstone.

After a couple weeks of visiting these natural wonders, Janet and I looked at each other and said, "That was fun, but let's get on with our mission", so it's on to Oregon!

Go West

2007-08-24T20:31:00.000-07:00

Corn Nightmare
From Vermont we headed west, and you know what we saw?

CORN!! Mile after bloody mile of CORN!! From New York to Pennsylvania to Ohio to Indiana to Illinois to Iowa to South Dakota is a vast sea of corn. Throw in a few million hectares of soy beans and you have described the entire grain belt.

When you walk into a grocery store they often have you start in the produce section. This is a psychological ploy, since the mind interprets stacked fruits and vegetables as bounty. The mind becomes confused by all the other aisles of cans and jars. Is this bounty?

It turns out that CORN (and increasingly soy) makes the modern grocery store possible as it is a part of nearly every box, can, and jar you find there. It feeds every animal, it is used as an ingredient in almost everything, even in drinks. And now, through our rigged political process we are being forced to put ethanol into our cars in order to benefit the corn industry, a singularly stupid idea. (But just add it to the list of stupid things we are forced to do to make even more profits for big business.)

This explains why every possible square inch is now planted in corn, a dreary, dead landscape of unsightly monoculture far into the dim misty horizon. The last fourteen remaining trees in the midwest are shaking to their roots and trying to look invisible.

These signs are found all along the corn belt. They are evidence of a massive, parallel experiment going on in the arena of man-messing-with-nature. Resistance to the herbicide “Round Up” has been spliced into the corn genes so that when they spray Round Up on the corn field all but the corn will die. These signs tell the business men which of their franken-strains are performing better. Does this make you a little uncomfortable about consuming this sludge?

Family visit!
Janet's brother Duane lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, so we dropped in for a visit. Fortunately, Janet's mother and father had driven up too! It was a nice time.

Badlands
On the western end of South Dakota we stayed for a few days. First we did the Badlands. Isn't that a great name? The BADlands!

While Connor and I were hiking we came upon a solitary elk. He was way off in the distance, but he let us get surprisingly close before bounding away. Here is a moment just before he bolted.

Next post: more South Dakota cool stuff!

Vermont Summer Culture

2007-08-15T18:52:00.000-07:00

Bread and Puppets

One Sunday in Vermont we went to a Bread and Puppets performance, which is very hard to describe—it needs to be experienced! It is a circus of sorts, and reminded me of Cirque du Soleil without the gymnastics, but with the European mood, and outlandish costumery. B and P was started by an Austrian that everyone knows as “Peter”, who is supposedly 70ish but is as buff as a 20 year old. At the end of the performance, bread is served from a big, outdoor oven, hence the name (and the people line up in the most polite and civil fashion, taking only one piece of bread and moving on...it's the little things that say so much, you know?)

Some of Bread and Puppets is inexplicable. For instance, the event began with a giant set of ears roaming through the gathering crowd. But B and P is mostly social commentary in the form of wicked satire. Mocking the growing surveillance society, “security cameras” moved among the crowd, taking pictures of us to be shown at our torture sessions, of course. The B and P performance consisted mostly a series of vignettes that pointed out the criminality of our so-called leaders.

My children definitely noticed these figures , as if showing a penis crosses an extra special line of taboo. But what's the reason for that, anyway? I recall the big whooping deal made in Dallas over a group of children taken to the Dallas Museum of Art where they happened to see NAKED male statues! What kind of uptight culture would get so worked up over the human body?

The B and P experience is part of the larger culture here in Vermont of rebellion to authority. Coming from Texas—and a white collar oh-so-politically-correct-corporate-culture to boot—I was quite surprised to see such open contempt for government. But the best part is the reaction among the locals to all this. They just shrug and say “that's the North East Kingdom!”, as if there is no other way things could be. And you know what? There IS no other way things should be.

North East Kingdom Music Festival

My friend Hickory got me a job working as a volunteer at a local music festival, The North East Kingdom Music Festival. This is probably the largest summer festival in this part of Vermont and still everybody seems to know everybody else.

So many locals work the show—and so pay no admission—that the show is lucky to break even. The festival happens on “Bill's land” and so everybody driving up claims to know Bill and describes how far they go back together, but we were instructed to show no mercy on such claims. I worked parking, which didn't entail too much, so I helped them with clean up the day after.

And what an awesome festival! The stage was built by "The Old School Builders", and I wish I had more photographs of it since this one does it no justice. This wooden stage could hold a battleship, and the sound quality was marvelous. There were also performances on a small stage and these I enjoyed the most. What made them special was the audience reaction as some of the bands were well-known and the locals sang and danced and brought the bands to a higher level. Plus, blue grass is naturally pleasing to me as the style demands extreme proficiency of the players. There were times I became so lost in the performances I swear I had out of body experiences. This was so incredibly fun! I'll never forget it.

One of the really cool and interesting things about our journey is to watch how our children are blossoming into maturity. Both Connor and Alexis pursued their own interests at the festival. They befriended a vendor of crystals, named Shawn, who turned out to be pretty cool and soon they were helping him sell his wares (for a cut of the action, of course). They learned how to wrap a crystal in silver wire and have since worked on their own original pieces. The social interactions they place themselves in are absolutely priceless. At times Janet and I just had to stand back and watch. We are so proud of them.

The festival capped our stay in Vermont and we had such a fun time there. Thank you again Earthdancer and Hickory. We miss you, Vermont! Here is one of Alexis' cloud pictures.

Vermont! ...... VERMONT!

2007-08-14T05:35:00.000-07:00

I never thought much about Vermont, some back-woodsey place with lots of trees. Having now experienced Vermont, I know that it is one of the most special places in the country.

We stayed in Vermont's “Northeast Kingdom”, a province full of fiercely independent, rugged folk who despise authority and know the US government for the despot it is. (A common bumper sticker: US OUT OF VT!) We were invited to Vermont by Earthdancer of the Lettuce Bee Farm, who had seen our posting on Reachbook, and though it was farther northeast than we had planned to go, we decided to check it out.

We parked our trailer near their blueberry patch and lived there for about three weeks, carrying delicious water in buckets from a nearby spring.

With Earthdancer are Hickory and their little boy, Ari, and their farm is about 40 minutes from the capital of Montpelier. They are growing vegetables, blueberries, maple syrup, and flowers. They moved to the farm about a year ago and so are still learning how to cultivate in this unique climate. Janet and I mostly helped weed their blueberries, and Connor and Alexis played with Ari and helped with the chickens.

Vermont is a special place. The people are fit and strong. One does not see Walmarts or Targets and Montpelier has fought off having a MacDonald's built there. There are many more food co-ops here than any other part of the country. Prices are high, but this is deliberate as people are avoiding the race to the bottom that cheap prices bring. Instead of Home Depot one goes to the local hardware store and talks with the proprietor. Describing the problem to be solved and even haggling over the appropriate solution are part of the experience.

Community
One major thing we learned at the Lettuce Bee Farm is the importance of extended community, that is to be surrounded by good folk who each contribute something unique to the effort and who can be there when help is needed. Neighbors drop by all the time with goodies from their farms and barter is a preferred means of exchange. People in Vermont like their part of the world, they consider it special, and they will band together to protect it from any threat. This is worth a great deal, I think. If the just-in-time American food system stopped delivering how smart is it to be a permaculture oasis in a sea of hungry rednecks?

Culture
Another thing we learned is the importance of culture. The Northeast Kingdom comes alive in the warm months with festivals and performances. But these efforts are not lollapalooza box office; they are human scale, they are sensual, and they touch one's spirit and bring magic to life. Imagine being around a summer campfire when instruments appear and a spontaneous jam session erupts. This is the way in Vermont, where humans are still raw and unprocessed.

The buzz of summer
Of course, we haven't experienced the infamous Vermont winter. One measure of how tough it must be is to observe how frenetic creatures (including the humans) are during the summer. Warm months are spent feasting, gathering, preparing because when winter comes the time is over. Vermont mosquitoes raise the violence to a new level: whoever heard of mosquitoes biting through thick sweats!?

One positive about a long winter is that it provides an opportunity to pick up an instrument, or finally read The Brothers Karamazov, or learn to program. I spoke to one fellow, Nathan, who says he absolutely loves the winter and is counting the days until he can strap on his nordic skis.

Traffic
Vermont society is civil, even on the roads. Unlike big cities where anonymity gives rise to outrageous acts of incivility, Vermonters drive as if they might have to talk with you later, because they probably will! We really noticed this when we drove out of Vermont. As soon as we reached New York state, the behavior of other drivers had become openly hostile.

Bears!
One day we were walking into the woods when we saw this bear track. (Black bears are not uncommon in the Vermont forests.) It was right about then when Alexis and Janet heard in the bushes near us a couple of grunts from something that possessed a very large diaphragm. We decided to back out of there right away. Who knows? Black bears tend to shy away from humans, but if it's a mama with a cub she might get protective and kill us and feed our warm dead corpses to her baby. Or maybe just sniff us and walk away.

It's hard to describe the fear and electric awareness that one gets from encountering a big animal in the wild. Too bad such experiences have become so uncommon in our hyper-pasteurized society. This moose was standing far away in someone's field.

Ich bin ein Vermonter!
Though we have concerns about the winters and the short growing season, we really like Vermont. When we met Earthdancer and Hickory it was like saying hello again to old friends, and we learned a lot from them in a short time. We are certain we'll cross paths with them again.
There is much more to say about Vermont, so stay tuned.

The Grose's visit Green Trust

2007-08-10T03:25:00.001-07:00

Steve Spence, of Green Trust in upstate New York, was kind enough to allow us to drop in on short notice. We were attracted to the hands-on, technical nature of the Green Trust operation which specializes in alternative power.

We parked on their land and stayed for almost two weeks. Steve's house is off-grid, and uses mostly solar panels for power. They are getting a motor set up to generate supplemental electricity and which will run on vegetable oil, but presently they run a gasoline generator when their solar battery bank gets low. It was here that I decided to fit a solar panel on my trailer as its limitations for dry camping had become obvious. Let me explain.

"Dry camping" is the term for parking a trailer somewhere that has no electrical or water utilities. An RV is designed to run on its 12 volt battery by default, but only certain things work in 12 volt mode. Big appliances, like the air conditioner, simply don't work. When we pulled into Green Trust, nothing worked in 12 volt mode, and Steve helped us troubleshoot. First, we replaced the old coach battery with a marine battery. Then, two blown fuses later we had lights. For several days we had been trying to function inside with flashlights. What an uplifting psychological effect simple lights at night can make!

But there is no way to charge the coach battery other than by plugging the trailer into a 120 volt outlet, so one can't dry camp for long before the battery dies. Enter the solar panel, which should be standard on any RV, in my opinion. A solar panel keeps the battery charged anytime the sun hits the panel, including when one is driving down the road.

The solution I opted for was the simplest possible design, a solar panel, and a charge controller, hooked to the battery (plus the wire, some attaching hardware, and a used tube of sikaflex.) The whole setup cost $504. I actually waited until I got to Vermont to purchase this stuff as there is a local store one can walk into and talk to someone, a rare commodity as most solar panels are being purchased over the internet. I'll spare you the details of running the wiring through the inside of a tiny trailer which was a pain in the behind--the charge controller is inside a cabinet--but now it's done.

Woodhenge
One afternoon we drove down to a nearby community called "Woodhenge" and got a tour by a nice fellow named Phil. The main house at Woodhenge is heated by a blast furnace that heats a huge column of sand that runs through the center of the round, 2 story house. Feed the furnace in the morning to heat the sand, and coast on the residuals for the rest of the day. Here is a picture of the top of the house where the column and the roof meet. But the house stays cool in the summer too. When we walked in it felt like the place was air conditioned. Thanks for the tour, Phil.

Mennonite Neighbors
Green Trust is active in the local community and will advise local folk on alternative power in exchange for barter items, like a baby pig or two. One evening a couple of the local Mennonite farmers came by and gave me a tour of their diesel VW jetta which runs on vegetable oil. These Mennonite and Amish farmers are way ahead of most of us when it comes to living independently, as they've been doing it for centuries. Growing crops, animal husbandry, welding, mechanics, governance, they know it all.

I had a very interesting conversation with one of these fellows, Melvin, on religion. Turns out his family is former Mennonite as his father had developed doctrinal differences with the church. Specifically, this man thought growing and using tobacco was not Christian. Also, he felt the Bible teaches that to take Jesus into one's heart is the path to heaven and it bothered him at funerals when they would say "we hope Brother Jeb goes to heaven". The picture that emerges is that Melvin's father is a man of deep, thoughtful morality and a brave leader, but for his outspoken nature he was asked to leave the Mennonite church.

"Just as well", said Melvin. When I asked why, he said "Why should I have to wear a black coat and hat to church? Why should anyone tell me what to wear? Is it anyone's business what I wear?" And I agree with you on that, Brother Melvin. Sounds like you are cut from the same cloth as your father.

We cross the Canadian border
On Saturday, July 21 we went with the Spence family to Upper Canada Village, a 19th century town featuring traditional solutions to life's demands before electricity and gasoline. Here are Linda and Matthew in front of the old grain mill. What a fun trip that was.

Just for fun I've included a picture of this snake I caught one day. And here is a picture of Rascal, who constantly hung out by our trailer begging us to play catch.

Thanks for having us, Green Trust!

Niagara Falls!

2007-08-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

We headed from Amish country in Pennsylvania to New York state where we wanted to hook up with the Fellowship Community, (which later fell through). But since we were in the area we took some time out to go to Niagara Falls. And even though it has been milked for just about every commercial opportunity, it is still a fantastic place!

I can only imagine what a wild and sacred place this must have been when the water flowed naturally and before they placed a city around it. As I mentioned somewhere already, we learned they got tired of the erosion that always accompanies waterfalls and so now limit the amount of water flow to just enough to keep us rubes entertained without encouraging erosion.

We rode on the boats that go into Horseshoe Falls, known as the Maid of the Mist tour. See the boat in the picture that looks so miniscule and insignificant, buffeted about by nature's forces? This was my favorite activity. It's hard to describe the sensation of being in the midst of such swirling chaos, so just do it! (These are stock pictures as I forgot my digital camera.)

We also went down on the catwalks next to the Bridal Veil Falls, called the Cave of the Winds tour. Tourists are given rain gear and sandals for these tours and then heavily encouraged to give them back to give to the world's poor.

Later, at the campground where we stayed we were treated to a very nice, human-scale 4^th of July fireworks display. Though it was small, it was as entertaining as any fireworks performance I've been to, but the cool thing is afterwards they followed it up with a massive bonfire! I don't know what it is about huge fires, but humans love them.

Next post: Green-Trust!

A Visit to the Grand Freemasonic Lodge of Philadelphia

2007-07-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

This was definitely the high point of our day trip to Philadelphia. We read that the Grand Lodge gives tours, so we showed up, paid our fee, and were led about by the most tedious little man who looked quite a bit like the father on the original Addams family. More on him in a moment.

This lodge is heavily involved in the founding of the United States as most of the founding fathers were freemasons. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and probably Thomas J. performed secret rituals there.

Any time you have a chance to see inside a freemasonic temple you should take it, because even if you know nothing about freemasonry you will see some of the most beautiful imagery ever conceived by the mind of man. If you DO know something about freemasonry it becomes even more interesting to glimpse into this bizarre male religion and to watch your host dodge challenging questions.

A little about freemasonry...on the surface freemasonry is a men's club for socializing and charitable activities. Men are attracted to it for networking and to gain advantages by belonging to “the brotherhood”. Members are initiated up through levels or “degrees” by way of rituals, most members never rise higher than the third level, and most freemasons are just as clueless about their organization as any other doofus. Here is one of them undergoing the "hanged man" ritual, for one of the lower degrees.

The fact is, freemasonry derives from ancient roots, dating from at least as far back as the great Egyptian era, and to the high initiates it is a religion where as one rises through the levels one becomes more and more “illuminated”. As one of the most prominent secret societies, freemasonry plays an important role in world history, though the official story maintains this as pure crap. But one can find evidence of freemasonic activity nearly everywhere something important is happening.

Freemasonic symbols are embedded in the layout of the world's great cities. Important and symbolic edifices like the Pentagon are given a freemasonic ceremony at their ground breaking. The Pentagagon's ground breaking ceremony occurred on September 11...ahem...uh...anyway...Look at a dollar bill and you will find freemasonic symbols all over it. A nation's currency is not designed based on someone's whim and fancy—only the most credulous would believe this—everything on it conveys a message and on the dollar bill one can see almost thirty masonic symbols, the most famous being the all-seeing eye of Horus at the top of a pyramid of thirteen steps surrounded by desolation. Yes, there is a deep story to behind all this...

The Philadelphia lodge is huge, three stories at least, and we were led through six grand halls, each of which had a cultural theme. There was the medieval hall, the Celtic hall, the Greek hall, the Egyptian hall, and I can't remember the others. The geometry of each room was the same with thrones on each end, an altar (the “block”) in the center, and pews on the sides. Many of our common expressions derive from freemasonry, such as “he's a chip off the old block”, or “he's been around the block”, which means he is an initiate of freemasonry and has begun rising through the levels. Maybe he'll give you “a word from the wise”.

Everywhere we looked were symbols with rich historic significance. For example, here's an image of the cross and the crown, a motif that appears a lot on the articles worn by Her F—ing Majesty the Queen. Here hidden in plain sight we see a pairing of two institutions that have been used down through history to oppress people: the caste system of royalty (kings, queens, barons, lords, dukes, and such) and religion, Marx's so-called opiate of the masses.

The purpose of giving tours to the uninitiated (or “profane” as they like to call us) appears to be to disseminate disinfo and to mock us, which is awkward since the only people interested in touring a freemasonic temple are those who know a thing or two about it. Every question put to our host was responded to with the most inane babble, but with a perfectly straight face. For instance, I asked him how many degrees were in freemasonry, and he rapidly responded “three!”. Well, even mainstream newspapers will describe someone as a 32^nd or even 33^rd degree freemason, and yet this bozo tells us there are only three levels. A courageous young girl asked him why there were so many freemasonic symbols on our currency and he didn't even answer her question. Instead he gave an obvious dodge: “Oh, is that what you are studying on the internet?”, and moved on. What a creepy man! Even our children were becoming frustrated with him.

Our visit was an interesting experience and I highly encourage you to study freemasonry, learn to understand the symbology which surrounds you, and visit a freemasonic temple!

Education From the Road

2007-07-26T08:24:00.000-07:00

The other day I was thinking what a great learning experience this has been so far for Connor and Alexis (and us!). Here are a few highlights...

My Uncle Joe and Aunt Beverly were nice enough to host us in Washington, D.C. which gave us the opportunity to go to some of the attractions there.

The Smithsonian
Forget seeing all of the Smithsonian in a day, but we took in a lot in. Here we are standing in front of a statue in the Japanese Art Museum.

Did you know Connor is fascinated with banzai?

My favorite is the Museum of Modern Art. You're not supposed to take pictures, but I couldn't resist this one. This was from a newspaper story on a war in Albania. Check out that badass guard with his finger is on the trigger itching to dust somebody. Someone needs to tell him this is not appropriate gun safety. Go ahead, make his day!

Civil War Battlegrounds
We went to Bull Run. The civil war, by the way, was NOT about ending slavery; it was about a federal government telling states what they can or can't do. Abraham Lincoln said this: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it..."

(The more I learn how bankrupt official history is, I'm pretty sure the Civil War was a contrivance of secret societies and European banking powers, but that's a story for another day.)

Mount Vernon
George Washington spent money like a drunken sailor! He was a military man who married a wealthy widow and spent her money like there was no tomorrow. Here are some of George's pigs.

Snapping Turtle
While we were driving near Washington D.C. we saw this turtle in the road. This thing was about as big as a football and our approaching it really pissed it off (well of course we poked things at its mouth, silly!) At one point we attempted to touch its tail and this creature spun around in a flash and almost had a finger meal. Who said turtles are slow?

Apparently, during the spring the females walk around on the land looking for a nesting spot and during this time they are particularly aggressive. Sorry for the weird color in this photo; I was still learning when not to use the flash.

Philadelphia
While in Amish country, we took a day trip to “Philly”. What a strange day that was! Because we have been in mostly rural places we had forgotten how truly scary and mean big cities can be. It was upsetting, actually. Tours of Independence Hall were all booked up, but we saw the Liberty Bell!

Freemasonry
A major highlight of the “philly” trip was our visit to the Grand Freemasonic Lodge of Philadelphia. If you ever get a chance to see the inside of a Masonic Lodge, take it! You will be confronted with a rich and beautiful symbolic language that few of us can interpret. “Mommy, why does that statue have a man's face, an Egyptian hat, a woman's boobs, and a lion's body?” Good question, sweet child o' mine. There's a big answer to that question which we'll go into later.

Cherry Picking
Somehow, in the process of buying a pint of cherries in New York state, we found ourselves in a cherry orchard filling up buckets of fat, juicy cherries. We picked a little more than a pint though. We ended up with about fifty pounds of cherries that we stuffed our fat, little faces with. The children recouped most of the cost of the cherries by selling them in the RV park.

Niagara Falls
We detoured from our community-seeking quest to see Niagara Falls National Park. I don't have any digital pictures because I forgot my camera, which is just as well because we got soaked! But Janet had her analog camera and the pictures are probably the finest ever created. Too bad you can't see them.

Anyway, the Falls are simply fantastic. We learned that the volume of water is heavily regulated to be just enough to enthrall the profane masses and no more as this erosion business might disrupt the commerce in the area. Is there no end to mankind's folly?

Upper Canada Village
While staying at Green Trust in upstate New York (more on that later) we went with our hosts to Upper Canada Village in Ontario. This is a 19^th century village preserved for our viewing pleasure. They have lots of buildings with water wheels that make possible all sorts of magic, like making wool, grinding grains, cutting wood, and so on. The ingenuity of these folks was impressive indeed.

There is no doubt we are all learning a lot of new things on this voyage!

Amish Country

2007-07-18T04:04:00.001-07:00

From Virginia we headed north to Pennsylvania because we wanted to go to a community in New York (with a little side trip to Niagara Falls!). We stayed one night on the lovely Shenandoah river.

We ended up in an RV park near Lancaster Pennsylvania, "Amish Country". It was a strange experience when an Amish horse and buggy pulled out in front of us on the highway, prompting me to slow way down. Even though I was driving I pulled my video cam out and filmed the buggy through the windshield. It was only when I got closer that I realized there were two children in the back, facing to the rear, watching my rude behavior. Oops, sorry little Amish children. I was just surprised, that's all.

In Lancaster we visited an Amish farmhouse to learn how they live. In that area are mostly "Old Order Amish" who tend to be more traditional and not as "progressive". They have rules such as they can't connect to the electric grid, so they tend to use propane lamps for light. But you'll see good Amish folk shopping at WalMart or thrift stores like anybody else. I even have a video of an Amish girl in her dress and bonnet roller-blading expertly down the street.

At the farmhouse, the children enjoyed seeing all the farm animals. This cow never seemed to move even when Lexie tickled its udder. Imagine that!

The Amish are highly admirable in a lot of ways. They are hard workers and they keep their farms and homes in good shape. They came to the area to escape religious persecution in Europe, as the story goes. I suspect William Penn recruited them because he wanted to increase the economic value of his vast holdings and what better way to do it than turn loose a bunch of farming bots onto the landscape.

The Amish are farmers galore, master cultivators. If you believe that in dim history there was a conflict between the traditional hunter-gatherers and the cultivators and that the cultivators won, the Amish give you a clue as to why. They are tireless farmers and they apparently make a good living at it.

My fault with them is they are using pesticides and chemical fertilizers and their methods are traditonal monoculture grain farming. (There was nothing but corn as far as the eye could see.) Many might look at this landscape and call it "pastoral" or some other artsy fartsy word, but I saw a devastated lunar landscape where every wild thing had been destroyed, and all of this destruction deriving from the bizarre christian philosophy that the earth is put here for man to have "dominion" over.

Acorn

2007-07-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

Acorn was the first community we lived in for an extended period of time. These good people let us park our trailer on their land and live and work with them. We learned a lot about tending to crops, things like how to plant corn, how to harvest onions and garlic, how to kill squash plants!

In fact, we learned that leaving a new person unsupervised around growing vegetables can be a dangerous thing. I killed the squash plant when I pulled it right out by the roots when weeding. I also stepped on a few bean plants because I couldn't tell them from weeds.

Overall, though, it seemed we were more help than hinder and we appreciate the Acorn family for their generosity and patience. Lunch and dinner were communal and we ate vegetables fresh from the garden! The water came straight from a well and tasted delicious. (We have been spending a lot of money buying bottled water on this trip and clean, pure water has become a must-have item for us wherever we land).

Acorn is an "egalitarian" community in that the income from their (successful) seed exchange business is distributed to all in the community equally. Most forms of contribution, even watching the village children, counts.

Here is Edmond, the farm manager, photographing a choice lettuce for the seed catalog.

Acorn is right next to another, very big and well-known community called "Twin Oaks". We went to Twin Oaks often, one night for dancing. This band of players was great.

We met wonderful people at Acorn and entertain the idea of helping them with their Fall harvest, the time when seed preparation and storage are in full swing. A seed business is a very good one for a community and Acorn should do very well. We were all sad to go, but felt we needed to keep moving as there is much more to see and do. Thanks, Acorn!

After we left Acorn we went to the Atlantic and hung out on the beach for a couple of days.

Then on to Amish country!

Earth Haven

2007-07-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

The first community we visited was Earth Haven in North Carolina. This was a day tour, so it's not like we lived there. Earth Haven has been around for a while and over the years people have tried many different ways to build their houses, many of which didn't work very well.

For example, this house on the left sways in the wind so they've buttressed it with long poles. But many of the structures at Earth Haven are rustic and charming, like this building on the right.

As people get smarter about how to build their own homes they are producing some pretty impressive structures. On the left is a timber-frame home where the walls are being made of cob, a mixture of sand, clay, and straw. A picture being worth a thousand words, here is a little model someone made of this home. Pretty cool, eh? I think I could live in a place like this!

I was disappointed that Earth Haven produces less than 5% of their own food! Wassupwidat? It turns out they make nearly all their money by charging new members steep joining fees and they they are not financially self-sufficient. This is a situation we've chosen to watch from a distance.

When we were visiting Earth Haven we learned that my grandmother died, so we headed up to Virginia to attend her memorial. We stayed for two wonderful weeks with my Aunt Bev and Uncle Joe in Washington DC. Thanks Bev and Joe!

Next up, Acorn!

The Grose's Hit the Road!

2007-07-13T04:12:00.000-07:00

The Beginning

In April of 2007 I left suburbia and took my family on a journey to find community.

What stuff we couldn't give away or sell we put in storage and we began traveling to the many tiny communities scattered across the landscape. I am referring to what are called "ecovillages" or "intentional communities".

Why would I do such a thing? TO START LIVING AN AUTHENTIC LIFE, that's why.

When you look with fresh eyes at the American lifestyle it's pathologies become obvious.

Everyone is sick. We all know someone who has cancer, even little children are getting it. Autoimmune diseases, diabetes, and so on...are epidemic. Did you know the male sperm count is only 25% what it used to be a few decades ago? Something is very wrong here.
We have all been taught to worship money but a tiny group of elites (The Fed) decide among themselves how much less it will be worth today.
Our lives are spent constantly scurrying to keep up with an endless stream of obligations that leave us lonely and devoid of spirituality and love for nature.
We've lost the time and interest for creative play with each other (but we sure know who's winning American Idol!)
We put our children in "day care" and into goverment schools where they are indoctrinated and drugged into obedience to authority.
We put our elders in "a home" where they are drugged, their savings are drained, and they waste away.
We are milked like cows by a system DESIGNED to screw us, but we don't notice and we even defend it.
Our so-called leaders do terror ops on us (9-11) and then demand our children to fight wars against the people they say did it, and we always fall for it! (Gulf of Tonkin, Pearl Harbor...what next?)
Things are different this time though, as 9-11 signaled a change in The Plan. The police state has taken its gloves off (Patriot Acts, Military Commissions Act) and it looks like things are going to get ugly.

So what do we do about this? We can write letters to our congressman, we can vote, we can go out on the street and protest, but all of the solutions the system encourages are designed to be ineffective.

I think a good solution is to simply stop doing what we've been trained to do and do something magical instead: WITHDRAW from the system and start working with others to create a LOCAL situation that is healthy, nurturing, and independent.

And that is what WE are doing. We hope to find a community that is mutually acceptable to us--or form one--and then take up permanent residence there.

Our Trailer

Here is our new home, a 23 ft travel trailer. We had to learn a lot about load-leveling hitches and sway bars because my tough-guy jeep is really kind of a wuss. But we've learned to take our time and have gotten used to living in such a tiny space.

We'll keep you updated here on our progress.

Eric and Janet, Connor, and Alexis.