Sometimes It's Cold

It's cold.

It's freakishly cold, and what is worse are the people who keep saying "It's cold!" as though this is something that they can't fathom happening in February in Iowa.

"No kidding?" I say as I go out for a run, or clean a barn in the sub zero weather. "Well, we had better get used to it.  And while we are getting used to the cold, we better be good with draughts, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and tsunamis as well."

I think my patience for people is running very thin right now.  I have moments when I can see how people completely snap and feel the need to cause a scene, if only to have their message finally get out there.  Individually, most people seem to get it, but collectively we are a bunch of dunces when it comes to figuring out how to make a change.

An example that pops into my head this morning came from a client of mine.  He and his wife run a small business in our local town and are two very wonderful people, kind, and well versed in supporting the community. Myself, being the veterinarian for their pets, gave them a recommendation for a medication that can drastically help their pet and the offer to have that medication filled immediately at my office, they opt instead to go shopping on-line.  Now don't get me wrong, I understand the desire to save a few bucks as much as the next guy, but here's the thing….when faced with small business owners struggling to make ends meet (which, you will remember, these clients are as well) or big box stores that undercut us in costs and monopolize all the product so that we end up having it back ordered for months at a time….which one is likely going to help the local economy more?  Seems pretty simple right? You go with the small business owner.  But time and time again, people know what needs to be done on a larger scale, but when it boils down to the individual they think, 'I'm sure there are others buying locally so if I save a few dollars, it won't be a problem'.

It's a problem.
It's a big problem and it is only getting bigger.

Every dollar spent is a vote for how we want the world to be….every dollar.

The increase in farmer's markets, healthy food, and small cooperative grocery stores has been a bright spot, but the blow back from the large food companies has been huge - the advertising and marketing campaigns alone have been enough to boggle the minds of the average consumer to the point of throwing up their hands and saying, "Oh, what the heck! I don't know what to eat anymore so I will just go get a McRib and a shamrock shake!" …..game, set, and match for big agriculture right there and quietly another organic farmer goes bankrupt.  People vote with their forks three times every day, and every meal counts….every meal.

Is it that people understand it, but just don't think it applies to them?  Or are they so easily confused and mesmerized by fancy advertising? Or maybe they are just too tired from working their three part time jobs to make ends meet that they just don't have the time to do the necessary research to understand the issues.

I spent the evening last night watching Brooklyn Castle with my kids.  A documentary about kids in a 'below the poverty line' school learning chess and winning national championships.  Sounds crazy, but it was impressive and such a fantastic way to keep these kids engaged and learning in all of their subjects.  But like so many schools these days, their funding is being cut. Why? Where does this funding go? ….to pay off wars?, to cover for the many bad decisions of bankers?  Cutting educational funding is the most ridiculous thing a country could possibly do. It is like having the makings of a star athlete and then cutting off his legs.  Children are the investment in all of our futures, and we can't stand idly by with our hands in our pockets and say, "but I don't want to pay taxes anymore! We need a tax break!" What we need is an equitable tax that helps support education to its fullest degree. And please don't hit me up with the "charter and private school" theory or we are right back to the top paragraph with the "big box stores/ controlled by corporations" discussion because eventually, that is where a lot of those schools end up - funding coming from large corporations or sponsors that can foot the bill and control what the kids ultimately end up learning.  Public school - as in sponsored by all of us, for the education of all our children is still the best and most broad base start we can give them.  Every kid will one day have a say in how this country runs…..every kid.

Okay, so my little rant is over, call it cabin fever, call it my pressure valve so I don't go out and completely loose it with the population at large.

When it comes to this weather, we get what we asked for, in my opinion.  I know I can send off any number of letters to Congress and the President, I can shut off any unnecessary lights in my house, I can contact the utility company and opt to pay more for the renewable energy, but until
every single person stands up and says, "No more coal and oil! No more fossil fuels! Renewable energy only!" - until that point, there will be enough muddying of the water by the coal/oil/gas industries to keep people confused and questioning, there will continue to be lobbyist money that gets passed across (or under) the table to our "elected leaders" and there will continue to be environmental changes that we are not equipped to handle.  Who knows, before long maybe Hell really will freeze over.

Until then….bundle up and stop complaining.

When it rains.....

I have reached a point in the summer.  That point where it is too hot, too dry, too busy, too much sun, too many crops to keep up with - in short, I have hit the summer wall.  It is a point that I personally think of as the "freeze point,"  or that frame of mind that I find myself in when I think, 'if it were to all just freeze now, I would be okay with that!'  This year is especially bad, however and my best efforts to ride out this pessimism are not working out so well.

I need a good thunderstorm to break up the tension a little and water my gardens, ...but it doesn't and then I get upset with the weather (generally an exercise in futility if there ever was one), and then I get mad at people because we are at (or past - depending upon my level of fatalism on a particular day) the tipping point of climate change and it will all only be a slow, hot, depressing decline from this point on with all the media outlets and government officials talking about it, but people in general essentially doing nothing about it.

I tend to become especially cynical when hot and frustrated.

I thought of making a quick list of all the problems at the top of my mind regarding the climate and farming, but quickly realized that the list was entirely too long and really didn't help improve my outlook much, but then I thought of my grandparents.  Farmers, the lot of them.  They lived through the dust bowl, the depression, WWII, and all of the fear mongering that followed with the Cold War.  If ever there was a case of "when it rains, it pours" problems piling up, this era would have been it.  I find myself wondering sometimes if they ever thought the end of the world was coming, and if so, how did they continue to get up every morning and affect some change?  Maybe the world was just different back then.  Maybe not knowing all the world news and hearing of all the horrors that are happening in far off regions made it easier to ride out your own problems.  Maybe not having access to as many people (many both more educated and significantly less educated than you yourself are) was beneficial to focusing on the present local problems.  I find that I have almost completely given up listening to the news and I have to stop myself from reading the asinine comments on the news articles that I do read - as filled with hate and fear as they are.

 I fully understand that this sense of dread about the environment and the food we produce and eat doesn't permeate very deeply into the populace at large, but there is a sense amongst many of us on this "survivalist bandwagon" that the doors of opportunities that my grandparents and parents had opening in front of them are slowly closing for us.  It is very sad to see some of the predictions of environmental disaster that were pooh-poohed by so many slowly coming true. It is like being told the Titanic was too big to sink....and yet she sits on the bottom of the Atlantic floor.

But what, exactly is one person to do? This is the most troubling question.  How is one person to make a difference that turns the world around from this horribly destructive course?  How does a person look her kids in the face and say, "Sorry guys, good luck!" How, then, do I wake up every morning and hope to affect any change?

I have to believe that small steps, repeated millions of times by people all over the world, together can change the way our governments work, our food is produced, our people are fed and our children educated.  The alternative, which has mainly been big business monopolies running the corporate food network (and the government), is simply not working - it is bankrupting our land and the people who live on it.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again hoping to get a different result.  It isn't working.  It is time to change.  Horton hears the Who, but until every last shirker, every last JoJo, is yowling and yapping, chances are we will not be heard.

Yap!