Blogs: Never has so little been said with so many words by so many people.
My aim in writing this blog (in general) is to give insight into my and my family's life, our thoughts, and the changes therein. My hope is that I don't bore you to death with mindless details that only the most wealthy of people can relate to (or actually want to?). While we may not be wealthy by any stretch of the imagination compared to a good many of our peers, we are still well above the majority of the world. I understand that this could be largely subjective, so feel free to skip ahead if at any point you begin wondering what's for dinner or when you last changed your underwear.
Our plans for life failed; to some extent anyhow. (Flashback: We wanted to start a farm in Thailand. To do so, we needed money. To get money we were going to teach English in S. Korea, where, supposedly, gratuitous amounts of it are easily within reach for the ready and willing. To learn to farm, we went to Hawai'i to learn about said endeavor in a tropical environment. This first step, had a large kink thrown into it, which we later named "Ada," (Julie says this is largely my fault, though I'm still not too sure that a woman gets pregnant when the man does the taxes; that just doesn't make any sense).
Do not be fooled by her quick wit and charms. She will completely change your life in ways you never dreamed imaginable. Mostly because you won't be dreaming very much. Or doing much of anything except trying to remember what life was like before her.
Running out of money quickly, we decided on Duluth, MN, where some good friends were also with child. (Yes, I know that was an insane decision, thanks.) We regrouped, assessed our sitch, and decided some cheap land in the good ol' US of A would be a more viable option. West coast looked enticing, but from everything we saw, acres were pretty expensive. Other states that were desirable for farming and awesomeness faired about the same. However, Maine kept coming under the radar for one reason or another. Mostly because of cheap land and the fact that Julie's brother-in-law, Matt (a respectable and talented massage therapist who dabbles in music and being totally sweet) is from Boston and has a good variety of family, friends, and connections to the Irish mafia.
We began making plans. Big plans. Dodge Ram 2500 diesel extra cab long bed w/ a topper plans, thanks to Amtrak (for those of you that are unfamiliar with our relationship with the transportation entity, we were in a train wreck on November 30th, 2007 in Chicago; engine engine number 9, riding the Chicago line, if I get into a wreck, do I get a brand new truck?).
= Big Money!!! Ha ha! No, not really. Actually, just enough for a 12 y.o. truck with 250K miles on it, pay off all of Julie's c-section and other various birthing and medical bills, and enough to get us to Maine and live for a month or so. That, and a nice stimulus check will help us to convert the truck to run on veggie oil and put Julie in holistic school (there's a very good 2 year accredited on-line school we're sniffing).
So, here we are. The drive was pretty uneventful. It cost about $30 in toll fees. The truck currently gets about 15-17 mpg. It has some rust and other work I need to do on it. But after watching Chris Harkness tear apart his 89' Toyota pick-up and replace the head gasket, without ever having attempted such an endeavor before, I'm pretty inspired to d.i.y.(m.) on just about anything now.
Duluth wasn't terrible. Towards the end, I realized that we really had no business living there. We hate the cold (as in -20 often), we have no family there (and though we made some good friends, that wasn't really enough of a reason to stay), we didn't really feel like we fit in with the culture very well, we don't like winter sports terribly, the rock climbing was very limited (though I helped make a dent with some locals in establishing a new bouldering
area ), and our overall experience was much different that what we had expected. I suppose most things are in the end. Land was cheap there, but the growing season is very short.
I guess I should address the whole farming thing. Seriously? Like moving to Iowa and growing corn? Big tractors, grain silos, and miles of blank flat land? Well, no. Not at all in fact. Our desire for said endeavor stemmed from a mild interest in the food we were eating and a few random ailments that had been bothering Julie. One book lead to another, our eyes were slowly pried open, and before we realized it, we were switching all our food to organic and learning the great importance of raising food right. What this means exactly, is obviously subject to much debate. Amidst cries of "You can't feed the world like that!" and "What kind of tomato doesn't matter!" we have come to firmly believe that this world is involved in a serious food crisis that only a minority of people see in our society. Sickness, disease, and pharmaceutical companies are at all time highs in this country. Diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer's, heart disease, cancer, and a whole slew of other new and old ailments are prevalent in our society. Yet our science, technology, and drug research are more advanced than humankind has ever known. Why can't we cure anything? Why are people still getting sick? Why is cancer expected at the end of life? After doing research on Weston A. Price's nutritional treatise,
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, and reading a whole slew of other books and documentaries, (
Omnivore's Dilemma,
King Corn, Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About, Nourishing Traditions, Fatal Harvest, Wild Fermentation, Permaculture: A Designer's Guide, etc) we have been thoroughly subjected to enough facts to desire drastic change in our lives. For instance, we believe that conventional farming, should it continue, will eventually lead to the downfall of our society. Among other reasons, this will happen through the depletion of the soil which will lead to the continued lack of vital nutrients in our food (hence all the disease (that and the ubiquitous sedentary lifestyle)) as well as creating deserts out of once farmable land. I predict a revolution of some kind when people can no longer afford anything other than highly processed food where the majority is comprised of some form of corn (oh wait, that's already happened). That or everyone will be so sick that the only people left alive, and are well enough to function in a normal manner, will be those who eat a traditional diet and regularly exercise. A hamburger should
not cost 1$. It just shouldn't. And a farmer should be able to make a real living from the things he/she grows, not just scrape by on small government subsidies. There is enough info on that for a separate blog, therefore, I digress. For the mean time, if you want to learn more about what kind of farming we'll be doing, look up "permaculuture."
So we're in Portland. It's a lot warmer than Duluth. People here are amazing. The climbing is amazing. The city is amazing. Our house is incredible; a colonial style with 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, a sweet porch, full basement, in the heart of South Portland, and a mere 10 minute bike ride from downtown. Living here just seems right for some reason. Everything has fit into place in coming, and things only seem to look up for us. Which is good. Really good. The only downside is that I need a job. Quick. And it has to pay well, cause the Whole Foods here is ridiculously overpriced (or maybe I'm used to paying less than I should for food?). At any rate, eating healthily is expensive. When Julie and I both worked in Denver, we spent roughly $500-600 a month on food. I suspect our bills here will be greater than that. I know we can garden a bit, and grow food inside our house, but our future farm is really more the venue for becoming independent in that sense.
So I need a job. I'm a bit terrified of going back to work in an office. The thought of sitting in front of a screen doing work for a corporate giant makes me shutter. I know I can write. I just don't know how to get paid for it. I think one has to write a lot. And I don't. Except for emails, which I'm really good at. But I don't think you can really get paid for those. Also, I don't have enough time to just "write." You know, like short stories, long stories, articles, and the like. Mostly because I'm too busy working another job or looking for another job. What I really want to do for a career is work with wind and solar power in some capacity.
On to less boring topics: Ada. She's pretty rad. Today, while I was holding her and cooking, I pointed at the pan and said, "Hot." She repeated it perfectly. I pointed at the Tabasco Sauce and repeated the word, as did she. She did it a third time when I pointed to the steam coming from a pot. Astounding. To me anyway. Later, Julie got her to say, "Up," which she has been doing repeatedly (though not without some minor coaxing). She has also crawled up the stairs at least 10 times now, without falling (don't worry, I spot her), and today, we believe she had her first real food craving, as she began picking at and devouring aunt Sarah's potatoes in her Amy's Southwestern soup. About 20 people commented on how "cute" she was today in the supermarket. I think we might have to see about getting her an agent...
--Chris
fermenter. Another week or 2, and then we'll bottle it, mixing it with local organic maple syrup as a bottling sugar. When I found out that Budweiser uses rice as their grain, I was thoroughly disgusted. The bastardization of fine arts in this country has no end. The greed of it all makes me sad. I bet back in the day Bud was a good beer, and that Mr. Weiser was a good dude who loved making beer and not vast amounts of money. Then the corporatocracy took over somewhere in there. Blah. Anyway, the brew shop in Portland is pretty cool. The guy helped us modify our recipe to accommodate our brewing tools as well as selling us the closest thing he had for hops and Irish moss to what we needed. We're going to call it Ahorn Marzen (Ahorn being German for Maple). I'm excited for this beer, since it's the first one I've brewed where we came up with the recipe on our own. It will essentially be our own beer, and not some kit that random dude at beer company threw together for noobs to brewing. Equally satisfying as the truck and climbing.
