Monthly Archive for October, 2007

Reverse culture shock

Published
by
Brian
on October 30, 2007
in Culture, Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage and Life
. 1 Comment

In five short days, I will be leaving Dancing Rabbit to head back to my hometown in northern New Jersey for two whole months. It’s been six and a half months since I originally arrived at Dancing Rabbit, and I haven’t traveled much further than 35 or 45 miles outside this corner of northeastern Missouri since April. The overwhelming majority of my time here has been spent within the village itself.

I’ve grown quite accustomed to the culture here at Dancing Rabbit, and I take for granted what most first-time visitors are surprised by and unfamiliar with about life here. It didn’t take very long to get comfortable and settle in, and it’s easy to forget that this micro-culture does not exist outside of Dancing Rabbit. Lots of the things I now am used to doing (or not doing, for that matter) might not continue once I leave here.

I am expecting something of a culture shock when I re-enter the “outside world” (a.k.a, the mainstream, or whatever else you want to label it). There are some things I trying to prepare for, and there are others that I will have to wait to experience. Food, for example, is one thing that I have been dwelling on. Living at Dancing Rabbit, the majority of the food (especially produce) I eat is locally grown, and pretty much 99% of everything is organic. I’m simply not going to be able to eat the same types of foods when I get back to NJ, and it’s one of the things I will miss most. I am trying to prepare for it by taking some Sandhill sorghum and dried (organic) soybeans (to make tofu and other goodies) back with me. Of course I will have to resort to buying things like produce from the supermarket.

There’s a lot of things I absolutely have not missed that I will be faced with, too. Driving, television, advertisements, etc. I’ve been in a vehicle maybe half a dozen times since April, and not once have I myself driven anywhere. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to get anything done without a car in the suburbs. I’m going to bike as much as I can, as I did last summer, but there will most certainly be times when I must drive to visit friends or do other things. Television, billboards, and ad-pollution are aspects of everyday life that I’ve loved living without, but avoiding stuff like that anywhere else is nigh impossible.

It’s going to be an interesting trip.

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The hen of the woods

Published
by
Brian
on October 28, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Food and Life
. 0 Comments

Yesterday, I was shooting video with a fellow who lives here at DR, Thomas. It was for a new Dancing Rabbit TV video that I am working on, and we were walking through a particular section of the woods as I had the camera rolling. Thomas started to tell a story about how he had found this great big mushroom at the base of an oak tree in this same location a few years ago, and then as he looked down, there was yet another sitting there — a gigantic maitake mushroom, or hen of the woods.

We gasped in amazement at the sight of it. There it was, nestled near that oak tree, a huge, probably four pound maitake beast. We scooped it up and made our way back to the village, anxious to cut into the fleshy polypore. Thomas carefully pulled it apart in preparation for cooking it, filling an entire large wok with bits of the mushroom.

Then we let it cook for a good while with some garlic, oil, and soy sauce in a gigantic cast iron pan. Afterwards, we partook in the feast that was this mushroom. Lots of people came for a sample and delighted in the flavor of the maitake. It has a very unique texture, almost rubbery and slippery, like chicken meat. The flavor is prominent and earthy. What a treat!

Dancing Rabbit ecospot

Published
by
Brian
on October 26, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage, Environment, Sustainability and Video
. 0 Comments

About a month or two ago, I produced this short video to enter in Current TV’s so-called “Ecospot” contest. Although it didn’t make the cut as a semi-finalist, I can at least now put it on DRTV to share. Just for some background info, the theme of the Ecospot contest was global warming, and contestants had up to 60 seconds to create a video centered around inspiring solutions to the climate crisis. I haven’t been overly impressed with some of the contest finalists, especially ones like “This is not a test” (which probably took an hour to make), or “Change the way you think” (which doesn’t even follow the theme of the contest!). Oh well. I’m not that disappointed, though. I’ve no need for a hybrid SUV (which is a pretty ridiculous top prize for a eco-themed contest, anyway… sheesh!).

Tempeh and natto

Published
by
Brian
on October 25, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Food and Life
. 0 Comments

On Tuesday, Amy and I made some delicious fermented goodies. We had ordered some tempeh starters, and I got myself a natto culture from GEM Cultures, and we set about soaking soybeans the night before for the great fermentation experiment.
Tempeh is a pretty popular type of fermented soybean product that originated in Indonesia some time ago. It’s easy to find at places like Whole Foods, and it’s both versatile and tasty. It’s something of a meat substitute with its protein power, plus it has other valuable nutrients. The actual tempeh is something of a brick or cake of cracked soybeans inoculated with a Rhizopus bacteria culture. After boiling the soybeans, you simply stir in the starter, and then pack either a glass or stainless steel baking sheet (or plastic bags) with the beans. After sitting for a full day at 85 degrees, you have tempeh ready to be cooked and eaten. Here’s what our final product looked like:

tempeh-01.jpg  tempeh-02.jpg

As you can see, it’s pretty heavy on the mold, but it’s totally fine to eat! Mmm… mold… Don’t be put off by its appearances. (Tempeh that ferments in sealed plastic bags doesn’t develop a moldy upper crust like that…)

The natto was my own baby experiment. Thomas and I had attempted to make it a few weeks ago, but we were unsuccessful. This time, I kept a closer eye on the temperature and made some finer adjustments, and the starter was successful.

Now, how to describe natto… Every culture seems to have its own rather, well, unique (or disgusting?) food product unlike anything else from the outside. Natto is Japan’s version of that all star national food. It’s a type of fermented soybean inoculated with bacillus natto, resulting in a rather slimy, wispy soybean that smells something like ammonia. Most people are turned off by it. It’s an acquired taste, to say the least. I myself get a kick out of the sheer individuality (moreso than the taste, maybe) of the natto, with its incredible strings and wisps. When you pick up the natto off a plate, the beans leave long trails of something that looks like spider webs that get stuck to your fork and chin. We have taken to calling it “snotto” around the food co-op due to its appearance and taste. Anyway, it’s a pretty wild food, and nothing short of unique (or revolting, some might say). Here’s what it looks like:

natto01.jpg  natto02.jpg

I actually think the natto could have done with even more wisps and stringiness, but there’s always next time to improve my technique and method…

Fermenting is fun!

Fall activities

Published
by
Brian
on October 13, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage and Life
. 0 Comments

This past week has been pretty busy, and it’s finally starting to feel like fall, too. Last weekend, we were experiencing unusual temperatures in the 90s, but this week brought in some much more normal fall-like weather.

With the onset of cooler temperatures, it’s time for chopping and stacking wood here at Dancing Rabbit. We get a lot of our wood for heat in the form of scrap oak wood from a local lumberyard. The scraps come in huge bundles, and all the wood is very thin and very long. The grain bin, where I live, has a small woodstove that’s about eighteen inches in length, so all wood needs to be appropriately sized and cut to fit.

Unfortunately, the scrap wood we get is not very easy to process. Since it’s oak, it’s very hard, and it’s sheer length requires that it be cut into three pieces. It’s not very thick, either, so the quickest way to cut it is to stack it on a wood horse and cut many pieces at a time. This, unfortunately, requires a chainsaw, something I’m not that excited about. Not only because they’re loud and smelly and dangerous, but they obviously require gas to run, too. Ideally, I would prefer to be able to cut the wood with a saw or axe, but in the interest of time and energy… I went for the chainsaw. Hopefully I’ll find a better solution sometime in the future.

Anyway, cutting wood took up a large chunk of time this week. I also spent some time helping Dan to insulate a (unfinished) house he recently bought from someone at Red Earth Farms. (The house will be moved to Dancing Rabbit sometimes soon.) We are insulating the house using “light clay straw”, which is essentially straw lightly coated in a thin clay slip. The technique involves hammering a board to the 2″x4″ structural members of the wall, and then shoving handfuls of straw into the space between the board and the wall. After removing the board, the packed straw holds its shape and is allowed time to dry. Later, the straw gets plastered using an earthen plaster. It’s been a fun experience so far.

Other than that, I’ve been thinking about everything I want to accomplish in time before I go home in November. I just received a bunch of ferment-y cultures in the mail, and I want to be able to use some of them before I leave. I got some fresh kefir grains, a natto culture, and light rice koji.

I also have at least one video that I want to complete for DRTV, and another that I want to start shooting.

Suddenly, I feel really busy!

The Long Emergency

Published
by
Brian
on October 3, 2007
in Books, Civilization, Culture and Sustainability
. 1 Comment

So, I just (finally) finished The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. Let me start this off by saying that I have a big interest in reading about civilization and ecology and politics and industrialization and sustainability (and other related, converging topics). Much of the non-fiction that I read falls into a category focusing on the rise (and future fall?) of our now-globalized, industrialized civilization. Authors like Daniel Quinn, Thom Hartmann, and Derrick Jensen all fall into this genre of writing.

So. Onto the book. The Long Emergency deals with the issue of peak oil and the global energy crisis, especially the not-too-distant energy problems the US will soon encounter. As you may or may not know (or may or may not fully accept), the US (and the rest of industrialized civilization) is totally dependent on cheap energy, especially in the form of oil (and its byproducts). Again, as you may or may not know, oil is a finite, nonrenewable resource. That means the end to supplies is coming at some point. As Kunstler (and many other authors, scientists, etc.) claims, the end of cheap oil is near.

There’s this little theory called peak oil that claims that oil production increases until it reaches a maximum plateau (or peak), after which production will terminally decline, never to increase again. Now, this oil peak poses many problems. Once production decreases, supplies decrease, and prices skyrocket. Can you imagine paying $5, $10, or $15 per gallon of gas? We may not be so far off.

Many scientists claim that we are at that peak, or are very quickly approaching it. (The global oil peak, that is; the US surpassed its peak back in 1972, for example). This poses serious problems for the world at large.

Everything we do depends on oil. Everything. It’s not just transportation, it’s manufacturing, food production, each and every facet of everyday modern life. Without oil, we cannot drive to the food store to pick up our groceries. Without oil, there would be no groceries shipped from across the globe to our store shelves. Without oil, industrial agriculture, with its dependence on petroleum-derived fertilizers and petro-powered farm machinery would cease to exist.

What about alternatives to oil? Unfortunately, there is no alternative source of energy that can replace the sheer power of oil. Many of the “alternatives” frequently touted in the media would never make it themselves without oil. Many alternatives require huge inputs of energy to produce, like ethanol, and even solar and wind power. (Just think: solar panel manufacturing requires the energy of oil.)

Without getting too far into this peak oil stuff (there’s plenty out there on the subject), I will just say that The Long Emergency does a fine job painting a very realistic picture of the US, post-oil. And Kunstler does a good job detailing how the US will deal with sudden energy starvation, and in particular, his in-depth look at how each region of the US will fare without cheap energy is especially enlightening. (The US southwest could never be inhabited without the energy of huge inputs of oil, for example.)

We are facing a bumpy future, and this book does a commendable job of detailing all of the different factors involved in how we came to be so dependent on oil, and how we might (or might not) make it without cheap energy in the days of peak oil and beyond.