Ice storm thoughts

[Crabapple Farm]

So the ice storm knocked the grid out here for close to four days, I imagine that there are some folks who won’t be rejoining us for a couple more days since they aren’t expected to get everything fixed until the end of the week at the earliest.
We did get a generator hooked up, as we have cattle, the horse, and sheep to pump water for and a year’s supply of lamb in the freezers to sell at farmer’s market all next summer (and while it’s winter, it’s been getting up above freezing most days) which we can’t afford to lose.
But it was a really good opportunity to assess just how much elecricity and other power usage is not necessary. Turns out we can get by fine with running a generator a couple hours twice a day. And neighbors who aren’t running a farm got by fine without any power at all.
It made me optimistic about the future, that maybe people can learn to do without all of our luxuries more easily than we give ourselves credit for. Unfortunately, I don’t know that many folks will willingly chose to give up those luxuries. Even if everyone sort of enjoys “roughing it” for the weekend. But we just need a few more good power outages to get everyone used to doing without. It would be nice if we could lose the power without all the other damage, though. The trees in our orchard are all torn apart, and the big willow by our house is going to have to be taken the rest of the way down, as all it has left is three big trunks, with hardly a branch left on them. Not much damage in our woods, but all along the edges of our fields the trees are torn down.
-Tevis

[Carl Russell]

Tevis, your points are good. I think there is a difference between “roughing” it, and living without for extended periods of time. We live entirely off grid, and even still we use all the power we make. I think that as long as we as a culture have large amounts of power available, we will continue to use it. The “pot-heads” used to say, “have a lot, smoke a lot, have a little, smoke it all”. I think that reflects a pretty common human condition, and until we have to live without, we will use all we can.

I know that even though I know how to feed myself, build a fire in the down-pouring rain, and scrap together shelter, I’m saving those skills like a bank account, even though I know that it would be a lot cheaper, with less environmental impact.

I often relate it to plants in a drought. They will continue to grow with all of their potential regardless of the environmental restrictions. Being biological organisms, I think we are prone to the same preconditioning. When the drought hits, then those of us with advantageous adaptations can implement other methods.

Carl

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