My Sun Oven and I do a lot of cooking some seasons. First pic is pork ribs – short hot cooking time – ready for our noon dinner. Next three pics are a pork roast with the Sun Oven used as a slow cooker. My keeping it NOT aligned to the sun, the temp stays lower and in the end, pulled pork for future meals.
A lot of people I know don’t think I believe in global warming / climate change. Of course I do! How can you not? We are not living in an ice age – not the first, not the second, not the mini-ice age of the 1600-1800’s! and YES, humans have accelerated the process. As far as the intensity goes, we have no way of knowing if we would have eventually gone into this hot / cold wild swings that we are currently experiencing or has it gotten more extreme because of humans rather than just accelerating us to this extreme point.
and the changes, because of industry, began with the Industrial revolution. Am sure most of us do not want to go back to life before then!
A certain amount of the damage was done from ignorance. The world was so big; the idea that was being produced as smoke, as sludge, were poisonous was probably as inconceivable as the idea that cleanliness was important during surgery. But even as we knew better, and it continues to this very day, businesses still think nothing of polluting. Sometimes I think they spend more money trying to figure out how to get rid of waste illegally and/or on lobbying to protective legislation for their industry, than they would spend installing the equipment to not have the waste to deal with in the first place!
But I still believe that it is up to US, how we spend our money, how we live our lives, that will make the changes in industry AND government – not the other way around. Saw the U.N. report about what it would take to put the brakes on and lessen the human impact, and it will require some extreme changes by human beings! and since we can’t even get humans to take their own bags to the grocery store or stop buying plastic bottles of water, how are we going to get them to make the big changes?!?!
Face it, we are SUPPOSED to be the intelligent species. We are supposed to be able to figure out how to adapt. Mostly we are sitting around with faces glued to our phones and social media whining while waiting for government to tell us what to do.
This year has been, for me, about turning my garden around and improving our self-sufficiency. Since we moved into this house 20 years ago, have seen our gardening zone go from 7a to 8a. we are drier and definitely hotter. the last two years my gardens were a bust, and this year pretty much stepped away. Over the winter had some serious health issues and while not resolved, they have been lessened and am back to being able the think and apply knowledge. Am focusing on learning more about gardening specific to our environment, improving my composting and water delivery, improving things like shade cloths and creating micro environments.
And, putting my money where my mouth is, it is also about spending less, while living better. It has meant an investment in things like better shade cloths, better supports for shade cloths, better fencing around gardens to protect from hungry, thirsty critters. and fortunately, have been able to afford that expense. But also, once done, it should be DONE.
am also extending my Olla use, another investment; for specific shapes more suitable for the containers I use, and bigger ones for the in ground beds. Just the little bit of monitoring and use this year, am seeing a BIG reduction in the water needed for my garden. Still don’t have enough stored rain water – hard to do when for 11 months we had NO rain!
Next year will also be working on more flowers as want to bring bees back into the mix. That will be lots of pots of flowers, more than in ground beds. There is also an area behind the house that is hot and dry and can easily be given a hit of water to establish some mesquite and bird of paradise which will eventually be drought tolerant, flowering shade to break the intense sun one area gets. Seeds for both will come from existing plants. Once established they will add shade, habitat, and be drought tolerant. Oh, the irony of having to use water to create a drought tolerant habitat!!
The area of the country I live in has been hit hard by this climate change. Not just recognized by our change in grow zone, for the first time, in 2022, there will be a decrease in the water allocations from the Colorado river. Lake Mead is at record lows and even the production of electricity for Las Vegas and southern CA is at risk. We do not rely on Lake Mead for water, but it will make a difference in how others see our aquifer – like the water companies in Phoenix. And while we do not rely on Hoover Dam for electricity, that shortfall will put other stresses on the grid. And as noted above, we went 11 months without ANY rainfall, along with record breaking temperatures from March 2020 to March 2021. A lot of the fruits and veggies that we all like are WATER based: zucchini, peppers, strawberries, berries of all kinds, peaches, tomatoes, etc. not only need water to grow, need water to form their fruits as water is so much a part of their fruit. If only we could recapture that water when dehydrating them!
Will never be Self-sufficient. Even switching over to electric bike and car still means solar panels and batteries. Getting water uphill to my garden from my tanks means a lot of manual hauling or using an electric pump to other tanks. TANKS themselves! hoses. And as I am learning, there is no 100% recycling. There will be losses that need to be made up. The volume of nutrients pulled from the soil, will not be returned when the old plants are composted as the fruits have gone into bellies and canning jars. so the net loss needs to be made up somehow. But its all a start and at least I will know I’ve tried to help, to teach, and to leave something positive behind.
thoughts and ramblings 