Many things get me thinking, as I have a lot of time to think when I’m crawling around on my knees harvesting and planting, or walking back and forth hoeing or mowing. Lately I’ve been thinking about how interconnected everything is. We keep an eye on national weather patterns as they help us to have a general idea of what weather to expect coming our way. I’m sure many of you are aware of the “el nino” season, which is the warming of the pacific. This warming water can effect the weather pattern across the whole country, the whole world. We noticed it when we had the “omega” pattern which created a “pressure bubble” keeping all the much needed spring rain from reaching our area. Most recently we were really face to face with el nino as the weather pattern shifted, and wind was coming from the north bringing all of the wildfire smoke southbound and seemingly chilling out enjoying the nice vibes of southeast Pennsylvania with us. Normally we get our winds and storms traveling from the southwest. One thing about weather coming up from the south is, it typically brings disease and moisture, which also brings disease. The lack of rain has noticeably decreased the disease pressure this year, however much more work load irrigating has been it was nice to get through a whole group of lettuce heads before they melted from excess humidity.

Another sign nature has brought forth to our farm is, when you keep predatory species out, the prey species have a healthy bloom in population. This past spring we put up a 7.5 foot deer fence, and it has been working great against deer and cats and foxes. However, every other rodent species is doing quite well indeed. As I was speaking on in my last post, we like to let nature deal with excess populations, unfortunately the compromise in this situation is the highest member of the food chain becomes the predator, which is not necessarily the nurturing farmers favorite job, so fencing on our forever farm may be under scrutiny. But for now on small leased acreage we will keep the fence, and maybe get a spunky new dog if we get Jinksee’s permission…

So now then what happened to our forests that turned them into nicely packed bundles of kindling? (Invasive weeds increasing wildfires) Well, we stopped using them. We left our natural position as guardian of the garden of earth. Without management, not only did we over log and lose our old growth native diversity, we have made room for weedy invasive species to take over the under story choking out potential for natives. We seem to like to accidentally introduce things by importing goods like mexican bean beetles, spotted lantern fly, honey suckle, and autumn olive. Our forests need some guidance, as do we, so maybe we would do well to get back in touch with each other and learn.

Forests are productive, beautiful, and homes. With all we know about ecology, soils, agroforestry, and a seeming longing to heal the planet and ourselves (however serious or vain these sentiments may be…) there is no reason to have our forests in flames from California to Nova Scotia. Sure, it’s dang dry but these forests are a mess. You all hear of rosa flora, and mustard garlic. You’ve all seen the vines choking the trees. We need to take advantage of this excess of invasive species by viewing it as a resource. This is biomass we are talking about. Goats love to clean up even thorny shrubs (Goats love noxious weeds). That dyed poison mulch everyone is using should never be produced again because municipalities should have so much mulch and compost it would be stupid to buy it.

So it all gets me thinking as it always does, why are these obvious solutions not being implemented? We want to reduce waste and plastics, but where are the investments in whole locally produced goods that don’t need packaging because they are going directly to the consumer? Why aren’t we encouraging and educating about, from, and with the forests and wetlands and prairies? Each ecosystem has a story and a lesson to tell about disturbance and lack of it. Why are we subsidizing corn for ethanol and corn syrup so farmers keep growing hundreds of acres of gmos sprayed with glyphosphate, poisoning the food and water supply and soil? Without subsidies, these farmers might diversify and grow some actual vegetables, or raise some animals on pasture. Ah, who am I kidding they would sell it to developers and we would have smart cities. Maybe we should keep giving tax dollars to the monoculturirist? I don’t know what is good or bad anymore!? Just kidding, I do. Centralization is what is bad.

But I digress, and may continue to as I was thinking onward about how this green washing (yeah, I said it, this green agenda is a bunch of pandering phony hogwash like everything else) ahem excuse me… this green washing may not come from a place of general concern or even actually wanting a planet that can continue to sustain our lifestyles or some form of them and here’s how I know…

“The digital sector's proportion of global emissions is between 3% and 4% annually, according to The Shift Project, a French nonprofit advocating for a shift to a post-carbon economy. That share could double by 2025.

Data centers are one major driver of those emissions.

The cloud relies on vast data centers and data transmission networks. These are responsible for nearly 1% of energy-related global greenhouse gas emissions annually and accounted for approximately 300 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2020, according to the International Energy Association.

Pressure is growing for cloud providers to become more sustainable as environmental, social and governance issues become more important among consumers, investors, corporate leaders and regulators.

"Cloud providers care about sustainability because their key stakeholders care," said Ed Anderson, distinguished vice president analyst with research firm Gartner.”

Oh boy, we’re looking at 3% of those earth ending emissions coming just from storing all the data they are collecting on us all? And it may double in 2 years?!? Is that with or without the advocated for “shift to post-carbon economy”? And by post-carbon does that mean we’ll stop collecting the globes data and storing it locked virtually nowhere but actually behind a bunch of hot computers that were mined for and have fans cooling them down while sending information to and from space constantly forever? I thought not.

So, post-carbon it isn’t? But now we see that it’s all for the betterment of mankin- ope, no it’s for the stakeholders who are looking out for those ESG scores. You know, like China’s social credit system but for businesses.

Dang it, I did it again. Tried to talk about how we can fix everything by working with nature only to be reminded that there is a hidden enemy who wants to alienate us from nature and make us ever more dependent. The closer we are to nature, the further we are from the data collection. The closer we are to providing food for ourselves, the further we are from spending money on big food. The closer we are to nature, the less we depend on pharmaceuticals. The closer we are to nature, the easier it is for us to realize, they don’t mean anything they say. They are selling us our lives back to us. We are renting everything from no one and everyone at the same time. I for one would rather see communities and individuals decide how we get ourselves out of this mess, not some private jet flying hypocrites.

Imagine if you paid to come to our farm to work. Then you paid to take home the vegetables you picked. Then I took some of the vegetables you just paid for, you know, for the next person who pays to come work on the farm. The product is what you make your money off of… if the farmers was making their money from you who paid to do the work and paid to eat while taking a cut, would you just be one of the farmers products?

I envision a world where it isn’t exploit or be exploited, but one where it is produce or fail. Only by failing can one truly learn. Only without a safety net can you realize you weren’t really that high off the ground, someone just told you that you were so you wouldn’t jump, and you were so convinced it was too scary to even look down.

Full Circle CSA

Where There is Smoke There is Fire