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Page added on May 16, 2015
Collapsing Down the Plum Tree
Having recently started this From Filmers to Farmers blog, one which quite often brings up the topic of peak oil, I was recently confronted with a question that I had unintentionally been avoiding for some time: Do I envision a fast collapse or a slow collapse?
In case you aren’t aware of the context here, the “collapse” being referred to is in regards to the collapse of industrial civilization, that itself being due to declining energy supplies and other resources. “Slow collapse” being in the range of decades or centuries, with “fast collapse” being in the range of decades or even just years.
First off, although I’m not a student of history and my readings on the collapse of previous civilizations are rather meagre, my readings on peak oil are much more thorough and so I’m a bit more familiar with several of the viewpoints and models out there.
The first model that came along would be that by M. King Hubbert, the late Shell petroleum geologist who, before it was even known as peak oil, got this peak oil thing started back in the mid-1950s with his paper Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels. However, while Hubbert imagined a fairly symmetrical bell curve of up the oil curve and down the oil curve, there’s quite a bit more to this than meets the eye. While Hubbert’s bell curve for the US has pretty much worked out to the T (the major aberration being the current fracking binge, but which is little more than a blip whose financial bubble is quite possibly about to burst), its gentle downwards slope may very well be due to increased supplies of oil from other countries that made up for declining domestic supplies. In other words, increasing amounts of readily available imports meant that the US wasn’t forced to have to pump like crazy to maintain needed supplies (which could have induced a quick crash once its supplies were maxed out), but could instead be rather ho-hum about the whole thing and see its production levels gently decline.
Hubbert’s 1956 long-term prediction of future extraction levels, & nuclear energy expectations, for the world (PDF source)For if you take a look at Hubbert’s long-term estimation for world oil peak, not only does it also have a symmetrical and gentle downward slope, but the model was based on the expectation that nuclear energy would step in to take the place of oil. And in case you haven’t noticed, that’s certainly not happening. It’s worth wondering then what Hubbert might have envisioned, or what might very well happen, based on these updated circumstances.
Step into the present, and although collapse is spoken of only in marginal circles and remains mostly taboo for the majority of people out there as well as for the mainstream media, there are actually quite a few models out there based on various understandings (historical, geological, geopolitical, economic, and more).
While Resilience.org might be called the clearing house for articles of the slow collapse persuasion, the most well-known model along these lines is probably John Michael Greer’s notion of a Catabolic Collapse, which rather resembles a stair-step descent.
As Greer sees it, repeated crises will be followed with, and punctuated by, repeated recoveries. The recoveries of course won’t outweigh the crises, and so a descent will ensue. But rather than a quick descent where society quickly collapses into a pre-industrial state in a matter of a few years, Greer sees the collapse occurring over a long enough time-span that nobody today will be alive to witness its eventual outcomes. (However, this certainly doesn’t mean that Greer sugar-coats collapse, something the “ruinmen” of his post-peak oil book Star’s Reach: A Novel of the Deindustrial Future attest to.)
On the other end of the spectrum, what you might call the clearing house for articles of the fast collapse persuasion would be Doomsteaddiner.net. While more models seem to be out there which predict a fast collapse than a slow collapse (for whatever reason), one of the more well thought out ones is Ugo Bardi’s notion of the Seneca Cliff.
(image courtesy of Ugo Bardi / Resource Crisis)
Bardi’s model (and its name) is taken from the Roman statesmen and philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca, who a couple thousand years ago stated that “increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.” Bardi has matched this Seneca Cliff to a variety of previous collapses (the Roman Empire, Mayan civilization, the North Atlantic cod fishery, and more), and is basically understood as slow growth followed by a more rapid decline. (For argument’s sake, there’s also the notion of a Catabolic Seneca Cliff Collapse – a fast, stair-step decline.)
So after taking a look at these and other models, having read several books on the topic, and having attended two Age of Limits conferences, the conclusion that I’ve drawn from all this has been, disappointingly, “I don’t really a conclusion.” That is, arguments from both the fast and slow spectrums bring forth valid points and can be pretty persuasive, so it’s been pretty easy for me to jump back and forth between the two. Fortunately, a way to explain this recently came to me, and is what I now call my “Plum Tree Collapse” understanding (“theory” would probably be a bit too strong of a word).
A few months back I spent a couple of weeks visiting a mate of mine on New Zealand’s North Island, and with one of his three plum trees (all of different varieties, and all fortuitously in fruit at the time) used simply for pollinating the other two (which are used for various kinds of preserves), a thought couldn’t help but enter my noggin: “If my mate doesn’t currently have any pigs to fatten up on the drops, and if they’re all just going to be devoured by the birds, why don’t I beat the birds to it all and make a serious pile of booze!?”
And that’s exactly what I did. I grabbed his picking bag and proceeded to pick about 100 kg of fruit, and so currently have about 70 litres of wine brewing back at his place (please don’t use that as a ratio for future reference – this was all off the seat of my pants).
Now here’s the thing. Although I was able to pick quite a bit of fruit by just reaching up and grabbing it, as well as with a ladder on the peripheries, the densest and most copious amounts of fruit required me to climb up the middle of the tree, which is also what I did.
Like most people (I hope), I’ve climbed my fair share of trees, and I knew exactly what I was getting into. (Perhaps that should have stopped me, but the allure of all those extra plums and all that extra “free” booze was too much of an attraction to avoid.) What I’m getting at is that while it can be relatively easy to climb up a tree, it generally requires a lot more attention and effort to go back down.
When going up a tree it’s often just a matter of getting your foot wedged in the right place and then using your legs to push while your grip on an upper branch or two is used to pull yourself up. As well, your vision is focused upwards, so everything not only looks just fine but is also relatively easy to see. However, coming back down is a whole other story.
First off, one problem that can result from simply turning your gaze downwards is that you get spooked out once you notice how high you actually are, and how far down you have to go. Secondly, once you do attempt to make your way down, your body and other parts of the tree can obstruct your vision and hamper you from seeing where you’re trying to get your foot or feet a purchase upon. You might also feel a few butterflies in your stomach or even a slight weightlessness and queasiness in your leg(s) which you have doubts about.
On top of that, if you’ve accumulated stuff on your way up (and who hasn’t accumulated piles of stuff?), it means your girth for your way down can be significantly larger and restrict you from squeezing through the same nooks and crannies that you got up through in the first place (me, I repeatedly had about five or ten kilos of plums in a picking bag).
Plums, or booze berries? (photo: Starmaid Products)
In other words, going down – collapsing – requires a different kind of effort than what is required going up. On top of that, much potential energy is built on the way up, and to release that energy relatively slowly requires not only a very careful and attentive effort, but a greater amount of energy must be expended to release that potential energy if the idea is to expend it slowly rather than quickly.
As John Michael Greer often reminds us, energy is required to collect dispersed energy into more concentrated forms – such as collecting disperse sunlight into fossil-fueled batteries via fossil-fueled solar panels. Similarly, the slow release of potential energy requires more energy than a fast release – the careful effort of climbing down trees versus the non-effort of falling down.
Bringing all this over to the situation of modern civilization, this may very well imply not only a different kind of effort required for collapse, but that a slow collapse requires extra effort (read: energy) to prevent a fast collapse. (On top of that, it’s worth noting that the extra energy needed for a slower collapse versus a faster collapse is required at, and has been put off to, a time when energy supplies are beginning to shrink.)
I mention this because this is something I’ve seen glossed over a few times too many in eco-circles, particularly in respect to the Montreal Protocol.
For those who aren’t aware, the Montreal Protocol was an agreement reached between nations in 1987 to eliminate the use of ozone-hole creating chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). With CFCs since then banned, the Montreal Protocol has been ballyhooed by more than a few as an example of how with enough political support and funding, our problems can be readily solved (in this case I’m specifically referring to peak oil, but climate change is also mentioned by these go-getters).
This, I’ve figured, could hardly be further from the truth, so to confirm my suspicions, and while at the 2014 Age of Limits conference, I threw this comparison by none other than Dennis Meadows, co-author of the seminal Limits to Growth study. Suffice to say, he didn’t bother mincing his words in reply: “Completely different. Completely different!“
Now, putting aside the recent discovery that the replacements for CFCs, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), are unfortunately rather potent greenhouse gases, the difference here is that peak oil is not a simple problem of which we can legislate or invisibly hand(le) our way out of by substituting one input for another. Not with biofuels, not with hydrogen “energy,” not with Tesla Powerwalls, nor with any combination of these and/or other alternatives. They can certainly help us out on our descent, but there’s no chance that they’ll be able to make up for the 90 million or so barrels of oil that we use every day (on top of all the coal, natural gas, etc.).
What is in fact needed then are not so much techno solutions or bureaucratic workings, but behavioural changes. This, however, ideally requires actual effort on the part of pretty much all of us, and much more than simply enlightened purchases and voting habits.
To put this a bit differently, while a small problem can be solved with a small solution, big problems are not however solved with big solutions – they are solved with many small solutions. In other words, what is needed is a lot of effort, not by a few “experts” and with a bunch of money thrown at them, but by many regular people. That being the case, the issue then is not how we can figure out how to maintain our current ways of living, but how we can learn to restrain ourselves and create the systems amenable to that.
In the meantime, and as already mentioned, while we may or may not go about any of this, there are a slew of factors that will make unfolding circumstances hard to predict: geological ones, geopolitical ones, and most perplexing of all to me, economic ones. That is, how does an economic system which is based on interest-bearing debt and fractional-reserve banking – namely, growth – function amidst declining energy supplies which cannot spur on growth anymore? How “low” can negative interest rates go? How long can the “extend and pretend” shenanigans of bankers and their political shills continue? How many rabbits can they pull out of the hat, and for how long?
Frankly, I have no idea.
But what I do know (or at least think I know), is that while a slow collapse can happen, it is by no means pre-ordained, any more than a fast collapse is. However, if these issues are left up to the “experts,” then a faster collapse is more than likely to occur.
Therefore, if one is stuck up a tree and either (a) won’t put in the effort to come down, (b) avoids looking down and pretends they aren’t up a tree, or (c) denies that they’re up a tree in the first place (!), then the sun is eventually going to set, things will get dark, one will fall asleep, and then quite possibly fall out of the tree and break their neck, and possibly even the neck of somebody below who has already managed to make their way down.
“So,” you might be wondering, “how did Allan get down the tree?” Well, I knew there wasn’t a chance I was going to make it back down with the plums with me, either because the straps would catch on a branch and the fruit would come pouring out, or, on trying to squeeze my way down I’d misstep, fall, and possibly break my back (I know of backpacking apple pickers who have broken their backs).
“Double darn.” (photo courtesy of Jack Milchanowski)
So instead, and metaphorically speaking, I kind of cheated. I tied the bag’s opening somewhat in a knot, tossed it down, and rather than carefully try and make my way down, I said “stuff this,” got myself into a good position, and jumped the few metres down – “Collapse now, avoid the rush,” as John Michael Greer put it, although my plum tree collapse was certainly not of the slow variety.
Granted, such a fast collapse is not advised, as this can easily end up in disaster – a twisted or broken ankle, or worse. But I’m still a bit nimble and so could readily pull it off.
But putting off acknowledging and acting upon the onset of peak oil, and expecting a last-minute, safe collapse?
Not advised.
39 Comments on "Collapsing Down the Plum Tree"
Rodster on Sat, 16th May 2015 8:16 am
A fast or slow collapse will not be good because this time is different. A fast collapse like in 2008 and you can wind up with Baltimore riots around the world.
A slow collapse and it only makes the the solutions far worse because systemic bubbles just get bigger when they pop as they are today.
The entire planet is tied to the same systemic ROT which creates it’s share of worrisome problems. It’s not looking good whenever the SHTF day arrives.
joe on Sat, 16th May 2015 8:18 am
How quick can it happen? Look at a New York Street scape circa 1880, then same street circa 1920. That quick, just in reverse.
More people die of poor health and sanitation in any collapse, nations don’t even have to bother fighting. The population problem will take care of itself when there’s no stock market to speak of, banks all gone bust, no money to pay big pharma.
Davy on Sat, 16th May 2015 9:08 am
We are at a critical point just now. BAU is still functioning systematically. This is a very important point many fail to grasp. We have a complex energy intensive system. It functions by a global financial system providing liquidity to run a global just-in-time production and distribution system. This system support all locals through a complex global. All locals have been delocalized from years of growth seeking progress through efficiency and greater complexity. In the process global areas of comparative advantage in production combined with dispersed global production combine to allow economies of scale. This economies of scale drives the consumer culture that maintains growth. The financial system relies on growth for liquidity. The food side of the equation is also global with vast monocultures of similar distribution and production. Energy is global with similar structures.
The system as a whole must function or at least the critical nodes must operate in a safe range of functionality. We can have peripheral failed states but no critical nodes. The critical nodes are obvious as the major economic, political, and military powers. We have a whole host of problems and predicaments currently. The list is long and I need not bore you with a rehash of them. The critical point to understand concerns being in the vicinity of collapse. We have collapse all around us with the many and varied problems and predicaments. The global system that all our locals rely upon is still functioning. This is a very brittle and fragile system at some levels. At other levels it is robust and resilient. The system is strong as long as there are no disturbances within the system.
We are at a point where decisions need to be made going forward concerning a collapse that must happen. The system will end but how, when, and the degree of collapse are open to the type of action we take now. I don’t know the answers but one need only look to science and dynamic system theory to determine the dangers ahead. We have a cultural, economic, and political meme of progress through technology and development IOW increasing complexity and energy intensity. The steps that need to be taken to make this a slower less severe collapse need to be taken now and concern less complexity and energy intensity not more. These steps are the type of steps that will destroy BAU. Once these steps are taken there is no turning back.
Like the article mentions if we leave it to the experts we are almost assuredly facing a quick hard collapse. You just can’t continue on with something that just ain’t so. This ain’t so is like believing in endless progress. There are a minimum of preparations needed to adjust and mitigate to a new environment let alone a crash. Our current direction at all levels except a small niche is towards growth and progress. Most of the old skills and tools that we once used in a world with few or no fossil fuels have been discarded. We are naked to loss of all the basics of survival with a disruption to the system.
The real danger is a global system failure which is also the most likely as we enter resource scarcity and shortages. The experts have no plan B because a plan B is so draconian to BAU as to be off the table. This leaves a few doomers and preppers to do something. Even the greens, AltE wonks, and alternative political crowd are all bought into BAU. Most all of the green ideas are BAU ideas with green technology. The political alternative crowd wants a new BAU with alternative governing principals. AltE folks want BAU with wind and solar. At no level are our experts green, brown, AltE, or alternative political crowds thinking outside the box. Outside the box is collapse.
The reality is there will be no BAU soon and we will have to pick up the remnants of BAU in a salvage economy using a hybrid of the old ways with the remnants of BAU. The problem is we need to get started now with dusting off the old pre-fossil fuel ways. We have to most importantly get a significant amount of people back to the land in permaculture efforts. Gardens need to be everywhere. I went to Lowes yesterday for some garden supplies and there was a small section on plants that produce food and 95% was decorative plants and accessories. That Lowes experience is my long story short. This has to stop or we are going to starve.
GregT on Sat, 16th May 2015 9:28 am
A lot of people are going to starve Davy. We are not going to end BAU voluntarily.
Davy on Sat, 16th May 2015 10:01 am
There is a small hope Greg that food and fuel shortages could snow ball into rational collapse management actions involuntarily. IOW the Powers that be will do the right thing not realizing the right thing ends their sacred BAU.
Either way the pain, suffering, and death will be significant. A fast deep collapse will be better for the earth ecosystems. From the point of view of us individuals it would be nice to have a softer collapse with policies that mitigate the worst. I want to live and enjoy life a little longer. Sound policies whether voluntary or involuntary will make a difference.
Greg, I have little optimism because the momentum of the system is nothing more than a runaway train heading for a wall of doom. Yet, who knows the best and the worst are usually the exceptions.
JuanP on Sat, 16th May 2015 10:04 am
Davy, I observed the same thing at Home Depot. One little corner of the gardening section in the farthest corner at the back of the store where nobody goes is devoted to food crops, and all they had were peppers, tomatoes, herbs, and eggplants. I wanted to buy some plants, but left with only four because I am already growing everything they had.
Boat on Sat, 16th May 2015 11:04 am
Joe LOL in 1880 and 1920 there wasent much indoor plumbing, medicine or nutrition.
Davy on Sat, 16th May 2015 11:08 am
Juan, it was really surreal experience at lowes. As I was leaving I saw a lady who had just bought some flowers tagging a 7 year old behind her who just bought some expensive red colored sugar water drink of some kind. Of course the kid was chubby. I said to myself “self this is an example of the wrong direction”.
I walk around BAU in a surreal daze. I am fully BAU capable just no longer BAUtopian so I see things differently then normal people. That make me abnormal and maladjusted. IOW a crazy man who dooms and preps and walks around Lowes stores in wonderment.
Nony on Sat, 16th May 2015 11:34 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ65hou2-78
Dredd on Sat, 16th May 2015 12:09 pm
There will be surges (Weekend Rebel Science Excursion – 41).
And there are fellow humans in remote places that will not even hear of what happened until much later.
GregT on Sat, 16th May 2015 12:12 pm
Boat LOL, according to a UN report from 2006, 40% of the world’s population still do not have indoor plumbing, medicine, or nutrition.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-report-2006
In 1880 the population of the earth was estimated to be around 1.3 billion people. Today there are 2.6 billion people living without access to sanitation, medicine, clean water, or adequate nutrition. Twice as many people today live in abject poverty, than the total amount of people that existed back in 1880.
joe on Sat, 16th May 2015 1:57 pm
Boat it should be obvious I meant the speed of change in economic development. Okay for slow people. Streetscape New York 1860, then 1880 (not much change, horses + carts etc) then 1920, same street okay. What do you see? Cars, street lights, paved roads and those smart enough would infer, the first aircraft had flown etc. All oil derived.
Perk Earl on Sat, 16th May 2015 2:13 pm
The trouble with a slow collapse is at some point a critical threshold of the disenfranchised band together and make Baltimore/Ferguson incidents look like a warm up exercise as they go berserk pillaging 7/11’s and AM PM’s. After that the gloves come off pillaging each other’s personal food caches. No amount of police or military will stop it at that point because it will be too widespread to control and what ensues is fast collapse.
The people that remain after the dust settles form small communities to work the land and raise farm animals. What comes after that, who knows.
PrestonSturges on Sat, 16th May 2015 3:41 pm
We had plums like that Pennsylvania. There are “Italian” plums and another variety. These are the European plums as grown by the Romans. We ate plenty while they were still green.
steve on Sat, 16th May 2015 6:40 pm
yeah if you are over 40 and have not been working physically you might as well give up…Sarc….
Davy on Sat, 16th May 2015 6:57 pm
Steve, wait until you get to your 50’s. It is absolutely essential for older folks like me to work out and try to eat right. Our lives are going to be shortened by the collapse. Don’t shorten it further by sloth and gluttony. Davey doom do’s and don’ts for what it is worth.
GregT on Sat, 16th May 2015 7:22 pm
“The people that remain after the dust settles form small communities to work the land and raise farm animals. What comes after that, who knows.”
Some people have already formed small communities to work the land and raise farm animals. If they are far enough away from largely populated areas they won’t need to wait for the dust to settle. They will just continue to do more of what they are doing already. They will have some ‘interesting’ television to watch though.
apneaman on Sat, 16th May 2015 7:42 pm
Shell Assures Nation Most Arctic Wildlife To Go Extinct Well Before Next Spill
http://www.theonion.com/article/shell-assures-nation-most-arctic-wildlife-go-extin-50408
Perk Earl on Sat, 16th May 2015 11:37 pm
“They will have some ‘interesting’ television to watch though.”
Heart palpitating news for sure, GregT. Yes, I’m aware of a few already doing the farm/ranch bit, but I was referring to most of the people post peak oil bottleneck. That’s going to be a whole heck of a lot of people and I’m sure that population will whittle down as well because many just won’t be able to hack it and there probably won’t be enough to go around.
GregT on Sun, 17th May 2015 2:09 am
Perk,
My apologies if I came across as being inconsiderate. I couldn’t think of a better word than ‘interesting’. Thus the quotes. There’s already enough to see for everyone, yet people aren’t paying much attention, because it isn’t happening to them. Yet.
I agree with you Perk. We are in for a shit storm of biblical proportions. I still maintain that those who have already learned to take care of themselves will be in the best positions to make it through the bottleneck. Those that believe that someone else will take care of them, don’t have a hope in hell.
If we keep burning fossil fuels, all bets are off for the continuation of our species.
Perk Earl on Sun, 17th May 2015 4:04 am
Actually I was agreeing with you, GregT. I figure it will be traumatic news no matter how far someone is removed from the melee.
“I still maintain that those who have already learned to take care of themselves will be in the best positions to make it through the bottleneck.”
Yeah, the Davy’s and Ghung’s of the world are prepared and I’m doing my best to catch up. How about you – ready for the inevitable descent?
Davy on Sun, 17th May 2015 6:30 am
Perk, thank you for the mention on my preparation but remember I may be short term prepped but my longer term prep means little unless my local and greater local adapts and mitigates properly. This is the key to survivability. You can be one bad ass prepper with short term but then be swallowed up in a mad max shit storm of locust people.
I have the short term covered and I am getting the longer term in place. My local is pretty good in some respects. Just being in the US is a big negative. NUK war is a very real possibility. I have a major army base 40 miles as the crow flys that I know will be NUK’d. Things like NUK plants and other dangerous industrial situations could unfold to make whole regions uninhabitable. I would say ideally the southern hemisphere where there is low population densities the best. I am in my early 50’s so I am under no illusions of what lack of medical care will mean for me if I am hurt or come down with disease. My life expectance norm I am writing down by 15 years. Normally I would have another 30 years. I am excepting 15 at best. Who knows when we get to the longer term prep efforts.
What I am doing is being a prophet of doom and prep. It is my life passion. I am preaching and doing but I have no illusions of my survivability. I know I will probably do well for the first few months. This will be enough to fulfill my fascination with how this shit storm is going to shake out. It will be enough to practice and implement all the collapse efforts I have made. If I survive and my local survives then I will be a monastery of knowledge to pass on to others. This is my focus not survivability. The survivability of my loved ones is high but as for me I am more orientated towards the fulfillment of my passions of doom and prep. These things happen to people when faith and subordination to the truth take over. Just ask any ISIS numb nut. They will give you some kind of Allah bullshit. That is me I am giving you all some doom and prep bullshit.
GregT on Sun, 17th May 2015 10:53 am
” How about you – ready for the inevitable descent?”
I too have a lot of catching up to do. July 1st is the day the wife and I completely pull the plug from the city. We already have a home in a semi rural location, about 15 minutes by car to a smallish town that has a strong community interested in local sustainability. My wife has been back and forth now for three years, and is already involved at the community level. I know some people there that I formally worked with that have pulled the plug in the last decade as well. There is almost zero crime and people generally still leave their doors unlocked and their keys in their cars. The wife has a good paying job with full benefits, for now. We have raised bed gardens, a couple of small greenhouses, fruit and nut trees, and lots of different berries. Our property backs onto a 200 acre parkland with a salmon river running through the middle of it, a five minute walk from the house. Ten minutes up the road there is nothing but thousands of square kilometres of wilderness.
We have a list a mile long of things to do. Once we complete the move, then the real work begins.
Davy on Sun, 17th May 2015 11:22 am
Damn, Greg, I’m movin. You got an extra bed. I work for food. I can even clean toilets.
Seriously, sounds like a small paradise precisely the type of small quiet local where community can pull together to weather a shit storm. Of course no guarantee of survival but at least your described local has the ingredients of survival. Great choice.
Keep educating us Greg to the bitter end. One day the net will go down and our connections over then we will just have the memories of our common bonds of doom and prep.
Nony on Sun, 17th May 2015 11:30 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWC6W1ctkMY
Northwest Resident on Sun, 17th May 2015 11:46 am
GregT — Before offering your spare room to Davy, don’t you think you should inform him that the paradise you have painted is in fact a false portrait. Don’t you think you should inform Davy of the violent herds of killer deer that roam the streets of your green city?
Davy on Sun, 17th May 2015 12:19 pm
Good boy NOo. Are you leaving the home team and common over to reality! I am proud of you. I knew they was a good person inside that shitty attitude!
apneaman on Sun, 17th May 2015 12:25 pm
Nony, I love you just the way you are.
Don’t go changing to try to please me.
GregT on Sun, 17th May 2015 12:47 pm
NWR,
One of the biggest challenges at the moment is keeping the damn deer out. They eat everything. The garden area at present is ~ 100ft x 100ft and is surrounded by 7ft high deer fencing. We plan on doubling that area right away. It is the first item on the list. It is illegal to hunt these deer on the property ATM, but I would have no problem taking them with a bow on any given morning. They are always within a stones throw of the back of the house.
The bigger concern over the past several years has been cougars, and not the ones that hang out in bars and prey on unsuspecting young guys like Nony.
Davy on Sun, 17th May 2015 1:18 pm
Greg I have a 5 foot high electrified netting fence . Premier 1 sells them. I use a energizer that puts out 8000 volts. The deer haven’t messed with my garden in 2 years. The word apparently gets out. I also have a short fence for rabbits and coins I put up when the garden starts producing.
Northwest Resident on Sun, 17th May 2015 1:23 pm
The benefit of doing my self-sufficient food production in my small town neighborhood back yard is that all the pesky wildlife has been eradicated or driven out long ago. Any pests of any kind that would be a significant danger to the crops I grow have either died off or found greener pastures long ago, due to no food to sustain them in my neck of the woods. I did have a minor blue jay problem, but I’ve noticed recently that the previously populous blue jays have almost entirely disappeared, and I suspect that one or more of my neighbors have taken matters into their own hands. And I finally figured out that it is pill bugs (roly poly bugs) that were munching on my strawberries, but slug bait handled that problem. Living in-city has its advantages!
Northwest Resident on Sun, 17th May 2015 1:29 pm
Davy — How’s your bee hive doing? Did you get a nuc or a package? I got one of each, and it goes without saying that nuc hive is far ahead of the package. I’m feeding them both sugar water syrup and pllen cakes. The nuc hive is growing at an amazing rate, so fast that I had to add another hive box. The entrance is like grand central station, dozens of bees going in and coming out at the same time, every second, all day long, many of them carrying full loads of pollen. I got concerned about my package hive which is growing very, very slowly. So, I took a full two-sided frame of capped brood along with all the nurse bees attached and transferred it to the package hive yesterday — major little operation. Afterwards, I got nervous that maybe I had done a boo-boo (although I read that was the thing to do), and called the store where I bought the bees and supplies. The expert bee-keeper I talked to said that I had done exactly the right thing, and that I should try to “equalize” the hives before full nectar flow, which around here is the beginning of June, just a week or two away. I’m finding this very interesting — still no stings yet! How about you? Any interesting bees-ness to report?
GregT on Sun, 17th May 2015 1:51 pm
Do neither of you guys have bears in your area?
Northwest Resident on Sun, 17th May 2015 1:58 pm
None here, GregT. Black bears in the coast range, but that’s 30 or 40 miles away. For which, my bees are very thankful.
GregT on Sun, 17th May 2015 2:12 pm
When I last kept Bees I was living in Whistler. Bears were a big problem. Once they get a taste of honey, they are almost impossible to stop.
Davy on Sun, 17th May 2015 2:42 pm
N/R, I got a nuc and they are doing great. I am feeding them sugar water also. I expect to add another hive box on top soon for their expansion. We have an abundance of clover here and the bees love it. I am planning on expanding by two hives next year.
My wife is going to bird dog the bees. Thank God because I have so much on my plate. She has also got into the garden seriously taking care of weeding and picking what’s ready.
Lately I have been gorging on strawberries. It is a wonderful feeling to eat right from the garden in glutinous pleasure.
Greg, we have black bears further south in the Ozarks. No problems here.
DMyers on Sun, 17th May 2015 4:00 pm
The way down is both quantitatively and qualitatively different from the way up, and it contains obstacles different from and complementary to those withstanding on the way up. [My take from the plum tree analogy.]
I agree that this explains, in part, why we cannot forecast the way down, even though we’ve covered the same terrain on the way up. We may incorporate another observation about the up/down duality, which is that the way down anticipates a path in reverse of the way up. But that path was purposefully changed (e.g. through depletion) on the way up, as a feature of going up itself.
Another consideration, seldom if ever discussed, is that of Time, itself. I incorporate by reference the ideas of Greg Bradden, [the late] Terrance McKenna, [the late] Xel Lundgold, et. al., which propose that an acceleration of Time is in progress.
The time acceleration idea was popularized, in a sense, by Alvin Toffler’s blockbuster book, “Future Shock”, in 1970. In the meantime, it has gone out of fashion as a consideration at all. Toffler’s description was contemporaneously based, while those mentioned above take a broader universal view of Time.
As some define time acceleration, it occurs when more and more experiences and events are manifest in periods of decreasing length. Clearly, we see and feel this in our current circumstances.
On a micro level, our system runs wide open at all times. This includes the integrals of the system, such as oil production/distribution and all “just in time” socio/economic functions.
Time can be set apart from all else. It is more than a human overlay. It stands as an independent variable in driving evolution. Its acceleration leads the velocity of evolution and change.
I intend, by the above, to offer an additional possibility for what may determine how quickly it comes down. Others have spelled out the particulars long ago, with eloquence that I cannot equal.
The acceleration of Time is driving the moment. The velocity attained will not die with the collapse. It will not subside to let us adjust reality. It will drive the collapse with all its momentum and velocity, leading to a very rapid and chaotic descent.
antaris on Sun, 17th May 2015 4:23 pm
Greg are you moving to Vancouver Island?
Cassie on Mon, 18th May 2015 12:08 pm
Aaaahhhh, DMyers; you have seen the vision. I am so sorry.
Things happen slowly until they don’t; fingers will be lost in the flying chains.
I am having great results from my drip line gardening and my chickens; the first truly determined predators will be joyous.