Building a sustainable community
04/14/2009

Tux and I took our first tramp across the creek today, and climbed up onto the western-most ridge of our property.  I’m kind of a wuss about crossing the creek because I have trouble keeping my balance on the narrow log that is our only bridge.  Our neighbors scamper across like it’s nothing; but I think too much and freak myself out.  I’ll fall just because I’m thinking about falling. 

Therefore, for me to cross involves finding a six-foot-tall walking stick, stout enough to support my weight but light enough for me to carry.  Fortunately, the entire riverbank is littered with these.  Then I maneuver myself carefully across, as if I were 30 feet in the air instead of three.  Tux just wades across, no matter how icy the snow melt.

Once across, we walked the length of our fence line, visually checked on our neighbor’s field of cows—perhaps 100 or so; then began our ascent of the ridge.  This day we chose to hike up an old creek bed filled with sharp granite stones, piled at an angle steep enough to make an impressive cascade were the water ever to flow again.  We saw the year’s first yellow blooms of arrow leaf balsam root and many tiny fragile bluebells.  Once up on the ridge we watched storm clouds blow across the facing hillsides, bringing rain in the distance.  The rain is welcome because the Methow had a dry winter.

Since arriving in the valley a little more than a week ago, we’ve watched the hillsides literally green before our eyes.  We’ve also observed the daily movements of a herd of 30 or so white-tailed deer as they follow the path of the sun while grazing.  We’ve stared in amazement as a red-tailed hawk drove a bald eagle from the airspace above our property, and the bald eagle did a barrel-roll in mid-air to put his talons between him and the dive-bombing hawk.  We’ve heard the coyotes yip outside our trailer at night, and the hoot of an owl one evening.

Last Tuesday we attended a “First Tuesday” meeting of the Methow Conservancy to hear a presentation on the question:  “Can the Methow Feed Itself: An Inquiry into Sustainability.”  We were surprised to find more than 200 people jammed into the Twisp River Brew Pub to discuss the issue.  Although the presentation concluded that yes, the Methow had sufficient irrigated land to feed its present population a balanced diet if it had to.  That is, if the present fossil fuel-based economy and food distribution system broke down and there were no alternative.

Reassuring as that conclusion may have been—theoretically—the audience and the presenters themselves were interested in broader questions:  How will we teach enough people what they need to know to produce all the food we will need?  What about medicines?  What about salt?  What will we do for fuel?  How will we keep our equipment running and our houses warm? What about iron for tools and weapons?  What about fiber for clothes and materials for shelter?  Do we have the social and governing institutions in place to manage all that we’ll need to manage should we have to become self-sufficient?

There was surprising goodwill and consensus among this group as they posed these questions to themselves and each other, and it was tremendously gratifying to be part of a community of people interested in addressing these issues, which, in the abstract, are very difficult to wrap one’s head around.  I was also surprised to find that none of the folks I asked had read The Long Emergency, which, for me, sets out the most comprehensive explanation of the multiple converging crises we face.  Instead, these folks had just looked around and determined that the national situation is looking rather sketchy.  As a result, they were asking questions like, “What can we do to buy ourselves time in case this thing completely unravels?”

Scary as the questions are, I took great comfort in the fact that so many people were asking them—because 200 people asking questions is bound to generate at least a handful of workable answers.  I also found it far less scary to be among people asking pertinent questions than to engage in my usual conversations with folks who don’t even want to contemplate “problems” or, worse, just want to get angry and blame someone for our collective crises.

At least in the Methow people have begun the conversation.