Oy-Vey! These young kids come up with an old idea and think they’ve reinvented the wheel!
When I was a kind and visiting my grandma’s home in Germany, there would be a vegetable vendor who came along with a small truck loaded with vegetables. He had some particular horn on his truck that everyone in the neighborhood recognized, and all the ‘hausfraus’ would come running out of their doors with marks in hand, eager to purchase the fresh veggies he carried. Remember this was ina time and place where most families did not have a car, and the men worked and most of the wives stayed at home cooking everything from scratch most of the day. If a woman was out of green onions, this guy might save her a one mile walk to the store, so it was a good marketing-delivery concept. There was also a fish guy who had live fish who’d come along on Thursdays so everyone could have their Friday fish. And the beer guy would have the key to your cellar, he’d replace your empty beer bottles with full ones, and credit you for the empty bottles. And the milkman would give you your milk and yogurt.
This concept was common in most towns in Europe and also in the USA. Only when WWII came along with the huge demographic changes in the US populace, and the wheels that ended up in nearly every driveway that these professions disappeared. With most women in the workplace, and most families with a car for easy travel, and the proliferation of heat-and-serve foods, perhaps there is not much of a market for this service.
Yet some Einsteins have come up with a ‘unique idea that should make money’ in the form of an electric truck that will sell veggies in the inner city neighborhoods. Perhaps in some places this idea might work. But I think most people want to go shopping at a store where they can browse at their own pace, and not feel like they’re holding the guy up. Also US citizens are used to ‘spic-and-span’ in their foods. The idea of an open truck driving around with food sitting in the open might not seem all that appealing to many consumers. Now, I live in farm country, and anytime I drive to town I see huge open trucks loaded with strawberries, broccoli or tomatoes driving to the packing houses…. so I know this happens, but folks in the cities don’t know veggies except cello-wrapped, and mostly already washed and trimmed… indeed, many folks have no familiarity with fresh veggies, they get most of their veggies (when they eat them) from a can or frozen packs.
Anyways, I hope the idea catches on. It is a good concept, and hopefully all those husbands that have been laid off from construction and factory jobs and staying at home while their wives work, will shut Oprah off for a bit and cook their wives a good meal for when she comes home. Maybe the vegetable truck will be handy for them while the wife has the car at work and the second car has been sold to pay the mortgage.
The Law in its majestic equality,
forbids rich as well as poor to sleep under bridges,
to beg in the streets,
and to steal bread
~Anatole France~
Since 1993 we’ve been an organically certified small farm in California. I had a job with a contractor which paid our household expenses and kept us solvent even when the farm sales were less than our farm expenses. But two years ago when the factory in town closed down, and most of us were laid off, I decided to go into the cactus growing more full time. We grow a unique vegetable which we’ve shipped throughout the country. Initially we shipped the cactus leaves as nursery stock, then governmental regulations tightened and we became more aware of the laws and regulations of shipping nursery stock into other states. So we switched to shipping the younger leaves for people to eat themselves as produce. Our goal has been to ship to Health Food Stores, and restaurants as well as individuals who might be interested in the leaves we grow. Through the years our customer list grew slowly but steadily at a steady 30% rate. As the years progressed the governmental regulations seemed to grow more onerous… and the last year we’ve lost many of our older customers due to the recession. Other businesses have quit, some people seem to have stopped their regular orders. Yet, due to aggressive marketing, our sales this year are the highest we’ve ever had due to many new customers. Yet this was done at the expense of any profit we might have had. And again the government has come down on us harder. Now we have been notified that we must complete a fifteen hour ‘continuing education’ credits in water pollution and conservation. I’m all for education, but these government-mandated classes for all farms in the state are not provided for free… we must pay for them ourselves. The worse part is that they are given in the major population centers of Ventura or Monterrey to which we must take ourselves, and pay for our own lodging for the three days of the course.
It is this extra bit that has me stymied. We don’t really make any money doing this cactus business. All of our money goes to shipping, governmental fees of several thousand dollars yearly in order to maintain our licenses, permits, and associated fees and overhead expenses. Knowing that this trip will lead us into negative financial territory makes me reluctant to want to go. Knowing that due to these regulations, we must take a sample of our water and have it analyzed monthly at unknown costs…. I am seriously aggravated at the state of our laws and the level of compliance required even for tiny little micro-farms.
We have some months in which to take the classes, and maybe I’ll find some classes nearby, but this more personal posting than usual is to let the people know that governmental regulations are a double-edged sword. While they give the USA good traceability in produce, and what is perhaps the safest produce in the world, it also makes for stronger economy-of-scale issues that stymie the small grower… right at a time that we are needing MORE small farms, not less. If we were a huge corporate farm, with many employees, still we would need just one person to go to the classes, but when it’s a one-man operation, the standards are the same. The costs are the same, but they are a larger share of the profit in a small operation like ours.
My usual outlook is of hope and positive thoughts. Rarely am I dragged into this level of aggravation. I am sure I will sign up for the classes in Monterrey, they seem very informative and interesting. But people need to know that excessive governmental regulations strangle small business, they hamper the process of business formulation. We need to seriously look at what we want for this country, a place where people can transact business legally and efficiently with little governmental interference. If the government requires classes such as this, it should place them within the reach of the people, if it requires monthly water sampling, it should have a method to make such sampling efficient and inexpensive, (the paperwork mentions some samples might cost $8,000 yearly).
Excessive governmental regulations hamper small business more than the large. If due only to ‘economy of scale’.
When my dad grew up on an Ozark farm in the thirties and forties, they raised corn and wheat, raised hogs which they sold every fall and winter, and had a hundred or so chickens from which they sold eggs daily. They had five or six milk cows which they milked by hand, using the milk for food and their dogs, and one milk-can daily which they left on the roadside for the milk company to pick up. They also went to neighboring farms to supply skilled farm labor. Nowadays they would have to have many more permits, and each operation would require specialized equipment and permits and licensing. As all these regulations pile onto business, you must streamline your operations, drop aspects that have no profit and require permits, then you start to specialize. Yet a small family farm should not be a specialist farm, it should have a wide variety of foods and animals to create the ‘loop system’ for bio-diversity. Yet through the years we have had to drop livestock from our farm, first initially because we did not have proper butchering facilities, so we stopped the breeding of animals, until we had no more. We stopped using manures for fertilizer years ago because the government is worried about contamination of the soils with bacteria from manures. We stopped bringing in mulches for weed control and soil building because we could not vouch for the exact trees the wood chips came from. We are now a closed system with no outside inputs, and only material going out at a rate of a ton a month. Yet even this production is priced so low, and the shipping and governmental costs are so high, that we make no profit. One day, it might just get through my head that I’m better off just enjoying the property ourselves, and stop working so hard to make a business out of it. Yet, I know I can’t, we have such great customers….
While mulling these thoughts over in my head, I decided I needed to go for a walk. So with my camera in hand, I went down the road and took photos of the things I love about living here. And it is when in the wilderness, when I am furthest from people and the government, that I am closest to God and nature. These photos are my world, they are my daily activities and sights…. it is what is most in my heart.
The large oak once was a nut that stood its ground
Spanish Moss on Black Oak
Cutbank on the canyon road
Cutbank on the canyon road
The green lush creek bottom
The green lush creek bottom
Live Oak reaches over the creek
Live Oak reaches over the creek
Old cattle Loading Chute
Miocene Deposits, this was all once underwater
Oak Woodlands
Poison Oak vines wind up the Oak Trees
Spanish Moss on the Oak Tree
A tarantula, means rain is coming soon!
A tarantula, means rain is coming soon!
A tarantula, means rain is coming soon!
Right around the bend from home, my daily view
‘One Tin Soldier’
`Lambert-Potter’
Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
‘Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below.
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They’d have it for their very own.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they’d kill.
Came an answer from the kingdom,
“With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there.”
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
Now the valley cried with anger,
“Mount your horses! Draw your sword!”
And they killed the mountain-people,
So they won their just reward.
Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it…
“Peace on Earth” was all it said.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
For decades we’ve heard of how ‘Agribusiness’ has been swallowing up family farm after farm. Now a new study shows that the number of micro-farms (under nine acres) has gone up in the last five years!
I suspect there are plenty of reasons for this. One is the fact that the government has been intruding more into lives and businesses for decades now. This has also resulted in many large gardens being forced to register with the government in order to sell any produce they grow. But I know that with the advent of ‘localism’ in food procurement, there have been many non-producing farms that have gone ‘back online’ growing and selling produce. I think this regrowth of small farms is a good thing. Sure, they lose ‘economy of scale’, but they can also respond to changing conditions in the marketplace, and will have a certain amount of local buys almost guaranteed. The closer to a large city these small farms are, the better their local sales should be.
One of the big things you learn in agriculture is to keep your fields and farms free and clear of invasive pests. It’s something of the old ‘war against nature’ that man has had since existential awareness. Just keeping the native pests at bay is bad enough, but you have natural predators to help out. The natural ecosystem can deal with the myriad pests that are native… they slip into the system like they belong there.. which they do. A super-real danger to both agriculture and the local ecosystems is the introduction of non-native pests. Non-natives can sometimes have a way of spreading widely into their new areas. They have coping strategies that are unfamiliar to the native predators, and can often blanket an area within a short time. These new introductions to the local environment can displace native species, crowding them out and causing large disruptions to the local species.
It is in a ‘paradise’ system like Florida, California and Hawaii that these introductions can most readily spread and cause damage far beyond what you might imagine. For this reason many states have ‘declaration’ rules, so they can try to avoid the huge damage that introduced species can have. Every time I hear of a new insect somewhere that is causing problems, I think of my own responsibility in reducing insect spread. With us, much of it is just an awareness of our part in reducing spread of anything beyond our boundaries. Part of it is our own responsibility to not bring anything into California that is non-native. And part of it is our responsibility as citizens to help everyone understand the true implications of introduced pests. To that end, we are registered as a nursery and have to undergo inspections of our crops and plant material for serious pests, we don’t import anything onto our place from out-of-state without purchasing from an approved nursery. And we try to speak out on this subject, in a plain and straight-forward way. So that others can see and understand the true implications of being the guy who brought ‘such-and-such’ critter into Paradise.
To that end, we wish to introduce all to the ‘Invasive Pest Tracker’. It is a website designed by the California government to inform the public of both the dangers of invasive pests, but also to make the public aware of the ‘hotspots’ in the state. These are places that have a small localized infestation of some pest, and a quarantine has been put into effect in that area to stop the spread beyond that area. That area will also have an eradication plan in effect, to try to kill the pest off before it can establish a viable population for breeding. These ‘hotspots’ are shown on a map, so you can see where the current quarantines are in effect.
Please, when visiting other states and countries, please do not bring any fruits and vegetables back here. If you do, make sure you declare them to the customs agents. If you purchase plants through the mail, make sure they are a licensed registered nursery, not some guy selling his backyard plants over E-Bay. Believe me, even if you don’t get caught, if you suspect you are the one who brought something terrible into paradise, you’ll have a pit in your stomach for the rest of your life.
~The Eagles~
‘The Last Resort’
Then the chilly winds blew down
Across the desert
through the canyons of the coast,
to the Malibu
Where the pretty people play,
hungry for power
to light their neon way
and give them things to do
Some rich men came and raped the land,
Nobody caught ‘em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes,
and Jesus People bought ‘em
They called it paradise
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun,
sinking in the sea
We can leave it all behind
and sail to Lahaina
just like the missionaries did, so many years ago
They even brought a neon sign that said ”Jesus is coming”
Brought the ‘White Man’s burden’ down
Brought the White Man’s reign
Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
‘Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here
We’ve satisfied our endless needs and
justified our bloody deeds,
in the name of destiny
and in the name of God
And you can see them there,
On Sunday morning
They stand up and sing about
what it’s like up there
They call it paradise
I don’t know why
You call someplace paradise,
kissin’ it goodbye
I googled ‘pages that link to rivenrock.com” to see who has links to us. I found one page where the folks said… “We have had very good luck buying bulk quantities from Rivenrock.com. They have kept very well in a cool room in the basement for months. ” Tim & Robin
We like doing the things we do… the people we’re able to send good cactus to. It’s a great deal of fun to find sucha great unsolicited endorsement.
Rosemary Farm is one of the oldest farms in the area. It was started in 1925 by a fellow named Allan Hancock who named it after his daughter Eunice… no, I mean Rosemary.
A fellow I know grew up on RosemaryFarm. His dad was the guy who knew the proportion of feeds to use for the many thousands of chickens. He remembers being a child and the elderly ’Captain’ as they called Hancock coming to his parent’s house to discuss the farm work. Everyone was awed by his wealth… but even more so by his humility…. his family did not start out wealthy, he was a hardworking young fellow.
Hancock’s family originally bought several thousand acres in the Beverly/Wilshire area of LA for $2.50 per acre…. (I swoon hearing that). But the truth is, his dad was a surveyor, and the City of Los Angeles didn’t have money to pay him, so they settled on giving him the land in return for the fees they owed him. They owned the La Brea tar pits and The Captain dug tar to sell to folks for roofing. Eventually they started drilling for oil, and they became very wealthy. He helped develop the famous ‘Miracle Mile’ on Wilshire avenue, and founded California Bank…. But there are folks who hoard their wealth, and there are folks who use it constructively…. and Hancock was a philanthropist… after the family became so very wealthy, he started research into agriculture, autos (he was the second person in Los Angeles to buy a car), and aviation. He started the local airport as an aviation college, which eventually trained military pilots for WWII. The airport college he started was eventually given over to the state college system and became my ‘Alma Mater’, Allan Hancock College.
Yeah, there’s folks who come into wealth and become corrupted…. thankfully there are folks who use their wealth to lift the overall condition of mankind. In 1913, Hancock donated the La Brea tar pits to the Los Angeles County Museum of History, with the stipulation that the museum would be free to the public…. his list of scientific and exploratory interests and accomplishments are legend in these parts. It is not money that corrupts, it is the love of money. Use your resources wisely, be good.
Hancock was a music enthusiast, and founded the Hancock Ensemble, which played hundreds of concerts up and down the Pacific Coast. He gave an informal morning concert at his home on Rosemary Farm property hours before he died in his sleep of heart failure on May 31, 1965.
His wife, Marian Hancock, for whom Allan Hancock College’s Marian Theatre is named, continued his legacy of public service for many years. She died in 1993.
While I was looking around for the Rosemary Farms website (which I did not find) I found a really interesting website of a place called ‘Rosemary’s Farm’. I liked the photos of the old stone walls, something we don’t see much in California (they fall down here).
We got an e-mail from someone in England who tells us…
“Greetings!
Just wanted to make sure . . . you don’t ship outside North America, is that correct? If not, would you consider shipping to England for a charge? I’d be happy to pay whatever postal fee is necessary.
I ask because I’ve been looking for a new source of cactus for salsa since the only exotic foods company I know of that sold nopalitos here in England discontinued them (because they didn’t advertise it, and I was about the only person in the whole country buying the stuff). I really need to find a new source of cactus, because it’s extremely good for any digestive problems that crop up, including IBS. Plus, my cactus salsa is extremely popular with several people over here, and I may need to place regular orders. Crossing my fingers, I remain
Yours sincerely, Nigel”
My (long-winded) response….
Howdy Nigel, (that’s a cool name, one us US folks only hear on TV program worn by a real Brit!).
It’s tough shipping cactus around due to the complex laws and such….
generally there is a ‘phytosanitary’ report that must by done by our Ag officials to ensure your officials there are no bugs on the leaves.
We’ve been able to get a blanket approval to ship to Canada due to the low risk of our plants… and all the licenses showing we conform to standards.
It might be we could do something like that with you if we’re lucky…. because the phyto costs me $65 for each report, and it must be done for each shipment. Also, we have to drive the leaves to the town with the ag dept and show them to the officials, it’s a 20 mile drive just to get there…. so we charge $100 for the report to cover gas and time…..
Now, the fellow in Canada who bought from us and took it into Canada over the border got with his officials, showed them our licenses at www.rivenrock.com/licenses.html including the protected plant permit etc. They saw that our leaves are pretty smooth and easy to see any infestation, he went through all the hoops, permits and approvals… and now we have a blanket approval to ship to him alone with no phyto required.
I know what you mean about the salsa, it’s good stuff. I bet you’d like our leaves better than what you got before.
Where were the other leaves coming from? I hate to negatively impact my business, but are there any available from a Mediterranean country?… all places I think would be able to grow cactus well.
What I’d really like is someone in EU who wants to buy our cactus in bulk, and have his own business reselling it in EU like the Canadian fellow does. Perhaps one box every now and then as he builds the business… then two at a time… I’m in no rush… but it would be nice to have market potential in EU.
In fact, our leaves are so VERY good and easy to clean, and delightfully tasty and crunchy that I think you’ll be blown away. It could be there’d be market potential there if the market gets developed by someone.
Buying leaves from us in this way… we’d give you some pretty good pricing (of course it’d not overtake the horrendous shipping costs)…..we think if someone is working to develop a virgin market (hard to do), they deserve some consideration with the price.
So, perhaps the first thing to do is to ask your local Ag officials what they think…. perhaps they can direct you to the ‘Big Boys’ in government who would be inspecting it upon arrival. If they see our website, and our certifications and such, they might like the idea enough to give you some consideration.
I know it is a hassle…. but moving bugs from country to country is not anything one wants to do, the monetary and environmental impact of creatures moving across continents is horrendous (we deal with this all the time in the US), and our county is about to be quarantined due to a particular foreign moth found forty miles form here. We’re exempt from the quarantine due to absence of the moth when they inspected a few days ago…. but knowing the problems it causes…. I want to make sure we do everything legally and correctly so we aren’t the locus of some new bug that devastates Europe! I mean, us Amis have enough people mad at us without sending noxious insects to you good folks…..
I’ll put this conversation up on our blog, perhaps someone who has the perfect answer will see it and give us help. Also, I’ll refer our own ag officials to it so they can refer us to the appropriate officials in England. They are helpful and want to help local growers sell, they just want to make sure the people do it properly and don’t cause any problems. So if you don’t know who to contact there… I will likely have some names and numbers you can call and ask for help…. so that you’ll have a place to start.
I’m glad you like cactus…. I’d like to supply cactus to the EU… and our organic certifications are good for EU… so it’s considered organic by law.
Yeah, there’s all kinds of folks trying to scam people out of their money.
Something I’ve had happen in the last month is people wanting me to send cactus to other countries and have their shippers come by and pick the plants up. We’ve done that before… but it takes us many months to get the governmental approval to ship the leaves out of the country (we have to get permission from Fish and Wildlife in Washington DC). Every single shipment out of the country is a big hassle, so we’re not really trying to do any international sales other than the Canadian sales we now have permission to move at will.
But there’s a difference in the way that these new requests come in… they say they want to pay by credit card… they also ask me to send them the list of what we sell so they can choose. This is odd… if they want to buy from us, why don’t they already know what we sell? Then if I do respond, they assure me their courier will take care of all the governmental paperwork… all I need do is package the leaves, and the courier will pick them up. They ask me to contact the courier for affirmation… and the courier wants us to pay them by credit card in advance for the shipping, and I will be reimbursed for the shipping by the buyer.
Nope, we don’t do that. I expect I’d get thousands of dollars charged on the card for ‘shipping, and no courier would come by to get the boxed cactus.
This morning I got an e-mail with similar phrasing… I am copying the initial e-mail, and my response.
Good day i am interested in placing an order with you to my residence in Japan and i will advice on how my order will be shipped,cause delivery to my location is now very easy and it might not be also easy for you to ship internationally,so i will let you know how my order will be shipped to me without any stress or troubles from your end.So i will need you to get back to me with where i can view all your stocks and whether there is a discount for any order.In regards to payment,i will be paying you with my credit card cause it is far easier for me that way,so i will need to know the type of credit card you accept.I hope to hear back from you soon. Regards Troy
My response is….
We could ship you 100k of Pteredactyle californicus for $9 per kilo. This is a big discount, we’ve been selling a lot of them in the last three weeks, but the holiday season for them will end here soon. I don’t think anyone has been bringing Pteredactyle into Japan yet. Perhaps it would be a hit there. What we have left over is getting a bit mature now, and it’s not likely I’ll be selling it now that the traditional day of frying it on the tenth is past. Everyone here now knows that it is going out of season. Perhaps we could market it as the traditional California Frying food to commemorate the saving of the Santa Barbara Mission on the tenth of August 1809. They had been locked for three weeks in the courtyard of the Mission while the Russian flotilla blockaded the harbor… they ate all their food, and were left with only the Pteredactyle plants they used for making into poles to pole the pirogues down the bayou. In necessity they developed a method to make the poles palatable as long as not fully mature. So now people here eat teredactyle for that three weeks in commemoration. The big ceremony happened just on Monday when I served the traditional Pteredactyle meal to the attendees at the Mission in Santa Barbara… I was picked to bring all the Pteredactyle this year for that meal.. it was quite an honor. But I overestimated how much we’d need, and planted much more than necessary (I didn’t want to run out on that big day).
So all we have right now for quick sale is Pteredactyle.. interested?
We’d have to charge your card for the $900… plus an additional 50% to cover any unforeseen government fees… any money we’d owe you back would be returned later after you receive shipment.
Thanks,
John
Eh, if they provide a credit card, it probably belongs to some poor guy who took the last bait.
I just hope I don’t get in trouble with ‘The Man’ for offering to sell Pteredactyle in California.
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Well, it turns out that Troy wants to get Pterodactyle after all. In fact, I am such a super salesman, I even got him up to 150 keys!
Here’s the letter he wrote back to me….
Hi John
thanks for the information.I am happy to hear that.I will like to order
150 kilos of the Pteredactyle californicus.My address and the shipping
procedure is listed below:
DELIVERY ADDRESS
addy removed,
addy removed,
Kobe
number removed
Japan
so i will like you to email me the total cost of my order.In regards to
the shipping,you will have to email the shipping company i will prefer you
use at (address removed) with what you want to ship,the
quantity,the weight.the price of what you want to ship and the destination
it will be picked up from and shipped to,then they will contact you
immediately with the shipping cost,you can also supply them with my last
shipment’s reference number ‘#removed’ that they shipped for me then.After
you have the shipping cost to my order,you will add it to my order cost,then
i will email you my credit card to charge for the whole amount so that you
can finalise the arrangements with them.
Troy
Well, well….
It seems Troy wants me to pay for the shipping first… then he will pay me for the shipping costs incurred, as well as the stock.
Here’s my reply….
Naw Troy, you got to pay me first and go through the proper paperwork and governmental stuff, they will check you and me both out, make sure it’s a legal transaction that fits the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) to which we must abide. You must be found by the US government and your own government to be a legal entity allowed by law to import the species we have federal license to sell, as long as we continue to abide by local, state, federal and international jurisdiction. This is doubly true for the genus Pteredactylus due to the ruthless Russian extermination pogrom that ensued in the years following 1809 in which all Pteredactylus plants were uprooted and destroyed save for one tiny plant that survived in some soil in a rain gutter at the mission. Being so high over the heads of the Russians, they never saw it… years later after the overthrow of the Czar it was found, and immediately placed into a special protected status. The government is very mindful that the plants be sent only to places with the appropriate climate so they will be assured of survival. I would imagine Kobe might be a bit too cool… but the beef your farmers produce is legendary!
Perhaps next year, after all the hurdles have been crossed, your premises inspected and found to be amenable, our government being assured of the legality of importation to Japan, then we can again speak of this. Meanwhile, it is time for you to contact your local authorities and see if you can get the proper licenses to import Pteredactyle californicus. This will all take some time. And we’re not quite ready to sell now that the stalks are hardening… they are getting closer to the harvest stage in their more traditional role as pirogue poles. They are remarkably well suited for this use.. the stalk near the soil is very hard and heavy and rot resistant… the top end is light as balsa but due to the longitudinal fibers, it is extremely strong for compression and flexing…. best of all, if you lose your pole, you will find it with the light end floating straight out of the water about four feet high! No one ever loses our pirogue poles around here, and our family has been growing them since my great grand daddy found that one in the rain gutter! The local museum has a few of the first ones he made, with his signature and the year made. Those were all made in the twenties…. in the thirties people didn’t buy any, so the family just ate them all. We are now starting on the sixth generation of pirogue-pole Pteredactyl growers. The young ones are a big help because they can tunnel under the big floppy leaves of the teradactyl easier than us older folks.
We can expect the process to take many months, as I will sell no material overseas without proper federal oversight.
”Britain must find ways to grow more food while using less water,
energy and fertilizers to help feed a growing world population
and offset the effects of climate change on agriculture,
the government said on Monday”
A senior minister said last year’s sharp rise in the cost of food and oil
and a severe drought in Australia
showed the urgent need to develop a food security plan.
“Last year the world had a wake-up call with the sudden oil and food price rises,”
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said in a statement
to launch a national debate on food security.
“We need a radical rethink of how we produce and consume our food.
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Food security is a big issue.
Strangely, the western world has had such a plethora of foods for the last few decades…
people have forgotten that watermelons don’t grow in January in the Northern Hemisphere.
A nation should be self-supporting in the issues of food production.
A government controls the main reins when it comes to food,
we’ve seen many African nations go from breadbasket to famine
due entirely to machinations of totalitarian regimes.
Any ‘radical rethink’ on the methods of food production must be well planned,
my worry is that ‘governments-being-governments’,
when they start to get their hands on methods of production,
they’ll interfere with the growers too much, and raise the cost of compliance.
Tao Teh Ching readings relating to governance
Chapter 17
When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
Second best is a leader who is loved.
Next, is one who is feared.
The worst is one who is despised.
Such as these have no faith in their people,
and the people in turn become unfaithful to them.
The Master doesn’t talk; he acts.
How sparing he is with his words!
When his work is complete and the purpose is achieved,
the people regard the triumph as their own.
Chapter 58
When a government is unobtrusive and tolerant
the people will be happy and prosperous;
when a government is suspicious and strict
the people are dissatisfied and crafty.
Good fortune is linked to calamity;
misery is tied to happiness.
So who can tell when the end of this will come?
Is there no measuring-stick for the norm?
What is seen now as right and true
will certainly someday be seen as wrong and false.
The people have labored under this sea of vexations for a long time.
Therefore the Master is square without sharp cutting corners.
His straightness is not strained;
he is pointed without being piercing.
And he is bright but not blinding.
Chapter 59
In governing the people and serving Heaven:
there is nothing better than frugality.
To be frugal one must be prepared beforehand.
The accumulation of great virtue is the thing that will give you
the strength to properly govern and serve.
With virtuous strength nothing is impossible.
This is spoken of this having deep roots and a firm stalk
rooted in a solid foundation,
the way of long life and great insight.
Chapter 60
Govern a large country in the same way
you would cook a small fish; you must be delicate.
Let the spirit of the Tao govern the land,
and evil spirits will have no power.
Not that the evil spirits will depart,
but the effects they have on the people will be insignificant,
and the effects of the Sage on the people
will also not be burdensome.
Since the spirits and the Sage do not cause harm,
all will be in balance.
Chapter 65
The ancient practitioners of the Tao
did not try to educate or enlighten the people;
they led them instead to a return to a natural simplicity.
The more sophisticated the people,
the harder it is to control and rule them.
It follows also that a clever ruler
can be a scourge to his nation.
Therefore it is a blessing to the nation and the people
if the rulers and the people alike are simple,
unsophisticated, and full of the virtue of the Tao.
To know these two things is to have a rule and a model
to guide oneself, and to guide the nation.
And to understand the rule and the model
is to be practicing the mystical virtue.
This deep and profound mystical virtue is so far reaching;
it causes all things to return to the source of harmony.
Chapter 72
When the people have no more fear of oppression;
that is when oppressive forces will overtake them.
Do not restrict the people in their dwellings.
Do not oppress the people with heavy taxes and burdens.
If you do not wear the people out, they will not weary of you.
Therefore it is that sages know themselves well,
but this self-knowledge is not displayed for all to see.
The sage respects himself,
but does not try to become admired.
He will choose self-knowledge and love,
and set conceit and opinion aside.
Chapter 75
When the nation is in want of food,
it can be seen that the government officials
are eating too much of the grain in excessive taxes.
And why are the people restive and hard to govern?
They are in a state of near rebellion
due to the intrusive machinations of the government.
The people learn to make light of death
when they strive to obtain goods and extravagant items.
They are relentlessly working to acquire more,
and look to death as a release from pursuit of material gain.
In this wise it is easy to not place too high a price on life.
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The western world has had a good run….
much like the development of internal combustion engines,
our style of government has become more efficient and complex…..
Have we now reached a precipice?….
has the government become as large and complex as it can be
without starting to implode under its own weight and size?
Part of the problem is that the folks holding the reins are generally
not the people who have served time in the trenches.
They don’t realize the awful consequences on ‘the people’ when they make pronouncements.
….ways in which a ruler can bring misfortune upon his army:
By commanding the army to advance or to retreat,
being ignorant of the fact that it cannot obey.
This is called hobbling the army.
(the army in this case is ‘The People’)
The government is hobbling business with excessive regulations and codes.
If we wish business to grow… we must encourage people to go into business…
not give more barriers to expansion and start up.
Now the general who wins a battle makes
many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought.
The general who loses a battle
makes but few calculations beforehand.
Thus do many calculations lead to victory,
and few calculations to defeat:
how much more no calculation at all!
It is by attention to this point
that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.
It is my thinking that since the majority of government officials have never had their own business, never been in the military, and are career politicians, they have no idea of the oppression they are giving the people. And the only solution they can come up with is to throw money to the people, without letting on that they’re gonna have to take that money back some day. And when they do, it will be ruinous. Better yet would be for the government to stand back, and let people do business. This would raise the water quite a bit.
