Flexibility, Sustainability and Simplicity

The garden is winding down, though Joe and I continue to plant. Our third planting is showing great signs; the heirloom strawberry lettuce, green with red specks, that Judy found fascinating is ready to sell, beets are gorgeous, second planting of tomatoes with incredibly high yields, the cabbage and broccoli are looking full and healthy as I transplant them from pot to raised bed. Now I have time to paint yard furniture, weed and fuss over all of the little things that I didn't have time to get to while everything was growing like crazy. I do have a basket of small melons, more beans - green and fava to pick so it's not like I don't have anything to do. Let's not mention the 2,000 ground cherries I am shucking so that Deb and I can make chutney. Oh yeah, and we have 10 small pumpkins that survived some kind of weird fungus that took over the leaves. Joe put up 24 quarts of tomato sauce - next we have to do the pesto because the basil looks like a fragrant Italian forest, so gorgeous that it is making it hard to pick. And showing itself is the cilantro. Delicate, fragrant and demanding I cook something where it is a key ingredient.

As we move towards the idea of neighborhood sustainability, selling vegetables has been a real learning experience. I couldn't sell a yellow string bean if my life depended on it. But the farmer I get them from sells pounds every weekend at the local markets. I had 24 eggplants but could never sell more than 12. But the basics i.e. green beans, tomatoes, potatoes, mushrooms, lettuce, beets, corn, peaches, strawberries and blueberries - no problem. I'm still harping on the kale, collard greens, turnips, Swiss chard, mustard greens, parsnips and soon the okra. Do I get smarter for next year and just plant the basics? Or do I continue to try and convince customers, neighbors and friends to try and go with the heartier vegetable that will sustain the harsher climates while providing everyone with incredible nutrition. I mean you just can't eat anything healthier than kale. Through this experience I have had to learn how to be flexible and really, keep it simple. With my artistic nature, my ideas can be a bit grandiose and time-consuming. So once again the garden and what may lay ahead of me are already showing me how to improve as a person and maybe even how to be more useful.

Because I will have time to write as the days grow cooler and shorter, I have been collecting my thoughts about just what "I" think having a sustainable neighborhood really means. How many people does it include? I guess the fact that I live on an island make the boundaries fairly clear - but what about the urban neighborhoods or the more rural communities? What is the definition of a neighborhood? What do you need to not just survive but thrive? There are some things that are clear - land that can be farmed, fresh water and seeds. But then who has the farm equipment? Who has dairy products? Then let's not forget machinery that needs to be fixed and maybe even built to suit the needs of the demands. I guess that it is by necessity that these answers become clear and the issues at hand are dealt with. But then there are the overviews of questions, like "Shouldn't the way we do things become simpler?" I mean just because you have the technology to do something, should you do it?

In regards to simplicity, flexibility and sustainability, where does bartering come in? Karen Golden and I had a really interesting conversation today about that very subject. She is the gal whose family has had a cottage on the island since the 50's and an organic farm in Highland. Her specialty being heirloom tomatoes and peppers. This year she began to barter - pounds of tomatoes to her hairdresser for haircuts for her and her husband throughout the year. Her neighbor had more than enough concord grapes - they bartered so he could have his canned tomato sauce and she could have her jelly.

I have bartered many services throughout the last few years - my friend Walt, a handyman extraordinaire and an aspiring singer - traded his services for voice lessons. I bartered with my graphic designer and now her daughter gets voice lessons. The whole bartering concept really does seem incredibly civilized and simple. Not to mention that we might have to get fairly flexible on receiving goods we need if the world economic situation continues to tank.

Civilized or not what it may come down to is the concept of "simpler is better." Buckminster Fuller a great proponent of this concept is worth reviewing with his geodesic domes among other cutting edge concepts. At the age of 32 he found himself on the shore of Lake Michigan wondering whether to end his life there. Fuller took a decision to devote his life to others by embarking on "an experiment to discover what the little, penniless, unknown individual might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity". The following year he made his first 4D tower, a lightweight, prefab, multi-story apartment tower to be delivered anywhere in the world by airship. Once delivered the towers would generate their own light and heat with an independent sewage disposal system. Driven by his philosophy of "more for less", Fuller threw himself into a new way of housing mankind, in "Lightful Houses" so-called because they were full of light. This program and his vision of a world united by the most modern means of transport and telecommunication evolved into Fuller's philosophy of four-dimensional design. He defined this as thinking in time instead of only the three dimensions of space: thinking of consequences for humanity instead of only immediate personal gain. Hundreds of thousands of geodesic domes have since been constructed all over the world, often in extreme conditions, to offer inexpensive shelter to homeless families in Africa, or to house weather stations in 180 mph winds in the Antarctic. In 1960 Fuller designed a dome of two miles in diameter to encase midtown Manhattan in a controlled climate. He calculated that it would pay for itself within ten years simply by saving on snow removal costs.

When it comes to growing a garden, taking on new projects, writing a song and of course, living my life - maybe I can incorporate these words like Buckminster Fuller did in everything he took on. Simplicity, Sustainability and Flexibility may be the key in not wasting my time in trying to keep things the way they have always been but rather moving forward on a less stagnant path towards a brand new world.