Bee-built comb from one of our top bar hives.
Much of this blog is concerned with criticism of national and international events. One might ask “Well, what do you propose?” If I could answer that to people’s satisfaction, I’d be at the White House and UN, not typing this post. On the other hand, it is a reasonable question and I have some ideas that I am testing. I am working toward building alternative communities that can be real communities and essentially self-supporting. The Transition Town movement, and particularly Transition Town Media, is an example of this approach. This exemplifies the solution the peaceful anarchist Kropotkin proposed in his book Mutual Aid a century ago — evolution by cooperation. Fran and I are also working to simplify our lives and get off the grid as much as possible. I have less than half the “things” than I had two years ago, and we’re living in a smaller house with good public transportation and enjoying a simpler life style. This is freeing because it requires less resources and less attention. We also have our chickens and bees and gardens, including buried cold storage capability. We can eat better while also eating simpler and conserving natural resources. I can’t say that we’re there yet by a long shot, but this is our partial answer, in practice and not just in theory, to that question “What would you do?” The best answer is to be able to point to what you’re actually doing.
Fran and chickens, before we built the free-range enclosure.