Blog O

I just typed 'organic' into my search engine, and the first up was 'Organic Inc' who are, amongst other things, 'excited by the new Mitsubishi Lancer launch'. They also had some great diversion with a klutz in the back of a taxicab, for twentysomethings to entertain themselves with. I kind of miss the concept of organic as describing a natural thing; OK that carbon based chemistry gets in there; we all need to know what carbon is and isn't doing in our lives, and that the tree huggers have adopted the term for chemical-free agriculture, but where do I get chemical-free rainwater, or chemical-free air to breathe, as my plants (actually my partner's plants) would probably like to consume? This week we will do four trips from home, twice the norm, one to collect friends from the nearest airport, and one to collect specially manufactured insulation materials to lower the carbon footprint of our house renovation project.... but we have gotten to hate the act of going anywhere; the risk of a collision, the risk of failing to achieve the objectives of the trip (empty shelves in the supermarket and hardware stores? A real possibility, regrettably) the delays of queueing in traffic at railway crossings, (where the train might be efficient, but not with the barrier down five minutes for the twenty seconds event of the train passing, and our being the only motorists to turn their engine off, as we don't have AC to keep in equilibrium) and our little valley is pretty pleasant to hang out in, if life has to be slow, which, I fear, is what organic is all about. But I fail to see the rest of the folk in our little village being so laid back. Marija is busy killing all the insects, bugs and wriggly things of the region...(we were impressed to see her traps for hornets, but we now learn that they are an endangered species,) while we have taken a liking to our snake population, which can attain two metres in length, though we have only seen half that size, and only once, but we regularly husband a clutch of odd shaped eggs, and found a cache of 37 quite large empty shells, so we're hopeful of seeing a lot more, and are even planning a snake pit to help them winter over without choosing our domicile as the better alternative..., but I am mostly disappointed that the timeline of our organic house will be doubled by sheer human inefficiency; five hardware stores offer the same limited stock of materials; anything outside that is a special order, which runs from impossible through three days to really almost a month, for a 30° bend for a sewer pipe, for example, as they all stock only 90° and a few 45°, and tool accessories are one mainstram German brand, all packaging and information, but five times the price of world brands who compete for shelves elsewhere. I've been building in my spare time since the 1950s, where the hammer really was all one had, and if you were no good at driving nails in the really decent hardwoods that were still being stripped from our forests, you'd get nowhere fast a bit like I am today..... same old same old. What I'd really like is to eventually disconnect from the power supply. I think 'organic' really means that; there is nothing as polluting as our need for Alternating Current, be it 110 or 220, and while our place will have a very low draw on the mains, eliminating it will be my only true peace of mind, as, while I live a dozen kms from a nuclear power station, this country is still dependant on imports, as is EVERY country in the developed world, and as I can't rely on you to do anything, I will have to double and redouble my own efforts. Nuff said