All is not well

Saturday, May 12, 2012


I sit. Home. Alone. Leah has gone to see the redwoods in the company of her two sisters, her 87 year old mother and my brother-in-law, God save his soul.

I say alone, but in reality I am surrounded by creatures, among them a pack of dogs, a fair number of horses, goats, chickens of all stripes and sizes, cats, hogs and a even a couple of obnoxious geese. We’ve had rain of late, which, I suppose is a good thing, however, having been conceived and raised in desert regions of West Texas and New Mexico, wet, nice and green makes me feel out of my element.

With Leah’s absence, I inherited her chores atop my own. I now seem to have so many chores there’s no time left for work.

A trip through the garden this afternoon sent me back to the house feeling overwhelmed. Everything is getting ready at the same time. I plant enough to feed a small army. There’s just too damn much. But I tell myself that too damn much won’t be near enough when the shit hits the fan and I remain convinced that shit will, in fact, hit the fan. The only question remains when and in what form it is manifest.

In the meantime, the hogs look at me from the mud of their pen like I am crazy as I haul and dump one bucket after another of excess produce for them to eat. Pretty bad when even the hogs think I plant too much.

The hogs haven’t been to the nearby Buc-ees convenience store some twelve miles from here on Interstate – 10. On any given day, there are cars waiting in line for gas despite fifty or more pumps in the parking lot. Food, (if you can it that), barrels of soft drinks, coffee, beer and ice pours through big doors in the back by the semi-load and out through automatic doors in the front at a maniacal pace. There’s probably enough toilet water flowing out of underground pipes in the restrooms to keep a small creek flowing.

As I survey the people packing all this shit out the door, I consider how tenuous the system that keeps them fueled and fed. Most seem terribly ill prepared for the hardship that is already a fact of life for about half of the world at this very moment. I wonder if any notice the horror-stricken look on my face as I contemplate having to feed such a hoard.

I know. I sound like a broken record, stuck on the same verse, over and over, but I just can’t shake this feeling.

Get prepared, folks. All is not well.

Not even close.

PS. Sunday morning

Leah calls to say gas is 4.99.9 a gallon at the California/Arizona border. The RV gets 8 miles to the gallon.

I'd bet there's some dude watching the stream of people that my wife is part of, shaking his head and wondering.

I read people like Kunstler, Ruppert, Guy McPherson, peak oil prophets, if you will, only to learn that they too can't sit still.

There is no new frontier. We have to make it work here, wherever here is, or fail.

No other option remains.