Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Harvey Ussery <huboxwood@earthlink.net>]

> Take another look around you. Getting away from the "community" is the
> wisest thing a family could do. Those people we now call our friends and
> neighbors could very easily turn on us and become our worst ennemies. What
> would happen if you were the only one in a community that had food and
> water? You and your family would probably be killed and your food and water
> carried off by your friends and neighbors.
>
> I wouldn't want to be forced to kill to keep what I had but that is exactly
> what it would come down to if people knew you still had food. (Art in 
> Arkansas)

A dramatic look at the future, to be sure, to which I reply: Maybe. 
Certainly the population is vastly greater than in the Depression, and a 
vastly greater percentage doesn't have a clue about how to make food 
come into being. Certainly in a society armed to the teeth such as ours 
the sort of dog-eat-dog, murdering-neighbors scenario Art sketches are a 
distinct possibility.

But it may be that the collapse will manifest not so much as "deep 
drama," but simply that almost all of us will find that we are very, 
very poor. And maybe a desperate need to survive will quickly spark a 
return to traditional food-producing skills.

In any case, I have already accepted: If the collapse comes down to a 
shoot-out, I lose. No problem. Okay. I have no intention of even 
competing in that arena. But if it doesn't, then the person who will 
emerge as *most valuable* to the community is the person who, in 
contrast to almost everybody else in the society, has already climbed 
the learning curves involved in growing most of his own food. And who, 
in addition to being in a better position to see to his own family's 
needs, will have an opportunity to be of service to his neighbors who 
are starting from scratch.

~Harvey

PS  Admittedly, Art, I didn't address the main point you emphasized: the 
plight in the cities (and suburbs). All I can say is--that's gonna be a 
mess.

--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us