Home at last!

Just a quick note to let you all know we're back in Corvallis. It's been a long strange trip, as they say. Actually it was really amazing and a great experience for all of us.

Our friend Judi met us at the airport at 1AM (!), and drove us home. When we got here Joanna and Casandra were waiting up for us, having fixed up the house like a Class 5 hotel - flowers, chocolates on the pillow and all. We have the SWEETEST neighbors.

I'll get some home pics on here soon, but otherwise I think this is about the last post for this blog. Thank you all for listening and for you comments.

Mosegaarden, Denmark

I'm sitting in a chair in the side lawn at Mosegaarden, Ole and Vibeke's country place outside of Odense. It's 23 deg (Centigrade of course, this isn't backwards USA). My wife is sitting next to me in panties and a t-shirt, looking lovely as ever after these 25 years of marriage. Dozens of birds are singing in the trees around the yard, there are hordes of bicycle riders going by in pelatons and singly. I can hear the high speed eletric commuter train rolling by in the background. It makes only a steel on steel swish sound. The occasional car goes by, small, efficient, and relatively quiet. In the distance there are a dozen wind turbines turning lazily in the morning breezes.

The horses are fed and Connor finished scrubbing out the watering troughs this morning. I also finished scything the brush from the east fence, a task I've enjoyed greatly.

The scythe is a magnificent example of agricultural intelligence. When swung smoothly, close to the ground it floats through thistle and nettle stems making little "ching ching" noises as it clips off the larger stems. I carry a small stone to maintain that edge as I work. You really can feel it when it needs a touch up. I occupied several mornings using it to clear the back horse fences of nettle and thistle while waiting for Marco Polo to finish his feed.

To get there, I spent a day tuning up the neglected scythe. It's a fine tool, Austrian made, light and well formed to the task. Having worked it over with an improvised anvil and hammer, the edge of the blade is just thicker than a piece of paper, bending slightly under pressure from a thumb nail. The final edge should be put on with a rounded hard stone swept across both sides of the blade with a gloved hand. Be careful, that blade is very sharp.

Anybody who's read Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia books will immediately recognize the scene described here. Denmark is as close to Ecotopia as anyplace I've been. There seems to be a genuine concern for and appreciation of the fragility of the environment we need to survive on this planet. The social systems, especially health care and child support, while not perfect, appear to me to be the best anywhere on the planet. People really do use bicycle and mass transit in favor of the car. Consequently there is noticeably less traffic on the roads than anywhere, except maybe outback Australia.

After 9 months of travel involving a large variety of situations, this feels the most like home. We've been left to care for a small farm with 4 horses and assorted small furry critters. There's work to be done, friendly neighbors, bikes to ride, a marvelous kitchen to cook in, and wireless internet - Just like home. This situation is helping to get our head and hearts around the concept of being at home again.

A little rant

In line with a book I read recently, Don't Think of an Elephant, I'm working on a new concept/name; "corporates". It's all the organizations and induhviduals who act without conscience or ethics. It's the agribusiness that grows crops but looses top soil. It's the automobile industry that destroyed public transit to create a market. It's the drug companies that market products that don't work or actively cause harm. It's also individuals who do things that deprive others of freedom or peace. This would include both those who act in the guise or under cover of actual corporations (see theft by corporates is protected by law) for instance, or several books by Thom Hartmann, and those who act under cover of public apathy in the face of unkind or illegal acts by others, such as
street theft.

Granted, not all these examples are directly perpetrated by actual multinational corporations. But in most cases I can think of, the (lack of) ethical standards required to commit such acts have been taught to or forced on us by corporates or their supporters (can you say John Dewey's training for the insdustrial revolution?)

What is needed is new lexicon to frame the questions of our time that allow us to think of them as they realistically affect people, rather than as they affect the corporates, and the governments they install. The corporates have spend billions of dollars and much very focused attention on building frames that allow only their way of thought. Real people need to take similar measures if we are to take back our commons and our government.