Growing Soil Sprouts
Concepts like self-sufficiency and independence are great, but just how obtainable are they? True, we each alone are responsible for our self-actualization and for our actions, but at the end of the day interdependence is the name of the game (thus the emphasis by many FreeKeene.com bloggers on mutual aid). After all, as Leonard Reed pointed out, even something as seemingly simple as a pencil necessitates the involvement of many.
So it is with the sustenance we each rely on to survive. Your cheeseburger and fry lunch from Local Burger may involve lettuce and tomatoes grown in California’s Central Valley, beef raised in Wyoming and slaughtered and packaged in Oklahoma, cheese from Wisconsin, potatoes from Idaho, salt from Pakistan. You get the idea.
In this economy that is built on the division of labor almost all of us turn to others for most, if not all of the food we consume.
In 2018, when my lady and I lived in Las Vegas we were able to run out for anything at any hour of the day. But during most of 2019, when we lived in a small town in the Intermountain West that lacked a grocery store, we had to plan our resupply expeditions. We could acquire enough eggs, raw milk, meat, and other vittles to keep us provisioned for long stints. But we found that having fresh greens on hand was difficult.
