I have been thinking about this today:

“All of humanity is in peril,” said Buckminster Fuller, “if each one of us does not dare, now and henceforth, always to tell only the truth and all the truth, and do so promptly—right now.”

That was from the mid 80s I believe. Anyone who understands systems theory knows why the truth is important. It has to do with feedbacks. Information distortion and delay means that the system can get dangerously out of balance and we wouldn't know it and make appropriate corrective actions.

I will contrast this with a conversation I had to day with Sam Pierce, Vice Major of Sebastapol. We were talking about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and wean ourselves off of fossil fuels in general. The "scientific imperative" is to do this as quickly as possible and, I was saying, it will fundamentally alter our way of life. (Hence my Locavorism). My argument is that this transition goes beyond calculations of the net present values of efficiency gains in conservation or renewable energy system, but that is apparently all that the political system is willing to work with now.  This frustrates me.  "Don't ever tell people that," Sam suggested, meaning imply their way of life must change, "You will loose that argument." Now he is a politician and I am not, so I listen to folks with more experience than I do, but what does it say about our collective prospects if we aren't supposed to talk about the reality of the situation?

(I should also say that Sam knows what the scientific imperative is and is working hard to help his city and others reduce GHC emissions).

There's a scene in the claymation movie Chicken Run where the leading hen, Ginger, explains how dire the situation is, exclaiming something like, "If we don't get out of here we are all going to die!" Rocky, the leading rooster, pulls her away from the now panicky flock and explains that in America you can't motivate people like that. So we must lie, Ginger asks? Sort of, Rocky suggests.

But I digress.

Breakfast

Oct 13 Breakfast

Typical fare: Pheonix bakery toast with Petaluma butter, Willits honey or Holly's plum butter; scrambled Willits eggs; pears from our yard; tap water.

I get pretty high marks for that meal. But look what I did next.

Coffee

That's right. Take a good look. Expresso, foam, a little cane sugar (raw). Hava Java's is a really important hang-out place for me. I have met many friends there and it is how I keep up with events in town. For example, Howard just built a car.

Howard's Electric Car

So what does a Locavore do about these special places. Gathering joints like coffee shops and taverns and restaurants are important parts of a community. Chance meetings and conversations often lead to important events. I missed the social isolation more than the coffee, so decided to have a visit.

Interestingly, the proprietor, Donna, often asks whether we can grow coffee locally. Along the coasts and in the San Francisco Bay Area we probably could, I tell her. Coffee shrubs like cool, moist conditions, as are found in tropical mountains below the frost line. But for me, the gathering place itself is more important than what we are gathering over.

Lunch

This was another leftover day.

Oct 13 Lunch

The pears were leftover from breakfast. The soup was originally dinner Oct 9 and was described as: "About mid-day I started soaking lentils, barley and flour corn. Put these in our solar oven then came back a couple hours later with garlic, onions, tomatillos, winter squash, chili pepper, thyme, oregano, sage, and California bay leaf all from the neighborhood. This cooked fine but I did have to add butter and milk at the end to make it feel and taste right. It ended up being a sort of hot and sour soup. It was almost like a Thai soup but didn't have basil or coconut milk. Tomatillos gave it the sour and the chili pepper the hot." I put some goat cheese from Lakeport on the soup, which was a nice touch.

A couple hours later I had a snack.

Oct 13 Snack

This is the popcorn from between Santa Rosa and Guerneville I believe. I put butter on it from Petaluma. (Thank you Sonoma County).

Dinner

My friend Gerry was reading my blog entry about the ca. $8 per pound wild rice and so came over with this.

Calrose Rice

This rice comes from the Sacramento Valley of California and is processed/packaged in Woodland. Woodland is 137 miles from here so it falls outside of the Locavore Diet sensu stricto. However, if one were to eat rice in Willits, this would be the best choice because we can't grow tropical rice locally. Our summer nights are too cold and while the plants grow seemingly well, they don't flower and set fruit properly.

So dinner was the most local rice we can get plus last nights lamb stew.

Oct 13 Dinner

Boy it was nice having a break from potatoes.