I am very busy with my local projects, including putting in the infrastructure for a food garden.  My long silence is not indicative of anything wrong -- no news is good news in this case.  New love has come into my life most unexpectedly this last summer, and I've been rather closely focussed on "soaking in" to my local community and biome, coming to terms with a new lover/partner after many years of solitude, and enjoying the command of my own time that has come with retirement from the day job.

It is odd to be finding contentment and happiness, even moments of dumb-grin joy, in a time of (what looks like) civilisational collapse.  Even on the brink of the volcano, it seems, we can still dance a hornpipe.  I'm working on the boat, trying to make her mobile again before the supply of industrial goods starts to dry up;  got a worm bin started, am composting food waste and (as I said) planning a food garden in my partner's back yard.

Recent reading:

The Essential Agrarian Reader (Wirzba ed.) (!)
A Short History of Progress (Wright) (!)
Year Around Harvest: Winter Gardening on the  Coast (Gilkeson)
The Whole Grain Cookbook (Livingston) (!)
Art and Technics (Mumford)
Spook Country (Gibson) (!)
New and Collected Works (Mary Oliver) (!)
Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them
Barnyard in Your Backyard (the section on chickens)
The Fate of Mice (Palwick) (!)

(marked with ! are highly recommended)

on the list if I ever get around to 'em:

When Technology Fails
No Fixed Address (voyages of a BC junk)
The Making of the English Working Class

I'm trying to get Taz mobile by my birthday (early March) so really buckling down to it.  Thus the shortage of goofing-off-online hours.  I'm about 5 months behind on blog entries (daclarke.org) but trying to catch up when I have a free evening.

Sounds a bit boring, no?  but actually, life seems very textured, interesting, and rich to me at present.  Just a little short on reflecting/writing time :-)  I do drop by ET regularly and dip into the flow of ideas and conversation;  but am too busy actually implementing my ideas and conclusions at present to talk much about 'em.  Best wishes to all;  may your saner counsels prevail over the madness that now passes for policy in the wealthy, deranged, oil-drunk nations...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...