A Living Magazine - Tap Root: Day 2 - The Social and Personal Method to My Madness

Back in 2014 I began to plan a strategy using my SelfSustainingProperty.blogspot.com to help me plan the set-up of my own land someday. Yet, even then, the desire to have a place that would be a capable of sustaining itself and me was much more deeply rooted and decades old.

Over 20 years ago I first got the itch to find a way out of the rat race; the hyperconventional, debt-based, synthetic social game, of complexification, and unbridled materialism - what I have called in my other blog (IWALLK.blogspot.com), "thing fetishism" and "thing worship." It is our obsession with material items, or what Terence McKenna once called, “the outside of things” that not only is depleting our natural resources and then leaving waste behind, but also pulling hard-earned cash out of our pockets and leaving massive debt behind.

As a child born in the late 1960's, and raised in a middle class family, living in a small coastal village in Maine, I had been taught and trained that there was no other way to survive in modern America, beside chasing the "American Dream."

Whereas the counterculture of the 1960's and the Vietnam-era problems of 1970's were prying open the tight clamp of the post World War II Leave it to Beaver and My Three Sons social mentality in many other places around the country, for the most part, Maine floated above these changes—or, better-put, outside of them.

When I grew up, fathers “knew best” and were “the king of their castle,” though they spent very little time there. It wasn't until I was in my teens that I realized how stupid this "father knows best" assumption was. In my family, learning not to take my dad's advice was the greatest realization in my young life at the time.

Socially, divorces were dirty little secrets no one talked about, women were berated for wanting equal rights and were even betrayed by their own sisters for attempting to pass the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

Gasoline was cheap. The highways were packed with blissful, wasteful drivers. When you wanted to get rid of trash in your car you just threw it out the car window.

Up to 1970 cigarettes were advertised on TV. It was completely normal for every public space to smell like stale cigarette smoke—buses, bus stations, hotel rooms, restaurants, planes and airports, etc...

The state was only too happy to re-submerge itself into the remnants of "white bread" life in the 1980's. After the brief respite of President Jimmy Carter's attempts to bring environmental progress to an unregulated industrial orgy of pollution failed (Maine's Edmund S. Muskie's efforts, being the great exception), and unrealized efforts at liberalizing Nixon's militarization of social issues like his disastrous “War on Drugs (a “crisis” he intentionally made up to deflect attention from his secret and illegal carpet bombing of South East Asia—see “Operation Menu), the state settled back into a 1950's mentality.

Maine – despite eventually becoming known for its moderate policy views on the national stage in the 1990's, through to today – was still quick to adopt the more conservative ways of  Reaganomics.

The “Hippies” had become “Yuppies” when they reached their thirty somethings, and the trickle-down economics experiment to secure the place of the 1% (where the crumbs falling from their tables might sustain the 99% below them) was begun in earnest, lasting throughout the 1980's; reinforcing the absurd concept that “he who dies with the most toys wins.”

Excessive material consumption and unchecked consumerism fueled by unlimited corporate commercial reach through the six hours of TV that each average American was watching, turned the Capitalist ideal of the so-called “Free Market” into a greedy system of monopolization. Today we see the results of this.

No child can be expected to acquire the theoretical advantages of the mythical American way of life still-touted by those who control the economy and thus the society, without incurring life-long debt; debt that is impossible to fully repay. Upon reaching the age of 18 years old, the American citizen is forced to make the decision to borrow in order to buy into adult life. While these debts are framed as “ investments in the future” they are more often – and for the greater percentage of the population – chains of indentured servitude to the present system.

After high school graduation, the young adult "needs" a car in order to get to work. Sure, he/she can walk, ride a bike or take some form of public transportation. But not having one's own vehicle limits the potential jobs available to a circumscribed local area. Young people would rather have (or tell themselves they will have) “freedom” once they own their own personal transportation.

So, they take out their first loan...an automobile loan. Used car dealers have not stuck around for so long by being choosy with whom they extend credit. “Your job is your credit!” “No credit, low credit, bad credit?” We have all seen the ads. Here's an example from Darling's, a Maine car dealer...

Credit problems? Don't despair, all types of credit, from good to bad, can qualify for an auto loan. At Darling's we pride ourselves in crafting solutions for our customers and working with them to make sure their needs are being addressed. Darling's has strong relationships with local and national lenders and we are committed to finding you the perfect car loan.

Congratulations! You're just a step away from approved car financing that works for you…

But an auto loan is simply one spoke on the perpetual wheel of debt. It doesn't have to be a car that is financed first. Maybe generous or far-seeing parents were able to provide the wheels. That is a great start. Of course there are other strings attached to car ownership that still require at least a full time job--or RICHER parents. Maintenance, insurance, yearly registration, taxes, gasoline... These are the perpetual requirements for the “freedom” of driving. You own the car to go to the job, so you can own the car...

So, now that you have secured your ride to work, better make sure it's a good job. The next, or continuing, thing young adults are told is that a good education will put them further ahead. Even in-state colleges and universities run into the tens of thousands of dollars (which includes, full time classes, room and board, supplies, etc). The student of modest means (e.g. nearly all students) must again turn to loans.

Thankfully, perhaps, it is easier to get federal loans for continuing education. The risk then lies in the possibility that once the student graduates from college he/she will not be able to find a related job that then pays for the continued use of the now-aging car, a newly-needed apartment, and most significantly the ability to begin repaying the loan that allowed for that college education in the first place.

In many cases, this means the graduate has both an auto loan and a student loan to repay. Before he/she is even out of his/her 20's, the debt burden is well established. And, while the auto loan can sometimes be unceremoniously ended through repossession or bankruptcy, when it comes to federal college loans there is very little forgiveness possible for defaulting. Yes, loans can be refinanced by other creditors, terms maybe stretched out to lighten monthly payments, but it is likely to become a stone to which the former student is now chained to for decades to come.

Amazingly, this is when society, family and personal pressure lead many young people to decide to marry and start families.

Through the careful untying, reapplying and retying of debt-knots, couples can begin this chapter of their lives. It simply takes more debt. Society and the government are more sympathetic (with subsidies, tax incentives, and health care benefits) to struggling young families than they are with single individuals. But this only goes so far.

By this point young adults who hold debt begin the juggling game of trying to maintain credit scores. This often springs the inescapable trap of lifelong debt. And sometimes where only one person was infected, both members of a domestic partnership may become equally afflicted by the other's debt problems.

Unsecured credit cards are offered and accepted at very high interest rates, while debt is volleyed between these cards. Mortgages are then entered into. Every couple should want to buy a house, right? Well, even an apartment in Portland, Maine is at least $800/month.

Do you know a middle class person who has no debt? Are you yourself completely debt free? I'll speculate that the answers to those questions are “no.” Nearly all mechanisms of society are designed to perpetuate and serve this debt-based system. My grandmother once told me that she never had any debt at all, for her whole life. All that she built up for herself was accomplished through hard work and savings. That would literally be impossible in today's America—so far...

Well, I was part of it all. I reluctantly bought into it all. By the time I graduated from college, I was racking up credit card debt. That was in the mid-1990's when Wall Street bubbles were forming, and credit card companies were extending credit to everyone and their dog.

By the time I was 30 years old I held $40,000 in unsecured credit card debt. I knew this was irresponsible and it seemed there was no way out. But, I put the brakes on. I got a higher paying job (ironically) as a banker, hitched up with a refinancing firm to begin paying down my debt (at $400 per month), cut up all my credit cards and began the long slow process of freeing myself.

I also held $10,000 in college loan debt. I was very, very fortunate though that my late grandfather offered to pay that off. Still I had five years of austerity ahead of me to eliminate the credit card debt. And I did it. Afterwards, I was so shell-shocked about using credit that I never took out another loan, except from a family member to buy a used car many years later.

Over these last 20 years or so, the result of my debt phobia has resulted in the complete elimination of my credit status. Since I took no loans and was not paying into system anymore (something that would have been necessary for constant monitoring by the credit bureaus) I dropped off their map. I had followed the advice of my grandmother. But this is a different era...

Here in 2017 I stand with no credit report available and no credit score; maybe the only American adult I know in such a situation. This means anything I want to do that requires such credit history is not possible for me.

I cannot get an apartment, nor can I start a business—both of which I seriously looked into this last year once I was no longer able to work as a photojournalist. My original plan for buying land and learning how it could become self sustaining reasserted itself. I realized that I could no longer work for organizations who did things I didn't believe in, I was certain there was a better way.

What did I really need to survive? It turned out there are only five elements to modern human survival if one wants to be something more than an ascetic hermit. These are (in order of importance)...

WATER--a rainwater harvesting system consisting of specially designed gutters that let water in while leaves are washed over. The water will be collected by one or more large tanks. Maine gets approximately 44 inches of rain annually. That would provide more than enough water for storage and liberal use by a family of four, including the irrigation of their garden. I've used a similar system before and it works very well.

FOOD--having at least one acre of good land can sustain a family of four who farms the land, so that would certainly be enough for just me. The only import to the property would be meat and dairy products. Hens could be kept for eggs. I won't be slaughtering animals on my property for meat, but I could. It's just not my thing.

SHELTER--as you will see, the cottage would certainly be sufficient shelter for a small, low income person (better than the street, and without the cost of paying rent). One hundred and fifty square feet seems small. But I have lived in smaller spaces. Hell, I lived in a one man tent for most of two years. Some of the "Tiny Houses" shown on my other blog (listed above) can be as small as 100 square feet. The bathroom in this house would be the smallest possible space that can still contain a sink, shower and sawdust composting toilet. No water would be wasted. Gray water would be used for gardening. Urine would be used for fertilization. Human solid waste (called, “humanure”) would be added to compost with sawdust or wood chips (whose enzymes break down fecal matter and bring in beneficial bacteria--with no unpleasant smell).

HEAT--a stove that burns wood harvested sustainably every year through a technique called coppicing, and/or solar heated radiant flooring.

POWER--a full off-grid power system, with photovoltaic (PV) panels, and eventually, a wind turbine generator, with a large enough battery array for household power storage and usage.

I've discussed the above elements in great detail Self Sustaining blog and how I could utilize each. I encourage the reader to explore them in the context of my project by clicking on each.

Finally, I will have a chance to put all of this into practice. As discussed in the last post, I have bought 2.75 acres in Farmington, Maine.

Of course, this project is not just about demonstrating to the public the viability of a very small homestead to self-support--that is being done by many folks in different ways. First and foremost, for now, this will also be my place to live! In an upcoming post we will see the economic budgetary benefits to this kind of life style.

A Living Magazine - Tap Root: Day 1 - Making a Homestead Out of Nothing

The following is a kind of introduction to the new project. It is bigger, wider, and more important than even the Journeys I took across this country. The public-reaction dangers of publishing such a detailed description of my plan are probably obvious. People will suggest this and that, give unasked for advice, not knowing just how replete my intensive research and preparation for all of this has been. I just want to be able to report on what I'm doing, and not have to defend and discuss what other people think might be better. But, it what it is. And it is the price for living a publicly-open life. 

With that inevitability in mind, it is with great hope and anticipation that offer what I offer. I had been tossing around many different strategies for how to publish this very different effort. Should I use the blog that the project was developed at (SelfSustainingProperty.blogspot.com)? or just this blog or both? I don't know yet. We'll see.

Any of the following could change in small or radical ways. But time's a-wasting! Let's get on with this. 

I successfully closed on buying 2.75 acres in Farmington, Maine today. It was a long struggle, but nothing compared to what is coming.

Now comes a cold feeling, almost like when you have a cavity or sensitivity in your tooth and ice cream sends up that message to the brain... But this feeling is strangely without pain, only an ancient kind of wind-swept surprise. Can you see my opened eyes?

There are several things to do now. No, no. That's wrong. There are dozens of things to do now. Somehow I must make a round trip to drop off my small amount of supplies at the land, and then a one way trip to drop off my pathetic self.

Thinking outloud...

A chainsaw (with five gallons of gas and oil for mixing), a pole digger, an axe, a conical wedge, a wheelbarrow, my electric screwdriver, fasteners (nails and screws), my hammer, a mitre handsaw, my speed square, a level, an adjustable wrench, a skilsaw and jig, a rain barrel, the bucket toilet, an outdoor shower rig, a tarp to channel that rain, a tent, a chair, an air mattress, some kind of lockable boxes that will hold: (1) clothes (can't work at a job without clean clothes), (2) tools (need a box to keep them from being stolen--not that that will be a big problem in the middle of nowhere), (3) the electronics (weatherproofed) for the solar system to charge batteries every day and supply power every night, (4) a stash of non-refrigeratable food (specially sealed milk, cans of meat and veggies, dried goods, sugar, salt, etc...), and a bunch of other stuff, too boring to list.

They all need to go up in the round trip.

Once I'm there from the subsequent one way trip, I should have a bike for the non-snowy days--to get to work and "home" again. It's only a 20 minute ride into town. Rain will just suck--period.

Snowy days will require leaving 1.5 hours early to walk into town. I must travel 1/2 mile on an unplowed road to and from my (hopefully) little cabin, then three miles into town, then back out again each day.

Speaking of the cabin...

While the leaves are still green and the ground is still unfrozen, foundational construction must take place.

Of course, just like every time I headed out onto the road in my last adventures (the Journeys), I will be starting with no money. Saving from my job and donations from blogging will have to be used to buy everything to come...

I'll locate a sweet spot to build. Then comes the digging of 12 5-foot deep holes for concrete foot and pier supports. I will have 24 80-pound bags of quikcrete delivered and then haul them all by wheelbarrow (a few at a time) for the half mile to the lot. I'll need 12 sonotubes to pour the cement into, rebar, and 12 brackets to secure the framed floor--which must consist of a bunch of 2x6's. Then plastic seal, and insulation. And this is only a 120 sf cabin! It's practically a shed. Still, for one guy, kind of a challenge.

Some kind of stove will be purchased and, who knows how, delivered. As the leaves fall I will (God willing) frame out the walls and roof of the cabin, while cutting down trees, slicing them into manageable pieces, splitting and stacking about 3 cords. 

As a side note, I have made a personal goal of getting to know the town folk; maybe hitting a few local jam sessions, might even keep a look out for a pretty lady with whom to dance under the harvest moonlight. This is Western Maine after all. I intend to dive into this new life...as it were.

Farmington is a college town. I actually attended UMF for my freshman year. Perhaps I can find a way to get a second BA degree or go on into a Masters.

By November, I hope to be Tyveked (siding might have to wait), insulated, windowed and sealed up. 

The water tank will collect rain (November is notoriously rainy in Maine, especially on the plain, though I will be on a mountain), and this rain tank will be stored in a specially insulated closet of its own, with a small vent right behind the wood stove. This will keep the water liquid throughout the winter and also allow the roof above to continuously melt the snow and ice that shall accumulate thereon.

A small 50 gpm transfer pump will be installed and a point-of-use tankless electric heater will supply the kitchen sink and bathroom shower.

In the winter it will be all work at the job in town during the days and writing books at night; maybe I might even FINALLY begin to record some music again. (In the last four years I have accumulated three vocal and two ambient albums worth of music in my dusty old brain.)

Strangely, and awkwardly, I have a one way plane ticket to anywhere in the nation, courtesy of Delta. It expires on December 28, 2017. What the hell do I do with it? I would still need a return ticket. I've visited, wallked, and camped my way through 28 states in the last three years. I have lots of friends I'd love to see again. The Northwest Coast especially beckons, or should I see my cousin (more like a brother) in North Carolina? I just don't know yet.

Over these snowed-in dark months, I may experiment with growing LED micro greens. Probably try to grow some legal cannabis. Ferment hard cider. Things could get pretty desolate. Thankfully being alone has never bothered me.

All of the above assumes that things will go just swimmingly once I arrive on my chunk of earth. Naturally, one hopes for the above but plans for the below...

No cabin to be in when the snow begins to fall? I have slept in a tent, in the snow. It aint fun, but it was survivable in the more Southern states. 

Maine is a beautiful but rather unforgiving environmental host in this regard. 

In the winter there could be weeks of slushy, muddy mild temps, or a month of merciless negative 20F wind chill, howling in 40 mph gusts, and 10 foot snow drifts...

Or, as I have seen over 40 times in my life, it could just be a combination of everything. 

IF I am able to survive the winter, the spring is going to be unimaginably wonderful (from my perspective). To make it through a Maine winter, on my own piece of land will be the greatest triumph I have yet experienced in my life--not excepting 10,000, Atlantic coast to Pacific coast, to Great Lake coast, to Gulf Coast, and back to Atlantic coast, American miles. 

Assuming I can make all of my mortgage payments, and not die of exposure. This time of year - July of next year - may be one of the happiest seasons of my life. 

Of course, if I die during the process none of it will matter to me anyway. And y'all will be left to figure it out. Ha! The land will revert to my dear sister, and she can decide whether it is worth keeping or not...

But this is the whole thing, isn't it?

In this modern life we have separated ourselves from true risk. There are so few frontiers left. Stepping off a mile-high ledge of the Grand Canyon without a parachute or being dropped into the middle of the ocean without a life vest? These things are plain old dumb assed versions of adventure. 

Yet, true spiritual, social, physical, and economic enlightenment (if you will) comes from adventures that have at least a 50% chance of working out. It also helps if each day is documented. I think my coming adventure in Farmington has about a 70% chance of success. 

Sure, it will be an unbelievable experience for me to go through. But that means ZERO to me.

If it truly was just a personal challenge with comfort and ease at that end, I'd rather not even try. I want...No, I NEED to bring YOU with ME. 

As with each day of wallking America's highways, freeways and forgotten roads from 2014 to 2016, sleeping wherever I could (over 400 times), never knowing if I would eat or starve, etc., I needed to have you feel it all with me. Perhaps this feeling is just an inflated sense of self-importance? Delusions of grandeur? Who knows? I'm not inflated, and I certainly don't feel grand. In a way, who really cares. Watch the superbowl and you will see no shortage of showboating exhibitionism. Would it be more fun to watch the guy who doesn't have a 13 million dollar contract? Shit, you can watch us both! Lucky you!

Any psychologist would have a ball examining my written accounts of what I do. Even the ego-temptation of being paid-attention-to pales in comparison to my knowing that you can read and view all of this from the safety of your own life-----and simply DREAM...

"What if it were me?" "Maybe I could do something of my own that would be just as, or more, challenging?"

Maybe you will do something seemingly small, but that you have never done before? 

Maybe you will do something gigantic, and dwarf anything anyone has ever done before? 

But, I stand here sincerely, when I tell you that my concern about all of this experiential adventure IS only for you. That's what gets me off! At the very least I would have found completion in my life's projects and efforts if you are simply entertained and amused. That's what allows me to do what I "normally" should not be able to do.

And, I intend to never stop finding greater means of reaching you in this way. I intended to have a much larger video dimension to this project. And there may be more podcasts too. Certainly a new blog entry will be posted for each day, for at least one year--through thick and thin.

So, get out your vicarious work boots, strap up the sleeping bag and tent, fill the backpack, grab a hammer and come along for what promises to be a great adventure! It will be nice having you along with me!

Life in the Second Class - I Ride the Bus

I ride the bus. I don't have a car, but get wherever I need to be quite cheaply, easily, clean-environmentally (no diesel) by public transportation, or my own two $17 shoes.

I understand that the rules of commuter ideology and common fossil-fuel-based efficiency standards dictate that probably 98% of those reading this post own their own car and use it every day. Not judging--you have no choice. The very serotonin and dopamine in your brain is evolutionarily incapable of letting you be car-less. I know. I was once like you...

For the most part, you DO NOT ride the bus. In your car you have a sacred and personal world of plastic and vinyl, metal and digital conveniences--a living room in motion.

You are in a literal bubble of glass and steel traveling at a velocity that will cause death to anyone you may come in contact who is not similarly surrounded by this modern exoskeleton--the car. And, similarly, this has a good chance of killing you as a side effect. Not judging--I know that blissful state of gambled-ignorance that I once traded euphamistically as "naïvety."

"La, la, la...nothing can hurt me in my 65 mph bubble." As 'Good Day Sunshine' played on the stereo...Yes, I remember...

Here's what I see on the bus...

Black people, Asian people, Hispanic people, Muslim people and of course white people. Maine is, after all, 95% white.

Funny thing: The "people of color" are often up and coming--on their way to improve this or that (first it's DHHS, then the Housing Authority, then Maine Health Clinic...); busy, busy, busy building their lives. Many are immigrants. Wearing headscarves, saris, parvadas... Peaceful people using the small amount of resources they have to find work and establish themselves here, while they send back money to their native lands. The IDEAL of the America with the Maine equivalent of Lady Liberty - if only in spirit - holding her torch so high in the air--welcoming these generations of red, yellow, brown and black faces.

Most of the white folks on the bus are near the bottom of the economic ladder. The folks I saw today are stamped into the very bottom of the bottom. I took Metro Bus 5 out to the Maine Mall. It travels by Elm Street and the Preble Street Resource Center.

There, I saw mostly white people on the sidewalks surrounding the block. There was the guy in the unmotorized wheelchair, shivering as he tried to wake his nodding girlfriend. She sat on the pavement, knees up to her chest, head down upon them, trying to weather her dirty junk injection.

The bus sped up a bit at that point, passing the guy whose plastic trash bag split open dumping his dirty underwear, used-up toothbrush, torn blanket and spilled-out prescription meds all over the cement. I peered back as he scrambled to shove these items into his backpack and coat pockets.

Then suddenly came the Park Avenue bus stop, just before Deering Oaks Park. There, a woman who was not more than 80 pounds, raised her index finger to the driver, in case he might miss this stop. She struggled to lift what looked to me to be only about a ten pound plastic shopping bag and stumbled up the bus steps. She reached around her drooping jeans pockets for the $1.50 but could not produce more than a dollar. The driver waived her on. She nearly cried at the chance to go somewhere away from where she had been.

I watched her boney skull-shaped face staring forward. Her arms were the thickness of broom handles. She had no breasts under her loose tank top. When she peered back for a moment, I could perceive within my mind's eye that she had once been a pretty and happy girl. And though she wasn't old, her sunken eyes, brown and smoke-stained skin had turned her into a hag. She stuck an unlit cigarette in her mouth, in anticipation of getting off.

I knew, somehow, that she still had the Spark. It hovered just slightly above her straight greasy hair. To It, she was still 17, beautiful, worthy of life, worthy of happiness... But I knew, that would never happen... Each of our Sparks does not lose hope--not even until the very end, When it says "Have you done your best? Now THIS is the Way...Walk therein."

At the same stop a fully bearded black man got on the crowded bus, and I pulled my backpack onto my lap to open up the seat beside me. He sat down.

Despite my spoiled, middle class, "natural" aversion to having my personal space invaded, I did not mind that his arm had to be resting against my arm. I felt my cellphone jabbing into his leg and tried to adjust it.

We both faced forward, intentionally stalwart, stoic, manly and yet benign. I had to get out before he did and rose to slip by saying "Excuse me...thank you..."

In a thick West African accent he said, "Of course, my brother, you are welcome!"

Where silence could have fomented thorns and burning social poison, wrought out of mutual mistrust and paranoia, instead, two human brothers exchanged the fresh fruit of pleasantry and continued on their ways...forward.

This is the kind of thing that happens when I ride the bus. I look out at all those cars speeding by; them waiting impatiently for our bus to pull back into traffic, beeping angrily at each other, with middle fingers extended and red faces glowing...

My $1.50 brought me to my destination. I interacted with people who are so very unlike myself. I saw the spirit of a woman doomed to sadness, and I was in contact with one of my black brothers.

Add it up. You will not submit to such "indignities." And, that's okay. The bubble will keep your body in motion and your mind in a pleasant denial. I may be there with you again someday, receiving the title of my own car.

But I have swirled within the soup of the melting pot. And, what I found there was worth a million lonely drives.