Ch.36 (cont.)
Darla sat over in the passenger seat and
just enjoyed the trip, we could talk but at times when I was moving along we
would almost have to yell to talk to each other due to wind noise. A problem
with a jeep or motorcycle at the upper speed limits If there was something she wanted me to see
or I for her to see, then I would either slow down or she would grab my arm so
slightly to get my attention . Usually I was already leaning towards her as I
couldn’t quite keep my eyes off her and would sense before she touched me what she
was up to. The coast up Highway 101 from this point on up into Oregon was
breathtaking for a couple of folks from Ohio having saw little or none of this
before. We were oohing and awing as we went along. the amount of driftwood
along the coast was amazing , huge trees ripped out of their moorings and
pummeled down a stream bed then swept out to sea dotted the coastline as often
as the rocky crags.
I remembered that I had my chainsaws as well
as Lee’s stashed in one of the Road Warriors compartments and had brought them
along to carve. I was in a hurry to get across the United States after we had
been broke into a couple of times, and had an idea someone was chasing us. So I
hurried and spent most of our time on the interstate not seeing too much, but
instead trying to put some distance between us and who was following us. I
passed on seeing my friend in Idaho but after seeing all this driftwood along
the coast decided I was going to find me a place where I could carve.
Darla and I would stop at various
overlooks and would gaze out into the ocean and each time I would learn a
little something about her previous life whether it be working at Gunnite or as
wife and a mom. As most women and men assuming she was close to my age and myself included we have usually
been married at one point or another and big warning signs go up if someone
hasn’t been married at our age. Could be a whole list of reasons why that may
be so. She had been in a few failed relationships after her marriage, and was
still reeling a little from the last one. Guess we had that in common as I was still
not over Leann to some degree. She had decided to come out and work with me and
accept Ann’s offer as Darla needed time to see if she had feelings for the guy
left behind as she put it. Ironically that was my name and I kind of grimaced
when she said that even though it wasn’t me. It just dredged up old memories. She
saw it as new start and besides the money was good, in fact great, her and Ann
were always great friends and as I am, would do anything for her and Lee.
As we drove along I would just give assessments
of the lands potential based on what I saw from an agricultural point of view.
Some areas seemed to be rocky coastal areas that were better left alone as they
are unfit for agricultural practice, areas flat and in flood plains like
outside of Crescent City, California were subject to tsunami rollover where if
a tsunami were to hit the coast unfortunately areas like Crescent City would
soon be a disaster area. This is where some of the most fertile areas were
unfortunately. I didn’t see a lot of agriculture anywhere in our travels that
day along the coast outside this area as we took Highway 101 north along the
coast for about sixty miles and then headed back the way we came. As you travelled more to the interior most of
the land was forested and roads in our direction back to the campgrounds were few
making Highway 101 the easiest route for us this day.
After looking at the land and assessing
its potential as agricultural land I could see little in this area besides
maybe the potential of using some seaside areas or possibly a fresh water
source for aqua culture. Possibly raising fish in domes over fresh water tanks
where they could be fed or kept. Then if a tsunami washed ashore you would lose
fish and maybe some facilities but would still be providing sustainable food
source.
Most farming has to do with a single plane
type of farming in two dimensions of width and length of fields. Whereas about
the first foot of soil in depth is where most agricultural activity is
occurring. With aqua culture you enter a three dimensional world where not only
length and width of a pond or enclosure is important, but also depth, allowing
aqua culture to have less environmental impact for agriculture than any other
food source. We can grow more pounds of fish than we can anything in less space
due to the fact it is three dimensional form of agriculture.
The abundance of water is important to
agriculture and I need to check on restrictions as to how much water may be
used in a growing operation like this, and also if you can access streams or
other sources for this water before settling on aqua culture and a piece of
land to buy and attempt a farming scenario as this.
I explained all this to Darla as we were
sitting in a seaside diner where tourists frequent when travelling the coastal
highway. The view was fantastic and as much as I like my little river fishing
cabin I would much rather wake up to this every day and feel after viewing this
I may have to include some reason to buy some property along the coast to make
sure I have all bases covered when considering potential uses of land preserved
for future generations. A source of seafood would definitely be within the
realm of what we are trying to accomplish. Or at least in my mind it should be.
This is all new to Darla as she was
looking at land use from a different perspective. When Gunnite would buy a
piece of property, drillers reports and engineers estimates would indicate below ground reserves of
certain ores or minerals, or whatever they were looking for in natural
resources they were going to strip or mine. The potential of these reserves would
b weighed against the profit potential of the finished product including environmental
regulations that would require extra effort to reclaim these lands afterward.
The rest of the mining and blasting was normal procedure and costs for the most
part were average, per ton of material removed. But all in all they only looked
at short term potential of a site, and not whether it would substantially
produce food. She only worked in numbers and what it meant to profit. We are
now throwing profit out the window temporarily and looking at the future and what
are the needs in say thirty years for people to eat a substantial meal with home
grown or locally grown products.
In thirty years we may be eating more
processed food slop similar to what we feed our animals like beef cattle and
hogs, or even dogs and cats. Adore your little kitty cat and remember what the
price of cat food was twenty years ago and what it will be like in another thirty
years and soon you will see we will not be feeding pets but instead probably eating
them, if current trends continue. The Chinese
are one of the largest producers of dog food and cat food for the United States
now and must surely wonder as they sit down to a meal of noodles and dog and
wonder why us silly rich Americans can spend so much on little Pooh, the kitty,
or Fido the dog . When all they really are is just one good meal for them. We need
to rethink what we do and how we do it in the future.
Darla grimaced at the thought of eating cat
or dog when I mentioned it and said to me there are some things she would never do. I reminded
her that synthetic foods would become more prevalent and that the days of the movie
where everyone was fed Solyent Green are not that far away with genetically engineered
foods becoming a staple in our modern agriculture today, with Monsanto being
one of the largest corporate holders of agriculture with their patent on
soybean genetics having a stranglehold on soybean production in the United States.
This is also not considering what we are doing to ourselves by eating their
products and possibly ingesting the same triggers that make the soybeans genetic’s
so special, and what this could possibly be doing to alter human genetics. We
do not understand the science totally and have no business implementing changes
on a mass scale to satisfy someone’s profit margin. It is wrong.
We had a nice talk as we walked back to the
Jeep. Soon we passed a roadside beach park and I stopped and we walked along
the beach for a while, till I was tired and figured she was too. We returned back
down the Redwood Highway and back to the Road Warrior and I pulled out a couple
of lawn chairs from the sliding compartment under the Road Warrior and we sat
and talked till dark. She mentioned that she needed to head back to town and that
we would try again tomorrow only heading south. We decided that by just looking
around at the potential of these areas it would give us a better idea of which properties
we were looking for.
I walked Darla to her car and she thanked
me for a wonderful day and I reminded her it was all in a day’s work. I watched
as she drove away through the tall redwoods and wished she could have stayed
but I sorely needed a joint to just relax. At the same time didn’t really want her to
know just yet about my recreational drug use and what I was up to. I started a
fire and just sat there in the camp light and reflected on the day’s events
trying to remember all I had seen including the beauty of Darla’s smile. I must
forget Darla I said to myself as I still couldn’t tell if she was even
interested in me besides our working arrangement and I tried to remember instead Leans face and
images of her riding on her motorcycle came back to me when I saw her outside
Oklahoma City if it was her. I went in and checked the security system and the
cameras and found nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently whoever is following
us has now lost us.
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