thinking outside the box?

Problems to Solutions

      Anyone can find something wrong with something if you look hard enough, to find a solution to a problem is much harder, and in some ways requires an understanding of the subject involved. Not always though, as an open mind and seeing outside the box are concepts thinkers often use to see things in a different light. It is like trying to put yourself in someone else’s shoes , looking at it through someone else’s eyes and all those other cliché’s that are often used with seeing things in a new light. At times I often try this technique when thinking about things.

     So I am not really crazy about this hydrocarbon burning and slashing, rip up  the environment to build a new dollar store so China can buy natural gas to ship products in steel containers around the world to make a couple bucks more than the rest of us type world . Yes I know I have issues and I hope you do also, because this is where we are headed and I hope I am not just another sheep in the herd walking over the edge of a cliff. When one jumps they all jump despite how many bodies will pile up at the bottom. I have no desire to become one of those sheep at the bottom of the cliff. So I constantly think of how and where we as humans should be headed as herd to finally become one with nature and make us the superior species we need to be. To become a society where what you have is not nearly as important as the values you profess. That you are rich with personal reward from helping others and not expecting blood in return. That at the end of the day your belly is full and your family is comfortable and you are content with your feelings and thoughts as you  snuggle in the warmth of another good day behind you filled with love.

     Sounds like Shangri La, a fictitious community in the Tibetan highlands popularized by movie where everyone was happy. Gee what a concept, where greed is replaced with kindness as people rush to make everyone happy instead of cursing them as we drive along. In a series of blogs I will look at problems society has and my approach to solving these problems and in the process hope to open your eyes to other possibilities of living in the future. Part of learning a new way is being exposed to new ideas and solutions to problems. I encourage reader response from the simple you are screwed up, to what it is you want to say about whatever I write on these pages. For some of this I intend to go back through the old sketch books and pull up some old ideas or I may glean information and leads to web sites where I like what someone else is doing. So from waterless toilets to underground houses I will try my best to encourage discussion about our future as an endangered species, meaning left to our own devices we would let greed slowly die us off, we are our own worst enemy. What other animal invents machines to travel around this world to just kill someone else off of your own species because you don’t believe in the same thing.  Yet never eat the carcass. Killing for killings sake only.

     Today I will briefly get into underground houses all connected by a tunnel forming streets and a city all built underground with open fields and a shared food supply so all would have food to eat while trading with other cities to provide the variety in fresh grown products one would need to survive.  Where natural resources of solar and methane recovery from waste generated by the city is used locally to produce the power and heat necessary to provide all with a comfortable life.

      The average temperature of the earth at 4 feet below the surface is 55 degrees and is called geothermal heat that is the natural heat of the earth and requires no energy if kept at the temperature. The trouble is that we cannot survive at that temperature and know a lot of women who would insist that 80 degrees is the norm. So to use geothermal heat by itself is not a very good source of heat. We need more.

      Solar is dependent on sunshine to produce the external heat needed to make up the difference as long as the sun shines and we know how that goes in Ohio. A heat pump requires electric usually generated by natural gas or coal or even worse yet nuclear sources to run the compressor to heat and cool our houses. This is still not an acceptable long term solution as we increase our carbon usage or create deadly stockpiles of radioactive material that requires long term storage and security we all have to pay for eventually.  It seems to me that we should go for simple as opposed to more complicated and pass the savings on to all who support the system.

      One thing humans do is eat and crap. Plenty of it and this is a heat source we have been shoving into landfills for years.  It is just a concept and we need to have an open mind. If collectively like in our sewer systems now, we would divert to a methane digester, and extract the methane out of our waste and then apply this waste after the methane has been extracted to supply heat to our homes and organic waste to our woods to grow richer forests and provide more wood, and create renewable energy source that is actually a passive means storing solar energy. We can use the methane to heat our houses and keep us warm and feed our trees to give us oxygen a symbiosis of nature is being created where one hand washes the other. We all need to be linked together collectively to make this happen.

      Looking at what we have now is that everyone wants his piece of heaven or earth and refuses to share unless forced to do so. But we are doing that anyhow whether we want to believe it or not. We are all just space travelers hurtling through space at 17600 mph on a piece of rock we share with no particular place to go but our own destruction. Maybe we can prolong that  by changing our thinking and acting like the smartest animal on earth. Making earth the cool place to stop in our celestial non wanderings to prove there is intelligent life down here.

        Below is a scan of an old cut away plan of an underground house I was designing back in 1994 or I believe that was approximate time I did this drawing. This house was designed to be 80 percent below grade and taking advantage of solar and geothermal to require very little if any external heat. The courtyard and the fact it is below ground provides security and is part of new concept to living in a city environment.

    This house would be connected to a tunnel as well as a central water and sewer system that would also provide additional heat in the form of hot water generated by waste from the house unit itself. If you notice the shaded areas and realize this is soil that surrounds and envelopes the house. All of this would sit on less than a quarter acre and would not have a garage but instead an off set in an underground tunnel to house a golf cart or similar electric personal vehicle that would take you by underground tunnels and roadways to either your job within the city or to the parking lot where all cars are parked.  The tunnels are necessary to eliminate smog and to reduce maintenance on roadways and interconnects and allows you to visit anywhere in the city without actually going outside. No salt, no snow to plow resulting in substantial savings to present day cities requiring less maintenance and longer term solutions to housing problems.

    People say living in an underground house would be like being buried , but with the use of portals and mirrors sunlight could be funneled into the darkest places and could possibly create the illusion of being outside while still being below ground.

     The above picture is representative of the top 20 percent of an underground house I could see in the future utilizing the design concept of 80 percent below ground construction. I would design this house out of concrete and steel and design it to last 100 years reducing our need to exploit our natural resources. Wood walls or whatever kind of wall treatment would be possible. Basically we are doing this same concept by finishing out basements and making man caves now. So we just take it a step further. Need to stop somewhere here today , so will try and continue this blog tomorrow and hope you follow along with me as I try to explain how this is all interconnected and possibly giving us as humans an option to think outside the box or in as it may be.

is there a utica well coming soon to your backyard?

How Things Have Changed

    Mom and I went for a drive down St. Rte. 332 out of Carrollton, Ohio, towards Scio, Ohio   yesterday, and returned via St. Rt. 151 and St. Rt. 212 and I was hardly prepared for the changes we encountered while travelling this route. The oil and gas industry has been busy reshaping this area into their version of northern Texas  or Louisiana as great swaths of trees are eliminated to make way first for power lines to run the new fractionization plant at Scio  and also for gas supply lines to this same plant from remote outlying areas where the new horizontal shale wells exist on their huge drilling pads forever shaping our area.

      I believe everyone needs to get an idea of just what is involved and what may soon happen to our area here as they begin developing the Utica shale fields here in eastern Ohio and is impact on our environment here and how it is going to forever change our landscape here.

    I remember about ten years ago I flew from Tampa, Florida to Akron- Canton airport here in Ohio with a commercial airline and after we took off I remember as I sat beside the window how wonderful everything looked below as we cruised along in perfect open air. You could tell geographic features as we seemingly floated along at close to 450 miles per hour. One thing I did notice below was the criss cross network of utility lines seemingly undaunted by the features of the landscape as these clear cut right of ways would straight shot themselves over mountain ranges and cross rivers seemingly unfazed by the obstacle in front of them as they link towns and cities in a grid like pattern.  These right of ways would cut through vast forests and my thoughts of just how wide these had to be at 23000 feet above,  to make them appear so evidently as they were. I have noticed when high tension supply lines often seen with the huge towers require 100 foot wide right of ways and gas lines require about the same as link their facilities together. The sad part was there was no one area below my plane on that trip that wasn’t cut up by these cross country supply lines, let alone the evidence of mountain top removal for coal one could see over West Virginia and Kentucky. How much acreage is required to just provide a right of way for these giant utilities is probably better left unknown as I am sure it is staggering what has been lost in terms of trees and how it has impacted wildlife?

     We are talking vast amounts of land under the permanent control of utilities that are trying to provide unlimited gas and electric to consumers throughout our country. And in the process are seemingly stripping our land of valuable resources of timber and affecting our wildlife as they try to provide a sound return for dollars invested, regardless of how it affects our wildlife and the aesthetic appeal of our area. In some ways when farming in  this area was in its infancy I am sure the same was thought about farmers as they employed the slash and burn concept to create open fields to grow crops out of forest soil. Creating large swaths of open land upon which we grew crops. But then we didn’t have this global economy and the crops raised were used to support the local people as well, and shipping costs were too great to transport very far. Also there is nutritional value in crops as compared to oil and gas that one can’t eat.

     But what is happening now is different, and much the same as it is for shipping of oil from the tar sands in Alberta to the gulf ports in Louisiana. These petroleum products are destined for use in China and other developing nations short on fuel resources. This plant will condense and liquefy natural gas to be shipped via rail line through heron nesting grounds I have personally witnessed and exist not more than five miles away from this plant. The herons are but one of the many species including us humans that will be affected by this new growth in industry that seemingly transforms open fields into major industrial plants in short time of months and is designed to extract enormous amounts of energy that may be best used where it is produced, instead is shipped worldwide at the same time requiring energy to transport it there. The trip down St. Rt.  332 and into Scio on St. Rt.  154 was accentuated by this construction through an  area I know well which is Petersburg landing where the Algonquin Mill festival  is in the path of this major construction project.

     This whole area is being cut up with drilling pads for Utica wells and almost the entire length from Carrolton to Scio is now impacted by construction of electric lines or gas supply lines and I imagine that soon the railroads will expand to accommodate the product produced by this new fractionization plant. This will create growth and jobs while impacting the environment more in what was once a relatively pristine area.

     Don’t know if you have travelled that way lately but it is well worth a look to see what may be coming to us as soon as the oil and gas industry sets up to take over our backyards soon. We may have to move to Texas to avoid this boom and not expose ourselves to the rampant bullying of the oil and gas industry as they attempt to dwindle and wring the last dollar of oil and gas out of the ground in the name of progress as we ship the product overseas for someone else to use. Sounds like a plan?  

pitfalls of small farming.

How the  New Year is Shaping Up, Farm-wise

     We are heading into a new year and again I must re-evaluate where I stand with this farm thing. An early onset of bitter cold temperatures has already put stress on my hay supplies , and has forced me to take measures to extend my hay by being ultra conservative now knowing we still have a lot of time before we see a  winter thaw and a return to spring like temperatures.

      Forced with the prospect of buying hay to carry over the cattle into spring time, or possibly selling off the herd or reducing them to where I can make it through the winter with what hay reserves I have is one of the possibilities I am looking at now. I have went through approximately half my hay reserves and I am just reaching a point where I still have at least 2 more months to go at the minimum, having fed half my hay reserve in the first month and half of winter. 

      Selling the herd off or part of it off is hardly ever an option one wants to employ in the wintertime, as the price always drops as people tend to take advantage of you as they know the situation you are in. But with the recent influx of oil field work, it has simultaneously led to a drop in available hay to buy. This may be due to the amount of local farmers not farming anymore due to retirement from oil filed earnings, or there may be other factors at work.  This has led to historically high prices as speculators tend to cling to their hay to take advantage of the high prices , making keeping livestock a costly adventure. So you are forced to buy high priced hay or sell your cattle at below market prices. When in the end all I really want to do is to weather this storm and keep what I have for another year and not lose my ass. Not an easy feat but one a lot of farmers have to face over the years and one we may have to face more often with global warming upon us.

     If you are a meat eater and enjoy your red meat and there is nothing like grass fed organic beef to taste, then this affects you the consumer also. I am just one farmer of many who due to deficient hay harvest and an extra-long winter due to global warming are going through the same scenario to varying degrees. This results in a reduction of cattle on feed and higher profits for those who have plenty of feed and in the end higher prices for the hamburger in your store.  Spot shortages in beef supply will not occur as meat packers rush to buy over  beef released to market early as hay dwindles but this reduction in numbers of cattle on feed will result in higher prices come the summer months when less cattle will be available. The prices will result in savings at first followed by continual gouging later in the year.

     Sadly to say, this may be the end result of farming in the future as we continually will be assaulted by fluctuations in weather patterns. And just like gasoline prices as a commodity goes up , it rarely reaches that low point you were comfortable with once, as the price goes lower again after the event that caused it. It seems as if the mega farms are the ones that are able to weather these storms as more and smaller farmers, ones making a million or less are being drove out of business. If an analogy is used it would be like taking cattle to slaughter. My small herd is nothing compared to some but when you take a collection of small farmers like me and collectively organize their efforts, the impact on our agricultural market is enough to keep the mega farms in check and to provide the consumer with quality beef or agricultural products being whatever it is at a reasonable price considering the laws of supply and demand. Eliminate the small guy and you will soon see rampant price fixing among the big boys of agriculture.

     After we eliminate the small farmer , then the mega farms will not be able to weather the spot shortages and will in effect be able to price fix their profits at the expense of the consumer. This not only applies to cattle, but to everything we grow or raise to eat. It is the small farmer that has allowed us to eat rather inexpensively here in the United States for years. the effect of the small farmer can be seen in the price of corn as one year it will be high and farmers basically unregulated and seeing a chance at making money will overplant corn the next year hoping for a windfall of profits based on this years prices . But all the rest of the small farmers out there faced with the same situation, are doing the same and then after this year’s corn harvest came in we found that overplanting led to a surplus of corn and soon the price falls again. Without small farmers this price would go up and stay there.

      But when in my case the price of hay is beyond what I will get in return , then I have to seriously consider whether it as all worth the hassle and the responsibility of trying to keep going in this venture. I am at that point. Last winter or earlier this year I was faced with a hay shortage due to drought conditions the year before. I was forced to buy hay, but was lucky enough to secure it from a local farmer who had plenty and was reasonable. I made all I could this year here on the farm and still I am being hit with the onset of an early winter and being forced to buy hay this winter season. I had approximately forty bales going into the winter season, and at best I can expect is 3 calves being born this year from the herd of six. These three calves at the end of the year may yield me 700 per calf, or 2100 dollars, if I decided to sell them. If I sold the hay I would feed all my cattle I would have 2000 dollars, just 100 short of what I expect to make off the cattle. With selling the hay, I have to do half the work to make it happen. But then again I do like seeing my cows pasturing on the farm and they are utilizing the farms resources I would not be able to as efficiently as I do with them.

      One foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave comes to mind when I think of the economics of the cattle industry. If I keep them I will have to pay out of pocket, and if let them go will take a hit on how profitable they could be. I and a lot of other small farmers like me are facing the same dilemma. Should I let them go or should they stay? What the answer is will depend on how the next couple of months will go. I hope for an early spring.