Wednesday, July 13th 2022
6:00 a.m. is a good time to wake up. It’s not like I burst into life and start running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I suppose this is something I can aspire to. Perhaps sometime in the future I will have the ability to give myself over to simple motion. You do get a lot more done when you just want to move around. I envy my ex partner her ability to do this. Actually, she looks a bit like an alien to me sometimes when she does but I don’t mind it one bit.
My big choice today is whether or not to go to town. I believe I probably am. I do not have a lot to do but I do have some things to do there that would make things better here. I could replace the broken plastic coupling with a metal one and perhaps even pick up a more flexible 25 mm hose. I don’t know that this will solve my pumping problems but I would be extremely happy if it did. I also have some other ideas concerning the surface pump that might work out pretty well in the future. A flexible hose would definitely add to the productivity and flexibility generally of where I could use it.
I mean, it’s not a secret. It pumps at about twice the rate as my submersible pump. This makes it kind of unusual with our current watering head. This is a wand I bought cheap that has variable styles of spraying. I had a thought that if I were to replace it with something like one of those giant rain shower heads, I could simply attach a stick to it to allow me to get out over the beds and that this might be an excellent way to give a quick soak to all of the gardens. Currently, when the pump is working, it’s too much pressure for the plastic coupling on the wand and tends to blow it off the end of the hose.
Again, this is buying one piece of junk that leads to buying other junk that leads to a house full of junk. But, it also possibly could be marginal gains and if I built this strong enough to handle the additional pressure, it would make watering the garden faster and perhaps easier and quieter.
Of course there is another idea. I actually have a 60 l bucket now. It was a gift from the guy who sold us our water barrels because we were such good customers. I had a thought the other day that I could for the most part fill that up and put it on the wheelbarrow and this would give me an opportunity basically to hand water the boxes in about four trips. I guess I could extrapolate that idea out and actually build myself a mobile water cart but again, this is a project for another time and another place.
However, I did have one idea about saving water that might actually be worthy of playing with. I’m using black PVC food grade pickle barrels to save water right now. We were lucky to find them. I was looking for water cubes but none were available. The black PVC will help them deal with sunlight a bit longer but, being plastic, they are not a forever fix for storing water.
There is a really nice place right next to the barn that would be a pretty good place to build a basin out of masonry. This would not exactly be a swimming pool, more a mosquito breeder really, but it would be a permanent spot to allow water to flow off the barn roof and be collected. Literally, it would be a forever fix and we would have a permanent reservoir perhaps big enough to carry 10,000 liters all by itself. The math on that would be 1 m deep, 1.5 m wide and 7 m long. A couple of rains in the spring and we would never worry about water again.
You know, I don’t really believe in this but there is some potential that saving rainwater might become popular or even standard in this village or region. I get a lot of attention, you know, being a celebrity and all. I am certainly a shit collector but on the other side of the coin, enough people have noticed that I save rainwater and use this water to maintain a vegetable garden. You never can tell how many people might think this is a damn good idea. Probably a good business idea as a green business if a guy like me were to become ambitious again. If not, enjoy the idea and see what you can do with it yourself.
I could also use a few more nuts. I’m not really buying expensive nuts anymore and this year I might actually get a harvest of walnuts. We have a large walnut tree in the front yard and it seems to have quite a few berries growing on it. I don’t really think it’s going to be so many kilos but self-sufficiency is what it is in whatever percentage you get.
I usually buy peanuts and shelled sunflower seeds. These are the cheapest things that you can buy and they are sufficient enough to cover my needs for additional fats and proteins. I’m a blender fan these days and grinding vegetables with nuts with a little spices makes unbelievable smoothie/cream/salad dressing.
I heard a French cook one time speak in a dismissing mood and threw off the remark that anything with a sauce will please a bar patron. Well, that’s me. I am a huge fan of bar food. I don’t really like going to bars but I do like 2:00 a.m. drunk food very much. It’s comfort food. It’s food you go to in an emotional state. I’m not immune to this and the ability to make really healthy raw food creams seems to make even the mundane meals more interesting and exciting.
My spice of choice these days is a simple combination of a little bit of salt, fresh black peppercorns and hot chilies. I have quite a bit of mint lying around too and of course my field is full of dill and horseradish. There is enough flavor in this combination to make even beans and rice something to look forward to. In fact, a bit of creamy beans and rice eaten on a cabbage leaf or on lettuce as a finger food seems to be about the end of the world for me these days. The opportunity for this is about equal to noodle soup as far as I’m concerned.
Anyway, this requires me to make a bike ride and even that is not such a hardship today. Yesterday’s storm put enough water in the ground that the service road is probably going to be reasonably compact. Or, if I don’t want to ride that generally, there is the alternate train station that has the Polish paving stones on it. A bumpy ride but no sand at all. Just a tricky step to get over to get to the platform and in 15 minutes I’m in town. Perhaps four stops, a quick check in with my ex partner for a bit of a wash up and then I’m back here heading into the weekend.
So, this seems to be the plan. The weather report calls for more rain today. I don’t believe it. All of these light rains that they call for are nonsense. The only thing we get are explosive storms. We don’t get gentle rain falls anymore keeping the world Happy. We’ve lost that ability in our greed for things we don’t need. But in any case, this would definitely be an off day if it doesn’t rain. If it does rain, my next watering day would be Friday. There is also rain scheduled for then but again, I don’t need to be redundant in my cynicism. I collect rainwater. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have a garden.
So that’s the plan. Other than that quick video talking about the unification of mankind for the purposes of fighting climate change and working out our problems, I don’t have any politics or philosophy to share today.
Well, perhaps I do just want to repeat myself just a little bit. My conservative friend and I have been debating veganism. He has all the usual arguments. He likes the taste of it, he believes we have the teeth of carnivores and he’s just too lazy not to get in his car to go to the supermarket and bring home meat that had to travel great distances by truck in single-use plastic bags. All of these arguments are bullshit. Every single thought that he uses to justify this is bullshit. Simple, mindless, brainwashed, lunatic bullshit. None of it is true. None of it is math or science. None of it is good for his mental or physical health and none of it is good for the health of the planet. It’s just something we do to keep slavery going.
Not that he’s going to burst into logical flames suddenly, a fit of reason throwing him on the floor causing his mouth to form and his eyes to roll up into his head as he starts speaking in tongues about his new revelation about the human animal. I don’t believe the problem is going to end because he doesn’t want the problem to end. He’s too comfortable. He has enough money to insulate himself from thoughts. He has other things to worry about other than helping to protect our environment before the world ends during the time of our children or grandchildren.
No buddy, we don’t have canine teeth. Those little nubbies on the side are not canine teeth. Completely naked, there is not an animal you can catch and kill and eat raw. You don’t have the teeth, the reflexes, the eyes, the speed or the hooked claws or fangs of something that eats meat. We are descended and related to herbivores. Apes. We eat nuts, fruit and leaves. Eat a diet healthy for the human animal for a change and not only do we get smarter, stronger and healthier but so does the entire planet. Think about it bro while you’re waiting for the stroke, cancer and diabetes to take you down.
***
You don’t eat meat or Fish or milk or eggs? What do you eat?
This question is so stupid…
***Well, that was something of a day. It’s 7:30 in the evening and I’ve been back for a couple of hours now. I’ve already eaten. Some linguine and beans with some astounding field sauce. I don’t know what else to call it. Dill and horseradish leaves straight into the blender for the peanut sauce. That was one of my stops in town was to pick up some more seeds and nuts. Nothing expensive. I don’t need anything expensive. On top of everything, I cut up a fresh onion. Seriously, you have got to try this for yourself. It is outrageously flavorful, too simple to put together and it genuinely lights up a simple pasta dish.
Well, that was something of a day. It’s 7:30 in the evening and I’ve been back for a couple of hours now. I’ve already eaten. Some linguine and beans with some astounding field sauce. I don’t know what else to call it. Dill and horseradish leaves straight into the blender for the peanut sauce. That was one of my stops in town was to pick up some more seeds and nuts. Nothing expensive. I don’t need anything expensive. On top of everything, I cut up a fresh onion. Seriously, you have got to try this for yourself. It is outrageously flavorful, too simple to put together and it genuinely lights up a simple pasta dish.
As far as highlights from the day, I could probably work backwards. I genuinely enjoyed my usual conversation in the cab ride. It seems we are actually getting to a point of listening to each other. He shared some interesting thoughts from his family life that I had never heard before. I think I’m starting to get through to him about getting rid of the meat. He’s definitely giving it some genuine thought.
I made another blunder buying a new attachment for the hose. Absolutely nobody had any metal couplings I could use so I bought another plastic one that had a few extra parts to make a better seal. The mistake came when we didn’t actually check out the thread size. Now I’m going to be obligated to go back to my original plastic couplings. The cost of this was almost nothing, three rubles, but if it doesn’t work, this part of the trip was a waste of time.
I did get to see some friends and have some pleasant conversations. I tend to push the conversation towards politics. They probably figured me for a spy anyway so they don’t mind telling me. It’s kind of like me talking to the KGB here. If you feel you’re talking to some other country, amazingly, people tend to tell the truth. If you want to know, the general feeling is that Putin is a madman. Nobody likes this war or murder, nobody wants the war coming to us. Nobody knows the purpose of all of this bloodshed and Hysteria except that it’s power. They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely. They also say that Putin is absolutely mad.
Also at the market, I saw a man riding a very cool looking electric motorcycle. This has been the point of genuine discussion in town and almost everybody knows this guy and has discussed both the man and the bike. Apparently, it’s an import from the United States. The bike itself cost $4,000 not to mention whatever tariffs he paid to get it across the border. It’s an amazing looking machine, more powerful than a scooter for sure but a little bit smaller of wheel than a standard motorcycle. The guy riding it seemed happy enough.
This of course got everybody into the conversation about whether electric cars are a reality in Belarus. Nobody has the money to even think about buying anything expensive and politics give us gas for cheap. I’m the only one speaking for the environment but I’m not even sure a lot of these guys know that I’m an environmentalist. I think that they think that I’m just being nice and making conversation with them. Oh well, what are you going to do?
I ran into a bit of sadness during one stop. Another female friend of mine with whom I shared a couple of moments a few years ago told me that her daughter had gone away. The daughter was working with her in her shop, this was a drugstore by the way, and I actually thought she was pretty cool as a druggist. She knew who I was of course because we had met but she remembered everything that I get, even when I couldn’t remember the name of it. Now she’s gone though. Her mother did not want to tell me where for some reason. Then I made a face making it seem foolish to hold it back and then I found out that she had gone to Hungary. Enough said to be understood. Everyone knows what goes on in Hungary.
A bit later, I was having the usual delicious lunch with my ex partner and I told her the story and she immediately felt the negative pull down. The thought immediately came to the table that I should probably get creative and start telling really positive stories about what happens around here. Nobody really wants to know about women taking advantage of the only viable economic package available to them. This is the most common story ever told and though I don’t think anyone ever gets used to it, well, apparently we can get used to anything here. There’s not a damn thing we can do about it except God with understanding and continue on. We do that with the war too.
I’m not really sure I’m going to make up stories here about that. It was just a moment of creativity that I had on my way to a hot bath. I felt a lot better after that. Cleaning up is a good thing. And getting off my leg for a little while also felt good.
But I guess the scorecard is just that I did my ride well today. There were no crashes or failures. I was pretty tired by the time I got to my ex partners apartment truthfully but afterwards, I managed to get back on and do a little bit more riding before taking the cab back home.
In a lot of ways, it was like nothing happened. I mean, I have a new coupling for the hose. It wasn’t what I wanted but maybe it will work. Everyone told me that plastic was what they had and that it worked fine for a lot of people. I didn’t find a more flexible hose. All of the vendors there told me that this also was not their kind of thing. We have what we have and we use what we have and that’s all there is to it. Genuine diversity or a legitimate quality spectrum is available in other countries. Here we buy and sell by price. We keep things as cheap as possible and we just make do regardless of what happens.
I guess I do this too. I also make the best of what I have. I have learned quite a few lessons about how to get by without spending money. I could also say that I have learned to hate spending money. Almost anything I buy other than food seems to be a complete waste. Everything turns into garbage eventually and even if you have a love affair with spare parts as most bicycle mechanics do, it’s still just so much junk in the buckets eventually. We are simply hopeful that someday we will find a home for all of this crap we have.
The only thing I really wish would be for people to take perhaps one little half step beyond this basic poverty laced pragmatism. It’s nice to feel a part of things and welcome. There was not a single negative remark towards me today by anybody. I agree that I know a lot of the faces and I myself was as polite as I could be. Certainly sympathy could be a lot of this. I am obviously not walking particularly well and I guess this has something to do with it. But all of this personal stuff is all well and good but I really wish people would get what I’m doing.
I know a lot of people know that I’m a writer and that my stuff goes out. At least by virtue of my common conversation, almost everybody knows that I’m a vegan and some people even get it that I’m completely into climate change and ecology as a way of life. It’s just that these things don’t really mean anything. I don’t think anybody believes in idealism. It is a thing that is just too expensive for the local economy. We cannot afford to be idealists. We have to be Who We are and live by our wits and to do so as economically as possible. I’m sorry Mom, I’m going to Hungary instead of staying here and working in the drugstore. Don’t worry too much, I’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing.
No idealism in this. Just a practical thought of what to do about the economic situation. It’s not even a place that anyone can argue. She isn’t the first and won’t be the last.
I often end these days of writing looking for at least a small finger hold of optimism. I say things like “you never know” or “it could happen” but eventually just carrying on is all that can happen. There’s nothing anyone can do about it so they don’t try.
But maybe the season changing will mean something. Maybe we are reaching critical mass with the war. Maybe people have heard themselves speak often enough about how ridiculous the Russian leadership is and how nobody wants to die or go to war. People are pitying ukrainians now. Everyone seems to have remembered that we are all Brothers. So maybe there is room for some optimism. You never know, somebody important might even decide to read me.
Leave a Reply