Thursday, August 25th 2022

It’s 7:30 and basically all the work of the morning has already been done. I got lucky today. I’m having a good leg day so far. Maybe it’s the energy of the day or maybe it’s something else. But the gates are open as are the windows. The floors have already been swept and breakfast of some pearled barley and veggies is just a couple of minutes away from being edible. I have about a half hour before people say they are going to start showing up. I’m looking forward to some good things happening. At least, I have my fingers crossed.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time typing here. I really want to eat something. In fact, that’s all I can say because Lena is already here. So much for breakfast…

***

It’s about an hour later and Lena is all finished with her work for today. The floors are perfect. I cannot complain.

I also can’t complain that at exactly 8, the well-diggers showed up. My man Andre and a young partner showed up in a truck with all the gear that they needed. They sort of missed parking a little bit and ran into my walnut tree but I’m not going to hold that against them. I don’t think they even broke any branches.

They immediately set up their machine, basically a cage with an electric motor inside it to run the auger. A few tubes, the actual water pipe itself, a check valve and a filter and we are going to be in business within about 2 hours. Currently nobody is here. Lena has gone off to take care of her mother, dog and cat and the well-diggers have gone to pick up some water.

While she was here, I heard all the gossip about Tanya and her husband. Apparently during the day yesterday, the two of them were hanging around the store. This is the number one place that the local broken alcoholics like to hang out. It’s the easiest trip inside for bottles when they find money for whatever reason. According to the story, the husband got drunk enough to fall asleep right on the bench at the bus stop. While he was sleeping, someone came and stole his bicycle. I don’t know if they ever found it. It probably didn’t go far. This caused a giant screaming match after he woke up. There were punches thrown and of course Tanya ended up taking the brunt of the attention.

All this went on before Tanya came to me in the evening. Sometimes it’s interesting to get a little more color to flesh out what you already understand.

I finally got a chance to grab a few bites of food. I think I did well today. I wouldn’t say that barley is my favorite food in the world but it’s easy on the sugar and I like the mouth feel. I added some horseradish greens which are on the way out by the way. I also pulled some beans down from where they are growing. I threw them in for the cooking process along with one or two small potatoes and pepper. It’s amazing what fresh beans do to you. It’s nothing like dried beans. It’s a feeling of perfection in a way, like perfect health. I know they are high in protein but right off the vine is where everything still is.

This unfortunately has a plus and a minus. My own body feels really good but the world around me is not so hot. There are too many unhealthy people. There are too many hysterical people. Too many people are scurrying insanely trying to make something for themselves. Too many people in need.

I think it also goes to the food they eat. Lena outlined her entire diet for me. You already know what she eats. She may be on a positive up because of giving up alcohol and she doesn’t smoke but the signs of malnutrition are all over her. It’s the same with everyone. Nobody knows anything about food except that they do what they have always done.

Of course, you can’t really claim that new knowledge is all that wonderful. As in all information, there is equal parts shit that is there for profit that discourages people from getting real information. It becomes too confusing to have these conflicting ideas. There’s too much noise. It’s exactly like the Republican party during the elections. They just make all of this noise to distract people from what’s real. I mean, the Russians are making an entire War just to distract people about how miserable life is and how incompetent the regime is at handling the infrastructure. It’s actually more than that. This is modern government. They only exist to fuck with people. They have no responsibilities towards keeping things running well.

So this is a moment of peace. The house is pretty clean. I am pleased with that. I have clean clothes to wear, this is always pleasing. In 10 or 15 minutes the drilling is going to start and we’ll go on for probably an hour or so. Then we have to hook up the pump and see if everything works okay. My man is pretty confident and I find it hard to believe that it won’t work. Maybe everything gets easier after today.

***

The time right now is 11:11 and all of the work is done and cleaned up and the guys are gone. 

It’s really hard to express the emotions I am feeling right now. If I tell you that I am crying a little, don’t think I’m overstating things. There was a minute when my own pump was plugged in and started working and I felt I couldn’t waste the water so I started watering my boxes. There’s so much water. The new pump is twice as powerful as the old one and I literally got to soak my boxes fully for the first time in so long. I felt so powerful.

It’s like a whole new world. It’s a new world of new possibilities and everything that I did this year seems like so much work for so little payback. I have so much water right now. I have seemingly endless water and twice as much power from the pump and 10 times less noise and 10 times less work to set everything up. I’ve just freed up resources that I can use to make everything better. I don’t know what to say. It’s like I’ve been running uphill and suddenly I got a bicycle to go downhill with even a little tailwind.

First of all, I’m not sorry that I did the work I did. I’m not sorry that I have a system that harvests rainwater. I’m not sorry I put gutters on the roof specifically to do that. The rain barrels that I don’t need now can be used for garden fertilizers or cleaned out and brought inside to extend my inside water usage. I am not sorry about anything I have done. Everything can be used and recycled. Nothing will go to waste.

But this thing is a game changer. There’s no other way to say it. It may be a little bit late in the season but this is amazing.

Not that this has anything to do with anything but the well did not go as deep as we had planned. As they drilled out the hole, he kept checking the quality of the sand coming up for how much water and said that the best water for where he was digging was 15 m. I didn’t say anything because I can’t really claim any expertise. But when we went to settle up the bill via electronic banking, he charged me for three less meters of drilling. I don’t know why he did but he even discounted his original appraisal to cover only the amount that he dug. Can you believe that?

What did I do? I asked him how much he paid his assistant and it turned out to be about halfway between the original estimate and what he charged me so I paid for the assistant myself. I immediately got a lesson in Winter care and several deep handshakes. I guess everybody feels good here today.

I don’t know what else to say really. I have so much water. I have so much water now. I have so much water and it comes more powerfully and easier and more quietly. I can’t tell you what I felt like soaking what is left in the garden beds so deeply and so quickly.

I don’t want to take away from this moment but whatever Tanya thought that she might do for me last night could never have compared to what it felt like holding my garden hose. 

***

This week’s torah portion is called Re’eh (רְאֵ֗ה) which is the word “Behold”.

Deuteronomy Chapter 11

26Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.

27The blessing, that you will heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today;

28and the curse, if you will not heed the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the way I command you this day, to follow other gods, which you did not know.

The blessing is the land of milk and honey. The curse is not getting it. The rules of the game are that all of The commandments must be followed and you must not worship any false gods.

This is the deal regarding the first portion and I think it really means something. I’m not saying this from a strictly Semitic point of view but from the point of view that God equals nature and nature equals God. If you look at it this way, anything that we do for money or for the joys or pleasures of humanity so as to get money is probably going against nature and by doing so, destroys our habitat. If you read it this way, you understand what I have been talking about clearly.

I mean, if you can give someone a present that doesn’t give a vigorish to the oil companies, I am in. If you can give a gift that does not include garbage for the landfills, pollution to the air or the land or the water or unnecessarily exploiting animals or humans, animals and humans together, I accept the gift. If you think you’re being amazing by contributing to the problem, this is not a gift. This is an abomination, unnecessary and does not bring joy.

The second portion is about eating meat. I hate to say this but so much effort must be placed to understand how to eat meat properly that it’s just not worth it to me. You know, I got rid of my car, the last car that I owned, almost 30 years ago and I have never been sorry for a single minute for not owning one. 

Part of it was the unnecessary and unreasonable expense of owning it, maintaining it and licensing and ensuring it. So much money leaves you just to own this thing that pollutes the world. I’ll tell you, I have figured out how to do things all of these years without owning a car. I have never lost a job for not having a car. I’ve done physical professions that require moving things around. And frankly, I have managed to take care of this place and have gotten all materials and resources that I need to keep it going without a car. What I have lost perhaps by not owning one doesn’t match up to everything I got for not having one.

I think the exact same thing applies to eating meat. It’s not just about the health problems that come along with it. Honestly, this probably includes mental health if we take into consideration all of the physical negatives of it. Life is just so much easier without eating dead flesh. Life is easier, my health is easier, my heart and mind work easier, hell, even my sex life works easier. I just don’t understand why we specifically make things harder on ourselves than we need to. I don’t understand why we need all the drama and all of the drugs. Life is better without.

The third portion advises against future problems. It warns against future profits with new ideas and new religions. There is only one way and all of the advice is connected to war or the potential for war. I think it’s pretty fitting that they talk about eating meat, which is blood, before talking about dealing with other peoples, which also includes blood. None of this is new.

The fourth portion is back to talking about meat again. There is a list of animals that you can or cannot eat. And yes, it also mentions dead people. It has something to do with being the chosen people. The fifth section has to do with tithing or paying taxes or supporting your local priests. While you’re eating all of this meat and planning on killing your neighbors, it’s good to remember to pay your taxes.

The sixth portion brings up another sado masochistic ideal. It starts off talking about releasing people of their debts at the end of 7 years. It has to do with releasing slaves after 7 years. You are generally allowed to acquire slaves but their slavery must have an ending to it and this 7th year of bondage seems to be considered fair. 

Not to be of the fashion Police but they do mention putting earrings in the ears of slaves. I guess you wanted to know where that came from.

And then finally in the 7th portion, we get back to eating meat again and the rules for it. These are the rules for the festivals of Passover in the spring and sukkot. The final words remind us that we are all responsible for this party of ours. Everybody is expected to contribute. United we stand and divided we fall.

I don’t really remember exactly how many years ago it was, more than 10 I think, that I went to the local synagogue and regularly participated. I think I went there simply for the social association. I was hoping to add something to my life. I was open to learning. I don’t think they treated me horribly.

When I started, I was a vegetarian. I was not as strict as I am now. I did not have the science behind my thinking. I was doing something that I enjoyed doing and that I had been doing for most of my adult life. It’s true that I would fade back and forth. It wasn’t like now. It was just that I felt better as a vegetarian and believed it was good for my health.

Nobody there was open to these ideas. Nobody put a gun to my head to make me eat chicken but they believed that this was appropriate and something that people should do. There was no particular science behind this thinking and nobody was particularly addressing health. They were just following the rules and doing what has been done throughout history.

This is not to say that all Jews are meat eaters. It’s a good question that might have some interesting answers.

Vegan jews

Jewish vegetarianism and veganism have become especially popular among Israeli Jews. In 2016, an op-ed argued that Israel was “the most vegan country on Earth”, as five percent of its population eschewed all animal products.

See that? 5% is not bad. We can do better but it’s a start.

I didn’t read very far into the query but I think all it means is that there is no direct fixation on the thought simply because of ethnic background. My guess is that the people that go that direction do so for exactly the same reasons that I do. Maybe they heard about it and wanted to try it or maybe they found it through science and exploration. All I know is that once you find it, if you are truly paying attention and truly care about what you’re doing, you will see the difference very quickly. It is a good difference. It’s a healthy difference.

There aren’t quite a few blood threats in this story in the Torah. There is a lot of fear and a lot of violence. There is a lot of torture and pain and accusation and betrayal. It’s a bloodthirsty book about a bloodthirsty life. No wonder it has been so popular and the basis of so many other religions. It’s perfect for a bloodthirsty leadership trying to find together a large group of people to force their way into different situations. This is all I see every week these days. All I see is a group of violent distrustful people forcing their way into different situations with bloodthirsty and monomaniacal intent.

The book says that if you are with us, you get to do all of this specific brand of killing. These specific animals and these specific people. It is the one and only hypocrisy of the entire effort. The book said thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not steal and yet, it seems that this is all the children of Israel end up doing. 

I’m sorry, I just don’t see the benevolence. I’m sorry, I just can’t find the joy.

***

You know, I don’t think I can get out of this episode without making one thing very clear. I am really happy to have this new well and with how it is performing. I am thrilled that that pump that I got a couple of months ago was not only doing it’s intended function beautifully but that it turns out to have been one of the best choices I ever made. And I’m also not talking about the professionalism of my friend Andre and his helper. I’m not against any of these things or saying anything bad about the company that makes these pumps or the people making money by digging these Wells. I’m not saying anything bad about them at all.

The truth is though that 10 or 15 years ago none of this was necessary. When I had a place in the country and wanted to grow some vegetables, I never needed a pump of any kind. You could say that there was some difference in terrain or relationship to mountains but it wasn’t that far away from where I am right now. It also didn’t have a lake or a river particularly nearby. It also was just a place where you would do some work or just get away from town. But I didn’t need any help. All I needed to do was put stuff in the ground and everything grew.

In fact, my biggest problem in the old place was a lack of drainage. This is a wet region. It’s a big flat wet plane that borders on a swamp. This is a place of mosquitoes and thin trunked trees.

We are not supposed to have these water problems here. We are not supposed to be going dry here. We are not supposed to be suffering through more than a decade of drought. We are not supposed to be this broken down ecologically. This is not California. This was not a desert when I got here.

I made an illusion to Steinbeck writing about Monterey. He was riding about a time during the depression or just after the war. He was talking about people who had no lives and two got by from drink to drink and scam to scam. It was supposed to be humor and social satire. It was glorious writing, beautiful language and exquisite prose. Steinbeck is beautiful.

But I live with these people. There is no literary insulation at play here. I can talk someone up and speak about their good points. I can discuss the gossip and bring all of these characters into color. I can point my fingers and take pot shots at truly horrible people and defend those who are generally spit on by those same horrible people who believe they are insulated enough to be above it all. I’m not hiding behind the literature. It’s not supposed to be like this.

We’re not supposed to have so much pressure on us to make money. We are not supposed to have such a hard time getting through our days. We are not supposed to suffer so much just to live our lives or be so obligated. We’re not supposed to be under the boot so much everyday of our lives. We are not supposed to be so forced into compliance with people who do nothing with this power but destroy everything they touch.

Yeah, I got rich today. I’ve got all the water I need. After suffering through this entire year dragging my broken fucking legs out on that field just to get a little bit of water that I managed to steal from the sky to my plants, I’ve got a free ride. The things that live with me can drink all they want.

But it’s not supposed to be like this. I’m not supposed to need this much groundwater. I’m not supposed to need to contribute to this business. It’s not supposed to cost me all of this money and time chasing machines and fixtures to run the machine and endless amounts of plastic to make all of this crap work. I’m not supposed to need to puncture holes in my land just to get enough water.

I’m just supposed to put the seeds in the ground. There wasn’t supposed to be this much work just to let plants grow.

We fucked up the world. All of this greed and power fucked up the entire world. All of this satomasochistic abuse fucked up our living habitat and all of the people who live here. The endless poverty and hate and distrust has destroyed everything. Demanding that people spend their lives enslaved has destroyed everything. It’s a fucking animal farm.

You know, I asked Lena about the cows. Not far from here is the State farm where Ghenna works. He proudly says that he is in charge of 170 cows. This farm is not far away and sometimes you can really hear the cows, especially when they are upset.

I asked her if this was calving season. I’m sure the cows are artificially inseminated and so they’re probably inseminated at the same time and all give birth at the same time. I understand the practice is to remove the children very quickly so that they don’t get the milk that gets sold by factory farms. They are in this business to make money. I thought maybe the noise the cows were making was their complaints about having their children taken away from them.

She told me this wasn’t it. She told me that there is no green grass for them to eat. They only have dry hay. The flies right now are merciless. These are the same flies that are making every day of my life misery right now. The weather is too hot, they don’t have good food to eat because there’s no water to keep the grass green and they are complaining out of misery. The last thing she said was that they are no different from people. When they are uncomfortable, they also complain.

That’s what it is. It’s a badly run, ill maintained animal farm. It’s an animal farm with drunks keeping us all in line. It’s an animal farm where they are milking us dry and do not care how much pain they cause us.

I don’t wish any ill to Andre the well digger. I don’t wish anything bad for any of the people I know in this town who just scratch like chickens trying to find a few extra rubles. I’m not complaining about my current Good Fortune. I’m just saying that it’s not supposed to be this way. It all seems to tie it together. And it is really, really, really hot today. It is hot and unrealistically dry. It is not supposed to be like this.

***

I don’t really think I need to comment on this.

***

It’s 6:30 and I have just delivered the best watering I think this Garden has ever had. I don’t want to say that everything about it was perfection. I immediately had a technical failure in that the amount of water passing through the system is too great for the wand I use as a shower head. Literally, it just blew the head completely off and broke it, probably forever. My solution was to use a coupling nozzle, which has a relatively small opening and my thumb. I guess my right thumb is pretty adept after 40 years of guitar playing.

There are remarkable things about this current setup. Fortunately and unfortunately, the system is almost silent. Literally because of the placement of the pump, all you can hear is the running water. The unfortunate thing is I no longer have a ridiculously loud pump that would infuriate my neighbors by causing their brains to stop working for long periods of time. I guess I can live without this act of violence.

The biggest Plus about this is that without covering the nozzle with my thumb, I get as much distance on the spray as I got before on what they called the jet setting. The difference is the volume of water. Literally, if I’m getting something between 25 and 35 l a minute, even 20 seconds of watering would seem like a monsoon rain and I was able to place that exactly at the base of the trees. This is going to work out just fine.

Again, the system was not without negatives. My pants are relatively soaked. I no longer have that nice distance between my hand and where the water exits. I need to get a little bit closer to my objects. Also, I have the usual problems with the hose crimping and of course my app that turns on and off the electricity forgets what’s going on once I leave the range of my internet. Once you go away, it forgets you were there and takes a long time to reconnect.

But above and beyond all of that, I feel so good about all of this. Today was an excellent leg day. I’ve been doing good things for myself for a very long time and today I got everything right. I’ve been able to move around a lot more than usual. Maybe it’s the adrenaline or maybe it’s just having this new toy to play with. But I didn’t mind doing the late afternoon watering and I probably won’t mind going out again tomorrow morning. It was an absolute pleasure.

Two final points have also to do with the volume of water I have at my disposal. The first is that I had the ability to absolutely soak my boxes. I was creating mud rapidly. You could see the amount of water I was putting in there was giving everything a deep, deep soak. It was like opening an irrigation ditch. Honestly, it’s a little bit late to save the season but this gives absolute hope for next year. I feel confident that I can bring in a few more trees and that I’m actually going to get some beautiful production out of the land I have.

That is the second thing. This is the first time in forever that I have actually had peace of mind. I can’t tell you what it’s like having to count the minutes and seconds knowing that you only have so much water. It was kind of like the end of the Soviet Union and that the end of the Cold War brought with it the end of my fear of nuclear confrontation. I used to be absolutely frightened to death as a child that we were going to shoot missiles at each other. And then one day it was gone. I absolutely was not as close to the situation as I am now. But my fear went away and that is exactly what today has been about. Today was the first time I could give some water to my plants without fear.

I think I’ve already said this but this is not the end of my saving water. There will be technical functions. I could see my pump going down or the electricity failing in general. I don’t want to be completely dependent on only this thing to save my ass. I believe in Overkill. I believe in being prepared. I believe in things being bomb proof and overbuilt and built to last. I am not going to say that I have reached heaven and nothing can touch me. I’m just saying that after a year of measuring my well and counting the leaders of water I have saved and waiting desperately for rain, I just now soaked all of my plants deeply and there wasn’t even a minute where I needed to worry about it.

I’m sitting out in front of my house and Tanya just passed by going down the road. She was angry at something. Can you imagine that? The woman has drama. Day after day, week after week and month after month, that woman is stormy drama.

Anyway, I’m really not very hungry but I’ll probably make something for myself to eat and then call it a night. Today was a big day. Today it was super hot and super dry. It was too hot and dry for anything to live. But at the very end of the day, something really beautiful happened. I cannot say this for sure, I don’t really have the relationship with my living things that I did last year unfortunately, but it seems to me at least that all of my friends are very very happy this evening. I genuinely hope this is true.

***

Not much really left to say here. It’s late and I just want to go to sleep.

If it means anything, I never really did have a second meal after that breakfast. The breakfast got cut into two parts, a hot part and then a cold part. After finally getting back to it, I was still hungry and had a small dish of oatmeal. For some reason, it pretty much closed all my doors for the rest of the day.

Today was simply one of those days. Today was one of those days that you don’t get every day. Today was special and life-affirming. Today was a day when everything changed a bit, became more accessible and handleable. Today was a day when things changed from really hard too easy in the time it took a guy and his partner to dig a hole in my yard.

I talked to Tanya a little bit through the fence. Nothing interesting but perhaps next week she wants to come by and try to clean the house. I don’t know why I said that I wanted this but I did. So now there is a little drama. I didn’t do It for the drama.

Sometimes all you need is the simplest things in life to make you happy. People sometimes do incredibly ugly things because they think it will bring them satisfaction. In my experience, you cannot practice evil and expect to be satisfied. All of these selfish and harmful things we do are usually just addictions. I’m thinking about this regarding Tanya. I’m wondering if it’s necessary or not or if it’s a mistake. I won’t really know this until Monday but maybe that’s the entire thing. If it was a good thing, there’d be no waiting.