"The sky is falling"...but we score a diesel

Hearing these tales about people burning cars and riots strike me as pretty insane at this point. While I believe this crisis is SERIOUS BUSINESS; and I think it will change many things about our country FOREVER...this ain't the end of the world, folks, at least not here in the USA. I think about my parents (they're a bit older than most of the parents of people my age) and the things they went through: the depression, WWII, the early days of the Cold War...Vietnam...I don't think we're into the deepest of the doo-doo. I think we need more tales of heroics and American can-do attitude instead of "I want cheap gasoline". Again, no one made anyone buy crappy wasteful SUVs, it was everyones own choice.

Speaking of gas burners...and the great news...our commuter cooperative has gotten our paperwork drawn up & ready, and we got a brand-new 2006 Chevy Express, 12 passengers. It was a good bit more than we expected, but since we can burn diesel which is currently cheaper (knock on wood) hopefully we'll manage. Demand for positions has been great so we actually upped the monthly membership fee a tad, which everyone seems to be OK with (well not happy but they understand). We get outfitted with a satellite link this week and we also got a special parking space at work. Due to the demand, we couldn't allow everyone "on the bus" but we may expand the coop to two vehicles. In the meantime, we have a special cell phone for the coop for "ride sharing". It works like this: if you won't be participating one day (say you have to stay late or leave early and need to drive yourself), you can call in and leave a message by 6.00 AM. Then if a non-coop member wants a seat, he/she can take it for a fee. That way, if you aren't in the coop you can swing by, see if there is a spot available, and claim it if there is. With 12 people there's a good chance we'll have people missing each day, and this way we can ALL save gasoline.

We've got a lot of stories to tell and I only have time to share a few. On the homefront, we're evaluating our lot as a source of future food and fuel. I've been interested in permaculture for some time (google it, it is great!) but we never took the time to really ramp things up. We've played around some, with native plants and lately with more edible landscaping, but I don't think we'll see any fruit for some time and it will be more like supplements, not sustenance. And, as I found with my gas tank, theres a good chance some miscreant would steal from us. However, I found the gentleman in Murfreesboro PeakProphet to be inspirational with his edible landscaping plans (see his great video at http://heartlandnotes.blogspot.com/2007/05/video-blog-1-backyard-garden-wild.html )

Bearing this in mind, and fearing a possible raise in natural gas prices this winter, we've decided to get some wood-burning stoves to replace our little-used gas logs. We're lucky in that our home has REAL hearths for upstairs & downstairs. The purchase & installation expense will be large, but with the stock market decline, I'm better off taking a 401K loaner out and turning at least some of that money into something REAL. I did a quick check of our lot, and again barring theft, I've got at least 20 good-sized trees on my property that could become REAL fuel. If we can keep our heater on at some ridiculously low level, say 45 to keep off the real chills, and modify our living arrangements some, we can stay fairly comfortable with woodstoves, especially the cleaner burning more modern ones. I'm not sure how long 20 trees would last, but I'm hopeful maybe 20 years?? (woodstove image from http://www.woodstove.com/images/Two-Cozy-Kids.jpg) We may have to make an "inner igloo"...but more on that later.