But two blocks away, our local food co-op didn’t fare so well. It was closed on Monday since they still had no power. Early Tuesday morning is when we do our weekly shopping, but the store still had no power. I am guessing the widespread outage on Sunday caused a cascading failure in the local circuit supplying the food co-op. It is the responsibility of the power company PG&E to fix the outage, but their current estimate is that it won’t be repaired until Friday night.
So the food co-op has no power, which means that the perishables are perishing. The co-op has brought in two refrigerated trucks and a larger refrigerated truck container (shown in the image above from this morning) to try to preserve the perishables. Today they opened the store for a limited three hour period, running two cash registers off a generator, and having staff members escort a small number of shoppers around the darkened aisles. Pica stopped by to pick up some staples and thought it felt like what shopping during a war would.
Note the cascading series of events. PG&E’s infrastructure is badly in need of maintenance and investment – indeed in 2020 they plead guilty to causing the deaths of 84 people in the 2018 Camp Fire which was initiated by a faulty power line. And in 2023 California is being battered with a highly unusual sequence of atmospheric river storms, attributable at least in part to climate change. Our ability to respond to disasters is diminishing.
This how societal infrastructure erodes away. We wonder when we’ll have fresh produce again.
]]>Here’s how it goes: I have, in my head, that I need to buy carrots, leeks, turnips and parsley for a soup base, along with several leafy greens and whatever else. I get there. I peruse the 4-5 organic sellers. Not one of them has all four items. In fact, I can’t find turnips anywhere in the whole market, so I end up spending $50 on stuff I didn’t come here for and end up at the Co-op anyway. It just doesn’t work for me. I know people love it and I really want to support local growers but I can buy what I need from local growers at the Co-op. (I haven’t put in a garden this year because of the drought.)
We have recently gone in with a friend on a CSA box from the UC Davis Student Farm, which is organic. The past three weeks have seen us awash in vegetables and fruit. Nothing has gone to waste. We are getting things picked three hours before we get them, and it has forced us to be creative about getting things cooked quickly. Delicious food. Stuff I ignore week after week at the Co-op. I even used dill in the soup this week, which was a stretch for this dill-averse girl.
Even half a box is almost too much for us vegetarians. But not quite. We are throwing nothing out.
We got half an inch of rain yesterday, it’s definitely soup weather. And the students know how to grow turnips…
]]>We heard from local growers (of whom one was Robin Lynde of Meridian Jacobs, where I am a Farm Club member) about the joys and challenges of raising fiber animals in our region. One of the shepherds has Marenna dogs to guard the sheep against coyotes; vet bills for her dogs have to factor into the cost of raising the wool. You have to factor in the cost of irrigating pasture in a region where there is little to no rainfall from April to October. (Pasture health is a prime concern for sustainable farmers.) You have to factor in vet bills for the sheep as they always, as Pratchett’s Granny Aching says, look “for new ways to die.”
We also heard from sheep shearers, whose perspective on fleece quality is not often heard, and from two people with crazy exciting ideas for starting fiber/textile processing plants here in Northern California.
Rebecca spent a year wearing clothes, including underwear, that had been grown and produced within 150 miles of her home in Petaluma. This is a tall order but taking a cue from her, I’ve designed, spun, and am knitting a vest that I hope will replace my polartec one. It needs to be tough; it needs a zipper up front and on two side pockets; it needs to be able to handle my keys in the pocket; it needs to be wind-and-rain-resistant.
I discovered the Swedish technique of twined knitting when I first got back into knitting after a 25-year absence, and it’s the reason I learned how to spin, since yarn for this technique is typically spun and plied in the opposite directions of most commercial yarns. The fabric is taught but not as much as woven, making it ideal for this kind of outer garment; it doesn’t shrink or felt when wet. I also wanted to showcase the beauty of the multi-colored Jacob sheep.
I spun the yarn from the fleece of a sheep named Summer but ran out close to the collar. (Note to self: you don’t really need to do 4-ply sport weight…) The good news about sheep though is that they’re always growing more.
Here are some locks from Summer’s fleece, shorn in early November; her dark spots have lightened over the two years but it’s lovely, soft, and a joy to spin. These locks were soaked in rainwater, then spent 3 days in a fermented suint vat, then rinsed in rainwater. No heat/energy required…
Finally, here I am with Summer right after she was shorn. There’s something very satisfying about making a garment from an animal you know personally…