Free-Range Living

'Everyday Living --------'

(this is the fifth in a series of 'occasional' blogs. There are more 'freerange living' pieces on the 'books' page of the 'Freerange Living' site)

'Everyday Life ----- '

Sometimes it seems these days that life has to be lived at the exciting 'flash' level -the weekend broadsheets for instance full of the 30 best this or that to experience, and people living for instance 'the quiet life' being not over flatteringly termed 'normos' ---- Excitement though tends to be short-term, and will the excitement based 'flash' style of life be found wanting in the longer-term, part of what one broadsheet paper termed 'the age of distraction' - ? It does seem here in the UK currently, with lots of everyday life problems - hard for instance to get a dentist, big anxiety about rapidly rising energy costs - that the 'flash' approach could have contributed to the 'eye being taken off the ball ' ---- ? 

The 2022 season prgresses here at the eco organic micro-holding ('small smallholding') in the UK midlands, with the usual mix of good and not so good growing results. Probably the best potato crop ever for instance has been grown this season, with a good average size of potato and enabling the planned good six months of home-grown potato supply. Onions have been similarly plentiful, with again a good average size of onion produced, and in spite of an early alium leaf miner attack, then combatted by good ol' nettle juice natural fertiliser, and pretty much a year's supply of home-grown onions should be the result, currently still on the veg ground resting on rigid wire trays, to harden off sufficiently to then be stored, and taste as ever nicely stronger than the shop-bought variety. Broad beans and peas proved to be plentiful crops, with quite a few now residing in the freezer to hopefully help counter the fast rising living costs currently in the UK, as is the current good crop of runner beans, and with later bean rows looking good, should then last even into November, as should the useful tomato crop. with this year outdoor (but protected) tomatoes coming to fruition at the same time as those in the glasshouse.

'Normal non-perfection -----

It's doubtful, though, if the perfect growing year has existed, and this year whilst having been generally good, has been no exception. As often here, the courgette and cucumber crops have struggled - more attention and care probably needed, and a key intermittant growing foe, caterpillers, has been rampant. A week away in the static caravan in west Wales in hot weather saw several crops ravaged by these wee beasties, with a good bed of calabrese plants being stripped in the week, as was the foliage of the swedes plants, with too quite an attack on the red cabbage plants, although these being bigger and stronger, they didn't get quite the pasting that the other crops had. The organic grower can only resort to 'caterpiller carnage', several times a day, and even so it's taken a good few days to rid the plants of their voracious pests, with the red cabbage plants being the most likely to recover ok and produce a crop. Fingers crossed for the swedes but it's hard to see how the calabrese plants will make a come-back ---- Some redundant brassica plants were surrendered to the beasties - they have to make their way too ---(latest - all plants shown remarkable re-growth -the recuperative powers of nature are something else --- ) (latest : plants having amazing double-quick recovery - calabrese picked three weeks after bare , stripped plants).

The cottage garden flowers have been plentiful and a joy in this warm/hot sunny season, needing frequent watering as have the veg crops via the irrigator, otherwise, no production. The soil here is a lovely versatile black-earth loam, pretty fertile, but the one thing it doesn't do well is hold water, heavier (i.e. clay content) ground needed for that. Fortunately this area is ok for water supplies, with no hosepipie restrictions and useful occasional rainfall has also occurred, although some fire scares have flared up, as an acquaintance experienced visiting his newly-acquired house just twenty or so miles away, only to find a neighbouring field of wheat well ablaze and heading his way,  then to be saved by a pretty miraculous sudden change of wind direction. No such luck though in the many destructive fires in tinder-dry Europe this summer - climate change with a vengeance, not too much being heard currently from the climate change deniers - ?

'National emergency --- '

Here in the UK conditions for 'everyday livers' are looking somewhat dire, with costs in general on the rise, along with a pretty huge inflation rate of  18% predicted, promising a future of sharply rising living costs. One that's already going through the roof is that of energy costs, now at three times the levels of last winter, and predicted to be going to a huge five or six times last winter's levels during this winter coming, causing it's reported a lot of worry for a lot of folk. The governing party in the UK, somewhat known for being one pretty keen on its ideology, hasn't then currently seemed to have completely grasped the degree of national emergency and urgent need for short-term relief measures, not maybe then particularly helping peoples' anxiety levels.

One broadsheet paper indicated that the nation's citizens are pretty fed up with being the 'exploited' masses', whilst the power elite (and already wealthy) do pretty well for themselves thank you------ Maybe revolution could be in the air - civil disobedience certainly is, with quite a movement happening to get people to cancel their direct debit payments to energy companies. In France, for instance, energy costs rises have been limited by the French government to just 4%, their energy industry being mainly state owned and controlled. A latest broadsheet paper piece suggests that around half the UK ruling party are calling for the energy companies to be taken into state ownership and control, which is quite something for a party so strong from an ideology point of view on 'privitisation', even on national key assets.

'Freerange countering ---- '

At the micro level of individual domestic units (smaller businesses are too reportedly being very hard hit), the 'freerange' approach is likely to be to do what can be done to counter such a rampaging, destructive economic trend. Off-grid livers of course are likely to be feeling pretty good about their previous longer-term decisions to energy provision, not being affected then much by these current dire conditions, and their independent approach has both pay-offs in terms of far lower current energy costs, but also in  terms of supporting, encouraging and validating their independent lifestyles. Being partly self-sufficient here on the eco based micro-holding (small smallholding) in the UK midlands has certainly helped to mitigate against rising costs in general, and with wood being a main winter fuel, the cost implication hasn't been too great, with the bought wood element this year only having been marginally more expensive than last year, and of course further mitigated by the fact that quite a bit of self-sourced free wood has been available to top up the woodpile, always a welcome and satisfying sight before the onset of winter. 

A couple of further 'strokes of luck' have also helped to counter such invasive rising energy costs. A local discount superstore suddenly had a sizable supply of smokeless fuel in, at the same price as it had been the previous 2 - 3 years, and a supply was promptly purchased, only then to find that the bill was half of that expected - the fuel was on a half-price offer - energy at a lower than previous price level -good news indeed. Some bottled gas is used here for the cooker and supplementary heating, but which had shot up in price from the usual supplier, and the 'reserve' supplier had none in stock -no real surprises there then. By chance, there was news of a supplier a few miles away with supplies of gas, which were then obtained, but at the welcome previous lower price levels. It's good to have a bit of luck now and again, especially in these urgent emergency times, and being able to effectively counter such invasive price trends to a certain extent certainly boosts the freerange independent spirit and satisfaction levels --- 

'On the make --- '

It's maybe a moot point as to whether some in commercial practice could really  'survive and thrive' into the longer-term. One local supplier of exactly the same type and weight of solid fuel bags increased their price threefold on the back of rising energy costs (hurrah for the local discount supermarket ---- ), which some, including this author, would see as 'naked profiteering', an 'on the make' business practice, not necessarily that uncommon in today's world. A national chain of 'motels' apparently cancelled all their existing local bookings - never mind the problems then being caused to their customers - because they realised that the Commonwealth games were about to take place not far away, and they could then make a 'killing' charging higher room prices. Be nice to be able to 'flick a switch' and get the firm to experience the same level of disruption and disrespect treatment they are showing to their customers, then dinting future profits ---- 

'Business objectives -  need to be more bio-diverse --- ?'

Such firms may well invoke the business premise that seems to have fairly generally taken hold, that they are following 'good business practice' by taking steps to 'maximise their profits', the modern 'war cry' of the business world. The example quoted though shows the potential limitations of such a strong business objective geared mainly to the benefit of business activity. Firms exist not just to provide livings (and massive bonuses - ) for those running them, but also to provide goods and/or services needed by others in society. A glassmaking firm meets for instance a strong and on-going need that people have - they want and need glass in their windows, and they need good product and good service from the specialist supplier. Maybe though the strong (over?) focus on self-gain of modern times has relegated such existential needs, certainly the word itself 'social' seems to cause problems for some. People though live in societies, they exist, as do 'social needs' and more than likely an effective balance between individual wants/needs and social needs  needs to be drawn. (Development psychologists like Abraham Maslow found that humans have 'natural' social needs).

 It could well be that it's the absence of such a balance and the key business objective of 'providing a good good and/or service to society' that again could be said to cause 'imbalanced business decisions' and generate problems within society. A group of chief executives said much the same via a published letter awhile ago, stating that the business world had to 'power down' on the maximising profits' front and take more consideration of their place and contribution to society -maybe the motel chain hasn't quite got the message yet. It makes business sense to take the wider view too, in that if a business 'under respects' members of society, i.e. its customers, they in the longer run could well 'vote with their feet' and take their custom elsewhere - one of the big UK energy companies probably experience such a longer-term trend, losing quite a portion of its customers over the course of one year.  One of the 'best' examples here in the UK of too narrow business decision making was the public service train company that stopped running their (public service) trains, anouncing proudly that they'd worked out that it was cheaper to pay the non-run fines than actually run them  ----- Not too good though, for 'everyday living folk' - we 'normos' - trying to go about their 'everyday' business -----

'Objectives - of the more bio-diverse variety ---'

The reservation concerning that the maximisation of profits might be too simplistic and limited dimensionally was emphasised by the study of small rural entrepreneurs (farmers) by this author, finding that they identified rather more than just a single profit maxing objective - a whole sixteen different objective areas in fact, as important, ranging from personal to social to business to environmental to longer-term ('farm as if you're going to live for ever, live as if you'll die tomorrow'), and that an important factor in successful business operation was identifying the relevant current objective priorities for their businesses of such a bio-diverse set of objectives. Farmers as a group were never that strong on taking too many trips away from their locations , generally eschewing flash, luxury living in favour of everyday farmlife. The modern accent on wealth, power, exotic and luxury living would seem automatically to downplay everyday living, so a bit of support for it might not go amiss. 

'Micro ---- '

Here at the eco organic micro-holding, quite a bit of satisfaction can be gained from small events such as 'making things good', besides of course the good productive feelings coming from growing useful and healthy produce, organising full woodstores and future energy supplies at reasonable costs. It does mean having premises such as a farm, smallholding, large-ish garden and the like, unlike all the new houses built and being built in the local small town which seem to have pretty restricted garden areas. Getting satisfaction from 'everday' existential living can also mean avoiding too heavy expenditure on trips out and could mean cheaper living costs, in the case of for instance home food production.

'One couple living on a 6 acre (2.5 ha's) smallholding produced most of their living requirements, including fuel in the form of wood from their own wood, from their smallholding, then needing only a small cash micro-economy'

Better get a bit more of the 'everyday' form of satisfaction then and get out and water the outdoor tomatoes, which for some reason seem to be excelling themselves this year ----