Midsize Lebowski would love it if you'd come and give him notes on Semi-ERE

[MidsizeLebowski]

Those questions I posed above reminded me of a blog post from one of the natural building mentors we've met since moving here... it's in fact from her uncle who grew up on the cusp of modern americana in a NM pueblo community. What struck me about it was the fact that this man lived through a paradigm in which doing work for money was unknown (via his ancestral community/way of life) through to the modern era of the early 2000's. Thought you all would enjoy.


https://caneloproject.com/old-style-org ... -mexico-2/

[candide]

Our savings rate went down a bit, we made more mild financial progress on the year (just under 2x annual spending), none of that mattered. This FI stuff is really just a figment of our imaginations... in times of real challenges you realize what's important. How much would our SWR matter if the world devolved to nuclear conflict or your country was destabilized by political upheaval? I think the semi-ere path was the right choice for us... meaningful skills, a little "security" to trick our feeble little minds enough to relax - just the right balance. My coffee grows cold from all this typing! Until next time friends!

Well said. I don't remember who pointed it out, but it stuck with me that ERE is a tool to help your family, not the reverse.

[MidsizeLebowski]

@candide - thanks for the comment, that's going to stick with me now too - isn't it wild how much wisdom comes off of this forum?

@AxelHeyst- So cattle grazing presents a multifaceted problem in our environment. The most obvious element is the actual consumption of the plants themselves, which rotational grazing would in theory solve - as then the vegetation would be "trimmed" but ultimately go on about it's life cycle after a recovery period. Then the cows would basically just mirror bison/deer/antelope and The Dude could abide... But what I've learned from observing bovine (and I spend many hours slackjawed and oggling bovine now that I'm semi-ere ) is that the cows clearly select for only certain plants within the community to flourish by leaving them uneaten. Coincidentally these are the plants that are being blamed for "encroaching on the grasslands" and there's whole govt funded operations to go out and pull them while using preposterous amounts of labor/fossil fuel so that everyone can feel good about themselves while ignoring the root cause of the issue.

What happens is that cows indulge heavily on grasses/forbes/palatable shrubs (ie. not the thorny or toxic ones), while completely avoiding "the encroachers". And unlike deer, cows are behemoth animals, so when they "graze" a shrub they literally mow it to the ground. Instead of nibbling a cactus bloom as a deer might they instead level the entire cacti, etc. We're talking 5-10 years of growth gone in a few minutes. And in an arid environment eating 4' feet off a shrub is so traumatic given the nature of the heat/evaporation that it typically kills the plant if not permanently stunts it.

So what we're left with are landscapes composed of the thornscrub that cows don't eat and the limited grasses that spread via rhizomes - since the cows aren't rotated most of the grasses never actually go to seed and so the species dependent upon the soil seedbank become rarer and rarer until they're ultimately extinguished.

The other factor at play is that cows are huge animals and much of the southwest is clay soils which compact heavily when trampled - this reduces infiltration across the landscape and creates channels that dehydrate the wider landscape by entrenching flows along the cows' preferred paths (often through once lush riparian areas that played a major role in the water cycle). They concentrate in the riparian zones due to access to water/more tender fodder/etc. so they ultimately end up compacting the most important regions for maintenance of the water cycle. They also also mow down year after year of recruitment of riparian tree saplings which would ultimately shade these spongey areas and buffer the water table further. So once the older growth riparian trees reach the end of their lifespan there are no juvenile trees to replace them.

The once broad, fertile, shaded floodplains become compacted, sunbaked scalds and then the monsoon rains dump huge amounts of water that rip down the channel beds deeper and deeper as there's no vegetation to slow/spread the flow - thus leading to incision. The whole region around the waterways dehydrates and no longer serves to charge the water table. There are cutbanks 20' deep along the creek that flows through our place. And this is happening en masse on public lands all over the southwest. No one knows about it, and yet it's almost certainly driving extinction at worst and contributing to future water shortages at best.

I think in your scenario if the grazing pressure is gone I'd look at areas that are analogs to your site without grazing history and see what species "are missing" at your place... then you could try to reintroduce them to the seedbank by harvesting a small amount of seed off site and placing it in areas at your home that mirror where you saw the plants growing at the analog location (ie. a shaded north facing rock pile). Water harvesting earthworks will do wonders of course as well.

[Western Red Cedar]

Good to hear that the dude and SLF keep on truckin'.

The thing that makes the impact of cattle in the western US even more tragic is that the government systematically destroyed the buffalo population in the 19th century. A species that evolved to live on the land, and often had a symbiotic relationship with the natural environment. Not to mention that the source of meat is arguably healthier (and tastier) than beef. I consider this, along with the depletion of salmon, one of the great ecological tragedies in US history.

[NewBlood]

Hi The Dude,
I just finished reading your whole journal. You've had a very interesting journey!

I'd love to learn more about your food forest/water capture/building endeavors. It would be really cool to see before/after pictures if you're comfortable sharing.

How did you end up deciding on Arizona?

[MidsizeLebowski]

Thanks WRC! Agreed, it would be interesting to posit the economic value of both if intact and compare it to the industries responsible for the "cost of progress". I guess the rationale for the buffalo extinction push had more insidious purposes than economic gain in many ways... I've been encouraged that there's at least talk of protecting the remaining salmon and buffalo are becoming part of the diet again albeit in a pseudo-domesticated fashion.

Welcome NewBlood! We're very much in the before pictures stage at 2 years in but I'm happy to post them alongside some "halfways" in the coming year or two. We're in this specific part of AZ for a couple reasons - temperate-ish climate (9F-107F is the record range for our area - most winter days are in the 50's/60's), very interesting outdoors scene due to "Madrean Sky Islands", and off-grid friendly laws that allow natural building with minimal permits/fees (it's ~$1500 in entirety to permit the home we're building ). ***Please note I only aspire to Dudeliness, at times I am still rife with anxiety/concern and can even be angered - most Undude!

[NewBlood]

Welcome NewBlood! We're very much in the before pictures stage at 2 years in but I'm happy to post them alongside some "halfways" in the coming year or two. We're in this specific part of AZ for a couple reasons - temperate-ish climate (9F-107F is the record range for our area - most winter days are in the 50's/60's), very interesting outdoors scene due to "Madrean Sky Islands", and off-grid friendly laws that allow natural building with minimal permits/fees (it's ~$1500 in entirety to permit the home we're building ).

Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to seeing some pics when the right time comes and reading more about the whole process. I had never heard of the Sky Islands, it sounds like a beautiful area! and I'm envious of the off-grid friendly laws! No such thing here...

Please note I only aspire to Dudeliness, at times I am still rife with anxiety/concern and can even be angered - most Undude!

That's a good aspiration to have. Don't feel bad about the times of Undudeness, you are, after all, only human.

[MidsizeLebowski]

A bit of an update here in the land of Dude… sitting here with a cup of coffee watching the hummingbirds and other residents on an overcast day. SLF is in Tucson at an agricultural/local food conference shaking hands and kissing babies. We’ve moved into the realm of legitimate farm now with some consistent production/development of a larger “main crop garden” that is intended for marketable products. SLF has become pretty active in our local food scene; running the web store/social media and csa fulfillment for the food co-op some friends started last year. That’s led to a lot of attention at the state level and she’s being recruited to do similar things in a remote capacity for some other local food co-ops in some of the population centers here in AZ. Some of that serendipitous opportunity ERE is known for.

I’ve continued with the remote personal training work and being the “silent lackey” on the farm, a role I’m enjoying. Additionally a friend who works as a field biologist surveying watersheds in the southwest asked if I was interested in doing the earthworks/restoration things I’ve been implementing on our land as a paid gig. And thus a new business partnership was born. We have had 4 jobs so far - again an opportunity I would have had to decline in a salaryman role. Right now our household income breaks down as about 54/30/15/1% my training, SLFs work, the restoration biz work, produce from our farm being sold to the co-op. Monthly savings rate is 55-75 largely dependent upon whether there has been work on the restoration jobs.

Ideally the produce side will rise to 10% or so over the coming couple years as our olives, pomegranates, and figs reach maturity and we add egg and meat birds as well as goats/sheep.

I’ve not promoted myself as a trainer in any way since we’ve moved here but continue to gain new clients as referrals. I’ll likely just let that continue to be the case until time becomes the limiting factor on the farm and growing our investment accounts is no longer a priority.

Exciting news to report aside from our doings - we are hosting a biochar workshop in December with an expert from a NM university. Also we are officially participants in a study through UofA on “climate smart agriculture” looking at food production and carbon sequestration relative to water consumption. The ag scientist who visited our site is a huge Lebowski fan and has named all his measuring equipment after characters from the film. There’s a 11k stipend for being part of the study for the year so that’ll go toward developing our site further.

I guess this is what semi-ere feels like… pretty pleasant. There’s not the freedom to drop everything and travel or join a silent meditation retreat for a year but that’s not really congruent with the early stages of developing a permaculture site as it were. This feels like an authentic to self brand of ERE.

In terms of self doubts and being an INTJ - sometimes I wonder if locking into this lifestyle is a mistake and if it would be more appropriate to move back to a population center and DINK earn our way to fire. We currently only bring in about 8k as a household each month… I think what we’re doing is a far more satisfying and still resilient approach so long as we continue to invest for times when physical capital diminishes. I also second guess whether we should be doing more - we could certainly earn more/buy and rehabilitate more land, etc. This feels like psychological conditioning from the good ol’ US marketing machine. I mention these things more so to provide a full spectrum view of Duder’s semi-ere experience rather than as things that are causing lost sleep.

Thanks for reading as always, and please keep posting in your journals have enjoyed following them over the years.

[jacob]

We currently only bring in about 8k as a household each month…

Only? That's 25% more than the median US household income. You'll be alright.

[MidsizeLebowski]

Thank you for the words of encouragement Jacob. That’s illuminating, I seem to have two wildly differing reference points - wealthy clients and desert rat peers who live at the extremes of the income spectrum, had no concept of the median!

[AxelHeyst]

All your goings-on sounds really cool, Dude, the update is appreciated. I'd love to get out there sometime to check out your systems. (+1 what Jacob said, $8k/mo semiERE income flow seems pretty good to me! Allow me to downvote the idea of you two DINKing in a city... )

[Western Red Cedar]

The humble abode of the Dude sounds wonderful. I always love to hear about the progress and updates. They serve as a valuable alternative to those grinding and white knuckling in the city.

I suspect locking into the lifestyle will continue to open up new doors that may be hard to imagine right now. I hope you keep the old ERE community apprised as that all unfolds.

[NewBlood]

Great to hear an update, The Dude!
It sounds like you guys are doing a great job building/finding community. Did you know anybody there before moving to AZ?
How are you going about making all these connections?

Congrats on the move to "legitimate farm"!

[MidsizeLebowski]

@AH Would love to have you out, between ourselves and a few friends both west of us towards Tucson and east into southwest NM should have a good 2-250 mile leg of a SW bike trek covered with a few national parks/forests in there to check out

@WRC thank you much, you're insight at the jumping off point a few years back of current venture served me and SLF well, I anticipate your foresight on new doors that are currently unforseen will probably hold true as well in the coming years - will certainly keep the forum posted. As things become more "visual" on our little site I'll be sure to get some images up

@NewB Thanks my friend, we did not. Connections have come from meeting people at the farmer's market initially, which led to a "homestead swap" group idea being formed between SLF and our close friend - that grew from an initial group of 7 or 8 households getting together every other Sunday to lend hands on larger projects into a group of roughly 75 folks with 30ish core members. A lot of the professional connections - UofA, etc. have come via SLF and her work as web designer/"online presence person" of the co-op our two friend's started. Essentially it all traces back to 3 or 4 friendships started via conversation at the farmers market branching out into the 2 main hubs of homestead swap group and co-op group

[NewBlood]

@NewB Thanks my friend, we did not. Connections have come from meeting people at the farmer's market initially, which led to a "homestead swap" group idea being formed between SLF and our close friend - that grew from an initial group of 7 or 8 households getting together every other Sunday to lend hands on larger projects into a group of roughly 75 folks with 30ish core members. A lot of the professional connections - UofA, etc. have come via SLF and her work as web designer/"online presence person" of the co-op our two friend's started. Essentially it all traces back to 3 or 4 friendships started via conversation at the farmers market branching out into the 2 main hubs of homestead swap group and co-op group

That's really impressive!
As an introvert, that's my main fear with moving to the countryside: How to meet like-minded people and build a good enough social network. Can I ask what the age range of your "homestead swap" group is? Around here, there is a critical lack of younger people in rural areas. Lots to learn from older people, but I also don't want to spend the rest of my life exclusively with people 20+ years older than me...

[MidsizeLebowski]

NewBlood - Of course, it's a pretty wide range - the bulk of the group is late 20's- early 40's but there are several folks in their 60's and 70's. It's a pretty diverse bunch. Part of that has to do with being in close proximity to one of the more liberal small towns in the state. That definitely brings a younger crowd of van dwellers/ rolling stone artist/musician types that I wouldn't say is common to rural regions. From my understanding there are little oasis like this in most states - a number of the folks I'm friends with seem to migrate seasonally amongst them in fact - could ask for suggestions if you have a region in mind! I think setting up within a good bike ride of a town with a similar dynamic should supply at least a few dozen younger peers.

[NewBlood]

Interesting, that is a wide range.
I'm in western Europe, but if you do have suggestions, I'm interested

Being within a reasonable bike ride of a decent-sized town has definitely been one of my main criteria, but even then, from what I've seen, as soon as you go further from bigger cities, the age distribution starts really skewing toward 50+...

[MidsizeLebowski]

A friend is from the town of Montoggio, Italy originally and often returns home to visit family. He reports that there’s a pretty similar dynamic in a number of rural areas in Italy as well as Spain and Portugal… young people revitalizing old farms, developing permaculture sites, doing natural building, etc.
A good way to plug into this sort of thing might be to look to volunteer or take classes on permaculture/organic farms, attend vernacular building classes/seminars, etc. Imagine that should get you in proximity to folks of similar mindset!

[NewBlood]

Thanks dude, I'll keep exploring, keep on duding, happy holidays!

[Stasher]

It has been a half year since your last update and reading through the journal has been enjoyable seeing the openness to to try new things and the entrepreneur go getter attitude. A thanks to WRC for sharing a link to your journal Dude and it is only logical that it was in a topic started by AH